I have had this product since the end of November. The removable plates on this are incredibly simple to clean. I suggest either using the dishwasher or the soft side of a sponge to clean them as the green (course) side may scratch the Teflon. The tilting feature is very handy when you want to alternate from grill to griddle. I like the adjustable temperature knob (although I’ve only had it on high since I’ve had it). I gave a four star rating for a few, minor cons:

1) The grill seems to maintain inconsistent temperature when left open as a griddle. I will pre-heat the grill on high with the lid closed, then as I’m cooking sausage and eggs on it, the grill seems to lose most of its contact heat. The only remedy I’ve found so far is to close the lid again which then causes the grill to get too hot sometimes and scorch my sausage patties.

2) I wish there was a way to have the bottom grill get hot while the top one did not while cooking with the lid open. I’m nervous that one day I’ll burn my hand because of this but I haven’t found a way to do this.

3) I hate the new design of the upper grill plate. They added a partial cross pattern merely for looks it seems. The only thing it ends up doing is causes more corners, making the plate harder to get clean. I don’t know what was wrong with the older versions that were just vertical lines on both sides but I would definitely prefer the older, top plate compared to this one.

CLEANING:
The interchangeable plates are great, especially when it comes to cleaning. The only thing that is difficult to clean is the grease tray, but if you line it with aluminum foil first, it’s no big deal. The grill heats up quickly, and has a decent size surface.

The complaints about the non-stick coating are very true. I’ve only used mine about 6 times or so, and after cleaning each time, any point that sticks out has had it’s non-stick coating removed. Maybe if I used a dishwasher rather than scrubbing by hand, but my dorm doesn’t come with one.

COOKING:
I can usually fit 4 or so frozen hamburger patties on it, but I usually only prepare two. It cooks them quickly as well. I guess it would be a problem with any electric grill, but the burgers really lack the fire cooked taste, that even a gas grill provides. Make sure to use lots of your favorite spices, it really helps!

OTHER STUFF:
The first thing I noticed out of the box was that the whole assembly felt pretty loose, but it quickly became obvious that was to allow the top place to rest on the food evenly.

These cons are no reason NOT to purchase this grill. Just some things people may want to consider. Purchase this and enjoy what you got!

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The Panasonic SD-YD250 is pretty much the state of the art in bread machine technology in mid-2003. It’s one of the larger units around with a 2.5 lb. loaf capacity. This size will also eat up your counter or cupboard space: you need just under 14″ of width and height, and 10″ of depth, so keep that in mind when you order.

The bread consistency is excellent. It’s even pretty good in the “rapid” mode, though the results are a bit better in the standard bake mode so that’s what I generally use. Also, the “rapid” mode for whole wheat or multigrain bread is 3 hours (vs. 5 hours standard), so it’s not like you can start the machine at the beginning of a meal and expect completed bread before you leave the table. The fastest full cycle — “rapid” bake mode for white bread — is 1hr 55min.

The SD-YD250 is quieter than most earlier bread makers; however, you’ll still hear the clicking and whirring as it mixes and kneads the dough. It’s a neat idea to wake up to the smell of freshly-baked bread but the machine isn’t quiet enough to run in the bedroom unless you’re a VERY sound sleeper.

The options for this machine include the following:
o basic/rapid bake
o immediate start/timer delay
o white/whole wheat/multigrain
o sandwich (soft crust)
o crust color light/medium/dark
o raisin (pause and beep to add fruit or nuts)
o dough knead without bake
o bake without dough knead

Pros:
-This morning I made a loaf of country white bread using a recipe I found online. Judging by the ingredient amounts, I thought it would be a MEDIUM size loaf. I set the machine to MEDIUM size and let it go. I peaked a couple of times to see if the bread was rising well during the rising stage…and it was….TOO WELL. The bread, once it was baked and done, was nearly pushing the lid open to the breadmaker. I was thinking to myself…well the crust is golden brown, but I bet it’s not cooked in the middle. Wrong. The bread was still cooked to perfection even though I am 100% sure I used the wrong size setting. This bread machine must be equiped to deal with newbies to bread making like myself.
-The interface is really easy to use. There are different buttons to push depending on the mode you want. So easy to use. Read the instructions for 1 minute and you will be up and running.
-Good quality. The bread pan +kneading blade are substantial and well-designed.
-Pretty quiet. You do hear the bread machine kneading and mixing but it doesn’t last long and it’s not very loud. Only one in the household really bothered by this was the cat.

