Halogen convection countertop oven

[maki2]

Today I was gifted a little countertop Halogen/convection oven. No doubt you may have seen this type of thing on the late night infomercials as they have been around for quite a few years now being sold as little kitchen timesaver appliances.

Free is good and my travel trailer renovation does not include a gas oven but I will be traveling with a small Honda i1000 generator. While most of the newer Halogen countertop ovens are 1300 to 1700 watts the one I was gifted runs at 600 to 800 watts which I can run with my little generator. The downside is it made with pyrex glass for the oven container. Some risk for breakage although it did come with the original box and foam packaging. But for me the main drawback is the weight of approx 9lbs.  Not a big deal if I had a van but I have a 4 cylinder car pulling a little travel trailer so weight does matter. Will it be worth it?  I don't know yet, I will just go ahead and use the heck out of it for a while and see what I think about it over the spring and also on some camping trips this summer.

It will make toast very nicely, it is of course also considered to be an air fryer so pretty much anything an air fryer can do this will too. But when it comes to meat apparently this unit leave the meat more moist on the inside than the air fryers do. It will also cook pizza, cakes, bread, pies, warm up leftovers, etc.  I tried it on fish sticks tonight and it make them nice and crispy pretty quickly compared to firing up my small standard type of convection oven.

I need to head to the thrift store and pick up a few baking pans of 8" or smaller diameter. I will add more information to this thread when I try cooking other things in it. Will it earn its keep in terms of cabinet space and weight or won't it? Only time will tell.  It does cook pretty quickly so the cost of fuel won't be that all that much to run it, less than it would cost if I was using a propane oven. Also because it is portable I could use it outside in the summer time as long as there is not a ban on using generators.

 

[maki2]

Here is the photo of the halogen oven cooking my dinner. I used tin foil to make a tray for broiling so I did not need to do any scrubbing of the bowl or rack for cleanup. Eight minutes cooking time for the fish sticks starting with them frozen in a cold oven. They came out very crispy, I did open the oven and turn them over. Next I am going to try making some toast for breakfast tomorrow, that should work just fine but I will keep a close eye on it since I don't know how long anything is going to take.
I do have the instruction book with some suggestions for time and temperature for various things.

 

[VanFan]

Keep us posted!  I now keep some of the mini foil pans from Dollar Tree inside an electric skillet.  It has earned a place on our island and has been wonderful where there's shore power.  The little pans are not the most ecological, but it allows for multiple items to be separated and heated at once, and clean-up (think oat meal) is a snap.  Actually, since no paper towels or water are needed, maybe it's an environmental "wash". LOL.

 

[maki2]

I have some silicone bake ware of various types. It is a compromise for easy to wash but reusable. I do have several of them.

I tried toast this morning. My conclusion was it will work just fine but for the sake of making toast in just a couple of minutes I will need an even higher rack than the tall rack it came with. Electric toasters have the bread quite close to the heating elements. It will require some experimentation to get the perfect setup for quick browning for perfect toast and of course figuring out the appropriate length of time.

I have been seeing more videos lately of people who have a lot of solar carrying the newer styles of air fryers. As they are not glass they might be a better option for travel.. But my little generator does limit me to this lower power consumption appliance so I will likely stick with it should I decide I want to have the convenience of baking things.

 

[maki2]

I have made two batches of scones in the little Halogen oven. The first batch I used a silicone baking pan. When the timer was done they looked just right on the top but then bottom side was undercooked. So the light bulb in my head went off, the silicone does not work because it repels the heat just like a silicone hot pad does. OK forget using silicone pans in this oven it needs the be able to have the hot air circulating and heating up the metal under what is cooking because unlike a conventional oven that has a burner under the food this oven only has the light on top. It is working by infrared and convection circulation to move the heat to all sides of what you are cooking.

I cooked the second batch in a dark steel cake pan and the scones came out perfect a little cripsy on the outside and tender and moist inside. The scones get cooked on the lower rack level down towards the bottom of the oven but still elevated for air movement below the pan. The cooking time was 12 minutes, exactly the same as a larger oven would require but it only takes a minute to preheat the oven versus all the time it takes to preheat a gas or larger electric oven.

I also cooked some frozen popcorn chicken in the oven. That gets done on the upper rack. They too came out perfect, crisp with a little pleasing crunch on the coating but not at all overdone.

So as long as you have a way to generate 600 to 800 watts of power (which is what this vintage Bellini unit draws) this is a real keeper for van life. It does not take up a lot of space, about as much as a large dutch oven, it weighs around 9 lbs. Yes you can bake your cake and eat it too Good for a solo traveler or a couple. You can make a batch of brownies or a single layer cake or a pie, biscuits and even roast a small chicken in it.

Here at the workshop home base I think this will become my go-to oven instead of the larger countertop style of oven I have been using for the last few years. Of course that other oven was not suitable for travel anyway, too big, too heavy.

 

[maki2]

I did forget to mention that is 600 to 800 watts of AC power this is not a 12v DC appliance it is 110v AC

 

[VanFan]

Thanks for the update.  Have you tried a cast iron skillet for toast?  I think it works surprisingly well.

 

[maki2]

You mean making toast in a skillet? Sure I do it now and again even though I currently at home base with an electric toaster. Of course I also make a grilled cheese sandwich in a skillet most weeks which is making toast in a skillet. I think you will find a great many people will at least have made that kind of toast in a skillet be it cast iron or some other material.

I started doing daily cooking in cast iron and continued that starting about 63 years ago. But I gave away all my cast iron about 5 years ago. I don't miss it, don't hate it but it is way too heavy for me to want to take on the road. I pull a small travel trailer with a 4 cylinder car. Weight matters.

 

[VanFan]

I don't carry enough of it in the van for weight to be an issue, but I have to say:  my wrists prefer something lighter these days!

 

[maki2]

When I went grocery shopping yesterday I found a great deal on natural boneless and skinless chicken breast for .99 a lb. They were going to reach their pull date the day after. Two large half breast in each package so I grabbed 4 packages, kept one out and put the rest in the freezer at the workshop space.

This evening I took the two breast halves and cooked in the Halogen oven at about 375 on the lower rack. It took about 25 minutes, they were quite thick. I turned them over at the halfway time point. Because they did not have skins on I brushed the top side with some olive oil and then put some fresh lemon zest on and squeezed some lemon juice on them. Of course some salt, pepper and also some dried rosemary and tyme as I had some one hand. During the last 10 minutes or so I cut a red bell pepper up into 8 pieces and placed those along on top of the chick towards the outside rim of the baking pan. They roasted nicely and ended up with just a bit of char at the edges and the chicken got a nice little bit of brown on it as well.

My dinner partner cut into his chicken, took one bite and declared...delicious! He is not one to say a lot even when the dinner is excellent so it was quite an enthusiastic response. They were moist and tender and better than chicken breast I have cooked in a larger oven. So yes the reviews were correct, it does an excellent job of cooking chicken.

3 more chicken dinners to go this month out of my bargain discount find. I will do one per week for a company dinner with my friend I will play around with a few changes in seasonings that are easy to switch up but leave the basic cooking method the same.

So thinking about fuel cost to cook this type of roasted chicken, it is still pretty low cost in fuel to run my little Honda i1000 for about a half hour, less than the cost of cooking with propane (I don't have a large bulk tank) but perhaps more than the cost of cooking it with charcoal in my little dome BBQ oven. I can't cook with charcoal if there is a burn ban on.