singing the praises of convection.

over the past three years, i’ve thought to write a post about my convection oven nearly every time i’ve used it, marveling at what a switch it was from an american oven, but how much more i prefer it.  finally got around to that post! 🙂

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i love my little oven.  so so much. if we ever move back to america, i think i will forgo the usual american-sized appliance and purchase something like what we have now.  that’s how much i love it.

here it is.  (not a great pic, i took it with my phone.)  my convection oven!

this baby will microwave, spot-heat, steam, bake, defrost, toast, and grill.  and it also has a “bread rise” function that i’ve found to be quite handy, cutting my rise times in half, usually.

here’s a picture with a 9X13 pan for reference.

pretty tiny, huh?  but big enough to bake almost anything i need.  it came with two “racks” that are more like pans that slide into the grooves in the side. with those, i can bake two 9X13 at once, provided that the ingredients won’t rise during baking and don’t go over the top of the pan.  i’ve also made a few turkeys in there, and although there is ZERO extra space, it works!  i had the get used to not being able to use the microwave function when i was baking something — a number of times i was baking bread while working on another recipe that needed melted butter or warm milk.  after a few months, i just got used to doing things on the stove.

the steam function is a pretty cool one, if you ask me.  the oven came with a small ceramic dish that i can fill with water and place into the back right corner.  then i can place a dish of carrots, broccoli, apples, etc, into the center of the oven, and hit “steam.”  through engineering i have no desire to guess at, the oven pulls water from the cup and makes it into steam that fills the air and shoots down into the food.  i can steam veggies in about 2-3 minutes.  love it!

sometimes i can hardly believe i used to preheat a whole oven to bake a tiny sheet of cookies.  mottainai is a common phrase in japanese, basically translating into “don’t waste it!” — it’s exactly the phrase that comes to mind when i think of my little oven.