Halogen ovens - Should I buy one?

I seem to be modernising a bit lately. Given that my motives are a healthier, happier life, preferably with more energy efficiency thrown into the mix, should I buy a halogen oven?

Ultimately, can I do away with the big bulky conventional gas cooker now we have a steamer, slow cooker, and grill/panini maker, by adding a halogen oven to the mix?

 

Mmm I have looked at them,thought they looked ugly with all the gubbins on the lid bit of a "B" to clean I think would be a bit heavy for me to lift lid on and off old wrists are not to clever nowadays, Then there is the storage issue, all these things take up room do you put it in the cupboard or leave it on an already cluttered worktop? Wondered if it would go the same way as Sandwich toasters, must haves of a few years ago

 

They are amazing. My parents use one every day the lid is a bit heavy but they are oaps.

 

Sounds like you need a remoska as well!

 

What are the running costs like? Halogen sounds like "Lots of Leccy" to me (but I know Squat about it)

 

Don't know, but I know that as a heat source, halogen is one of the more efficient options because the heat travels to its target by means of radiation rather than convection. If you take a conventional gas oven, the flames heat the air inside the oven, and convection happens (not to be confused with a convector oven, as I'm not sure what makes them different as conventional ovens use convection too). That heated air then circulates around the whole oven, transferring the energy it has (heat) to anything it can, including the entire surface area of the inside of the oven.

Halogen on the other hand radiates its energy, as in the 'heat' from halogen is just infrared light, shining directly onto its target, so it doesn't have to heat a large volume of air and a large surface area of steal/aluminium/whatever the inside of an oven is made of.

Its like those horrid cheapo halogen heaters you can buy. They're only around 1 kW, but when you're in their line of fire you certainly feel it, but step outside of their line of fire and it quickly becomes apparent that the air in the room is still freezing. Whereas a more conventional electric convector heater would need to be at least a couple of kW to even stand a chance of competing with the halogen heater.

 

I have (had) an halogen, I am a gadget freak , it broke down last week, bought a new bulb from JML, still not going, must be the other thingy, so I WILL be getting another. The newer models are easier to repair apparently, they are very quick to cook with a proper roast flavour, the cost saving comes into play on the quicker cooking. In my opinion they are worth their weight but I find the bonus on only cooking for one.

 

You may find these two articles of interest:-

How to buy the best .... and ... How I fell in love with halogen ...

 

If you want to bring your bills down, defo get a steamer too.

I've only had my steamer for about a week I think, but already I couldn't live without it. It cooks everything to perfection, with no waste. Just now I did a veg curry using mostly the bits of broccoli and cauli that most people chuck, ie the outer leaf stems and the very base of the main stalk, so that we still have the 'main' bit left in its entirety for other meals. Of course you can still use the bits I mentioned without a steamer. You can fry them or boil them, but in my experience when you do so, they shrink. I'd anticipated them shrinking when I put them in the steamer, along with one carrot and about 2 inches of courgette. Nothing shrunk, so whereas by conventional means the ingredients I used would have done one meal for all of us, this time I have half a pan of curry left to go in the freezer for another time.

Rice too. A chef I know gave me a rule of thumb for getting the right amount of rice for one person. He said its about one small cup of dried rice. This is the rule I've always applied, mainly because I find cooking it in smaller quantities is difficult to get right. In the steamer, based on my experience from the previous go, this time I put in one cup of rice for all of us. It was exactly the right amount and cooked to perfection.

Everything goes in in one go, with a bit of juggling of the tiers to get the timings right (I put the rice in the bottom, gave it a 5 minute head start, then added another tier for the veg). Last time I did salmon, potatoes and veg in it all in one go.

All this for 700 watts of leccy running for about 25 minutes. Not bad for a hearty main course for a family of four.

 

I made an impulse purchase based on it ... hopefully it will prove to be worthwhile. In part I am thinking that #1 daughter will move out of Halls to Digs at Uni in the Autumn, and she can have the Halogen Oven to keep their electric cost down - and if we like it we'll buy one after a bit more research than I did this time!

I bought a "12L Premium Digital Halogen Oven with Hinged Lid" because I red that the lid is hot so if you need to put it down you need to use a proper rack - I thought it would be a palaver having to get the rack out, just to use the oven ...

http://andrewjamesworldwide.com/UserControls/productIndividual.aspx?ProductID=278

I suspect that 12L is bigger than we need - for the two of us - but maybe the smaller one is no more economical to run (nothing on the website to tell you how many Watts the smaller one is, only the Wattage of the larger one. Amazes me how companies think that info such as that only needs to be given for "some" product, rather than "all" to all punters to compare the factual data between models)

 

I have abandoned a planned purchase many times because of lack of such detail. I think the marketing sorts think that most people don't care, which might even be true, but seeing as in marketing terms, a 1% gain in market share is considered significant, you'd think they'd make sure they had it covered.

Best example was recently when I was researching what components are best value ready for my son's and my forthcoming robot project. I found a highly rated board that handles the necessary switching and isolation to take the lower power signals from the Raspberry PI, and makes them usable for controlling actual devices. No mention at all of max current flow or cooling requirements, which is absolutely fundamental detail required for such a thing. Imagine an electrician going to his supplier before rewiring your house, and his supplier says "here is some wire", to which the electrician asks "but can it carry 13 amps indefinitely without getting hot?", to which the supplier says "erm, here is some wire".

 

I think its because they are "arty" rather then "practical". I've noticed it more and more as computer projects I'm involved with have moved from IT departments, with folk trained in Computer Science, to Marketing departments where pixel-perfect is deemed critical, and trying to explain to them some complex detail about how the flow of checkout doesn't work and they just glaze over and don't care / are not able to care why it is important.

 

In a word - no.
I can get too much in a proper oven to be without it. And I cannot believe that it will cook neck of lamb, shin of beef etc any quicker (low and slow is the way to cook such cuts). I'm not tight, but if I see whole chickens reduced to a quid or so I buy three or four and cook them in one go (I detest the concept of factory reared chicken, but even worse is that choock being thrown in the bin at the end of that vile process) - not good roast chicken, but good enough to freeze and make pies, curry etc with.
Proper homemade pizza - needs a stone and air movement.
And the very nature of a gas oven means that it needs air movement in and out - free heat whilst it's in use.

Love my sandwich toaster! I wear them out.

Go gas.

I agree! I saw one on freegle and thought that if it was free I would try it and if it was any good buy a new one. Well, the one on freegle had never been out of the box and I'm converted totally. Not for rice though - soak basmati rice for 2/3/4 hours and it cooks in about four minutes on the hob and is not sticky.

I must 'fess up here and say that for eight months of the year I tend to use my wood burner instead of the oven about 50% of the time.