Cons:
-The first loaf had a funny taste because the bread machine had a funny smell, despite washing it before use. No idea what that was, but it’s essentially gone now, after 2-3 loaves of bread.
-Large. What are you going to do though? It works and it works well…I’m going to give it the room it needs because it makes delicious bread and makes my apartment smell DIVINE.
-The fruit setting: for use if you want to make fruit bread, like cinnamon raisin bread for example. When I tried making this, I added raisins at the beep prompt as I was instructed to do. When the loaf was done, there were almost no raisins in the center of the loaf…they were all plastered on the bottom. You aren’t supposed to add them during the initial kneading so they don’t get pulvarized. Next time, I WILL add them right from the beginning to avoid this.

Note that not all of these options can be combined. For instance: you only get crust color selection for white bread, and sandwich mode for white and whole wheat; multigrain bread always has a dark, tough crust (although the bread inside the crust is moist and well-textured).

The container inside really is nonstick (based on my not-so-lengthy use since I bought it) and the kneading blade does very little damage to the finished loaf. Ease of use and cleanup are both excellent.

Bread results are quite sensitive to variations in the ingredients in either weight, consistency, or age. Always use fresh BREAD flour and fresh yeast (bread machine yeast recommended) and the right amount of salt, sugar, and flour. The recipes in the included book specify flour weight in units like 16 3/4 oz., so it’s HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you get a digital kitchen scale for good results. Note that this will require still more counter space.

Summary: a very good machine, but you’ll need a fair amount of counter space and attention to details to get the best results from it.

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The 3-cup Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer is ideal for singles and smaller families and features micro computerized Fuzzy logic technology, which allows the rice cooker to ‘think’ for itself and make fine adjustments to temperature and heating time to cook perfect rice every time. 3 cup size cooks as little as ½ cup of rice and can also bake cakes. Multi-menu cooking functions include white/mixed/sushi, porridge, cake, quick and rinse-free. Other features include detachable inner lid, easy-to-read LCD control panel with clock and timer functions, automatic keep warm, dent resistant plastic body and detachable cord for easy storage.

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Product Characteristics:

This is truly the supreme bread machine! The Zojirushi offers advanced options for your bread baking. It gives you the choice of using the dough cycle by itself, then finishing in your regular oven. In addition, you can make dough for crisp pizza crust, light dinner rolls, mouth-watering cinnamon rolls, hamburger or hoagie buns, artisan breads, sourdough, gluten-free breads and cakes – the possibilities are endless. It even makes fruit jam and has the power and durability for hearty whole grain dough. Twin paddles provide superior kneading action so you get well-raised breads with great texture.

To use, simply place your unmixed ingredients in and choose your setting. The machine alerts you once your bread is ready. The control panel is set at the perfect angle for easy viewing, and the bigger-than-ever window lets you see what’s happening inside. With this model, you can open the lid during operation, for adding fruits and nuts without resetting the cycle (it keeps running with the lid open). Choose from a full set of pre-programmed cycles for a variety of breads or create your own custom cycles. You can also program in your own favorite recipes for later use. Recipe & instructions booklet included.

Product Characteristics:

1. It’s effortless. I almost feel guilty; you put the ingredients in the baking pan, press two buttons and walk away. Three and a half hours later = bread.

2. It’s extremely cost-effective. The machine may seem expensive, but if you use it for all your household bread needs, it pays for itself. Using bulk ingredients, each 2-lb loaf costs $1.09. Compared to around $5.00 in the store, you just can’t beat it.

3. The bread tastes great and is great for us! I don’t think I can ever go back to store-bought bread again. But why would I? It’s so much better, cheaper, healthier and tastier to make it myself.

4. It’s almost more convenient than going to the store for a loaf of bread. If you’re running low on bread, put in the ingredients and in a sliver of time, you have more.

5. It’s really easy to clean — just wash out the bread pan and the two kneading blades and you’re done. If it takes even two minutes to wash it thoroughly, I’d be shocked.

6. You don’t have to destroy your countertop with flour and make a huge mess just to have a loaf of bread! It’s all contained in the baking pan, so you have no mess. Also, this eliminates wasted flour, and wasted water to clean it up.

7. It makes the house smell great.

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Five stars is not enough! There should be a ten star rating for this product.

I am a delighted customer and a repeat Breville juice extractor purchaser. In 2004, I purchased my first Breville Juice Extractor. This year I upgraded to the gorgeous stainless-steel Juice Fountain Elite. These Breville products are extremely well made, tough, easy to clean, and work exactly as advertised. My old juicer was given to a friend and still works perfectly. These products are well made and LAST.

I use my Juice Fountain Elite on an almost-daily basis, and on some days, I use my juicer multiple (3-4) times. It performs flawlessly and I believe that it is worth every penny.

