Daily Loaf

Attention bachelors and bachelorettes! I have discovered a fast, tasty alternative to Ramen and microwaved frozen food. And all you need is a toaster oven.

The toaster oven is the intersection between the tastiness of oven-cooked food and the speed of a microwave. It cooks like an oven, with temperatures and broiling settings, but there’s none of that annoying pre-heating business. I don’t know about you, beautiful reader, but I hate having to wait. The toaster oven fulfills my laziness since the only steps are: 1: put food in oven, 2: set the temperature, 3: come back. And like a microwave, you can just set the timer and come back when it dings. Unlike a microwave, it doesn’t zap the flavor. Toaster oven food just tastes right.

My specialty is pizza bagels. And they are amazingly easy to make–all you need are bagels, pizza sauce, and cheese (recipe after the jump.)

Other meals in the single-and-hungry canon are also easy to make with a toaster oven. To make flour tortilla quesadillas, all you need to do is to place some shredded asadero cheese inside a tortilla and put it the toaster over for a few minutes. Chip butty, a recipe that is simply French fries, ketchup and bread, tastes delicious with the help of a toaster oven. Essentially, whenever you need to make a meal for one, and where you would normally use an oven or microwave, I suggest trying a toaster oven.

Since I’ve started using my toaster oven, the previous modes of cooking have been neglected. For example, my mini George Foreman grill that I used to cook everything from corn dogs to chicken nuggets on, sits forlorn in my kitchen door. My oven, which used to be fired up for simple things like grilled cheese, is only now used for the rare occasions where I cook for company.  And the microwave, I’ve discovered, is evil incarnate.  I only use the microwave now to reheat food that I cooked in—you guessed it–the toaster oven. As they say—wait, no one says this—ok, then let me be the first: once you go toaster oven, you never go back.

PIZZA BAGEL

Plain bagel, split

Pasta sauce

Mozzarella, shredded

Toppings

Top each bagel half with the pasta sauce. Don’t go overboard, just put enough to cover the bagel. Add about a handful of mozzarella to the sauce. Your pizza should be looking like this:

If you want, add toppings like basil, garlic, tomatoes, or pepperoni. Bake  the pizza  for about 8 minutes on 350 degrees. Half of the fun is messing up, so don’t worry if it doesn’t come out right at first. Here’s what mine looked like:

And it sure tasted good. Happy toasting!

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