9.25.2008

My Oven Hates Me Today

I use my oven nearly every day now that I have "people" here who want to "eat" and not "scrounge," like Lee and I were used to doing. I have burned myself several times. I have also had many foods overflow into the bottom of the hot oven, turning the oven into a smoke house, making all the food taste like meat, even if they're cookies. I have used the super-heated cleaning option on my stove 2 times now... that's 2 more than in the last 3 years since we bought it.

Today, as part 2 of an experiment, I baked an apple pie I had made and frozen... just wanted to see what happened. Here's what happened... probably NOT because the pie was recently thawed: I think 1/2 of everything from inside the pie oozed out of the sides and onto the bottom of the oven. I kind of heard dripping and splattering, while Habtamu and I were doing his reading lesson. The timer went off and I opened the oven. The kitchen FILLED with smoke. I quickly closed all the doors to the rest of the house and opened all the kitchen windows and both doors.

I scraped out the burnt offering... I had to do it right then because I had bread that had been rising and was ready to be baked. I couldn't really wait. I had kicked the kids out of the kitchen... no sense in all of us smelling like camp fire. Finally got the crud out and the bread in... whew.

The pie... well, my crusts are usually very good. This one looked like a perfectly shaped dome and it was dark brown and hard like cardboard. There was at least 2 inches of air between the crust and the filling. I tried a piece and... huh... smoky. BBQ pie anyone? I saved the filling and froze it in a baggie and pitched the crusts.

The bread... argh... I should have followed my gut. It looked ready at 30 minutes... 20 minutes shy of the bake time. I let it finish, and was rewarded with a 3/8" crust, AND the bottom crust stayed in the pan. I guess the crust being that thick is no longer an issue.

The kids' take on this... "Oven NO GOOD today." Amen.

Lee's comment was "Good thing your kitchen karma was good yesterday when you made 120 burritos for the Food Co-op." Amen, amen.

5 comments:

Katherine said...

argh. I feel for you, Sister! One time, I had things falling off the pans again and again, and just happening to fall in the CRACK between the door and the oven, where I couldn't reach them and they 'conveniently' burned and filled my kitchen with smoke before I found the one kitchen utensil I could reach in there to dig them out. I've also had rolls skitter off the pan and fall into the very nether regions of the oven. And the leaking filling of cinnamon-rolls-gone-bad. Yes, yes. I feel your pain. I guess you have only to look up from there, right? I tell myself, "hey, things couldn't possibly get worse than THIS, right?" That usually works. We missed you at the coffee place tonight! I even brought a new project to show you!

Anonymous said...

My first pie melted.

To have both items fail so miserably makes me wonder if it is really you...
could the thermostat on the oven be acting up?

Megan said...

I totally feel your pain. I know that a cheapie aluminum pan broke and spilled ham juice into the bottom of the oven. And at Millikin my friend Maria's oven broke so it was hotter than the dial said it was so we burned sooooo many things until it got fixed....pumpkin seeds were the worst.

Anonymous said...

The first time I used the oven self-cleaning setting was right after making Thanksgiving dinner. The grease caught fire, yes, flames visible from across the kitchen. :-)

Anonymous said...

I was going to ask if your thermostat is okay... get an oven thermometer from the store and stick it in there and check to see if it's measuring the right temperature.
My thermostat went out one time (before kids) when Tim was gone to CA for the week and it just never shut off and I ended up calling the fire department. Yes. the fire dept. and since they were a block away I knew they were coming because I heard teh sirens from when they left the garage.
And they sent TWO BIG TRUCKS and blocked the street. Just for some burly hunk of a firefighter to come into my house, pull out the stove and turn off the gas and tell me to get it fixed.