Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I thought that maybe sand toast was a relative of sand cookies.

So, in the end I just got a B&D 4-slice.

The thing we do most often is make toast, which the B&D is apparently pretty good at (and has been so far). We were also trying to limit counterspace usage and power consumption, and all of the higher-end options posted here were considerably larger than the B&D.

One thing I'm curious about: a bunch of folks here have countertop convection ovens, to limit the use of their main ovens. Why? I don't get it.

Faster (by a very large margin)
Much much less heat dissipation.
Energy usage

Paul,

Huh. What's the difference in time for you?

Oven preheat. Easily 20 minutes different. Also, for reheating, where no pre-heat is used, the small oven and reheat something like a croissant in about 2 minutes or less; the big oven would barely be above room temp. Or a slice of pizza in like 7 min. Lots of examples along those lines, and we use it often. I'm not fond of the way the microwave heats up most things, and typically far prefer the oven, but the big oven is a PITA for a saturday lunch. Oh, another thing I use it for: Bacon once a week. Takes forever in the big oven, way less in the wee one.

Another really common use is as a warming oven. My big oven can't really idle below 200F, and takes a bit to get there. The small one easily idles along at 140F, great for resting steaks, or bump it to 170 to keep other food warm for a while.

In our kitchen, it really is used as a workhorse. I will admit in part is the reasonably ok interface (though it could use some work, especially in boot up time from sleep) that allows super easy dial up of mode/temp/time.

Of course, food types, meal habits, cooking habits, etc. will all greatly influence how it is used, and how often.

Same here as Paul, much faster, easy cleanup, doesn't heat up the whole kitchen and doesn't use as much energy. Once I got mine I knew there was no going back.

Less heat consumption for 2 people with garlic bread, fries, biscuits, roasted veg, baked potatoes, casseroles. I can't justify having a second wall oven for 4-6 times as year. It bakes my casseroles & pies as a second oven during the holidays, when multiple items are needing to be baked.

EN

I think our regular oven is smaller and better-insulated than many folks here; it heats up to 400F in about 15min, and doesn't leak much heat into the kitchen (it can take well over an hour to cool off). Hence being puzzled about why I'd want a countertop convection oven. Back in SF, my oven was gas and gas was MUCH cheaper than electricity, so again no appeal.

The warming drawer usage would be attractive, though, if it weren't for the required counter space ...

Dude, I can't be waiting 15 WHOLE minutes for an oven to preheat when I'm making tortilla pizza! My child is STARVING to DEATH!

There are no intermediate states between "I'm no hungry" and raving lunatic starvation. The transition is instantaneous and unpredictable.