By Brenda Boykin
Alderson
Daily Life Challenges
As if life does not offer enough challenges, my stove quit working. It is partially my fault. My bottom oven element burned out, so DIY me ordered a replacement and tried to put it in. I have done it before, so I thought it was a no brainer. This time I messed up. The stove was off but I did not turn off the breaker. I got one side unplugged without a problem, but when I tried to unplug the other side the wire broke. That kicked the breaker off and scared the heck out of me. Due to the white flash that occurred, it was a few moments before I could see again. Oh well, I had just tried to replace the little box that the burner element went into and the burner still would not stay on so I just chalked it up to being a lost cause. The stove is about 10 years old so I shouldn’t complain and should be thankful that I did not kill myself in the process.
If that was not enough, my little toaster oven quit 2 days later. The bottom element burned out to be more accurate, basically making it useless. I loved that little thing. I had found many uses for it.
For awhile I only had a microwave, a crockpot, and my coffee maker to work with. It would have been bad enough if I were the only one eating but I have a working boy that is 6’2” tall and hates to miss a meal. Since he is saving his money for college, eating out was out of the question. He is a believer in a good breakfast, so eggs were my first challenge. He did not like poached eggs from the microwave. I even tried to boil some eggs using my coffee maker. I read on the internet that you could do that. I failed at it though. I was loaned an electric griddle so I finished the boiled eggs off on it. I have no idea what to call those eggs but I did make tuna salad out of what I could salvage. I tried a dish that called for rice from a crockpot book and it turned out to be mush. I was more successful with my attempts using the griddle, but still limited.
I bought two hot plates. The maker must not know the meaning of the word “hot.” A watched pot never boils but with these burners, you can go to sleep and the water will not boil for a really long time with the lid on the pot. It takes me an hour to fry a few French fries in a small pan and that includes defrosting the frozen fries ahead of time. Basically it takes me all day long to cook the meals.
I did replace the little toaster oven with an extra large convection toaster oven so I could use some of the pans I already have. It seems I have a learning curve with it also, but it works much better than the burners.
Leave it up to life to dish out challenges that keep you learning new tricks. I’d be bored otherwise, I reckon.