How essential is an oven for fulltiming?
Have any of you given up an oven for more kitchen storage? If so, what do you do instead for bread or things you would normally cook in one? I know that it would be fine for the short term, but I'm ...
Forum Discussion
NOTE: This is NOT Moonlightrunner... just posting on her account as she's bumming my laptop while doing her laundry in my machines....
I think the oven issue is a lot like the washer & dryer issue. If you don't bake, then you don't really need an oven. On the other hand, I do bake in my oven (and bread machine) a lot. That's part of the reason we put a 30" residential oven in our conversion. I have lived with a tiny, crappy RV oven and hated it. But I also have a full size residential freezer that I cook two to three family sized entrees at the same time in the oven to freeze in either individual or two person meal portions. It's my version of "TV dinners". I have baked 6 lbs baked chicken thighs, 6lbs oven BBQ chicken, 6 meatloaves (roughly 6oz each), 24 cajunchiladas (wrap & freeze individually for both lunches and dinners) all at the same time for freezer entrees (can't do that in a crappy RV oven). We also buy the 3 pack boxes (remove box) of DiGorno frozen pizzas from Sam's Club. Right now I have 6 in the freezer and that will last us two weeks. This all keeps us from spending our dollars at a restaurant where it would cost us a lot more to eat out than it does to cook the same food at home. Having it all cooked up and sitting in the freezer just waiting to be thawed and reheated for a fast meal saves up lots of money. It's hard to scale a family sized recipe down for two and just freezing the "rest" of the recipe makes a lot of sense to us. Besides, we would not have my cajunchiladas more than once every other month as they are messy to make. Easier to make the mess (for any recipe) once than several times a month. On my next day off I will be baking up and freezing a double batch of cupcake sized coffeecakes to freeze as someone has been eating them up while she's been doing laundry! I do love my oven. :)
Lorna
I think the oven issue is a lot like the washer & dryer issue. If you don't bake, then you don't really need an oven. On the other hand, I do bake in my oven (and bread machine) a lot. That's part of the reason we put a 30" residential oven in our conversion. I have lived with a tiny, crappy RV oven and hated it. But I also have a full size residential freezer that I cook two to three family sized entrees at the same time in the oven to freeze in either individual or two person meal portions. It's my version of "TV dinners". I have baked 6 lbs baked chicken thighs, 6lbs oven BBQ chicken, 6 meatloaves (roughly 6oz each), 24 cajunchiladas (wrap & freeze individually for both lunches and dinners) all at the same time for freezer entrees (can't do that in a crappy RV oven). We also buy the 3 pack boxes (remove box) of DiGorno frozen pizzas from Sam's Club. Right now I have 6 in the freezer and that will last us two weeks. This all keeps us from spending our dollars at a restaurant where it would cost us a lot more to eat out than it does to cook the same food at home. Having it all cooked up and sitting in the freezer just waiting to be thawed and reheated for a fast meal saves up lots of money. It's hard to scale a family sized recipe down for two and just freezing the "rest" of the recipe makes a lot of sense to us. Besides, we would not have my cajunchiladas more than once every other month as they are messy to make. Easier to make the mess (for any recipe) once than several times a month. On my next day off I will be baking up and freezing a double batch of cupcake sized coffeecakes to freeze as someone has been eating them up while she's been doing laundry! I do love my oven. :)
Lorna
