Living Without An Oven—-Would You?
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Hope everyone had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend!
Ours involved moving between apartments, which is never fun, but my husband and I are happy to have more space. There’s just one problem with our new place: It doesn’t have an oven. Not a full-sized one, anyway.
Instead, there’s a four-burner range top, and something above it called a “SpaceSaver” that looks like a microwave but purports to also be a convection oven. I don’t really understand how it works yet, but even when I do, it’s going to take some adjustment.
Sure, I’ve never actually roasted a turkey, or baked a towering bundt cake, or whipped up a Julia Child-style soufflé …but now I can’t. I can’t bake anything bigger than 8 ½ inches high or 20 ½ inches wide or 13 ½ inches deep. A single cookie sheet fits inside the SpaceSaver; but our brand-new pizza stone and round pizza pans are suddenly useless, as is our cast-iron dutch oven and possibly the popover pans.
For us, the apartment’s many “pros” (washer/dryer, dishwasher, good layout, natural light, safe neighborhood) outweighed this one “con,” but we’ll see if we still feel that way when the lease is up for renewal.
What about you---could you live without an oven (assuming you still had a range top)? Apparently, some people not only can, they prefer to. Is there any other kitchen appliance you consider essential? (For me, that's the coffeemaker.)