My oven and my heart are broken
Thanksgiving is upon us. I came into this week eager to put my newfound enthusiasm for bread-baking to work on behalf of my loved ones, eager to apply what I have learned here and elsewhere to the art and craft of making home-made bread for the holiday feast.
Eager, schmeager, as it turns out: My oven died last Wednesday and my hopes died with it. These days I come to this site out of habit and leave feeling like a kid with the flu who can't come out and play with his buddies.
Maybe I should tell it to my therapist, but my appointment is not until Tuesday. In the meantime, in the interest of making my pain more acute, I ask my fellow TFLers what they will be baking for Thanksgiving this week.
Please tell me so I can feel worse about all I am missing out on.
Don't feel bad you are not alone, I had company last wednesday and I was going to have hot turkey breast with crusty rolls for lunch, gonna cook one of those roast from frozen Butterball turkey breast,,, put the oven on, 5 minutes late it went ping, and that was that, they are coming to fix it on Tuesday,,,,
I am glad I have insurance on it as I guess it's gonna be pricey.
thank goodness I have a small counter top convection oven so that saved the day, but it won't help today for Yorkshires, ;-(((qagtan
I don't know what breads you were planning, but why not just contact a friend and use his/her oven? You can do your mixing, fermenting, shaping at home, then bake it off premises. Fresh, thoroughly cooled bread freezes very well.
Thanksgiving is a day to count our blessings. I'm sure you have many - including the fact that many appliances will be on sale.
I recently moved to a place with a stove/oven combination in the kitchen. The stovetop light wasn't working, so the landlady called her "handy friend" over to "fix" it for us. He ended up zapping the whole damn thing, and we were left with a microwave and an 18 inch charcoal weber grill for over a week.I can't claim to feel your pain, though, as it was nowhere near Thanksgiving time.
Speaking of grills, has anybody tried baking bread on a grill? I'm curious whether you could stick a baking stone and a pan of water in a grill and come up with good results.
To answer your question, I will probably bake a cranberry celebration loaf (a la BBA) for the family on Thanksgiving. It makes amazing turkey sandwiches - no need to spread gloppy cranberry sauce on them! I had other grand plans, but I have grad school applications due in a week.
this is not the end of the world (as we know it) log onto appliance repair.com and you may be able to diagnose and fix some simple oven problems. And with overnight shipping you might make it in time for the holiday. YMMV
Mike
I second the appliance repair solution. My GE profile kept shutting down on me with an error. I got a price on replacing the module, upwards of $400.00 !! On the repair forums there were some suggestions of things to try - after $2 in parts its all fixed :)
Good excuse to go out to dinner.
Pam
If you gave a grill or toaster oven or even a good iron skillet? Where there is a wiil you know? ( edited to say whoops I missed the previous mention of a grill so " I concur" with the grill rec!)
When we lived in Panama I learned to bake bread on a grill because my " kitchen" was a 2 burner table top, cooler and a grill, since we did not have power ..often.. I practiced on the grill starting with flat breads then moving to pizza and finally full on loaves, ( you can search on grill baking, I think the Weber grill has a recipe offering for bread, I know there is a book you can probably find at the library. I have trouble with my toaster over and baking except dinner rolls turn out well
An iron skillet on the stove with a Good lid makes terrific corn bread ( just carefully heat the lid ( iron only) on a low burner while you preheat the skillet melt lard or put oil in the skillet pour batter in the hot pan, carefully using a good pot holder take the lid, top the pan put the burner to med low and bake ( play with a really simple recipe to get your timing down. You can do buttermilk biscuits as well
I imagine you could do a search for alternatives to baking in an oven and find all kinds of things
My son is holding out gathering this year so my baking will consist of a New Mexican enchiladas, a pan of flakey dinner rolls and Marion berry pies
Good luck but really being oven less is a challenge not defeat!