HU- and suburbanguy, what brand of ovens do you have? Also are they gas or electric? I’m guessing electric. HU, can you use nonconvection modes in your oven? Convection can be uneven depending on how the manufacture designs the oven. “Eveness” is way oversold. If you have a fan and especially if it has a third element, it sets up an air current that dries and browns one side of what you are baking/roasting. Many companies use baffles, dual fans or reversing fans to deal with this. Some ovens have a slower fan with the conv bake mode. This gives you more control over the browning. I love convection but just use it part of the time when I want something to brown more. I agree the hidden bake element is horrible. You lose a lot of radiant heat. Bad for pies but the hidden element is just the way they make ovens. Very few have the open element. I would get a thermometer and check how far off the temperature is. Also read the manual as some have an auto correct for convection modes that turns the temperature down by 25°F. Sometimes this can be turned off. Make sure the oven has preheated for 30 min before baking. Convection should make things cook faster because they accelerate heat transfer unless you have the auto correct. Also some ovens once they are preheated do not have a way to bring temperatures up quickly if you open the door. This is really bad. It is really just poor design on the oven not the convection. I had a Dacor oven that did this. If you were baking cookies or appetizers and had to open the door, the temperature drifted down. It had to drop 150°F before the preheat would come back on. It would just oscillate the element on and off to maintain otherwise. Capital electric oven was like this and Wolf is but only has to drop about 50°F to come back on. Wolf can be turned off and on and it seems to make the preheat back on. If you just turn up the temp, it takes forever to move up 25°F. __________ Suburbanguy, Not all ovens are like that. That is the problem. It is very hard to figure out what the different ovens actually do. Sometimes reading the manual, before you buy helps and sometimes it doesn’t. You have two or more fans in your oven. One type is the convection fans but the other is the cooking fans for the computer boards that run your oven. Not a good thing to disconnect those. Many ovens do have a rapid preheat so that your oven preheats in 7-8 min. It does need to continue to preheat for 30 min to fully heat the bulk of the oven for baking.

Some thoughts... Cooking for yourself can be boring and almost painful. Ideally get a roommate (or gf or other) who loves to cook or for whom you'd like to cook, if that's an option. Cooking for one can be expensive, but sometimes better than eating same boring fast food too. I enjoy a good sandwich to this day. Some deli meat, decent bread or bun or even some whack-a-tube biscuits. Flame type grills are banned in a lot of apartment/dorm situations. An electric grill might be allowed. Foreman type are appliances and seldom not allowed. I've never had a Foreman type but see a lot of people talk about putting a couple wet paper towels in the unit when you're done and let it steam the gunk off while you eat, then wipe it down. And, I know from experience, just because stuff is dirty doesn't mean it won't get used! Especially by college kids, bachelors or the like! :) An electric frypan is a versatile appliance. Cook, bake, steam and more. Easy to clean up. Is there an issue with roomies helping themselves to the food if he puts up a "stock"? That could be an issue. Much depends on what he likes so I can't really help with recipes, more trying to give ideas. I also know if you don't like to cook, are busy, don't like to eat out, don't feel well or whatever reason you might not eat well, especially if eating isn't a priority with you. The last couple weeks, I've averaged eating every 2-3 days. Doesn't hurt me to miss a meal but a college kid needs nutrition too. So there's a concern I'm sure. One organizing idea is some meal planning help. Sit down and do a menu for a couple weeks, helps with using the stuff too. For example: Sunday: Pot roast, potatoes, veg of choice Monday: Roast beef sandwiches Tuesday: Soup/Salad Wed: Store bought roasted Chicken, instant Mashed potatoes, salad Thurs: Leftover chicken etc One thing I thought of is country style ribs or baby backs for that matter. Braised are simple and good eating. Lots of meat and little waste, well no waste on CS. Deli slaw or make his own from a bag of slaw mix and a bottle of poppy seed dressing with a little extra seasoning. Suggestions on organizing and things like that might mean more than just some recipes, but a few recipes he likes, even if adapted from canned, deli or the like could help. Tater tot hotdish is easy enough. Quick chili. Chunky soup in a can ain't all that bad either folks. Yes, it's not gourmet fare but then again it beats a a McSlider anyday. Quesadillas are easy and you can do a variety of things. I like a "pizadilla". Tortillas, pepperoni, cut up brown & serve sausage, pizza sauce and cheese. I usually do a double decker. Into the electric frypan, do one side, flip, then add the next layer, then flip once more. Good eats and quick. There's always toast and peanut butter. Peanut butter and celery sticks. Crackers, cheese and summer sausage. Brown & serve sausage & eggs with some toast and maybe some Simply Potatoes or fry some canned sliced potatoes. Hash brown casserole? Toss in some meat. Hamburger/macaroni hotdish is easy and tasty. You can do a good garlic bread and top it with some pepperoni and cheese. None of these are overly time consuming but sometimes if you just don't feel like it, you won't do it. Hope you're getting some ideas and hope he doesn't starve to death! :)

