A crock pot, a fry pan and a counter top oven are really all a single guy needs along with a coffee maker if you are a lover of that brew. A bread machine can help with a taste change. That nice big fancy oven is great too, if you have friends and relatives over but while I was single, I had 2 kids in college plus a bunch of bills that my ex very kindly left me and the fact that the stove oven is an energy hog($$$) led me to use only small cookers that heated up quickly. I have a tendency to look at food labels as well as my son was (is?) allergic to artificial colors and flavors and years of doing that has me trained and my wife (current) has taken up the crusade as a well. But I'm not a fanatic - as can easily be seen by my dunlap