When Pyrex says " from stove top to oven" the don't really mean it.
Yesterday was one of those rare days when Bill had to be downtown at lunch. After he did his business, he stopped at Victory and picked up a few things including Chicken breasts. He lovingly brought these home, chopped and diced and poured various thing on them and left them to marinate. So (joy and bliss) when I got home from work, supper preparations had begun. I still had to cook it, but the thinking part was done. Note: "the thinking part was done". Apparently it was really finished for the evening.
I decided to steam some carrots, put rice on, and make a onions-mushrooms-red pepper concoction. Sounds good? Hmmmm.
So I put the carrots on to steam. Turn the oven on to preheat. Move the glass dish that the chicken has been marinating in to the stove so I can pop it into the oven as soon as it gets up to temp.
Have I mentioned that we got a new stove a few months ago?
On my old stove, the top dials were the back burner and the bottom dials were the front. Makes a bit of sense. Right? On the new stove the dials are reversed. You would think that by now, I would be able to get it right. But no. I apparently turned the chicken in the glass pan on to steam, while the carrots sat there cold. I heard a "plip,plip,plip" and thought "that doesn't sound right". And sure enough, there was the chicken, in the glass pan, on a red hot burner, boiling. Oops. "No worries", thought I. And I popped it into the almost up to temp oven.
So far so good. And then.....
About 5 minutes later, I heard a loud shattering sound. Followed by hissing. Picture if you will screaming Jackie running to the oven, opening the door to make sure that it really is what I think it was ( duhhh, what else could it have been?) shutting the kitchen door, opening the back shed door to let out a bit of the smoke. And then proceeded to laugh my fool ass off. Have I mentioned how cold it has been lately? Well last night was no exception. After the smoke cleared a bit, I looked back in the oven to find the chicken, high and moist, sitting on the rack, while the marinade and a whole lot of glass sat on the bottom. What to do.
Well, in the end I did what any frugal person would have done. 6 chicken breasts does not come cheap, so I washed them, checked for broken glass, put them in a stainless steal pan, and cooked them on the stove top while I cleaned out the now cooled down oven.
Thankfully when Pyrex breaks, it doesn't break into shards, but shatters into chunks. And even more thankfully, it was in a contained space. Can you imagine the mess that it could have caused? And if any of the kids had been standing around, the results could have been much different.
It was delicious, by the way. And now my oven is clean. Sort of.
Have a happy weekend. I hope the sun is shining where you are.
6 comments:
You're tougher than I am! I would have gone out for dinner!
At my sister's house one day with guests comming. The stove caught fire as in FIRE! I had to spray it with the fire extinguisher and the whole works. We had Filet Mignon sitting on the counter.......got sprayed with the FE stuff....guests ring the bell, I washed the beef :) Prepared more mushroom sauce and no one ever knew! I had never told anyone till today! That was about 10 years ago and everyone there is still alive.
That is awful. I'm impressed that you used the chicken after all. I probably would've sat in the corner and cried until the pizza delivery man pulled up to the house.
A long time ago at a Christmas gathering, there were so many people and so much to cook, that some of the cooking was done in my grandparents camping trailer. One of the things was baked in a glass dish (I don't know if it was pyrex or not). As soon as my grandmother stepped out of the warm trailer with the oven hot dish it shattered in the cold December night.
I think after that event, I would develop post traumatic stress syndrome and would no longer be able to cook.
I love your thrifty toughness. I might have washed the chicken, but I bet my oven would still be dirty...
My husband once accidentally turned an electric burner on under a coffeecake that I had made in a square Pyrex dish. My, it did explode all over the kitchen (and in that case, it did shatter in needle-like pieces). Glad we weren't in there when it happened.
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