lol dutch oven

At least you didn't roast your chestnuts.

This happened to my mom once. Her oven broke on Thanksgiving one year, so she called me. I told her, "Sure, bring the turkey over, and we'll cook it here." I preheated my oven in anticipation of her arrival. She arrived, we opened the oven to pop the bird in,.. Surprise! My oven was broken, too!! Luckily, my friend and neighbor let us use her oven as she was going elsewhere for the holiday. So I feel your pain, Doohickie! Who knows, maybe you'll make the best roast ever!

I discovered the best ever thing that we don't have in England - pudding mix.

I made a trifle, and at home when we make it, we have to make a hot custard, let it cool down before adding it to the jelly/fruit/sponge mix and it's a pain in the arse because you have to keep beating the custard while it cools so it doesn't form a skin.

But French Vanilla pudding mix is made with cold milk and you just pour it over the jelly (jello) (which is made the day before so it is properly set) as soon as you've made it and it sets just like custard. I may have to buy an extra suitcase just to fill with pudding mix.

The trifle was a huge success. You can always tell when it's a good trifle because when you put the big spoon in to serve it, the first spoonful of the layers of jelly, custard (pudding) and whipped cream makes a lovely shloopy noise.

[Homer Simpson voice] Mmmmmm.... trifle ....

OH NO BROKEN OVEN. That sucks.

Well, the gas grill I got for Christmas saved dinner, kind of. I was afraid of undercooking the roast and instead I overcooked it slightly, though no one complained (considering the circumstances, I think they were acting charitably).

I've checked out the oven. The lower coil was touching some tin foil in the bottom of the oven (put there by the previous home owners; I thought it was part of the oven itself), and there was a bright, nearly white-hot spot where the coil met the foil.

I figured it was just a problem that the coil was shorting out on foil and oven bottom, but when I removed the foil and put a stone under the coil to space it up off the bottom of the oven, it still doesn't work at all. Everything else seems to work okay. So I moved it away from the wall and checked at the connections- the upper broil coil has a resistance of 17 ohms and the lower coil is open. Then I plugged in the oven and checked the voltage at the coil connections. The upper coil goes up to about 230 volts when the broiler is turned on, and the lower coil connectors measure the same when the oven is turned on, so power is getting to the bottom coil, but the coil is shot.

It's a pretty old oven, but it was made by GE and their website has the replacement part available online. I'm going to see if I can get one locally tomorrow and put it in.

We had planned to visit my wife's cousin in Oklahoma tomorrow, but she called and rearranged that for later in the week. Hopefully by then the oven will again be functional.

We discussed getting a new stove, but we will probably sell the house in about three years and don't want to put in a new oven then turn around and sell it with the house; we'd rather wait and get a really nice one in our new house.

I had an old oven explode sparks dramatically once...when I was trying to prepare a lasagna if I recall correctly. It was years ago, and we were renting so it got fixed pretty quickly.

(I also blew up a microwave once but that is a story for another day.)

Oh, no... please share. I wouldn't consider it a derail at all. In fact, I'm thinking about bringing up several Thanksgiving Day appliance disasters- an oven door that broke off, a dishwasher that quit, and an microwave that died. When we made it past Thanksgiving this year, I thought we were safe.

I guess not.

Eponysterical.

I bought a new, self-cleaning GE/Hotpoint 30" white electric range at the Depot last year, for $259. Paid $50 delivery charge, but it was rebated (fought for the rebate for 3 months, but got it!). And they took away the old range, no charge. You might do better than this, at an appliance discount operation.

So, over 3 years, that's a little more than $80 a year. By the time you get that heating element in, and replace your drip bowls again, you'll have 1/2 the cost of a new range in your old one. Just a thought.

I paid $35 for a new heating element and it's in.

Years ago when I was new to the ways of microwaving, my slightly crazy sister in law sent us a used one (with no owner's manual if I recall correctly.)

I thought I'd boil some eggs, so I put a couple in a glass Pyrex cup with some water, pushed a couple of buttons, then went to the other side of the kitchen to fiddle with some laundry.

Then, a bomb went off in my kitchen (at least that was my first thought.) Micro door went flying, particles of egg went flying, and that was that. Bye bye microwave. I'm glad no one was standing in front of it, as they would have gotten hurt.

Moral of the story, go read the owner's manual.

Ouch!