I got a Miele Chef Speed oven. The reason it won over Electrolux was due to the fact that I can do undercounter(E'lux does not allow undercounter) installation AND that it is only 24 inches wide. For me, the space constraint was very important. I thought the functionality was quite similar; minor differences here and there. MW function works like a standard MW... We use is as MW quite a bit to reheat food/coffee. My kids don't eat baked potatoes. With all due respects to the great potato race.... no need for that function. regarding above post....I have never MW'ed corn on the cob. I rarely use the MW to actually cook food. I don't think the food tastes very good when cooked in the MW, IMHO. We tend to roast the corn on the cob in its husk on the BBQ... Try that sometime. The corn is moist and sweet. It takes about 15 minutes but worth every minute of it. I have Viking gas range with gas oven. I find that the amount of heat generated from the gas oven is far suprerior to the Miele speed oven even though it has 240V for roasting vegies and meat. This is what I noticed years ago when I first transitioned from electric oven to high powered gas oven; higher heat output even though the temperature was the same. However, Miele bakes pastries better/more evenly than the gas oven. I actually love having BOTH gas and electric ovens. They behave very differently! The reason I got a Miele versus a MW with convection oven was its 240V baking ability. I am not sure how cookies/pies would bake with 120V convection oven. Does anyone know? The Miele bakes very evenly and functions superbly as a second oven. I bake pastries/cookies etc with the Miele preferentially over my gas oven. I don't use the Miele to toast bread. I like the toaster's ability to pop up the bread when done. If I use the Miele speed oven to toast bread, I have to watch it or "program" it for a few minutes. It just is too much trouble when I can slide the bread into the toaster and push a button. I still have the toaster oven on the counter, but the only time I am using it is for toasting bread.... We have not quite decided what to do with the toaster oven. The space is not a premium so we are keeping it for now. Hope my own reasoning/experience helps with your decision making. I did not get the Advantium because it really seemed to not work quite as well as a pure baking oven. It also seemed to have cavity that is not as tall. I can bake two full trays of cookies quite evenly in the Miele. I need to experiment with three trays.

In my last house I had an old gas double oven and a separate gas cooktop. I am a baker first and a cook 2nd. I always had beautiful cakes, cookies, breads etc. When we redid the kitchen I was disappointed not to have the gas double oven option (we were not looking at high end items -- I got GE profile electric double ovens and gas cooktop) At no point during that remodel did I think (or be told) that you can't bake cookies, cakes etc well in gas ovens. Now with this remodel all I am hearing is the difference in baking with gas is sub par if you want to do cakes cookies etc. and it is making me 2nd guess myself even though until the last couple of years I have always had a gas oven. The good news is is that I think the Wolf DF is really ugly and I really like the looks of the 48" AG -- plus it is cheaper -- and I know I can cook well in it -- only thing that is really holding me up is the no self clean -- I am just not an oven cleaner :-(

I have given the artisan bread book to so many friends as gifts... pretty cool, huh? Do you guys have a special container to keep the dough in in the fridge? I bought one of the ones they recommended, but there's no convenient way to keep the lid ajar. I would love to see other people's solutions! I have not made the bread since we moved into this house (Halloween) because the fridge was so small. I am a little nervous that my new CD FD Jenn Air won't have enough room, either! (Never had a CD fridge before.)

I have all three as well. PC's are excellent timesavers--steamed artichokes in 12-14 minutes instead of 45. Excellent for quickly tenderizing cuts of meat. (Great curry dishes in 20 minutes.) And sometime this week I'm gonna make corned beef & cabbage in just a little more than an hour. And I find that I prefer osso buco made in the PC to the non-PC way. Also, with a PC I can make foolproof risotto with hardly any effort and very little time, so I end up making risotto more often. (Indeed, Kuhn Rikon markets a small PC as a 'risotto maker'.) Dutch ovens are great for unfussy cooking; starting something on the stovetop and then finishing them in a slow oven is their forte. If you like this technique, take a look at Molly Stevens' All About Braising. Great resource. I have found that since I got into PC cooking I don't use my slow cooker as much. Slow cookers are great for stews, chili, beans and other things where the timing isn't critical--but the pressure cooker is very good on beans and grains as well, in about a third the time. If you want to work more grains and beans into your menus, a pressure cooker really is worthwhile. Lorna Sass, the pressure cooker expert, has written a pressure cooker cookbook precisely aimed at vegetarians. (See the link.) If I had to give up any one of those gadgets, it would be the slow cooker. I definitely wouldn't give up my PC, and I really like the enameled cast iron Dutch ovens as well. Here is a link that might be useful: vegetarian pressure cooker cookbook