In with the New

Well, my new oven finally made it here and it got installed last week. How do I like it? Well, it's new, and therefore different than the old oven - so that's one strike against it.

I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but because my oven space is so tiny, I had to special order a tiny wall oven. Apparently, nobody stocks them. I bought this one because it most closely matched the dimensions of my old oven. Or so I thought.

While the inside dimension measures slightly deeper than that of my old tiny oven, this oven is made so that the racks don't slide all the way back to the back wall of the oven. Because of this, I loose about an inch and a quarter of depth. That may not sound like a lot, but in an already tiny oven, it makes a big difference. I find no mention of this in the literature.

This also means that a couple of my old pans won't fit - unless I want to prop them up on top of the rib at the back of the rack (making them sit about a quarter of an inch higher in the back than in the front). Not ideal.

So, that's two strikes against it.

Sam and I tested it out last weekend. First, we baked our usual three-loaves-at-a-time bread - in this case, Sam's favorite cinnamon bread. I was happy to find that we could still fit three-loaves-at-a-time in the oven. I was less happy to find that I couldn't fit the loaves in neatly, side by side, like I used to.

Instead, I had to put two loaves side by side and one loaf in perpendicular to the others. Why does this matter? Other than the fact that it's different, I guess it doesn't matter at all. Except it does. It bothered me then and it bothers me now as I'm typing this.

After the bread, Sam and I made our giant, baked apple pancake. The traditional baked apple pancake comes out thin and delicate (by comparison), but because we use our secret recipe (secret = a lot more of everything), it barely fits into a giant baking pan. And the pan, as you can see, barely fits into the tiny oven.

In fairness, this pan barely fit into our previous tiny oven. When I baked apple pancake in our previous tiny oven, I turned it so the pan went front to back. I could have done the same thing here, but I didn't. Mostly out of spite.

Next up will be a turkey. I like turkey, but that's not why I bought it. I bought it because a) it was on sale and b) cooking a turkey in my tiny oven is probably the biggest stress test I can put it through (the oven that is, not the turkey - though, maybe the turkey, too. And me.).

I already know my favorite roasting pan won't fit in this oven- unless I rest it on the back bar of the rack. I have a slightly smaller pan I can use - if I'm willing to accept defeat. I haven't decided yet.

And I'm a little worried that these new oven racks aren't as strong as my old racks were, and I'm afraid that there's a possibility that this turkey may come crashing down onto the bottom heat element, collapsing like some cheaply-built tenement building during an earthquake.

This is why I bought the turkey now, rather than later. Will the racks even hold this thing - or will I be frantically hacking the turkey apart and shoving random turkey parts into my oven? If I does fit in the oven, how long is it going to take to cook this thing? How big of a disaster is this going to be?

These are all important questions and I think that I'd rather find out the answers now, rather than wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas. There's a real possibility that this might be a disaster - for either the turkey or me ... or both. I think there's a better than average chance that one of us could end up on the kitchen floor and I would prefer that it not happen in front of a houseful of hungry guests - especially since those "guests" would be my kids. I'm not comfortable with the idea of my kids seeing me lying on the kitchen floor, sobbing - next to a turkey, or otherwise.

Anyway, that's coming up.