Healthy eating appliances
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Kitchen equipment | 23 comments
Photo: Brocolli and greenhouse
An email flew into my inbox this morning from Amazon. Its title puzzled me – “Healthy Eating Appliances” – what did that mean? Teeny weeny knife, fork and spoon sets so we can’t take big wolfish bites? A rowing machine that powers a small fan for cooling food the healthy way? Or could it be something much more basic such as a spade in these grow your own times.
Intrigued I opened the email and discovered that healthy eating appliances are things like slow cookers, juicers and the Coopers Halogen Oven. 
This is a tiny oven that cooks food up to 60% faster using less electricity than a conventional oven. And it’s just £39.99. Unlike a microwave it browns and roasts. It even cleans itself. Being the owner of a large electricity greedy fan oven I am very tempted to invest in one of these as we could save pounds on our electricity bills. Further investigation revealed that you need a set of accessories for your halogen oven
Have you tried one of these ovens? Do you reckon that they are worth the investment?
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Not used one of these but from an energy saving point of view the instructions ( http://www.coopersofstortford.co.uk/images/pdfs/ST07719i.pdf ) say it consumes 1200-1300 watts.
Our oven consumes 2100 or so watts according to our energy monitor, so it may save you 1kw/h or so.
Having said that, a kw of electricity is around 14p for us, so to offset the £40 cost of the cooker you’d have to run it for 286 hours instead of your oven to break even…
I can’t comment on the halogen ovens although I do know someone who has just been given one for Christmas as her kitchen is too small to fit an oven in and her dad said the Remoska she had requested was too expensive. I have a Remoska and after a slow start I now use it 2 or 3 times a week. It cooks amazing fish and meat dishes although I have not yet tried baking a cake. I made your beef skirt stew last week with excellent results. The Remoska doesn’t cook more quickly than an oven unlike the halogen versions. Great idea about sneaking a Remoska into a hotel room Suzie. I would never have thought of that!
My mum wanted one of these as she confesses to be the worst cook in the world of roasted meats, I read up about them about 4 months ago and there was a comparison article in one of the sunday supplements. I can’t remember names and brands but they all rated them very highly but the person doing the review advised to get one with a built in lid stand as the lids are heavy and hot and difficult to handle when checking the cooking ( wondering if that has relevance to an earlier post about the lid being broken) and so having a lid stand was a good idea.
They reviewed about 6 and the one with a lid stand was about £60 which was only £20 dearer than the cheapest model they tested. I have thought of getting one for my mum but for the time being she seems happy putting me off the subject as she can keep begging a roast sunday lunch at mine :S
We’ve just purchased an Excalibur food dehydrater at work and are hooked on this eating appliance! The best thing so far are kale chips…dehydrated with a bit of olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt…very addictive!
Hi – I read you very frequently, but haven’t felt qualified to respond until now. The Andrew James oven is a remarkable bit of kit, and well worth it if you either use your regular oven without filling it, or avoid using the oven because you can’t fill it. You do have to guestimate a bit until you get used to how it works, but I have found that the normal electric oven temperatures and about two thirds the suggested cooking time works for most things. I haven’t switched my regular oven on since I got my halogen.
I also have a Remoska (see the Lakeland web site) which is also good, thought the halogen is better because the Remoska has no temperature control – having said that, the last time I was working away from home, it did excellent work as part of a portable kitchen snuck into hotels so I could avoid the vegetarian-unfriendly hotel menu – the halogen might be just a bit too big for that, though I may be tempted to try next time I do a long hotel stint!
Sorry – typo, one of these plus a regular hob
K
Great post, and I will be following the comments with interest, as we considered giving up our oven and getting one of these a regular hob
K
My Mum has used one of these ovens for years and thinks its brilliant, you do need to spend time getting to know it. I’m a little scared of it and find the lid and fan thing on the top a bit heavey. But Mum does not have a real oven any more she cooks just for two.
This year at Christmas she cooked for 12, she bought a second Halogen oven! So I would encourage you to try I would love to read about your adventures with one.
Best Wishes
Helen
“Teeny weeny knife, fork and spoon sets so we can’t take big wolfish bites?”
lol – you reminded me of one of the many great bits from Ab Fab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tCQYkFlVec Inspired! 😀
Afraid I know nothing on Halogen Ovens though, I’d never heard of them until now either.
I used to have one and thought it was brilliant. Unfortunately, someone dropped the lid and so I only have the bowl now. BTW, that did sterling service as a wedding cake baking tin!
I haven’t bought another one because I moved away from where I bought it and hadn’t seen any advertised until now. I’m very, very tempted to buy another, as, apart from anything else, it’s portable and can be used for barbecues etc. as long as there’s a 13amp plug nearby!