I've got the Breville Smart oven, and I absolutely love it. It fits a 9x13 just barely (one with handles will NOT fit), and the heating is even enough that a 9x13 will actually cook beautifully, even without convection mode on. The only time I wish it was a full oven is when I need to do something with a sheet pan. Cookies take many batches. And you can only bake one cake layer at a time. The toaster oven does not heat up the kitchen too much, but the top of it (and anything on top of it) gets very hot (this is billed as a plate warming feature, but I kind of feel like it's good marketing spin on a slight irritation). I would expect it to have no problem at all with your cornbread or with pizza (it's got a curved back, so it can do a larger than 9" pizza. I don't know how big, but it fits the generic pizza stone we have) - it generally works *better* than my full size oven. I've only had heating go a bit weird when loaves of bread have risen so much that they start to get unnervingly close to the heating elements. And even those have been okay with convection on.

Shop around though if you want it. The regular price is a bit more than you'd like to spend, but sometimes you can get good deals.

When you go out to eat, what do they like?

I'll admit, I'm a bit the opposite (the wilder it is, the more fun I have), but I'd see if you could get them to try some new things. My sister is sometimes vegetarian, and we definitely found it hard to eat well without meat when we stuck to more American food (probably because it's pretty based around meat as the cornerstone of the meal).

Now, if your family is willing to try a few new things, I'd recommend looking into Indian food and Chinese Buddhist cuisine. India has a long history of vegetarianism, and Chinese Buddhist cuisine is explicitly vegetarian, so they're both well balanced for a vegetarian diet. Tweak the food to your family's liking, of course. As much as I love Indian curry, I can only really do the mild version without wanting to down a whole container of yogurt to compensate for the spice.

Some of Serious Eats writers go vegan for a month a year, and the result is here: http://www.seriouseats.com/vegan-expe.... If you're willing to try new and unexpectedly tasty things, Ottolenghi is a master of making delicious vegetable dishes (including some that sound really odd on paper. Like, I made a roasted cauliflower salad with hazelnuts and pomegranate seeds following one of his recipes. I don't know why I made it: I didn't like the sound of it at all. It was easily one of the better things I've eaten in my life).

Honestly though? I'd find a food blog that appeals to you. It's easy to find recipes that way, and while I might like a dish, that doesn't mean that you will. As you say, you can follow a recipe, so the issue is mostly just finding a collection of recipes that looks appetizing.

Oh, and consider cast iron cookware. My sister gets anemic really easily when she's vegetarian. Cast iron cookware actually helps with that a lot.

Sharpen your knives (or get them sharpened) before making any decisions! Your knives might be good enough for you once they're properly sharpened (in which case shiny new Japanese knives might still be something you want, but not a necessity).

More importantly though, it doesn't sound like you really know what you want out of a knife. And it's certainly a waste of money to buy a knife that isn't really right for you. So, once you get your current ones sharpened, look at youtube cutting technique videos and practice a lot. Make sure your grip is right, make sure you know what you're doing. By doing this, you'll figure out what you want. Maybe you'll be happy with what you've got once sharpened, maybe you'd really prefer a taller knife, or a longer one or a straighter one. Whatever. Point is, the sort of knife you're talking about buying is super different from a 6" serrated knife, so you're not really going to know what you're most comfortable with.

I personally use Kiwi or Komkom knives. I sharpen them whenever they aren't pretty much perfect, because I'm like that, and they're a joy to use. They're cheap, and the steel quality is certainly inferior to what you're interested in (but still good enough to hold a nice edge!), but the consistent sharpening makes them a joy to use. It also results in an incredibly neglected mandoline. You might want to pick up a Kiwi knife (they're *super* cheap) for sharpening practice, actually. Wrecking the edge on an expensive knife sounds kind of traumatic.

Knife storage, in my opinion, has more to do with ideal kitchen layout.

Plastic cutting boards are okay. They dull knives a bit faster than wood, but they're super convenient. Wood is great. I'm coming to detest bamboo. Just never, ever use glass.

Obviously matzo ball soup is a favorite.

I also really adore these recipes from Smitten Kitchen:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/0...

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/0... (parve)

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/0...

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/0...

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/0... (parve)

My grandma came up with a lot of her own recipes, and was never afraid to modify something, so I've got a lot of favorites from her.

