My cooking adventures aren’t confined to the 4 walls of my kitchen. Not having central air conditioning for the past 13 years, creativity is must during the pukey-hot days of summer. Portable cooking gear, stationary kitchen equipment and broken-down-turned-to-storage fulfill my cooking needs. While I’m no minimalist, I do try to keep the amount of tools I have down to a manageable size. Having too many options causes cooking paralysis!

My stove is the staple of the kitchen. Like The Hubby, she runs on gas. Lots of magic, and catastrophes, take place here. We’ve made beautiful creations together and set off the fire alarm together. Fun fact: only 4 of the 5 burners work. Why? Because of my impatience. While canning a couple of years ago, the pot boiled over, putting out the flame. Instead of waiting for everything to dry out, I immediately attempted to restart the flame, using the electric starter and shorted out the entire starter. An alarming electrical buzz and clicking ensued, stopped only by cutting power to the stove. That same day, the handle on this burner seized, rendering it useless. Even the Handy-Hubby couldn’t fix this one.

The wall oven has been my archnemesis since the day we moved in. The first batch of cookies I attempted to bake were doomed before they hit the heat. My cookie sheet wouldn’t fit into this custom-sized, smaller opening. As first time, young (and pregnant) homebuyers, checking the size of the oven wasn’t even on our radar. I mean, they’re all the same size, right? Oh how many lessons we have learned since then. We also weren’t informed that this particular appliance was bipolar. Steady and constant one minute, screaming hot 500 degrees the next. After several handyman visits, blue flames reaching out from the bottom of the door, it finally died. Anymore repairs would cost almost the equivalency of a new wall oven, which is something we don’t want to invest in as we hope and plan for a kitchen remodel in the near future.

As I bake quite a bit, an oven is a necessity…one needed quickly. In fact, the wall oven died in the middle of baking a pumpkin pie on Halloween. I discovered that finishing a pie in the microwave makes the filling delicious, but the crust inedible. Amazon to the rescue! Love it or hate it, Amazon had my new counter top oven I ordered, after putting the kids to bed, on my front porch before 6am the next morning. Two Thanksgivings and innumerable cakes, roasts, casseroles, pies and breads later, its still kicking!

When it gets hot outside I cook in my “summer kitchen”, aka: the garage. I set up a portable table for the counter top oven and hook up the propane to my two-burner cookstove. Not only am I able to keep the house cooler, but I can watch the kids play outside (a plus when you have a road-curious toddler) while getting dinner around or canning produce from the garden. Plus, if something catches, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to chuck it out the big door and save the house from burning down. Always a plus when cooking with kids!