I often think I should move somewhere where the weather doesn’t dip and spike. A nice even climate is what I crave; 40’s in the evenings and highs in the upper 70’s to low 80’s sounds perfect to me. A heat index of 105 does not make me a happy camper at all. I only wish that when I was done sweating my butt off, my butt would actually be smaller.
I woke up a couple of weeks ago to discover that my oven had quit working. Apparently it knew something about the coming weather that I didn’t and seemed to say, “you won’t miss me for awhile” and stopped heating. Fine. That worked for me, except I still had to feed this crew and I am not a master of the barbecue grill. The next logical solution was my stove top and that seemed to work for about a week or two until one afternoon the outlet where the stove is plugged into stopped working too. We’ve had problems with this outlet before so I hope between the oven and stove my husband isn’t too overwhelmed and frustrated with the job of fixing them.
Still that leaves me without an oven and a stove… Fine. Microwave cooking it is and cold dinners (and take out). I simply couldn’t keep feeding everyone in the house fast food or go out to eat. I was running low on dinner ideas when my daughter reminded me that we have a rather big George Foreman Toaster Oven in our front hall. It has been on my list of things to send to Goodwill and I had put it in the front hall where all of our other Goodwill items collect until it’s time to make the trip.
There’s nothing wrong with the toaster oven; it works well but I wasn’t getting the use out of it that I thought I would when I got it from a friend. After months of it sitting next to my stove, I decided it was time to pack it away and give myself back some much needed counter space. Until last month when my cooking appliance revolted.
Since then the toaster oven has become my new best friend. I’ve been scouring the internet for recipe ideas (even breakfast) and remembering why I had wanted it so badly in the first place; it saves my kitchen from becoming a large oven. As hot as my house has been lately with no central air (another item on the to fix list), the last thing I have wanted to do was heat it up more. Granted it’s a little difficult to cook for six people in the toaster oven but I’m working on it. Casseroles, muffins, brownies, cookies all work well in the toaster oven. Quesadillas and biscuits are easy to do as well. If anything we’re learning portion control this summer and how not to eat too much. Heh.
Right now I’m running an extension cord to operate the stove top until the outlet gets fixed and the toaster oven is plugged in on another counter until the oven is also repaired. It ain’t pretty but it’s functional.
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