Beef-potato-onion-carrot stew in the slow cooker (thank you, Mr. Fixit)
Bread from the bread machine
Toaster-oven chocolate-chip cookies.
Showing posts with label toaster oven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toaster oven. Show all posts
Friday, February 03, 2017
What's for supper? Using all our gadgets
Beef-potato-onion-carrot stew in the slow cooker (thank you, Mr. Fixit)
Bread from the bread machine
Toaster-oven chocolate-chip cookies.
Friday, July 22, 2016
What's for supper? Toaster oven pizza again (Thursday)
When I made the Chicken Fajita Pizza a few days ago, I froze the other half of the pizza dough to use for something else. Yesterday I took the bag of dough out of the freezer and let it thaw in a bowl. About an hour before we wanted to eat, I preheated the toaster oven to 400 degrees; spread the dough as thinly as I could in a the same greased casserole dish I used last time, covered it with a little can of pizza sauce, and sprinkled it with a few sliced mushrooms and some chopped peppers. The only cheese we had around was a not-too-generous chunk of Cheddar, so I grated that up and put it on top.
I baked the pizza for about forty minutes, until the sides seemed quite firm, and we ate it with a spinach salad. It reminded me of the panzerotti we used to get from a neighbourhood pizza place, especially because of the sauce and the thick crust. You really do need a generous amount of sauce, either baked on or served on the side, because otherwise the crust will be too dry.
I baked the pizza for about forty minutes, until the sides seemed quite firm, and we ate it with a spinach salad. It reminded me of the panzerotti we used to get from a neighbourhood pizza place, especially because of the sauce and the thick crust. You really do need a generous amount of sauce, either baked on or served on the side, because otherwise the crust will be too dry.
Friday, July 15, 2016
What's for supper? Chicken Fajita Pizza
Chicken Fajita Pizza, partly done baking
How to make Chicken Fajita Pizza:
In the biggest (greased) pan you have that will fit the toaster oven, stretch half a recipe of pizza dough; that is, the amount you get if you use two cups of flour. I used a big casserole dish.
Spread with tomato sauce and leftover chicken fajita filling, chopped. I added another chopped pepper. Push the filling down so that the crust goes up the sides of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and start baking the pizza. Somewhere along the line, take it out and add grated cheese on top.
Keep baking until the crust is done and everything is heated through. You'll probably have to eat it with forks, but that's okay.
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
What's for supper? Extreme toaster-ovening
Mini quiches, made earlier in the day. Half spinach-cheese, half leftover vegetable-cheese.
Baked potatoes. A few leftover meatballs. Leftover Beany's Beans. A can of corn.
Cherry crisp, compact-sized, made from frozen cherries and a blended-up mixture of cereals / flour / sugar / oil.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
What's for supper? Pizza and pasta
Tonight's dinner menu, on a hot evening:
Frozen pizza, baked in the toaster oven on a piece of foil (because none of our round pans fit this toaster oven)
Pennine Primavera, made with zucchini, mushrooms, and chickpeas
Partly-thawed strawberries, very cold yogurt, and yesterday's zucchini cake.
Frozen pizza, baked in the toaster oven on a piece of foil (because none of our round pans fit this toaster oven)
Pennine Primavera, made with zucchini, mushrooms, and chickpeas
Partly-thawed strawberries, very cold yogurt, and yesterday's zucchini cake.
Friday, November 04, 2005
The Organized Kitchen: toaster ovens, leftovers, menu planning
Mama Squirrel likes any kitchen ideas that make life easier and give her more time to do important things. (Like play checkers with Crayons.) Here are a couple of squirrel kitchen tips.
1. We are a microwave-less family, not so much by principle as just by the fact that we've never owned one and have never felt we really needed one. What we've always had, though, besides the big oven, is a toaster oven. Originally we had one from Mama Squirrel's previous life (before squirrelings), but when that eventually went kaput we acquired a more modern programmable one. It actually looks (and beeps) like a microwave.
The advantages to having more than one source of oven heat are that you can bake two things at different temperatures if you need to (like baked beans at 350 degrees and a pan of biscuits at 450), and that you don't have to heat up the big oven if you're cooking a small amount of something. We have a lidded casserole that just fits into the toaster oven space, and we've also baked many things in it in an 8-inch square pan. About the only things we haven't baked in it are cookies (our pans are too big), muffins (although I do bake muffin batter in it, in an 8-inch pan), and any recipe big enough to need one of our plus-size casseroles.
