Antique Thai and Brand New Convection Oven

For Christmas, my mother in law received a convection oven from my parents as the first present between in-laws.  They loved the convection oven and the local Costco carries the oven.  Its supposed to use half the energy of a regular oven, cook faster and more evenly, and toasts as well.  My local Costco happened to carry the item WITH A $10 coupon so of course I snatched one up.  My first foray into a countertop convection oven was a recipe that may be the first one I actually learned as a teenager (minus watching my mom make dinner of course).  Home economics class taught me two life long skills, one of which was the recipe in question and the other, being how to sew a button and thread a needle.  I dont count the needle though since my mom taught me a better way to thread the needle.  Alas, here is my Bagel Pizza ala Home Economics class:

This is the countertop convection oven I bought from Costco. It already has the uncooked pizzas inside.  The three dials have the following options: broil, bake, toast and warm with temps ranging from 125 to 450 I believe.  Comes with a baking pan, fitted rack and crumb tray.  The glare is from the window of my kitchen sink. 

Cooking inside...so clean and pretty! Let me tell you that I was super glad to have put foil in the pan before cooking.. I forgot how cheese likes to stick when bubbly and gooey! Plus I like my cheese on pizza browned up nicely. 

FYI Its so easy to make this if you are ever inclined for a quick pizza fix without the freeze burn of frozen pizza and without spending a ton of cash on takeout.  I used leftover Einstein "Everything" bagel, leftover Classico pasta sauce, Monterey Jack cheese and bacon.  Oh yeah...and the red pepper flakes are the sprinkles on top.  You dont even have to cook the bacon before hand...it cooks up quite nicely on top at a high temp baking while the bread was nice and crusty.  Enjoy!

The other day I we shopping at a TJ Maxx near Rosecrans.  I was famished afterwards so I was drawn to the "4.95 luch special" sign at Antique Thai.  I had read a Yelp review on this place before andseemed to remember favorable comments but was honestly too lazy and hungry to check again.  I ordered the lunch special of the Basil Eggplant--Spicy level 5/10. 

                          

The starter soup.  Had a nice cabbagey sweet flavor.  Nothing too special but a welcome beginning to a 5 dollar meal.  I just would have preferred the white cabbage rinds to be cooked longer personally.  It also had carrots inside and some other green vegetable that must not have been that memorable after all.

Basil Eggplant. As usual the 4.95 option was the veggie as main ingredient option.  I have to say I wasnt that impressed.  Too many onions.  Only a few pieces of eggplant.  Sauce was too soupy in my opinion.  Flavor was decent but doesnt compare to the eggplant at Sab E Lee or Sang Dao.  Plus the sauce for eggroll fell into the other soupy sauce of the eggplant when they brought it to me so that ruined it even more.  They tried to charge me an extra 1.75 to substitute white rice for brown--I declined.  Salad was blah, dressing not that memorable.  But I was hungry so I ate most of it. 

Here is a super close up of the eggplant.  The sauce was so watery you cant even see it on this part of the dish.  Veggies were fresh at least. 

In case anyone cares, here is a closeup of the wonton that came with the special.  Standard issue.  Some kind of savory curry potato filling with a sweet undertone.  Like I said, I was terribly hungry. 

Overall, I wouldnt go out of my way to come back although I only did try one item so it might not be fair.  If arms were twisted, I would go back and try something else on a lunch special day or if someone else was picking up the tab lol.  Plus the parking lot is always full and a pain in the you know what every time due to several big name stores in the plaza. 

xoxo kiddos