Cooking: Stovetop and Oven

Whether you love to cook fancy dinners or just need to heat up a quick bowl of soup, using a stove top and oven with confidence means you have lots of options for preparing your meals.

Losing vision can sometimes mean losing that confidence. Stove tops and ovens can be a hazard and no one wants to get burned or cause an accident, but if you want to stay safe and still use your stove top and oven, there are time-tested techniques for cooking your meals that don't require you to use your vision. Using these techniques means you'll stay independent in the kitchen and have all the cooking options you're used to.

First, let's talk about the stove top. If you're an experienced cook, you're already familiar with your stove top layout. If you're using a new stove top or haven't done much cooking before now, take some time to learn the location of the burners and controls.

You can do this by feel, just remember to check to make sure the burners are off before touching them. It's easy to do this by lining up to the edge of the stove top and holding your arm out over the burners at about shoulder height, lower your arm bit by bit and move it back and forth to feel if any heat is rising from the stove top. If not, the burners are off and they're safe to touch. When you're sure about the location and size of your burners, you can start cooking.

When you have vision loss, there are two main stove top safety concerns. Making sure your pan is centered on the burner and once it is, making sure that it stays there. The easiest and surest way to center your pan on the burner is to place it there when the burner is still off. That way you can feel around the edge of the pan and burner until exactly when it's in the right place. Then you're ready to turn the burner on and start cooking.

Remember to turn the burner off before you remove the pan when your food is done. To keep pans from being knocked around and maybe even pushed off the burner, turn all your pan handles so they point toward the side edge of the stove top their nearest too. If your pan handles are pointed toward the front, they might be in the way when you're cooking. If a pan does move a bit and it's hot, use a wooden spoon to get it centered. With the spoon handle up right, move it all the way around the pan edge, keeping contact with the pan and the stove top surface. With some practice, you'll be able to use this trick to line your pan back up where it's supposed to be.

There's one type of stove top that's more difficult to use. That's a stove top with a smooth ceramic or glass surface. It's much harder to feel when your pan is centered and harder to tell if it slides off center. There's no easy fix for this. Your best bet is to use a measuring stick or ruler. With the burner off, measure to the center of the burner from the side and front edges of the stove. Use those measurements to line up the center of your pan on the burner. But once the pan and burner are hot, it won't be safe to redo this if the pan is moved. And finally, safety around the stove top is always easier with good lighting.

Remember, it's best to have bright light shining only on the job you're doing, not in your eyes. So double check your lighting. If you have strong focus light illuminating your stove top, and that light is not shining in your eyes and creating glare, you are all set.

Now let's talk about oven safety. Here's some basic rules to follow that will keep you from being burned. Let the oven racks do your work for you. You don't have to reach all the way inside your oven to put in or take out your food. Instead, pull the rack halfway out of the hot oven. Put your pan or dish on the rack and then push the rack in. Reverse this process when you take your food out. Now you're not reaching into a hot, dark space. Stand to the side of the oven if you can, not in front.

Most oven doors open out and down, when you stand at the front, you have to lean way over to stay clear of the door. If you can stand to the side and use your oven rack, you'll be well clear of the hot oven door and you won't be leaning over as far to get the job done. Use oven mitts, hot pads are fine for some jobs, but they don't protect the back of your hands, your wrists and lower arms. Oven mitts do and it's easy to get a tight grip on pans with mitts. There are even oven mitts available that are extra long so you're entire lower arm is protected from burns. The resource list with this workshop has information on where to buy them.

Plan ahead, when you're holding a hot cake pan is not the time to figure out where you're going to put it on the counter. Set up a spot that can handle high heat and is close by your oven. That way the transfer is quick and easy. Now it's possible to have some questions about setting the temperature of your oven and also adjusting the heat on your stove top burners.

Hadley has a workshop on these and other topics called labels you can touch. It covers ways to label your appliances with marks you can feel, so you can set them without relying on your vision. Gourmet chefs and casual cooks all know that kitchen safety is the key to cooking with success.

Losing vision doesn't mean you have to lose the confidence that comes with knowing your stove top and oven are safe to use. Start with the techniques in this workshop and you'll be well on your way to independence in the kitchen.