And it also makes toast.
2. Menu Planning: Mama Squirrel's current binge of planned-ahead meals is in its third week, and she's discovered something that makes this planning easier. The Squirrels always shop on Saturdays (and it's not usually possible to make another trip during the week). This means that certain foods are more plentiful, say, from Saturday to Wednesday. By Wednesday, the bananas are gone, the cold cuts are eaten up, and so on. So: our week's menu starts on Wednesday, rather than on the more obvious Saturday. I can plan the meals from Wednesday to Friday based on what's still left in the fridge and the cupboard, and make sure that anything we need for the after-shopping days on goes on the grocery list. If I want to make banana muffins, I write them in for sometime after Saturday, and make sure I buy bananas.
Of course this does mess up the lovely menu forms that you can print out online (nobody's menu form starts on Wednesday), but still it's working.
3. Favourite kitchen tools: a four-cup glass measuring cup (you can mix all kinds of things right in it), sharp scissors (for cutting open those irritating, harder-than-ever-to-open cereal box liners), clothes pins (for pinning all the opened bags back together again), lots of measuring spoons (check thrift shops), a rubber spatula, and a decent can opener. Mama Squirrel has had better luck with the first few than with that last one. Cheap can openers rust and bend, and even the expensive one we once bought doesn't cut the way it used to. Inventors of kitchen improvements: there is a niche there that needs to be filled.
Oh, and a permanent marker. You need one handy if you're going to be putting leftovers in margarine tubs or other non-see-through containers. There's nothing like opening a container of yogurt and getting diced tomatoes instead..
1. We are a microwave-less family, not so much by principle as just by the fact that we've never owned one and have never felt we really needed one. What we've always had, though, besides the big oven, is a toaster oven. Originally we had one from Mama Squirrel's previous life (before squirrelings), but when that eventually went kaput we acquired a more modern programmable one. It actually looks (and beeps) like a microwave.
The advantages to having more than one source of oven heat are that you can bake two things at different temperatures if you need to (like baked beans at 350 degrees and a pan of biscuits at 450), and that you don't have to heat up the big oven if you're cooking a small amount of something. We have a lidded casserole that just fits into the toaster oven space, and we've also baked many things in it in an 8-inch square pan. About the only things we haven't baked in it are cookies (our pans are too big), muffins (although I do bake muffin batter in it, in an 8-inch pan), and any recipe big enough to need one of our plus-size casseroles.
And it also makes toast.
2. Menu Planning: Mama Squirrel's current binge of planned-ahead meals is in its third week, and she's discovered something that makes this planning easier. The Squirrels always shop on Saturdays (and it's not usually possible to make another trip during the week). This means that certain foods are more plentiful, say, from Saturday to Wednesday. By Wednesday, the bananas are gone, the cold cuts are eaten up, and so on. So: our week's menu starts on Wednesday, rather than on the more obvious Saturday. I can plan the meals from Wednesday to Friday based on what's still left in the fridge and the cupboard, and make sure that anything we need for the after-shopping days on goes on the grocery list. If I want to make banana muffins, I write them in for sometime after Saturday, and make sure I buy bananas.
Of course this does mess up the lovely menu forms that you can print out online (nobody's menu form starts on Wednesday), but still it's working.
3. Favourite kitchen tools: a four-cup glass measuring cup (you can mix all kinds of things right in it), sharp scissors (for cutting open those irritating, harder-than-ever-to-open cereal box liners), clothes pins (for pinning all the opened bags back together again), lots of measuring spoons (check thrift shops), a rubber spatula, and a decent can opener. Mama Squirrel has had better luck with the first few than with that last one. Cheap can openers rust and bend, and even the expensive one we once bought doesn't cut the way it used to. Inventors of kitchen improvements: there is a niche there that needs to be filled.
Oh, and a permanent marker. You need one handy if you're going to be putting leftovers in margarine tubs or other non-see-through containers. There's nothing like opening a container of yogurt and getting diced tomatoes instead..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)