What to cook in the oven?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by landsend

Seems to me the oven would use up more propane/energy.We use a toaster oven on board or convection microwave. Much faster faster.Thoughts?

I'm sure that would work, if your boat's electrical system can manage the power required. Propane is energy-dense, and it's easy to carry a lot in a small volume. But it isn't renewable underway the way electricity is, so if you've got a large enough battery bank, with an equally large passive charging capacity, then going electric for most things makes sense.

I don't think this works for most modest monohulls, but perhaps on larger vessels, and especially cats, maybe...

In my case, my boat oven isn't a lot bigger than a standard toaster oven; perhaps 1.5x the size. So it's pretty easy to heat up, and it doesn't use a lot of propane.

[landsend]

Of course. For some reason I pictured the same large oven in my house on peoples boats!
We use the genny for cooking with toaster oven or micro. A baked potato takes 9 minutes in micro and comes out great!

[EmeraldCoastSailor]

Frozen lasagna is my most common oven meal.

[nuku34]

Nobody mentioned baking BREAD. Is that just too "old school"?

[Homeward sailor]

I too was hesitant about using the oven being a newer weekender sailer and I couldn’t find any directions on it's use. Eventually I was able to Google how to use it and the only other thing I needed to do was to get smaller sized baking pans. Make sure you measure your casserole dish or other baking pans so that they fit a smaller oven, ours is a lovely Force 10, and you should be good to go with all of the great suggestions above!

[Centreboard2017]

Try a tray bake, fairly foolproof, easy to do and very tasty. You can do as big a bake as your oven will allow and have some to reheat which is always a winner. Sausage and beans works well, or a pasta bake. Loads of great recipies out there, I sometimes just shove what I have in the fridge/tins in to see what happens.

[Winf]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

How do you use an oven on land? That's your answer for how to use your oven on board.

We use the oven like we do as if on land. We bake chickens, fish, pork, pasta dishes, casseroles. We make pizzas, and other 'melts.' We roast veggies, potatoes squash, etc. We back cookies, granola-type snacks, kale chips, and a host of other snacks.

But seriously... bread is very easy. It's one of the easier things to make, and it's actually pretty hard to completely screw up. Give it a try. You'll be pleasantly surprised. I usually bake bread weekly. Even in my small oven, I can do three smaller loafs.

This.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by landsend

Of course. For some reason I pictured the same large oven in my house on peoples boats!
We use the genny for cooking with toaster oven or micro. A baked potato takes 9 minutes in micro and comes out great!

But this means you burn diesel to run your electrical appliances. I'm sure that works great, but I doubt it is more efficient overall than just burning propane directly. But if you're running the genny anyway, then it probably doesn't make much difference.

Originally Posted by nuku34

Nobody mentioned baking BREAD. Is that just too "old school"?

I did... in my first post.

[CatNewBee]

We use the electric oven excessively for bread baking and cooking. Runs on LFP batteries, invetter and solar.

[KP44]

As someone else said; How often do you use an oven on land?

If you use a microwave for "baked" potatoes, use a barbeque grill for pizza, and pan fry or grill chops and fish; you might have little need for an oven.

I use my galley oven for occasional biscuits, baked potatoes, and roasted vegetables or meats. The oven gets very little use compared to the stovetop.

On my boat, it is the microwave and grill that go unused. We took the microwave off the boat a couple years ago.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by landsend

Seems to me the oven would use up more propane/energy.We use a toaster oven on board or convection microwave. Much faster faster.Thoughts?

Those are great if you have shore power. Or some people use an insta-pot. There's some overlap in what you can do.


I don't think that, overall, there's much difference in gas usage between cooking a typical oven-oriented meal in the oven and cooking the same or a similar meal on the stovetop. In reality there's a lot of wasted heat either way. But the amount of propane involved is small. Most cruisers use 10 pounds a month -- a pound or two either way doesn't matter much.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by EmeraldCoastSailor

Frozen lasagna is my most common oven meal.

OMG , one of those things a year is about the height of it.

I do a nice stuffed cannelloni , ( ground beef , peppers paprika a bit of grated cheese , onion etc ) and make a béchamel sauce and cover with grated Parmesan , bake in oven. !!!

[vpbarkley]

The real use of an oven on a boat is to protect electronics during lightning storms!

[Apollo366]

I'll say that Joy of Cooking is the best cook book I've ever used!

It has been my source of all things cooking since 1978 and I still have that version with all its' food stains & turned down pages for finding favorite recipes.
If you're new to cooking it should be your standard cook book, others are more specific to certain recipes or styles such as Cooking Under Pressure for using a pressure cooker.
My first boat with a stove was top burners only, I now have a wonderful Force 10 with an over, roasting fresh caught fish is awesome, baking bread & muffins are easy too.

As others have noted, there are a great many dishes that can be cooked in the oven, give it a try & you'll be delighted how easy it is to use an oven under way or at anchor.

In actual use I've used 20 lbs of propane in 3+ months, I now carry 2 FG propane bottles of 17 lbs each.

Fair Winds & Smooth Seas
Apollo Wayne

[landsend]

Originally Posted by EmeraldCoastSailor

Frozen lasagna is my most common oven meal.

Our go to meal while on the hook.
Also premaid spaghetti with meaty red sauce. Three minutes in micro to heat up.