Toast

I made toast and hot chocolate this morning. This was a novelty for us because our toaster oven has been out of commission for awhile. Some weekend day at the end of July we were all outside or napping or whatnot. Henry had climbed on something and put some non-food items in the toaster oven and turned it on. We were notified of this by Evalyn announcing "Henry's in trouble! He put something that's not food in the toaster oven!!" By the time we got to the kitchen there was smoke everywhere and flames billowing from the toaster.

After extinguishing the fire (unplugging and leaving the door closed, conveniently written in small print on the front of the door I later noticed) I examined the interior and found remnants of birthday candles and sprinkles and something that used to be plastic. It had melted through the grate and dripped below the lower heat element. When I tried to start the oven again, more flareups and yucky smells. I called it a loss and stuck in in the garage. It was a wedding gift so it was going on 6 years of use. I figured it wasn't the end of the world to replace it.



Fast forward a month or so and we still hadn't replaced it. One of my favorite comfort foods is toasted sourdough bread slathered with butter.... mmmmmm. We had a loaf in the cupboard and by golly I wanted some toast! So I plugged in an extension cord, set the toaster oven on the patio and determined that I'd let it go until the plastic waxy stuff melted off. After a few changes of foil liner on the bottom and some paper towel work, I declared it good enough to put back into service. I love "earning" money like this by fixing something rather than replacing. :) Plus my little helper Eva and I pretended we were camping and the toaster was our campfire.

I'm sure the novelty will wear of soon, but for now we're happy to have our sourdough, cinnamon and peanut butter toasts, as well as quick quesadillas back on the menu.