Dinner Disaster

Tonight I burned dinner. 

Earlier today, I went online and found a great recipe for roasted chicken that you start on the stove and finish in the oven.  To go along with the chicken, I cut up some potatoes, carrots, and broccoli to roast at the same time as the chicken.

I made my game plan.  According to the recipes, the chicken needed 40 minutes, the potatoes/carrots 25 minutes, and the broccoli 15 minutes, all roasted at 450 degrees.  In order to have dinner ready at 6:00, I put the chicken in at 5:20, then the potatoes at 5:35, then the broccoli at 5:45.  I was so proud of myself for keeping on schedule, and the table was set and ready for dinner.  So, I sat on the couch with a magazine for the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Then the fire alarms went off.  All six of them.  The sound was deafening, and Grace was terrified.  I was a little confused because I saw no smoke, but I threw open the back door, turned on all the ceiling fans, opened two windows, and started fanning the alarms with a book.  I didn’t even think about turning off the oven!

After several minutes of running frantically from fire alarm to fire alarm and fanning like a madwoman, I couldn’t figure out why the smell of smoke was getting worse instead of better.  At this point, Grace was hysterical, covering her ears and crying.  IT WAS SO LOUD.

Then I realized that I didn’t turn off the oven when the alarms first went off.  I ran downstairs to discover smoke pouring out of the oven.  I took the food out and saw that the chicken was blackened, the potatoes/carrots were so burned that they were unrecognizable, and the broccoli wasn’t even green.

After turning off the oven, it still took about 20 minutes for the alarms to stop.  I ended up taking Grace outside to play in the backyard until it was quiet again. 

Upon further investigation, the chicken was actually still juicy inside although the outside was burned.  The veggies were goners, however.  So, for dinner tonight, Todd and Grace had a chicken breast and I had an HMR entree.  And, we laughed a little when I told Todd the story over dinner.