Oven

Today's lesson: Drying fruits or vegetables under the sun or in the oven.The best ones are harvested at their peak. The slow drying concentrates the fruit's already-superior flavor, while compacting its bulk. The resulting flavor is more intense and far richer, perfect for use now or to save for more robust dishes later.Drying takes advantage of extra-ripe fruit and the summer season's inexpensive prices. Concentrated flavors of dried produce can pick up the depth of just about any savory or sweet dish.

The trend is big kitchens full of bulked-up appliances that don't just store and cook food -- they overwhelm it with their size, strength and speed.Imagine a place where veggies are picked from a refrigerator as big as a barn door, then wokked for dinner over a blistering 27,500-Btu burner; a place where a laser oven roasts an entire chicken during the commercial break; a place where guests help themselves to perfectly chilled bottles of wine from a...

IT IS ONE thing to bake a little bread. It is another to live the baker's lifestyle. To do this, you must love heat. You should like night work. And you should be a fanatic about the texture and temperature of your bread dough.I concluded this after spending a floury evening with Pascal Zeimet, a baker for the eight la Madeleine restaurants in the Baltimore-Washington area. Zeimet has baked bread for 20 of his 36 years. He grew up in Marville, a small town in Northeast France. After working as a baker's apprentice, he bought his own bakery when he was 21.Then, acting on a dare from his brother-in-law, Zeimet took a job in America.

* Item: Chef's Omelets* What you get: 2 frozen omelets* Cost: About $2.70* Preparation time: 2 to 2 1/2 minutes in microwave, 25 minutes in oven, 29 minutes in toaster oven* Review: Eggs and the freezer have never paired well together. Although Chef's Omelets makes a valiant try, I think it's going to take more advanced technology to convince consumers otherwise. Microwaved, these omelets tend to be on the rubbery side. Baked in the oven (which defeats the convenience aspect), they don't fare much better.

CHICAGO -- Gale Gand recalls her favorite toy the way others speak of childhood's first bikes, pets and baseball gloves. Her early years were marked strictly BEB and AEB: Before Easy-Bake and After Easy-Bake.On Wednesday, she returns to the warmth of her childhood companion, the little oven that Gand unwrapped on her sixth Christmas. In the West Court of Chicago's cavernous Museum of Science and Industry, the award-winning pastry chef will light up her 100-watt-bulb-powered Easy-Bake and make magic for the crowd.

WASHINGTON, VA. -- I don't need much of an excuse to wangle a trip to the Inn at Little Washington, the celebrated Virginia restaurant regarded as one of the best in the United States. Recently I went there to check out the tony establishment's link to a Dundalk factory. In short, I pursued the local angle to feast on foie gras.The inn has put in a new oven. And the inn's oven, like its meals -- $88 per person on weeknights, wine extra -- is far beyond the ordinary. Instead of a big, black hunk of metal shoved up against the kitchen wall, the new oven is a gorgeous mixture of gleaming copper and shimmering porcelain that serves as the dramatic centerpiece for a new kitchen layout.

Drizzly skies and chilly temperatures are a great excuse to turn on the oven, warm up the house and cozy up to some succulent dishes made with the world's oldest cooking method -- roasting.The great thing about roasting is that it's easy. You throw ingredients in a pan, slide it into the oven, and stir only occasionally. It brings out the best in food, sealing in flavor, tenderness and juiciness.When roasting, use heavy metal roasting pans rather than light ones, which can warp at high heat.

Item: Betty Crocker Tuna HelperWhat you get: 5 servingsCost: about $1.80Preparation time: about 10 minutes on stove top, 16 to 18 minutes in microwave, 30 to 35 minutes in conventional ovenReview: I've never been a helper fan, but the sign said "improved," and the Creamy Pasta flavor looked like a quick version of the tuna casserole my 15-month-old loves. Results were mixed. The Creamy Pasta scored high even with the nontuna fan at lunch. The new Tuna Melt flavor was very cheesy, and the addition of chopped green onion and diced tomato complemented it. But the Creamy Broccoli was bland and offered no evidence of broccoli.

* Item: Ore Ida Oven Chips* What you get: 9 servings* Cost: About $2* Preparation time: 4 to 7 minutes broiled, 5 to 10 minutes fried, 12 to 22 minutes baked* Review: Just when you thought Ore Ida had run out of ways to cook potatoes, here come oven chips. Thicker than the average potato chip, but thinner than a steak fry, these potato rounds are coated with a light and crispy batter. You can bake, broil or fry them. I didn't bother to deep-fry, but I did toss a handful in a frying pan with some fish, and the fries cooked up relatively grease-free.

A moment of silence, please. Easy-Bake Oven is celebrating its 35th year. That makes the one I got in 1967 a collectible. It just makes me old.But not too old to forget that Easy-Bake of 30 years ago. It looked nothing like the family stove, a white behemoth that you lighted by gingerly sticking a match somewhere deep into its recesses and hoping for the best. (For years, the neighbors thought singed eyebrows ran in our family.)By contrast, the Easy-Bake used a light bulb. Efficient, yes, but a pale comparison to the drama offered by the exploding oven of my youth.

