Another Change in the works...

Not too bad…..

So, yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.  I did a twist on the traditional food.  My mother had found a recipe for Corned Beef Baked in Foil.  Instead of the traditional boiled method of cooking, you soak the brisket in water and then bake it in a foil pouch along with a variety of spices and vegetables for about 4 hours @ 300 degrees.  It has such a wonderful flavor and is delightfully tender.  So, for its final meal, my stove… which took close to 5 minutes to even get started heating up… cooked a wonderful meal.  Marji and Danny joined me and we ate the entire brisket and almost an entire head of cabbage.  After eating and giving the stove a chance to cool down, we set about the task of taking the oven out.

I am always fearful of pulling heavy appliances away from their home.  I am not the Merry Homemaker who twice a year gets behind every piece of furniture, picture on the wall and under appliances to make sure the dust bunnies and grease blobs are kept at bay!  Once an appliance goes into place, unless a large spill clearly goes under the appliance, it stays in place until such a spill or until it needs to be repaired or until it is replaced.

I was pleasantly surprised.  Yes, there was dust.  Yes, there were a few little mouse droppings but I live in the country and a mouse or two are commonplace from time to time.  There were some smarmy little areas of an unknown gooey substance, but overall, for the length of time the stove has been in place, it was not nearly as bad as I expected.  I was able to sweep the moveable stuff away and a quick scrubbing has removed the smarmy stuff from the floor and the sides of the cabinet.

I am now in the process of cleaning the toaster oven.  Since the stove will be out of the way for a couple of days, I am really giving it a good cleaning.  It is mounted under the cabinet and over the stove so it is awkward to clean.  The crumb tray drops down but that has junk coming down onto the stove-top, so it has not been done in a long, long time.  Can you say “Very Smarmy”?

The new stove is stainless steel.  I am not sure I am going to like it, but that seems to be the ‘high end’ look in kitchens these days.  I wanted Bisque.  But that is not an “in” color these days so my options were white or stainless.  So stainless was my selection.  I had thought that I wanted a double oven in a free standing stove, but I would lose a storage drawer and the bigger oven was closer to the floor, so removing heavy items like a turkey would require more bending than I wanted to do, so single oven was my choice.  This over in convection, so there is a fan that runs to circulate the air and cook things faster.  Not sure I will use it, but it came with the package and sometimes faster is better.  It also has five burners.  The four normal on corners each have a burner and then a center oval burner that will accommodate a bigger griddle or cook a larger kettle better.  That was the feature I did want.  So I am looking forward to being able to cook and bake in a new oven.

In the meantime, I went to Wal-Mart today and got dog food for Miss Molly and then some microwaveable pre-made foods to give me a menu for these days without the stove.

No GriefShare tonight as the weather here is threatening to ice up the roads.  As we called all of the participants, they all seemed grateful to not have to go out this evening.  I am guessing that it is going to be a nuisance kind of storm and that the roads will be fine.  But I am just as glad to be home tonight as well.  I am ready for spring, even though it means I will have to start mowing the lawn!