cooking preference

[Big Al]

Ok folks, one to divide the masses......

What do you cook on in the house and why.
I got a new boiler through warm front t'other day but they found a leak on the gas appliances so they had to cap the pipe off thus no cooking for me since the 1st of may. I desperatly need a cooker and or hob but can't decide wether to go all gas, all electric or a mix. budget is up to about £500 through my local credit union if that makes a difference.

I've been brought up on all gas but I'm open to all ideas so please help me decide what to go for peeps.......

[thesunflowergal]

We have a gas hob, and electric oven!!

Hope you get sorted soon, what a pain!!

[Annpan]

We're all electric, no gas here. I do cook bits and pieces on the woodburner when I can.

If I had the choice I would go for a gas hob and fan assisted electric oven.... and a rayburn... but it is a wee bit out of the budget

[fruitcake]

yep - gas hob (on propane bottles - no piped gas available) and fan assisted electic oven - v fancy NEFF one which we got free cos friends were putting in a new kitchen and it wouldn't fit back in (what a shame )

[Rosendula]

Gas cooker - top and bottom bit. We have a twin oven, the top one being a grill and oven in one. I like this feature particularly because when I have the bottom oven on, I can have bread rising in the top half.

One thing I don't like about my hob is that I use a lot of big pans and they don't all fit on the hob at the same time. So for example, if we're having a fry-up tonight we use two frying pans (there are 5 of us, plus guests), plus a pan for the obligatory baked beans. I might also have a big pan of something like a stew on another one doing its stuff for the next night. Well they just don't all fit on together, so I need to take the stew pot off and put it on the worktop somewhere until I've finished, which is a pain because I don't have enough worktop space as it is. And it ALWAYS seems to work out that way. Perhaps I'm just not organized enough.

I also have a drop down lid on my hob which I can use for standing a few things on when I'm baking. You're not meant to, and I wouldn't dream of putting anything heavy on it, but it comes in useful.

One feature we did make a point of getting was the tilted position of the gas knobs. The idea was that with a little one around, she wouldn't be able to reach to twiddle with them. It really worked for a few weeks, then she grew a bit more, so a bit of a useless feature really.

As for cost, I don't know because I've only ever had gas. Sorry. We got ours online, and went through a cash back site. If it had worked I would have got £27.50 cashback, but Licklewoods cocked it all up and couldn't find any trace of the order (or so they said). They also cocked up the delivery. I wanted 3-day delivery with connection and removal of old appliance, but it took 5 days, the bloke who brought it refused to connect it because it wasn't on his list, and he wouldn't take the old one away. Turns out that company is cocking up orders all the time. When I tried to complain, I just got some very curt emails back saying they have no record of it. I had a record of it, so I can't understand why they didn't. Anyway, they didn't charge the extra for the 3 day/connection/removal thing (good job for them!), but I was really annoyed.

Hope you get cooking soon.

[Millymollymandy]

I have the same problem Rosendula with a regular sized hob - miss the time when I rented and had an extra large 5 burner gas hob, one of them being for a wok.

I haven't had a gas oven since I was a nipper so I can't say what is better, but I really miss old fashioned eye level gas grills. My electric grill inside the oven is completely useless and takes about half an hour to heat up, then its thermostat decides it is too hot so won't stay glowing red and any meat being grilled just goes grey and stews instead of being browned.

Actually I am longing for both my oven and my hob to blow up so I can get new, decent, ones.

Sorry Big Al I would recommend a gas hob any time, but for oven I'm not sure which is best, other than a self cleaning one!

[invisiblepiper]

Life's a gas here too - can't stand the lack of instant control with electric. I do have a five burner hob - but check the placing of the dials - I keep melting my crappy plastic oned which have been set too near the burners.
The engineer told me I wasn't cooking correctly!!!!! ( After 30 years of it)
Check oven width too - I found some of the new appliances were skimpy on width - see if you can blag an extra shelf too = two is never enough.
Oh - and sorry to see you're back on the spam - may I send a food parcel?
(Very cheeky me )

[Rosendula]

Check oven width too - I found some of the new appliances were skimpy on width - see if you can blag an extra shelf too = two is never enough.

Ditto this. Remember to measure the gap it's going in before you go out buying, both width and depth. If you see any cookers in the street waiting for taking to the tip, see if you can blag a shelf from it if it's the same width. If you're not sure, blag it anyway as they make good cooling racks for your buns I kept the rack out of my old grill pan when I swapped cookers, then found out MIL was getting a new cooker and got hers too. Now got plenty of cooling space.

[Big Al]

Thanks for the input. I'll probably go for a gas hob and an electric fan oven. fter all my fave chef, james martain has that set up on saturday kitchen so he is in good company with peeps on here.

I saw one on the little wilds site that had 8 burners on the gas hob... my wife slapped me and said there are only two of us you know but a cook can never have too many rings I said... her reply was you said that about the collection of windows you had.... I'll go for a 5 ring hob as I reckon I can get away with that...

Also thanks for the cashback sites. I was looking through that pound co one and little boards came up but that only had 3% and asda had 2.5% but free delivery. A bit more looking around I reckon.

As a time wasting exercise when I should be doing the decorationg I am going to do some cooking on some wood in the garden today.... well it's sunny and my excuse will be that we may need to learn to cook on open campfires when the world ends soon.... I have a short attention spam anyway....

Thanks again for the input.