Toaster Oven Tuesday 27 October 2015

I know it's been awhile since I've posted one of my toaster oven events.  If you're not familiar with my original plan, here's the link from December 2013.  My plan was derailed with my mom's death and the subsequent on-going travels to help my dad, but I'm thinking I may resume this feature.  I'm not sure I'll remember to do it regularly though, but I'll try.

In the past, to catch you up, I'd posted about the first, and most obvious thing I could fix in the toaster oven - toast!  And in that first post, I told about how I don't have a 'normal' oven, and showed pictures of the very large toaster oven I found at Walmart.  It was very shiny and clean on the inside back then.  With my absences, my guys were, well, guys, and these two guys choose to know nothing about cleaning, so my shiny, clean toaster oven is now anything but.  I have thoroughly scrubbed one rack, having to use one of those soapy scouring pads and a whole lot of elbow grease and time to get it that way.  I'm not going to show any pictures of the oven for awhile - I need to find how to really clean the inside, and spend the time to clean the other rack.

The other items to date, have been a two ingredient cake, a prime rib roast, baked potatoes, a turkey pot pie (though that wasn't done as a specific TOT event), a mixed fruit pie, bbq country ribs (not as a TOT event either), and that's as far as I got.  Not very far indeed.  I need motivation to cook more so I will attempt to progress with a weekly (hopefully) entry for my Toaster Oven Tuesday.  Here's the latest, another very easy sampling:

It began with this ready-to-bake meal purchased from Costco.  While still frozen...

 ...it is removed from it's package to be placed in this dish. 

 This is an 8" x 11" I think, which is absolutely perfectly sized and shaped for the lasagna.

 I gave it a quick spray ... you know how cheese and tomato sauce can stick!

Frozen lasagna in the dish.

I covered it with foil, and left it on my stove-top to thaw.  Though the instructions say not to thaw, I've discovered that thawing is the secret to baking this in a toaster oven, and having it actually reach the internal temperature shown on the box without taking twice the time.  Had I thought of it earlier, I'd have prepared it to this point a day ahead so that it could thaw in the refrigerator (IN the glass baking dish).  I wasn't thinking ahead, so had to do what I could; it was still not completely thawed and didn't take too much longer as I used my toaster oven's convection feature.

Wouldn't you know! I didn't even think to take a picture of it after it came out.  It looked great!  It was baked covered with foil until the last 10 minutes according to the directions. The last 10 minutes without foil gives it a chance for the cheese to brown and get a little crispy, but just a little.  I served it with a green salad, green beans, and garlicky biscuits...I'll highlight the biscuits another time :)

Now, someone may ask or be thinking, 'why not just leave it in the container it comes in?'... The package gives no toaster oven instructions.  Probably because most ovens aren't this large and the potential fire hazard given the baking container is cardboard with a plastic film that is left on instead of foil. Additionally, I just like how it cooks better in the glass dish. I also know that it isn't going to overflow this glass dish.