Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Preheating Quickly

Tammy wrote a post a while ago about saving energy while preheating your oven. When I came to the part about it taking five minutes for her oven to get to 350 degrees, I thought "lucky her!" Mine takes around ten minutes. So often, I don't bother to preheat, I just turn the oven on when it's time to put the food in and call it good. Occasionally I need to add a few minutes to the cooking time, but it works out.

Sometimes, though, I need the oven to be hot when I put food in. That's when I use my broil function to preheat! I found that it can get up to 350 degrees in just a few minutes that way. Of course, I don't recommend you do that with a pan in the oven unless it is a broiler safe pan - I don't have my pizza stone in there while it's on broil, for example. My stoneware was not expensive, so I fear they'd crack at high temperatures.

For more kitchen tips, visit Tammy's Recipes.

4 comments:

annies home said...

such a great tip since I am like you and my oven takes a bit to preheat as well

Valerie @ Inner Child Fun said...

I do the exact same thing! When I bake, that is..... which .... isn't very frequent!!

Please note: 250 degrees for 30 minutes is NOT the same as 500 degrees for 15 minutes.

Not that I ever tried that... or anything... I'm ummm... I'm just sayin'. ;-)

Lenetta said...

Ah, Valerie, as a math geek, I'm highly amused. You crack me up!

Kim said...

Using the broiler to preheat quickly - great idea, Lenetta! I hadn't thought of that one. I also often put the food in before the oven is ready. Some things aren't that critical in timing them, so why waste the heat?