I Stopped Using My Full-Size Oven Six Months Ago and I Do Not Miss It

My apartment oven had one setting, and that setting was "punishing." I'd flip it on, wait close to twenty minutes for it to reach 375 degrees, and by the time dinner was ready the whole place felt like a laundromat in July. My kitchen is maybe eight feet across. I have one window that faces a brick wall. Turning on the oven in summer was basically choosing to be miserable.

For a while I just stopped cooking, long before a little BLACK+DECKER toaster oven changed how that tiny kitchen worked. Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Delivery three nights a week. A lot of cereal. I kept telling myself I'd figure out a better setup, and then I'd open the oven door, feel that blast of heat roll out, and close it again and order a burrito.

The thing that changed it was my neighbor down the hall, a woman named Tricia who has a kitchen about the same size as mine. She knocked on my door one night to borrow a lemon and I noticed her counter. She had a compact toaster oven, and whatever was inside it smelled unbelievably good. Salmon. She was roasting salmon in twelve minutes while I was debating delivery fees.

I asked her about it right there in the doorway. She said she'd had the BLACK+DECKER TO1313SBD for almost a year and had basically stopped using her oven too. No preheat drama, no sweltering kitchen, and the thing sat on 15 inches of counter space. She told me what she paid for it and I thought she was joking. That's it? I ordered one that night.

No preheat drama, no sweltering kitchen, and the thing sat on 15 inches of counter space.

When the BLACK+DECKER TO1313SBD arrived I half expected to feel like I was downgrading. It looked small in the box. I set it on the counter where my toaster used to live and it fit perfectly, with room to spare. I washed the rack, set the temperature dial to 400, and it was ready in about six minutes. Six minutes. My apartment oven had not hit 400 in under eighteen in the three years I'd lived there.

I made roasted vegetables that first night. Broccoli and sweet potato, olive oil, a little salt. They came out with actual crisp edges, the kind you usually only get from a restaurant or a sheet pan in a real oven that someone else has to clean. I stood in my kitchen at 7 PM and ate dinner I had made myself and it was good. That sounds small but it had been a while.

Over the next few weeks I worked through the rest of what it could do. Toast, obviously, which is faster and more even than the two-slot toaster it replaced. Reheating leftovers without the sog you get from a microwave. Frozen foods that actually come out crisp instead of limp. I made a small frittata in a ramekin. I reheated pizza and it tasted like actual pizza instead of cardboard. I even did a small batch of roasted chicken thighs for meal prep and they were properly cooked all the way through, skin browned, no pink.

Is it a perfect machine? No. The rack that comes with it feels a little thin, and I grabbed a small silicone oven mitt because the door handle gets warm during a long bake. It does not have a convection fan, so air circulation is not as aggressive as a fancier unit. If you are cooking for four people or making a full-size lasagna, this is not your oven. It is sized for one or two people cooking real food without the drama.

But here is what I keep coming back to: my apartment is cooler. My electricity bill is lower, because I am not running a large oven for twenty minutes before I even start cooking. I am eating actual meals instead of ordering out four times a week. The machine cost me less than two months of the delivery fees I was racking up.

What I Would Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you have a small kitchen and you use your full-size oven begrudgingly, or you avoid it in summer because the heat is just not worth it, get a compact toaster oven. Not some fancy air-fryer-convection-bake-broil combo that costs $200 and takes up half the counter. Just a solid, straightforward toaster oven that preheats fast, bakes evenly enough for real food, and fits where you actually have room for it.

The BLACK+DECKER TO1313SBD is what I have, and it has not let me down once in six months. It is simple to use, simple to clean, and it does exactly what it says. It is not glamorous. It does not have a digital display or wifi or a rotisserie attachment. It has dials, a rack, and a baking pan, and it cooks food in a small space without turning your apartment into an inferno.

The best appliance is the one that makes cooking feel less like a chore and more like something worth doing. This one did that for me. I think it will do the same for you.