It's Not a Real Meal Until...

Monday, August 24, 2009: I plan a great dinner for my husband. It was the first homemade meal I made him as a wife, it was bound to be an adventure! I planned on making spaghetti and meatballs with cheese bread. The easiest part was going to be the cheese bread... I mean it looked so good in the picture! What could go wrong?

• Step one: Prepare french bread (cut in half and spread butter over the two halves) The butter was hardly spreading, even though I had melted it! Oh well, I called it good enough! Ok, check!
  
• Step two: Place bread halves on pan in broiler. Broil for 1-2 min. So I think the oven has a broil drawer. I empty out the cookie sheets, pizza pans, and other random cookware that is under there and place the bread in the drawer. I carefully time 1 minute and then I check on the bread. Nothing has happened... the bread is still cold. I even preheated the broiler! Ok... so I put it back in the drawer again. Another minute went by and the bread was still cold. I stuck my hand in there and there was nothing, no heat at all! I checked the gauges on the oven... all were lit up correctly. Finally, I looked into the actual oven and saw that the broiler was actually in the oven. It was glowing red! I placed the bread in and timed for a minute and a half! Well that was too long because I smelled burning bread! So I quickly, opened the door to the oven and all of a sudden... I heard a shrill, "Beep, Beep, Beep!" The fire alarm went off! In our new apartment, we have sprinklers on the walls. I was nervous that they were going to start sprinkling water everywhere and ruin everything! So what is a new bride to do? I run around the apartment and open all the windows and doors! Then, I remember that there is a fan on the oven! Did any of this effort work to shut the fire alarm off? No of course not! So Plan B: I run to the smoke detector and start waving my potholders at it and then, I whip off my apron and flap that too. I'm also saying some choice words to this detector because the thing is so loud!!! The neighbors probably think I'm crazy!! The detector does not shut up until Scott walks in and asks me what I'm doing. I simply tell him that he gets dinner and a show!
  
• Step three: Place cheese on bread and then back into the broiler! Oh goody! Back to the wonderful broiler! This time I kept a watchful eye on this bread. It seemed to be a little sneaky! I waited for the cheese to get nice and golden brown. I pulled out the bread, (Luckily, it was only burnt on the top edges... so it was still edible!) and again the shrill sound of "Beep, Beep, Beep!!!!" filled the air waves. This time I knew what to do... I had to go flap at the detector. It worked! YAY!
• Step four: Cut bread into slices. This step was the easiest!

Now, after this exciting time in the kitchen, dinner was finally served on our nice fiesta ware that we got as a wedding present. How did Scott like his first homemade meal as a new family? Well, let's just say that he asked for seconds. : )


Lessons Learned:

1. Our oven does not have a broiler drawer!
2. You must watch things you broil very carefully... this is hard in our oven because there is no window!
3. The sprinklers will not go off unless they are triggered by heat... thank goodness they did not go off!
4. Scott is not a very picky eater and doesn't mind when things get burnt! : )