Don’t get stuck with a broken oven for the holidays. Use your stove during the holidays. Here are ways to avoid stove problems, appliance repair and oven repair when cooking holiday dinners.
We've had some problems of our own during holiday dinners in our family. There was the time someone, we won’t mention any names, forgot to defrost the turkey and it was still frozen when dinnertime rolled around. There was also the time when the cook, again, no names forgot the real use of the stove, to cook the turkey, because she didn't even turn it on.
The last thing you need during a holiday dinner is stove problems, even if it is from user error or other appliance repair and oven repair. Cooking dinner during the holidays should go off without a hitch.
Don't use the self-cleaner setting if you want use of the stove for holiday meals. Self-cleaning cycles require ovens to run at extremely high temperatures, and often cause the oven's electronic components to fail.
Hand clean the oven if you have grease or debris buildup. The cleaner it is, the more efficiently it will operate and the less likely you are to need oven repairs.
Check your oven's temperature gauge. An easy way to do this is to bake a cake by following the directions on a basic mix exactly as written. If the cake isn't perfectly baked, you may have stove problems and need a service call to fix them.
Bake in batches when you can, to make the most of your energy usage, rather than one-time use several times over the week.
Use other appliances in addition to your stove, oven, or range. Crock-pots, slow cookers, and microwave ovens can help get food cooked and take some of the pressure off an overly taxed oven.
Refrigerator
Clean the condenser coils. They are located behind the appliance or at the bottom and it's an easy cleaning job for most of us with a vacuum cleaner. You may have to pull the refrigerator away from the wall to get to the coils so get help if you think moving the appliance will cause an injury. Built-ins might require a service call.
Check the door seal. If it's not tight, you're losing efficiency and not keeping food properly chilled. Close the door on a thin sheet of paper or a 1 dollar bill. If you only have a 5 or 10, send it to me and I’ll send you a 1 dollar bill no charge. If you can slip the paper out, your fridge is wasting energy. Replace the seal or adjust the door latch if needed.
Garbage Disposal
Don't stuff the disposal full of food waste and then turn it on.
Don't use the disposal for rice, pasta, bones or stringy vegetables like celery—they're often the cause of backups.
Let cold water run for 10 seconds before feeding in small bits of waste while the water runs, and let the water run 30 seconds after it's all gone.
Dishwasher
Rinse dishes first. Despite what those commercials say—that you don't have to rinse dishes before putting them in the washer—a quick rinse is always a good idea. You don’t have to clean the dishes, but do rinse them.
Clean your dishwasher's filter to remove particles and debris.
Use the right amount and type of soap. Powdered soap tends to work better than liquid.
Don’t let appliance repair stress the hosts and hostesses due to emergency repair bills and potentially long waits for needed parts. Get your appliances checked today by a licensed professional and avoid the holiday rush.
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