Anyone use a toaster oven?

[CivicFan]

Today we bought a toaster oven. At this point I am puzzled by this device - we have a toaster and we have an oven. What is the point of a toaster oven? From what I can tell, it does poor 'toasting' and does poor 'ovening'.

I need to figure out what the purpose of this device is.

 

[Steve S]

I received one as a gift in the 70's. I too don't understand what they are for other than to fill up counter space.

 

[JayhawkRoy]

The one we have (older Toastmaster) doesn't get a lot of use, but it does do baked potatoes and smaller items well in the oven. Prefer toaster unless I am doing some kind of top-browning on a microwaved or other dish.

 

[Scienceman]

They are good for things like grilled cheese I would guess....

 

[Colt]

We have a Breville toaster/convection oven.It's great and used a lot.

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/public/...jDMu5e3Y49vmFwM

 

[HTSS_TR]

Our toaster-oven had been used about 3-4 times a week.

 

[Quattro Pete]

We have a fancy Calphalon one that we got as an x-mas gift from my wife's boss. They work for a company that owns Calphalon.

Wife uses it sometimes to keep stuff warm, but other than that, it's pretty useless. We keep it stored in the basement most of the time as it just takes up counter space.

 

[wavinwayne]

My wife uses ours to re-heat various leftovers.

 

[Dave Hess]

They are good for reheating leftovers and making baked chicken breast/pork with BBQ sauce or STOUFFER'S Lasagna

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Originally Posted By: CivicFan
Today we bought a toaster oven. At this point I am puzzled by this device - we have a toaster and we have an oven. What is the point of a toaster oven? From what I can tell, it does poor 'toasting' and does poor 'ovening'.

I need to figure out what the purpose of this device is.


Agreed!

I have my own real toaster. My wife and kids use the toaster oven due to food allergies and it takes FOREVER for their stuff to be ready.

 

[The_Jeff]

They sell little rectangular pizzas that are AWESOME in the toaster oven. You can also make bagel pizzas the same way.

You can also do "twice-baked potatoes", cook them half an hour then split them open and mix the potato with cheese then stick them back in.

 

[casperfun]

I use it all the time. You can cook fish sticks, leftover meats, bread with toppings,

sometimes I don't like microwaving things because food gets all mushy.

But toasting creates more crunch instead of a hot moist mess.

 

[bdcardinal]

My uncle cooked the turkey breast for Thanksgiving in one.

 

[Shaman]

It's faster than using an oven because of the smaller space, or if you don't have an oven like me.

 

[tomcat27]

correct. they work poorly as a toaster and only marginally as an oven. consider them a small oven with a tendency to burn things if you go above 350 since the elements are so close to the food.

 

[expat]

We have a Krups convection, Toaster, grill, oven. it gets used a heck of a lot more than the stove oven.
I guess (like many things) you get what you pay for, I like it because the Preheat is almost instant and 'has to be' more efficient that a hulking great stove oven.

 

[greenaccord02]

They're great for the right stuff. We have a little convection one and it's perfect for warming, cooking small portions, and putting the perfect crust on stuff. I've cooked many things in ours when heating the larger oven would have been a waste. Potatoes, ramekins, small pastries, sandwiches, small pans of brownies and all sorts of stuff. Faster, too.

 

[greenjp]

I have a Delonghi convection toaster oven, love it. We don't have a regular toaster. It does a perfectly good job doing "regular" toasting, you just have to learn how to use it. As others have said it does a great job heating things up when the full size oven would be a waste, works great with breads and other things that microwaves ruin, etc.

jeff

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

I love my Black and Decker convection toaster oven. Except the timer just broke. Heats up frozen pizzas in a jiffy. I normally take a regular sized frozen pizza and cut it in half and bake half of it and throw the other half back in the freezer so I don't get tempted to eat the whole thing.

 

[CivicFan]

I just cooked a stuffed eggplant (eggplant cut in half and middle removed, filled with sauteed eggplant middle, onions, nuts, garlic and tomatoes) in it.

Not bad, the key was to cover it with some foil to prevent burning. It definitely makes sense for small and quick meals.