Friday, September 03, 2010

See What I Got from CSN Stores!

This is it - what I got from CSN Stores.

It's a Hamilton Beach 4-slice 'Toastation' Toaster and Oven

My old toaster had been having problems and not toasting things properly for a while.  I kept putting off getting a new one, thinking maybe I wanted a toaster oven - but just couldn't make up my mind.  So we just kept using the old toaster and pushing the toast down several times to get it toasted.  And then, when I was trying to decide what to order from CSN Stores, Cory made a comment about wishing he could toast 2 bagels at once, and it hit me - look at the toaster ovens!  I picked this one because it's a toaster and an oven in one.

When I found this, there were no reviews on the CSN Stores site, so I went looking elsewhere to see what people were saying about it.  I ended up finding some good reviews, and a better price, at Amazon.  When I went back to the CSN Stores site, I noticed the little 'Seen it for Less?' link next to the price.  So I clicked it and filled out the form with the price and the link to the competitor's website.  Within half an hour, I had already received a price match email from CSN Stores!  They couldn't quite match the price from Amazon, but they came pretty close.

With the price match, I had to call the 800 number to place my order instead of placing it online.  I ended up calling a couple times and talking to a couple different people, and they were both extremely helpful and friendly.  Their customer service is really great. Shopping with them was a real pleasure. And then - shortly after I'd placed the order, I received an email telling me that they'd upgraded my shipping so I could get my order faster.  I got it 3 days later!

Since then, I've been using it as much as possible. It definitely makes better toast than my old toaster.  It's also nice that you can look through the oven window to see your toast while it's toasting.  I haven't quite figured out what setting (1-6) I like for my toast.  I like my toast fairly dark, so I'm thinking somewhere between 4 and 6.  Mostly, I just keep an eye on it, and when it looks about right, I hit the handy 'cancel' button, and it pops right up!  Also, I really like the way it glows when I'm toasting something.  It looks so warm! I realize my old toaster glowed, too - on the inside - but it didn't have the handy window to see it.


I haven't used to oven part of it as much, but I have reheated some pizza and some apple crisp, and they both turned out great. I hate to reheat pizza in the microwave, because it gets kind of soggy or tough, and I hate to turn on the oven for just a couple slices of pizza - so this will be really handy.  It's not as big as some of the other toaster ovens I looked at, but I wasn't planning on cooking in it anyway.  Except I was thinking of getting one that included a rotisserie, thinking we might make our own rotisserie chicken once in a while,  but that one would have taken up so much space on the counter.  While the Toastation is definitely bigger than the old toaster, it isn't quite so big as some other toaster ovens, and I like that about it.

Cory's coming home for the weekend, and I got some bagels at the grocery store on Wednesday.  So he'll have to see how this toasts the bagels.  I'm not sure he needs to do two at once, but the Toastation can definitely do that.

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In exchange for my review, I received a promotion code from CSN Stores that I could apply to any item(s) of my choosing from their 200+ stores.

1 comment:

  1. They sure are coming out with the neatest gadgets these days, its hard to keep up, Just dropping you a note, love the new page look, haven't been online for awhile...

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