For years, our friends and family members have been telling us how much they love their toaster ovens, so Ted and I finally decided that we ought to buy one. It wasn’t hard to find one we like (Breville), and it didn’t cost a fortune, so we drove to Target, picked it up, and joined the toaster-oven crowd–just like that! The board didn’t come with the oven, but Best Buy had the matching board. It’s really handy for the hot pan when we take it out of the oven.

Our excuse for not buying a toaster oven sooner was that we don’t have enough empty counter space for it. That problem was solved by rearranging a few things in one of our island cabinets. Now we can simply pull out the drawer, lift the (not heavy) toaster oven up, plug it in on the side of the island, and do any of the 10 functions we choose. It’s definitely faster than heating the oven, and it doesn’t warm the kitchen as much.

It’s been very convenient to bake just a few cookies at a time and to eat them fresh and warm. Although we’ve already used our toaster oven for a lot of things, this is the first thing we made.

It was delicious! All those people were right: a toaster oven is a good thing to have, and now we’re part of the toaster oven lovefest group.