When The Pony was here for Easter dinner, I warned him that my oven did not seem to be cooking evenly. Wouldn't want anything to go wrong with the Sister Schubert's Rolls that The Pony was in charge of. He LOVES his rolls. In fact, we bake one pan for Hick and me, and one pan for The Pony...
Anyhoo... The Pony agreed upon checking the rolls that something seemed off. At the time, we solved the problem by turning the pans around to brown evenly. We both looked around inside, to see if we could spot anything amiss, and we could not.
For the past couple weeks, I have been trying to figure out the problem. I was dying to touch the bottom element to see if it was working, but I didn't have the gumption. It did not seem to be lighting up when I heated the oven. Setting food on the lower rack, and putting the oven 25 degrees hotter than directions called for, the food came out okay. I told Hick, and he said that maybe the element was bad. Seems like we replaced it only a few years ago. The oven itself is 26 years old.
Hick went to the kitchen to stick his head in the oven. He was trying to get a phone picture of the model number so I could order a part. I heard his muffled exclamation from the living room.
"I found out the problem! Your element broke in half."
I swear it wasn't like that when I was checking the oven to see why it wasn't working! I would have noticed it! So would The Pony, if it had been like that on Easter. It was completely attached, as recently as the day before Hick looked at it.
Anyhoo... no judgment on the state of my oven! Chex Mix doesn't clean up after itself, you know! I spent 45 minutes looking for this Lower Baking Element for my Whirlpool oven model number. Ordered one a few days ago. It got here Wednesday, and Hick had it installed before I got back from town. The new one glows a bright orange.
Now I'm no longer out of my element.
"Chex Mix doesn't clean up after itself, you know" is an awesome analogy!! I gotta use that one.
ReplyDeleteIt's as good an excuse as any. I'm not about to admit to being a lazy slob!
DeleteNow you can short order Hick's faves. Always something with appliances!
ReplyDeleteHick recently acquired some FREE catfish from a guy who caught them at Lake of the Ozarks. We had them in the freezer, waiting for full oven power before oven-frying them. I think I'll pass. I'm never sure of the chain of custody of such fish. How do I know it was kept cold enough? Hick is not so discriminating in his fish tastes.
DeleteHooray for a properly working oven. I have no idea how old mine is, it's the sam oven the previous tenant had and I don't know how long he lived her, but I've ben her almost twelve years and it works fine apart from having to turn the pizza tray and other things to brown evenly, but I think that's because the whole place is a little off, even the hotplates don't cook evenly, I think everything is tilted just slightly off level.
ReplyDeleteYes! Now I can be a gourmet cook, heh, heh! At least you know what makes yours work well enough. I had to put my pan of corn muffins on the bottom rack. They cooked all the way through, with a nice brown on top, but the muffin stumps were pale like cake, and not the brown crust I like.
Delete