It’s just a tiny help, but when it is really hot, like today in Downstate New York, and you’ve spent the whole day driving home from Upstate New York (we’re talking about nine hours with stops and traffic) so that even your eight-year-old agrees it’s too hot to cook and almost too hot to eat, well, macaroni and cheese from a box (nominally organic, but I cannot fool even myself on how stupid that it is to think it is any better than Kraft) is a good option.
However boiling water is a hot operation, so I use the electric kettle to boil the water then transfer the water to a pot on the stove. Electric kettles are common in England (my dear friend and kitchen co-conspirator, Kate, turned me on to them) for tea and such and they generate a lot less heat than a stovetop kettle or pot. I also love that they turn off automatically when the water boils; in my current life full of distractions I often forget I’ve put water to boil, so it is much safer!
Electric kettles shut off automatically when the water boils, so they are safer than stovetop boiling!
Hot, Cheap & Easy 