Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

I’m one of those lazy chefs who brings home a lot of take-out, so I don’t use can openers very often. In fact, I didn’t have one for several months and barely noticed the loss, but my mom sent me her famous chili recipe, and it called for several cans of things. I hopped online to look for a can opener and found the OXO “Smooth Edge” can opener at Amazon.

At $20, it was as expensive as many of the countertop electric can openers, but I figured OXO is known for being a good brand, and since I don’t open cans that often, I didn’t want something cluttering up my counters. I ordered it through Amazon, and it arrived soon after.

I quickly found out that the OXO Smooth Edge doesn’t work quite like other hand can openers I’ve used in the past. No puncturing the top of the can and twisting your wrist out of the socket to move the tool around the lip. This can opener attaches to the side of the can, piercing the rim itself. (Fortunately, it comes with a little direction booklet with pictures of what to do, hah.)

It’s very easy to turn, and I almost thought it hadn’t worked at first. When I removed the can opener the can looked the same. Then I realized I could just lift off the lid. There were no sharp edges to cut yourself on as with most can openers, since the outside rim was still smooth. The top millimeter of the lid had simply been sliced off.

So all in all, the OXO Smooth Edge is a snap to use (less work than a traditional hand-held can opener) and it gives you a perfectly safe can lid to toss away. It’s a sturdy feeling piece of equipment, so I think the $20 price tag is fair.

If you’re interested, you can get your own online:

OXO Good Grips Smooth Edge Can Opener

I’m trying to beef up the reviews section of this site a bit, by writing about some of the gadgets I have at home, or that I’ve at least used. I’ve actually had two George Foreman grills (the first was left behind during a move), and I use the current one pretty regularly. If the weather is decent and I’m cooking for multiple people, I prefer to grill outside, but when I’m just cooking for myself, I’ll plug in the Foreman grill. I have the small model, which is suitable for doing one chicken breast or burger at a time. I’ve also had good luck cooking veggies on it (I usually slice off long, slender wedges of a zucchini or some such). Anyway, here’s a quick run-down of the pros and cons:

Pros

• Plug it in and it’s ready to grill in about three minutes.

• Chicken gets browned nicely, and all meat gets those little grill lines.
• Perfect for cooking for one. It would be a waste to fire up a gas grill or light up a bed of charcoals.

Cons

• You do need to clean it after every use, unlike your outdoor grill, and marinade residues can take some scrubbing, despite the “non-stick” surface.

• Only one setting–sometimes I wish there was a lower setting for when I’m cooking a thick piece of meat.

I paid about $40 for the grill, and you can get them more cheaply now. So far it’s been a pretty good investment for the money.

Source: George Foreman Champ Grill

I had a chance to use the Weber 87886 chimney starter this weekend for the first time (actually, it was my first chimney starter, brand and model regardless). Most of the time when I’ve lit a charcoal grill, it’s involved plenty of lighter fluid, including that distinctive smell lighter fluid has. Well, with this gadget, you don’t need that or any other weird chemical fire starters any more. You simply put some paper in the chimney starter, add charcoal on top, apply a match, and within ten minutes, you’ve got cherry red coals ready for use. Just transfer them to the grill, and you’re ready to start cooking.

Since I haven’t used other chimney starters, I can’t compare the Weber 87886 to other models, but I found it quite easy to use, even as a newbie. A big plus was that there was no lighter-fluid taste to the burgers and polish sausages we roasted, something I’ve always been able to taste, even after friends promised me “oh, the lighter fluid burned off a long time ago.” The barbecue was excellent, the chimney starter easy to use, and I have no trouble recommending the product to anyone who has a charcoal grill.

The Weber is available at Amazon.com for under $15: Weber 87886 Chimney Starter

The iHome is an alarm clock that doubles as a dock and speakers for your iPod. I don’t usually do reviews of products on here (because I don’t usually own any of the snazzy things I write about), but I’ve enjoyed this clock enough that I thought I’d share my thoughts. Yeah, I know, alarm clocks and “enjoyment” don’t exactly go hand-and-hand, but here are the features that make this one a winner for me:

• It charges my iPod and can play music, podcasts, etc. at the same time.

• It has an excellent battery that will keep the clock running if it gets unplugged, and this is huge for me because I hate resetting clocks after a power outage (Recently, I couldn’t find my regular iPod charger, so I took the iHome on a six-hour trip from Seattle to Spokane, and when I got there and plugged it in, it still had the time displayed).
• It has a sleep function that gradually turns the volume down on your iPod as you’re going to bed, so you don’t get jerked awake when a boisterous song slips into the playlist 5 minutes before it was set to turn off.

These are just the features that matter to me. It does all the other typical alarm clock stuff (you can choose to wake to radio, buzzer, or your iPod). I’ve had it a year, and I move my iPod in and out of the charger at least once a day, and I haven’t had any technical issues. As I mentioned, it’s survived road trips too.

Anyway, the iHome is available online over at Amazon for $76 (which figures, since I paid $100 for it at Best Buy last year), and you can get it in either white or black: iHome iH5 Clock Radio for iPod

GE’s JVM2070 microwave has a cool touchscreen control panel and a large 2.0 cubit foot oven capacity. A recent review at Epinions expresses quite a bit of enthusiasm for the microwave as it takes a look at some of the oven’s other features: “The oven cavity is HUGE at 2.0 cu ft. I think its one of the largest available right now. Cooking wattage is 1100 watts, and is directed into the cooking area via TWO locations. Microwaves enter from the top, and also from the left hand side. GE calls this “dual distribution” cooking system. It comes with a rotating turntable as well.”

Read full: GE Microwave Review

A recent, very thorough review of the Kenmore 24-inch 16302 Built-In Dishwasher went up at Epinions. The user noted that the Kenmore units looked the same as the more expensive Bosch units on the inside: “[W]hen looking at Bosch at the local Sears store, we were surprised to find this Kenmore Elite model that looked just like some of the Bosch models inside. Its feature set was item for item the same, and they had one hooked up and running and it was just as quiet in the store as the Bosch. All that, and it was about $100 less expensive than the closest matching Bosch model, and we liked the styling of this one better.”

Kenmore Dishwasher Review