A Real Oven

I've loved to cook since I was little. Whenever my mom was in the kitchen I'd be there beside her to learn what she was doing. When she wasn't in the kitchen I'd be reading her cook books cover to cover like a novel (a habit I still very much enjoy). When I learned of the existence of an Easy Bake Oven, I was thrilled. Cooking and toys all rolled into one. I begged for one for I don't know how many Christmases. My mom always told me I could just use her oven, but I was convinced that wasn't good enough. I wanted the Easy Bake oven with the tiny pans and just add water mixes.

So, after years of begging I finally got one for Christmas. I was thrilled. Until I tried to cook something. Turns out my mom was right. Our oven did in fact work better than this box that cooked cake batter with a light bulb. I think I used it a few times, but eventually realized the superiority of a real oven.

I had forgotten about this experience until about a month ago. Doug and I set a goal to start eating healthier. I'd been on the lookout for some good, healthy food for a while and came upon the Jenny Craig website's recipe collection. It's full of these delicious recipes that are low calorie/ low fat- and a bunch of them fall into the '30 min. meal' category.

So, with a new goal set and the recipes to put it into action, I set off. The only problem was the fact that this all started just as we moved into the basement apartment of our house.

We knew when we moved in that the oven in the basement apartment was broken, but we just hadn't had time to get it fixed. And then after enough time had passed we decided we'd put our oven fixing money towards a brand new, nicer oven. So then, of course, we had to wait for the upstairs renters to move out so we could move upstairs, take the old, working oven to the downstairs apartment and put the new oven upstairs in our new home.

So there I was, with so much cooking anticipation and no oven to cook in. I refused to be stopped.

We received a toaster oven for our wedding and everybody kept telling me that they're great to have because you can use them as a toaster AND an oven. I decided to try my hand at this toaster oven thing.

First I tried some chicken rolls... which I cooked in the toaster oven on what that dial said was well over 400 degrees... when they were still cold in the center after TWO HOURS I gave up and used the microwave...

Next came vegetable lasagna, which was also heated in the toaster oven for over an hour and then finished in the microwave.

Day after day I as I prepared mini pans of food to put into my mini oven that had about the heating power of a light bulb (actually, some days I wondered if it'd be faster if I just threw a chicken breast on one of our lamps...) I was reminded of that lesson I learned when I was little. Real ovens are a good thing.

I think I did finally figure out how to get the toaster oven to cook things. Here's the secret (at least this is the only way I could figure out how to make it work) Take the baking time for a normal oven and double it, and add about 50 degrees to the baking temperature. Now here's the real trick- if, after you double the baking time, the number is more than 15 minutes- the item will actually never finish cooking in a toaster oven.

This past Tuesday they delivered our new oven. I baked something in it that very day. I'm so excited to leave our toaster oven to it's normal use of making toast.