Five reasons I love my convection toaster oven...

My husband told me that this week I'm on my own for food.  He is going to do his thing and I gotta do mine. This is when I realize that the convection toaster oven quickly enters my food prep game plan in a major way. Because really, I don't want to have to wash more than one or two prep dishes if I am cooking for myself.

We all know we don't love to do them no matter what lies your mom told you as a kid.

Our little counter top oven especially comes in handy when I don't want to use our circa 1984 original oven.  This thing is a dinosaur that we trust so little we bought a temperature gauge to go inside of it because it is always lying to us when that little light says it's ready to take on any task.  One could chide me for being an energy waster by just keeping it around and using it on occasion, but knowing that getting the kitchen redone is in our 5- (10-? 15-?) year plan, I just can't stomach dropping the bucks on it.

Back to why I love the counter top helper:

1. Semi-homemade. I cut up and toasted a corn tortilla in it last night, thus adding a little baggie of semi-homemade tortilla chips to my lunch.  A bit over done, but for a first go round, not bad at all.

Voila- corn chips that truly were baked!

2. EVOO.  I don't want to take the cover off the grill, and those asparagus spears taste just as lovely when done on the grill option with a spritz of EVOO and a shake of sea salt.

3. Easy. It can make meals for two, too! At least I manage to make it work- eggplant parmigiana, fresh from frozen stuffed clams, mini pizzas with campari tomatoes, basil and mozzarella.

4. Foil. I can line either the the teeny baking sheet or the grilling component with foil and clean-up is easy and recycle ready.

5. Unplug.  I unplug almost everything that it makes sense to unplug in the house so that we aren't electricity drainers.  Not that we are super green, but I do try to do what I can to make up for the rest of the stuff that is constantly humming away in our house. The hubby calls me nuts, but I get the electric bill first.

It really is a great convenience to have this little gadget in the house. Without it, some of our meals would have taken twice as long, thus leaving time for hunger fueled squabbles.  Don't get in the way of this girl when she's hungry.