Whether you’re celebrating a birthday, holiday, anniversary or having friends over to watch the season finale of that show you all watch, planning a large dinner party can be very stressful, with so much to do and plan. Who is on the guest list? Party theme? Decorations? What to wear? What is on the menu? Some well-chosen appliances can really help to make your evening a success.
There are so many details to think about, but who ever thinks about making sure to have enough room to store the food before preparation or to have enough cooking space and how about what to do with all those dirty dishes.
Here are a few appliance suggestions that can really help before your friends arrive, while your friends are there and even after your friends have left.
Let’s start with a couple of features to look out for when it comes to the refrigerator!
Having enough space in your refrigerator to store your groceries is very important. Shelf space is key to your success; you want to be sure that you can accommodate large items, small items, tall items and oddly shaped items if necessary. Fridges that have a flip-up shelf or even a slide-under shelf are really helpful. Check out the Frigidaire Professional Counter Depth refrigerator that offers these features for top-notch organization.- There is nothing worse than not having enough ice on hand when serving drinks, so a refrigerator that has an ice and water dispenser is the best option. Whether your guests would like crushed or cubed, you will definitely impress if you can offer them either option. The standard Depth French Door refrigerator from Bosch is a perfect bartending solution for your event.
Your cooking appliance is also an important factor in making your event a success, especially if you are planning on doing multiple dishes, including dessert.
Being able to cook multiple dishes at once can really save a lot of time and effort, so a range that has true convection with multi-rack baking is ideal. Just make sure that you don’t crowd the oven wall-to-wall because you still want the air to circulate throughout the oven. theKitchn.com shares 5 tips when baking with the convection setting.
- If you need to cook multiple dishes that have different temperature requirements, having a double wall oven can make your life easier. You can bake brownies and cook fish at the same time and the best part is that the flavours will not transfer between ovens. With a double wall oven, you can cook faster, smarter and really impress your guests with your culinary expertise.
At the end of the evening you look in the kitchen at a mound of dirty dishes and hope that your dishwasher can accomplish the following: it will get your dishes clean the first time and you hope you can run your dishwasher and it does not disrupt the entire household because it is so loud.
There are many factors to consider when purchasing a dishwasher; the number of cycles, how many place settings it will hold, what colours are available but the most asked for features is for the dishwasher to be quiet. Dishwasher noise levels are rated in decibels so lower the decibel the quieter the dishwasher. Bosch is known for manufacturing quiet dishwashers, click to watch a video on achieving results.
- Rinse or not to rinse that is the question. The days where you had to rinse your dishes before putting them into the dishwasher is over, however, it is suggested that you scrape off large chunks of food. Pre-rinsing your dishes wastes more than 6,000 gallons of water per household each year, according to Consumer Reports. Dishwashers are much more advanced and can handle most dish messes. Current dishwashers have a soil sensor that checks how dirty the water is and therefore determines how much water, what pressure and how long the cycle needs to be to get the dishes clean. If the sensor detects little to no debris, it gives a lighter wash than what you might have expected, leaving your dishes with bits of food stuck to them. So make sure you do not rinse your dishes, but just scrape off the leftover food before loading them.
So now that you have your appliances covered, here are some Do’s and Don’ts on hosting a dinner party from bonappetit.com.
Happy Holidays!
Isabelle, Your Appliance Expert