Kitchen Adventures

Nothing like a kitchen fire to instigate a thorough spring cleaning!

Thursday morning dawned lovelier than predicted, so my girls begged for a morning outside. Since I had two batches of croissants to roll out and bake, I gave them the thumbs up. The living room needed dusted, our ceiling fan in particular, so I began attacking all the surfaces from top to bottom–taking breaks to brush the rising croissants with egg wash, etc.

Croissants are full of butter. You’re really supposed to bake them on baking sheets with sides, but I’ve a plethora of those flat Air bake cookie sheets, so of a necessity, I end up using a couple of those. Normally, I have no problems. But this time, on the very first pan, the butter oozed out over the sides and caused an oven fire. As the kitchen filled with smoke, I was blithely assembling the vacuum cleaner…thank God for the sense of smell!

Nothing major came of it, the croissants even survived, not a one blackened, though some tasted “smoked”…as in barbequed. But my kitchen! In a haze of smoke, I flipped the exhaust fan on and dragged the big oscillating fan down from upstairs. I opened a kitchen window in an effort to direct the smoke outdoors, not remembering till an hour elapsed, that it was a window with plastic over the screen outside. Sheesh!

And to think, the day before we’d had weather in the 70’s, and I’d opened all the non-plastic-covered windows to let in the fresh air. All for what??? So I opened them all again.

Eventually the kitchen aired out, the rest of the croissants were baked in a smoke-filled oven. Finally, I turned the oven on self-clean and washed all the curtains and windows and finished making two pans of Texas-style lasagna to go with the croissants and salad I’d made that morning. By this time, it was nearly 4 P.M., and the girls were still outside. I’d thrown together a “picnic” lunch for them and did manage to get three year old down for a nap…but I still needed to get to town to deliver half the food I’d made to a friend (the rest was for the next day’s Bible study/lunch with my parents), pick up dog food before the grainery closed, and get back in time to feed everyone and get to Bible study on time.

So after a quick shower I did all of the above, except for getting to Bible study on time. Here’s where I can blame dh…I called the girls in to supper and fed them, all the time wondering where he was…finally I hollered outside, asking him if he’d remembered about Bible study…um, nope! So we got a late start. But all’s well that ends well.

I did have to get up early early the next morning to get finished in the living room before my 9 A.M. Bible study guests arrived…and the girls had to double up on all their subjects since they’d missed the day before…

But at least my kitchen was clean!