Cooking 101

Well, the kitchen is 99% in - so I've been eager to use it this week. Last night I made my yummy tacos and tonight I kept it simple: Roast a chicken and bake some sliced potatoes. About 30 minutes into the cook time for the chicken, I noticed that the house was a little smokey - realizing that it was a little too close to the oven burners, I pulled the chicken out - set it down by the sink - added some water to the bottom of the pan and put it back in the oven.

Dylan was famished, so he was hovering by the oven asking, "Is it ready yet" and "when will it be done". While I fed Ryan, I had Dylan check to see if the oven was still smokey. It was - a little. A few minutes later I came to check on the chicken. I opened the oven and noticed the smoke - - then I noticed the white melted, sizzling goo all over the oven rack. It took me about 5 seconds - - and then it hit me.

THE CUTTING BOARD!

Apparently when I set the roasting pan on the counter - I set it on the acrylic cutting board. It went unnoticed as it stuck to the bottom of the pan. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? As I calmly cussed every word in the book, I tried to figure out how to get this mess out of the oven. Simultaneously I'm trying to figure out if the chicken is edible at this point.
It's only been in there 10 minutes - how bad can it really be?

I took the pan out and held it out for Dylan to take. He stood there with his hands up in defense and reminded me that he couldn't just take the pan - - he had bare hands. Oh, yeah. Good point! So I put the pan down, and grabbed a spatula to scrape the acrylic off the bottom of the oven. I got out what I could.

By this time, the smell of the acrylic was overcoming the kitchen. Think Melissa, Think. Okay. Put the chicken in the bottom oven with the potatoes until it's finished cooking. I pulled the potatoes out, popped in the chicken and continued to manage the melting issues going on.
(Set top oven to "clean" and incinerate the acrylic off the bottom of the oven... ya... that sounds like a good idea)

Mmmm potatoes - let's try a bite.... the chicken is going to be a little while longer.
- - Too salty! Yikes... the excessive season salt just about sucked all the moisture out of my mouth. Toxic chicken and a salt lick. Arrrrrrgh!
Hell, do I just suck it up and make the Taco Bell run now? No - that makes too much sense.

Not being able to get the chicken to cook properly at this point, I figured my only way out of this mess that I am now fully committed to was for me to cut it up and pan cook it - piece by piece.

What a disaster.

The worst part was that it took me twice as long to clean up the mess that I made trying to cook my "simple" dinner. So fully exhausted from a marathon cleaning session - I figured this was definitely a tale for the good ol' blog!

The oven is still self cleaning. Hopefully there will be no evidence left in the morning. We'll have to figure out a way to safely melt the remaining piece of cutting board off my oven rack!

....and then I remember the important things....