pumpkindoodle's Profile

We have the IKEA pot and I have to say... it doesn't perform as well as the Le Creuset. We were so excited to get it--thinking there couldn't be THAT much difference between dutch ovens. And then this past fall, we had a cider pressing party and made fresh doughnuts. We used our IKEA dutch oven and borrowed a friend's Le Creuset. We didn't use the IKEA pot past the first batch. It just didn't hold heat *nearly* as well as the Le Creuset, doughnuts got soggy, didn't brown... soggy, pale doughnuts = yuck. It seems fine for roasts, stews, no-knead bread, but if you're doing anything that requires maintaining high heat, it's not the one for you.

BTW, the best-rated *cheap* dutch oven in Cook's Illustrated is: Tramontina Sterling 11 7-Quart Dutch Oven, $56.95

Their favorites are an All-Clad stock pot and a Le Creuset, but they say the Tramontina isn't that far behind, and much cheaper.

Vinegar and baking soda clean just about anything. Bon Ami is great and cheap if you need a bit more of an abrasive cleanser. For floors lately, we've been using 1 part vinegar to 1 part water in a squirt bottle with a few drops of peppermint essential oil. It works surprisingly well and smells really yummy and fresh.

Thanks MrGreen for raising the issue. I'll add that vinyl (a.k.a., PVC, the "poison plastic") is, in any application:

NOT GREEN.

All sorts of nasty off-gassing; no way to dispose of it without leaching mercury, dioxins, phthalates; really problematic in its manufacture. "No vinyl, that's final!"

Just a word of caution if you DO go with a new mattress--make sure to choose one which doesn't use PBDE flame retardants. They've recently been outlawed in Washington State because of their toxicity and the fact that they bioaccumulate in our bodies and we pass them on to our kids through breastmilk. Yuck. IKEA has some of the cheaper PBDE-free mattresses.

Okay, off my soapbox.

More importantly, and also off topic, I want to know about the layout of your itty bitty summer cottage since we're in the midst of designing one! Do you have more photos? Floor plan?

Thanks!

Genevieve