Ode to my oven

Before we moved to Japan, I tried to come to terms that I would most likely not have an oven for the duration of our time here.  As someone who loves to cook, this was really hard.  I was going to miss whipping up batches of cookies with my son.  I wouldn't be able to make roasted veggies on a cold day.  My family could forget eating baked chicken and salmon.  Casseroles, lasagnas, and braised meats would be a thing of the past.  I knew there wouldn't be a chance to dehydrate fruit and veggies (like I did before I had a dehydrator).  When moving to a new country, there are a lot of changes and this was one I reluctantly agreed to when I agreed to move. 

But a couple of weeks ago, my husband bought me an oven.  (Read more here.)  This futuristic oven is incredibly advanced.  On the most basic level, it is an oven, steamer, and microwave all in one.  As you learn more, there are crisping features and soft steaming and heating to a desired temperature.  There are actually 41 different functions.  What???  Seriously???  Yes.

When I tried to find an English version of the owner's manual online, I only found the following feedback: This model is only available in Japan and does not have an English manual available.  Well, great.  Now what?  Now my husband stepped in and walked me through the manual.  Page by page, he told me what it said and how to operate it.  I scribbled notes on each page so I could use it when he wasn't at home.  It took us over an hour to go through each function.

A couple amazing features:

• Auto Bake - Put various items on the baking sheet and hit start.  The oven scans the items and determines the temp and duration.
• Auto Defrost - Tell the oven if you want partial defrost or total defrost.
• Heat to a Desired Temperature - Specify how hot you want something from 90*c to -10*c.  Why -10?  To soften ice cream!
• Crisp Finish Microwave - Uses steam to refresh that crispy outside on deep fried items.
• Moist Finish Microwave - Uses steam to ensure items do not dry out while reheating.  Hum bow anyone?
• Sanitizing - Put your baby bottles and other items to be steam sanitized.  Where was this when I was pumping?

Since walking through the manual, I've used the oven daily.  The first night I made pork steaks, mushrooms, asparagus, onions, and kabocha (winter squash).  I tossed the veggies with a small amount of oil, salt, and pepper; and spread some miso on the pork.  I then put it in the oven and hit "Oven" and "Start."  20 minutes later, everything was done.  Perfectly.  No flipping, nothing.  I honestly couldn't believe it.

The next two nights, I roasted veggies - eggplant, more squash, and daikon (long radish). I even tossed some chicken meatballs in there with the veggies on one of those experiments.  Everything has turned out just right. 

Once our dishes arrive from the US (we're eating on paper plates right now and I'm getting really creative with how to cook dinner without many tools), I'm going to get creative and play, play, play!