Electric Table Top Roaster: Too Valuable and Too Cheap to Pass Up

Our oven , already way-ancient, "gave up the ghost" just as we were arriving at our home in NY state to ready for Thanksgiving supper that we were hosting several days hence. Fortunately, before leaving our home in Florida and having realized that the oven might likely be inoperable for Thanksgiving, we spotted an electric, table-top roaster on sale at a fabulous price, 29 bucks. We scarfed it up and stored in the car's roof-top carrier for the trip north.

The roaster saved the day and we swear by them now. We popped it out of the box, bought the turkey, brined it, and away we went to a fine Thanksgiving meal. I over-estimated the cooking time, but was able to nurse the bird along and it came out moist and tasty.

Due to another miscalculation (all part of the joy of collaborative holiday cooking), we ended up with a second turkey that had been purchased too close to Thanksgiving to defrost adequately (shhhhh!). Fortunately, I never tire of turkey so we cooked the second turkey several days later and it too came out beautifully. The 20 pound bird took about 3 hours to cook. We did not brine it and it came out of the roaster quite moist and delicious. All is well that ends well.

The beauty of this device is that for a small amount of money, you essentially end up with a second oven freeing the main oven for other dishes or, our case, saving the day by being a prime baking vessel. The roaster has other uses: a steam table to serve from; large soup cooker, etc.. This week we are roasting a tenderized ham in it for seven hours and I expect (hope) that it will come out savory and falling off the bone.

I thought I had everything, but this is a device you should buy. It is too valuable and too cheap to pass up.