She makes a candy out of her homemade applesauce mixed with orange jello mix, cooked, set, and sliced into little squares. She spreads melted chocolate on top. They're truly amazing, but not the same with blander, store bought applesauce (My grandma grew up on an apple farm, so she knows exactly what to use for the best applesauce. She goes out to the local farms and buys directly from the farmers some very obscure varieties).

She also always includes green olives with pimentos in her potato salad. It's my favorite :)

For Christmas cookies, she makes a cookie that it's sweet enough to be a sugar cookie and isn't buttery enough to be shortbread, and tops it with an icing made out of lemon juice and powdered sugar. The icing makes them absolutely incredible.

My parents also have a few unique ones, but theirs are more in the category of weird than brilliant...

My mom microwaves cooked pasta with copious amounts of butter, sugar, and cinnamon when she needs a comfort food.

My dad makes steaks in the microwave (they're pretty good, given the circumstances). He also takes all of the vegetables in the fridge, tosses them into the blender, and makes what we affectionately call sludge.

Both of my parents put both blueberries and cooked broccoli onto their cereal and oatmeal.

My contributions have been more modest so far. I put a thin layer of mayo on every surface of bread involved in a grilled cheese sandwich. I also make fluffy omelets (beat the whites separately), put a bit of cream cheese inside (and other stuff if I don't have an exciting flavor of cream cheese), and fold them in half.

As a teenager, I somehow convinced my parents to buy a Vitamix, after they burned through a blender every 2 years. I figured the warranty alone made it worth it, particularly as we got it refurbished and on sale.

Now, a few years down the road, I'm getting married, and my parents generously bought me a Vitamix 7500, as they love their own so much. I can make the most exquisitely textured soups, the creamiest smoothies etc, with this. And it's super easy to clean, by filling it with soapy water and running it.

I seriously don't understand a lot of the criticisms made in this review: it seems like someone didn't bother even trying to understand how to use it? You need to pulse it to crush ice. I've never really found a blender where that *wasn't* the case. You might also consider that the speeds lower than high exist for a reason. That tends to help with the smoothie making. I also don't understand why the dishwasher is even an issue: filling it with water and a drop of soap cleans it far faster and more effectively than any dish washer I've ever used (and cleaning a blender by hand, as I used to have to do, is a pain. Also, with a standard blender, the small pieces can get lost).

I will certainly admit that if you really want a quiet blender, this isn't it. And if you find being able to walk away from your blender a high priority, perhaps a Blendtec is a better idea (I've heard it's better for that). But if you like to play with your food more (and let's be honest: you're only ever going to use the tamper within the first minute of use anyway), and you want to get maximally silky soups and be able to create things that normal blenders simply can't, this is most certainly it. And it's crazy durable.

I'd actually recommend aluminum. It'll heat very evenly.

The reason people recommend against it is because there is evidence that people with Alzheimer's have more aluminum in their brains. However, there's no evidence that the aluminum is the cause of the problem: it may well be a result of it instead. Furthermore, the aluminum you ingest from aluminum cookware is negligible compared to say, food. In other words, I wouldn't worry about it. On top of that, if you're not cooking something acidic, aluminum really isn't a problem. And caramel isn't particularly acidic.

So, unless you are the type to worry a lot, use the plain aluminum. If you do worry a lot, use the steel/aluminum clad (I've got Tramontina, and it's very nice). I grew up with Revereware. Trust me when I say that the copper is so thin that it doesn't do anything.

It depends on a lot on what I'm sick with. I'm actually currently at the tail end of a cold which seems to consist of coughing, a stuffy nose, and rather a lot of dryness in my nose and throat. So congee, ice cream, v8 juice (they do recommend gargling salt water, so I guess it makes sense that this feels good...) have been staples. I have to be careful to avoid stratchy foods right now (oats, sadly, aren't so great at the moment). Oh, and putting about a tablespoon of Nin Jiom Pa Pei Koa into hot water is magical. It's like a cough drop tea, with the mentholy steam as an added sinus clearing bonus.

Say, stomach flu, on the other hand, mostly involves not eating.

I certainly wouldn't worry about microwaving something in plastic occasionally. But it's not unreasonable to prefer using glass or ceramic (although please, please don't use a ceramic piece with an unknown origin. Lead is far scarier than any plastic you'd be using), particularly on a regular basis.

I prefer not to put plastic in the microwave partly because I have trouble keeping track of what's microwave safe, and partly because I grew up pretty much only reheating in pyrex glass containers or corelle dishes. Using plastic for anything other than dry food storage is simply somewhat foreign to me.