If the oven has a timer than technically no problem.. If there is a fire or food burning, no one is home..

Myself, I would err on the safer side..

Do you rent your apartment?

A pizza stone in the oven can smooth out temperature changes. It'll take longer to heat up, but also longer to cool down.

If you are going to heat the oven to temperature, then turn it off while you are gone and let food continue to cook, this may improve the results. It can also provide improved consistency for regular cooking.

I'm leaning towards cooking it before leaving, and leaving it in the oven to stay warm, but with the oven off. I'm just too nervous about leaving it on while I'm not here, since we have 2 kibblers.

Kipper: what are you cooking? I've seen recipes for rib roasts that start with the oven at a high temp for a certain amount of time, depending on the size of the roast, then without opening the oven (this is KEY!), you turn the oven off, and leave the roast to sit in the oven for another specified period of time to allow it to cook all the way through.

This might work for you.

I was actually going to prepare pastitsio, figuring that since I'll have quite a bit of prep time before he gets home, it would just need to bake while waiting for him.

The children is travelling with you obviously.. so the concern is if there is a roof over their head when coming back home?

It tooke us 3 years and 3 months to build our home.. so, I may be more conservative than others on this board when it comes to leaving appliances on when stepping out..

Do you turn your furnace off when you leave? In Calgary that could mean broken water pipes in no time in the winter. How about your water heater? Refrigerator? All of them are as safe as your oven.

We're talking about kitchen appliances and leaving appliances on cooking when leaving..

Actually, we were talking about a particular kitchen appliance - an oven. No more unsafe to leave unattended than the other items I mentioned. The manufacturers purposely provide start-stop timers on ovens to operate before you get home. If this was unsafe, they wouldn't continue to do that. Read your owners manual, if you have a modern oven.:)

I've never really worried tbh. Perhaps because in used to Agas etc that are permanently left on. I grew up in a house where the Sunday roast was almost always cooking in a gas oven while we went to church. Now, my electric oven has a self cleaning mode where is safely incinerates any food gunk on the inside at super hot temperatures for hours, so I don't worry about a moderate temperature for a while.

Yesterday after being out for a couple hours, I came home to a basement covered in a thin layer of water. One of the internal fittings on the water heater had corroded and was slowly leaking water. There was no water anywhere in the morning, everything was fine.

I'm not saying people should shut stuff off like the furnace and water heater and porch lights when they are not home, but at the same time don't believe that there is no danger at all with every single appliance and fixture in the house that runs, be you home or not.

Had we been boarding a plane to go away for a week instead of driving to the grocery store and back, instead of small puddle slowly moving across the floor the damage could have been significantly worse.

The new water heater will be going into catch pan because down the road it may happen again, with a hose running to the drain.

The stuff like the oven, I don't like leaving on, because everything is not as safe as people believe, things happen from time to time. I do know the odds of something happening to an oven are very slim, when it's turned off it's closer to none.

...and that's what homeowner's insurance is for, because we can't anticipate everything.

(on the other hand, it's also why it's a bad idea to store critical family documents in the house's floodplain.)

No, the kibblers will be staying home while I run to the airport to pick up Mr. Kipper. The airport isn't pet-friendly really, and Mr. Kipper and I have a tradition that I meet him right at the end of security when he comes back, so I can't bring the kibblers. Besides, one would pull me into the secure area as soon as she saw her daddy, and that wouldn't be good. :D

Silly me, thinking it's better not to burn your house down because something went wrong with the oven than to let it burn down and just file an insurance claim.

Guys, I'm not trying to get into a discussion about insurance and such, just whether or not I should be ok in leaving the oven on while I'm not home.

I think I'm going to cook it prior to his arrival, and will leave it in the oven, with the oven off. I'll plan it so that I can turn the oven off shortly before leaving, figuring that in the worst case scenario, we'll have to reheat it when we return. Best case scenario, it's still warm.

I guess the other option would be to do the prep work that evening, and toss it in the fridge for the night, and then bake it the next day. I may give that some serious consideration as well.