The Juice Fountain Elite is much quieter than the previous Breville model I owned. The motor is very powerful, and it produces a high volume of juice compared to the other brands of juice extractors that I have owned in the past.

If you are new to juicing you MUST BUY this juicer to avoid disappointment and frustration that comes with using other, less well made juicers, that are hard to clean. I have been an avid juicer since 2003 and in the first year I was juicing, I burned out the motor on TWO Juiceman Junior juicers and used to get mad at how much work they were to clean.

In 2004 I spent the extra money on the Breville after doing some research and I have to say, I will never purchase another brand of juice extractor. This product has it all.

It is engineered like any really good juicer should be:
1. Powerful and efficient
2. Easy to use (even for new juicers)
3. Well constructed with mostly stainless steel and easy/fast to dismantle and reassemble
4. FAST
5. EASY to clean
6. and also…..EASY to clean!

Don’t waste your money on other products, buy the Breville Juice Fountain and you can’t go wrong.

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Construction – well built and sturdy plastic container. Metal juicing basket with blades is rigid and not flimsy in the slightest. Pieces fit together snugly and there are plenty of visual cues to make it easy for any one to assemble.

Downside – over time there has gotten to be a little fruit residue in the seams of the plastic with no way to clean. It gets washed well each time, and since its in the catch area I’m too worried.

Use – The noise the motor makes seems reasonable – there is a motor going a couple hundred rpm what do you expect? The chute is in the center and fits most things I toss at it. May have to cut some apples in half or break up a grapefruit but thats about it.

Downsides – Don’t use this unit under a cabinet or at least pull it forward. When moving the plunger up the chute for the next piece of fruit air flows up and can carry drops of juice or small splatters of pulp.

If you are doing a large amount of fruit, the enclosed catch basin can be a pain. I can juice 4-5 pounds of oranges without stopping but anything more then that and I have to stop and empty it out. I get an average of a quart or so of juice from 5# bag of oranges.

Cleanup – pretty much a couple minutes and its good to go. I’ve always cleaned the metal mesh basket right away and have had no problems.

Experience – Over all I like the juicer and its worked well for me. After about a month I stopped making OJ by the glass and would make a half pitcher or so to last us a few days to save time and cleanup.

The pulp is wet but when I took some orange pulp in cheesecloth to squeeze out the juice I didn’t get much. There will always be some loss this way but it didn’t seem an excessive amount.

Oranges – Works great and lasts a few days in the fridge before getting a slight bitter taste

Grapefruit – juices great, but don’t try to save it. I don’t know if its an enzyme or what but gets very bitter within a day

Apples – a real disappointment. There is a lot of large chunks left over. If you are just doing apples you could core them and toss the catch basin stuff into a slow cooker for applesauce.

Pineapple – didn’t get a lot of juice, and the catch basin was filled with a puree. If you want to make sorbet or ice cream the catch basin would be a good base.

frozen strawberries / mango – didn’t get a lot of juice, again was left with a puree in the basin.

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Kraft and Wonder Bread pretty much had a corner on the grilled cheese market until the epicurean era started around 1980.

Like so many sheep, we followed the Kraft line: Butter two slices of spongy white bread, place one or two slices of Kraft Singles on the unbuttered side of one slice. Slather on a dollop of yellow mustard and grill the ‘wich 3 minutes on each side in a skillet over medium heat.

The Kraft PR machine tried to make us believe that its processed cheese was the only kind that melts properly. They steered us to white, enriched bread because, so they claimed, grainy bread would not brown so good.

Bunk, said such cheese advocates as the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, which rode the Kraft cow for decades but largely has shifted to artisan cheese-making.

Laura Werlin, author of “Cheese Essentials” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $24.95), says most quality cheese will melt just fine if we grate it first.

And use any kind of bread you like, she adds, such as hand-sliced hunks of real sourdough.

Cheesemonger Steve Jenkins, author of “Steven Jenkins’ Cheese Primer” (Workman, $16.95), thinks no one will go back to white bread and processed cheese once they make his “new classic” grilled cheese sandwich.

“Preheat the broiler. Grate an Alpine cheese such as Comte or Gruyere on a slice of sourdough bread, drizzle on a little extra-virgin olive oil, grate on a little Parmesan cheese, add the second slice of bread slice and broil until the cheese melts, turning the sandwich once.”

That’s fine, Steve, but there probably are 500 variations out there, take your pick.

The Kraft people now say it’s OK to gussie up their original version, thus the “rustic” sandwich below, made with multi-grain bread, deli chicken breast and Dijon-style mustard.

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