Pots & Pans

Having tried various kinds through the years, been gifted many, and having many cooking disasters due to our inexperience and also the stoves in the various places we have lived, we have finally settled on a few trusted types.

• All Clad
• We have many of these pans, they hold up well and while they take a little getting used to for the stainless steel bottom (not non-stick), it's worth it.  The one regret I have in this line is I bought a giant wok thinking we would use it all the time, but we don't.  We use the 2 qt, 3 qt, 10" frying, 5"? frying pan, Chef's pans (2 of these), and 4 qt soup pot as our go-to pans.  We have a steamer, but it's too big and unwieldy to use it often.  Thinking of buying the steamer insert for the 3 qt saucepan, just saw it online.

• Le Creuset
• We have skillets, dutch ovens, and love their cast iron porcelain baking dishes.  Things cook differently in the oven when you use a Le Creuset.  
• I have a cheap enabled stock pot 

• Lodge Cast Iron
• We have some of this too, works pretty good.

• Kadai - this is a (hopefully) low carbon steel cooking wok shaped pan from India.  We use this for lots of East Indian cooking.

We have two gas stoves, one GE in our home in the country, and one Wolf (SubZero) in our city place.   There is no comparison (except the jerk real estate appraiser who "comped" our home's kitchen containing the 36" 6-burner wolf and Giant stainless steel Ventahood to a kitchen with a $200 Kenmore). 

We did buy a cast iron flame diffuser on Amazon to use for the GE since it has a problem where the burners run hot and can't be turned down low.  Even the lowest setting will burn your food.  Our prior stove was a GE, we weren't thrilled with it, but that is what came with the house.  Insurance replaced that one when it got zapped by lightning with a new GE, which we like even less than the old one.  Don't really recommend a GE.

When I have hit the lottery and have oodles of cash I will be buying this beautiful range.  While we are very impressed by the Wolf, it looks like a tank in the kitchen.  Function over form, though, and it cooks incredibly.