Autumn in the Kitchen #MaytagMoms

Disclosure: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Maytag. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.
The cooler months are always the busiest in my kitchen.  When air turns chilly, I'm more than eager to use the oven again for baking bread, roasting vegetables and even making apple butter in a dutch oven.

Nearly one year has passed since my Maytag Kitchen Makeover, and I can honestly say the Maytag appliances have made cooking and working in the kitchen so much more convenient that it used to be.  The dishwasher has been shouldering a lot of the burden.  It was the one appliance we didn't have in the kitchen, and now I'm wondering how we got by without one.

This weekend my best friend and I undertook our annual applesauce canning session, and the appliances were critical in helping us meet our goal of cooking, canning and cleaning up two bushels of apples.

First off, we sterilized the jars in the dishwasher, which was SO much easier than washing the jars and then boiling them on the stove.

Both the stovetop and oven were used in our canning.  The oven slowly cooked our apple butter to a dark, caramelized sauce, which left us to focus on the applesauce on the stovetop rather than having to constantly stir the butter over many hours.

The stovetop was great at keeping the canning pot boiling on the large burner as I was cooking the sauce on the second large burner.

 

At one point as the stovetop got too hot and steamy (I'll admit to burning the bottom of a pot of sauce at some point because I had the heat on too high #usererror), the exhaust fan automatically sensed the excess heat and automatically went on, taking some of the heat away from the stovetop.  That was a surprise, that it could sense trouble and react.

Clean up afterwards was easier than last year too.  We still had to wash the largest items by hand, but all those tasting spoons, canning accessories and cutting boards could be put in the dishwasher, unlike last fall.

More than two dozen quarts of applesauce, 16 pints of apple butter, and one clean kitchen before 9pm, which I believe breaks last year's record.

Beyond canning, I've also used the range for making a large batch of tomato sauce, as well as the usual parade of soups that simmer on my stovetop during the cooler months.

The refrigerator continues to be convenient and reliable, especially with allowing snacks and lunch items to be within reach via the refrigerator drawer.

And it's also a great canvas for those Kindergarten drawings.  While I still struggle with keeping the stainless steel looking shiny and fingerprint-free, I'm able to let that go.  With two young boys, everything stays clean only for a few minutes anyway.

You can learn more about Maytag via their Facebook page.  Thanks again to Mom Central and Maytag for this opportunity to test out these Maytag appliances over the last year.