No 100 for this WFD is my post about matcha. ( green tea powder) Do I like it ? Meh it's alright but not terribly impressed. I tried it as a tea made with hot milk. Then because I could detect a faint seaweed smell, I next made pancakes with smoked salmon which were nice but so were DH's non matcha ones according to him. He didn't want matcha after smelling it. There is still some left so I will gradually use it but I wouldn't go out of my way ( ( which I already did) to purchase it again. Jasdip, the strawberries are tiny in real life so it didn't occur to me that they looked like lychee but I can see where you are coming from in the photo.

Thank-you! I've been chafing at the imperfections in my ability to read Spanish (it used to be much better)--especially considering your English is impeccable-- but I like your way of looking at it better. It's the scanning in Spanish that I just can't do, though. Never could. Where you look at a whole paragraph and know what it's about, and your eye picks out the word or two about what you're looking for. I actually have to read all the words in Spanish. :) I don't know if the power difference has any real effect on performance. The BGH "max power" may just be what's needed to run both the top heating element and the grill at the same time (which is another difference from the Franke). I don't know if those modes would help pizza, but I'd guess that's the kind of thing it was really meant for. I doubt max power is used that often by any oven. Probably in a pre-heat mode where all elements are on to make the oven heat more rapidly than just using the ones you want to cook with. But I don't know that for sure. A consideration in buying any appliance is service. Ovens sometimes need to be calibrated, or a part may fail. A Chinese oven from an established local company which services and stands by it (for instance, will replace it if the unit is a "lemon"--just no good), if they actually do that, might trump a respected European oven which is sold though by the store, but they just give you the box and expect you to deal with any issues yourself. The same goes for outside sources for service. Here, some major independent appliance stores have their own service departments and have excellent techs. There are also companies in the city that specialize in one brand, such as Gaggenau or Whirlpool, and some other independents that work on the "big box store" brands such as Samsung, LG, and Panasonic, and will do any general service and repair, but don't stock the parts, which makes for a wait. Some of the big makers also have their own techs, or have certified techs at a local independent to do warranty work. It never hurts to find out who can and will do the work both during the warranty period and after. There should be a one year warranty on either. Factory testing can't find all faults, and sometimes something comes loose or breaks in shipping. The warranty should start on the day of installation. It's important to check that, because if it starts on the date of sale, but the unit is installed months later, you lose a big chunk of warranty. If the maker is giving a big extension on the warranty without added value, that's a red flag. Miele gives an extra year of warranty if you use their installers, presumably because they were getting too many warranty calls for issues caused by poor installation. But, another company might give a five year warranty, where one or two years is the norm, because they're known to have build issues. The five year warranty says, "Don't worry. We've got you covered. Buy ours anyway and we'll fix the faults." At a certain point, analysis goes out the window. After you've figured out all the features, the service, the reviews, etc., and there aren't any deal killers with either, perhaps it's the one with the nicer dials or racks that you end up preferring, or the one that matches the fridge. If you can see them in person and touch the doors and racks and knobs, you might feel which one you like better.