It was a misty morning, and Dale Dugan, baker for the four restaurants and one wine shop in Baltimore's Charleston group, said his bread was giving him a weather report. On days like this one, he said, when there is a lot of moisture in the air, the dough likes to spend a short time in the proofer. Moreover, the bread's "oven spring" its first rise in the oven, will be more ample. Additionally on humid days, you have to watch the crust. "If there is too much water in the air, you can get a hyper-exaggerated crust," he said.

If I have to look at one more oven, I'm going to ask the salesperson to turn it on so I can stick my head in it and end this misery. I'm pretty sure there was a time in America when consumers had only a mere 100 or so ovens to choose from. This was a nice, simple time when people could discover that their oven had broken, go out shopping the next day to select a new model, and have it delivered promptly the following afternoon. This was also back in the day when brand loyalty existed.

Bake Until Bubbly By Clifford A. Wright The Ski House Cookbook By Tina Anderson and Sarah Pinneo Clarkson Potter / 2007 / $30 If you spend weekends on the slopes and crave something quick yet home-cooked at the end of the day, these 125 recipes are for you. Many involve slow-cookers or minimal prep work, so you can spend the day on your skis instead of behind the stove. Though I hardly ever cook red meat, the photo for Chunky Beef Stew caught my attention. The braised meat heats in the oven for six hours as the vegetables roast in a separate pan, to be combined at the end so they don't get mushy.

My oven has convection-roast and convection-bake settings. I understand convection is a heat-circulating fan, but the roast vs. baking part confuses me. What difference does it make to the oven if I leave the lid off a meat pan? In food language, roast and bake really aren't different. Both are done in an open pan, usually in an oven. We refer to cooking meats and vegetables in an open pan as roasting, while cakes, cookies and pies are baked. But convection, which uses fans to circulate air, is a different beast.

A tagine (pronounced "tah-zheen") is a hallmark of Moroccan cooking. The slow-simmered stew mingles meats and vegetables with spices, such as cumin and cinnamon. This Moroccan Stew With Roasted Vegetables pairs chicken and prunes, an ancient combination that continues to offer good nutrition. Sometimes marketed as "dried plums," prunes are a quick source of energy and aid in the absorption of iron. A quarter cup of the fruit contains 317 milligrams of potassium, which promotes heart health.

Sometimes the best pizza joints are the ones you've never heard of. GT PIZZA ADDRESS / / 10 W. Seminary Ave., Lutherville PHONE / / 410-821-9090 HOURS / / 9:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily The crust lining the bottom of this undercooked pizza, $11.65, was too thin. As a result, each slice was far too flimsy, and the cheese and pepperoni tended to slide off easily. The pizza could have used a couple more minutes in the oven. sam.sessa@baltsun.com PIZZA TIPS Here are some tips for ordering and reheating your Super Bowl pizza: Some restaurant / carryouts such as Gil's Pizza on Belair Road offer half-baked pizzas.

As the days get darker, I get hungrier for potatoes. I am not sure why. Perhaps it has something to do with my diurnal rhythm. When the night is cold and scary, I tend to stay indoors and seek warm and comforting potatoes. Moreover, to cook potatoes you need a strong fire. A hot oven is a welcome companion when the sky turns to pitch at 5 p.m. and the north winds rattle the windows. It could be that my increased appetite for potatoes is linked to some instinct to burrow, to avoid the bitter outdoors by retreating deep into the familiarity of the kitchen and eating things grown underground.

Could you suggest the best methods to ensure that my cakes unmold without crumbling? I can offer a few suggestions: Get an oven thermometer. Most home ovens run as much as 50 degrees high or low. If the temperature is too high, the cake may overbake and get dry. Learn how to check for doneness. Doneness indicators vary by recipe (a cheescake shows different signs from a devil's food cake). But for most butter-based cakes, a toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean, the cake should pull away from the edges, and the top should spring back when you touch it lightly.

Kitchen Playdates By Lauren Bank Deen The Everything Kids' Gross Cookbook By Colleen Sell and Melinda Sell Frank Adams Media / 2007 / $7.95 How do you get kids to not only eat their veggies, but cook them, too? A side order of yuck. Appealing to the preteen who loves to get grossed out, this books sells a casserole of creamed corn and frozen mixed vegetables by calling it Puke au Gratin. Buttered spinach linguine becomes Gangrenous Intestines. As a grown-up, I'm too disgusted to read much more.

Don't worry if the rain washes away your grilling plans. This pork tenderloin recipe easily transfers to cooking indoors. Sear the meat in a hot skillet, then roast quickly in a hot oven to cook the meat through. Pork tenderloins are small enough for fast cooking. Of course, this recipe works very well on the grill. Bill Daley writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis. Curried Pork Tenderloins Makes 6 servings -- Total time: 36 minutes 2 pork tenderloins, about 1 pound each 3 tablespoons curry powder or a spice rub 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 lime wedge Heat oven to 375 degrees.