Toaster ovens -- do you use yours for anything but toast?

[Anonymous]

Toast only. Not sure why I let my teenager talk me into buying it

[Anonymous]

I moved mine into the basement a few years ago. I rarely used it and could never get anything to come out right in it. Wasted counter space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This clip from ATK makes me laugh b/c some of the toaster ovens couldn't even make toast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SV7xoeOD4o

This was a very helpful link. Thanks. I've always thought that toaster ovens made inferior toast but loved having an extra small oven for hot days and small jobs. Looks like the Breville Smart Oven at $249 and the Hamilton Beach Set and Forget at $99 are the way to go!

[Anonymous]

I have never understood why people by toaster ovens... Enlighten me. Just so you don't have to heat up the big oven? Serious question.

[Anonymous]

Not the OP, but reading these responses has me wanting a toaster oven! Anyone have one they recommend? I'm always making little bits of food for the kids in the big oven, and I hate waiting 10 minutes for it to preheat just to bake some fish sticks for 15 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Ours gets used at least once daily. Besides toast in the morning (*), we also use it for baking fish sticks and other small frozen pre-made food, reheating pizza, making english muffin pizzas with the 3 yo, and other foods that we want to be toasty/crisp (vs microwave limp). Our toaster oven is much faster for these things than our big oven, heats the kitchen far less, and actually does a better job with certain frozen foods - the fish sticks in particular - that seem to need a combo of baking and broiling.

(*) a regular toaster would indeed be faster for bread, but would not allow for all the other things we do with our toaster oven, plus I often want to toast bread that's too thick for most toasters.

[Anonymous]

We use ours almost every day and I don't think we've ever made toast in it. We don't eat toast. But it's great as a mini-oven and for reheating some foods.

I think basic is fine as long as it heats evenly. Maybe check consumer reports for reviews of specific models?

[Anonymous]

How long does the toaster oven take to preheat vs. the oven?

[Anonymous]

I just bought whatever toaster costco had and it has been great - $39.

Just made this for dinner in the toaster: http://savory-bites.com/2010/10/salmon-en-papillote-salmon-in-parchment/

I didn't pre-heat at all.

[Anonymous]

If you have a toaster oven that you use a lot, but it doesn't make toast ... how do you make toast?

We have one, at my husband's behest. It's a counter space hog. I would so much rather have a broiler drawer in the oven, which we do have, but it's on the bottom, at floor level, so it's completely unusable.

[Anonymous]

When I designed our kitchen, I intentionally designed it without including a place for a toaster oven. Generally using the broiler on the electric wall oven is much quicker than any toaster oven could be and a toaster oven just does not produce as good toast as a dedicated toaster does, unless you listen to your daughter and get the Hello Kitty toaster which looks absolutely awful. We have a 4 slice Cuisinart toaster from Costco which I have been quite happy with.

I would not recommend allowing children to use a toaster oven. With limited insulation it is actually much easier to get a burn touching the outside accidentally or with the smaller space inside to touch a hot surface.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, but reading these responses has me wanting a toaster oven! Anyone have one they recommend? I'm always making little bits of food for the kids in the big oven, and I hate waiting 10 minutes for it to preheat just to bake some fish sticks for 15 minutes.

Watch the ATK clip or see OP's comment on Hamilton or Breville.

[Anonymous]

I use this daily for toasting, cooking frozen meals, baking banana bread, etc. I love it, worth every penny. Makes perfect bagels.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006CVVA7I

[Anonymous]

We have a cuisinart convection oven that is great. Like PPs, we use it for frozen pizzas, slice and bake cookies (when we just want a few), etc. Because it is convection, it is super fast, and cooks chicken breasts in 25m - which is great for fast dinners.

[Anonymous]

We use ours a lot. We do not have a toaster.

As far as the toaster oven, we got one with a convection option and it is great for baking potatoes faster ( still slow). But I will never go back to the microwave. I also use it as a mini oven. It takes significantly less time to heat up, less energy, and does not heat up the house as much.

And I agree with the poster to use for leftovers that you do not want to get soggy