25-50 degrees off

I baked PIES yesterday! Mike was so funny when he came home and saw an Apple Blueberry with Crumb Topping and a Toll House Pie on the counter. He looked so puzzled, then he went the route of did someone bring us??? And then he noticed the baking sheets and put 2 and 2 together and, almost insultingly, in disbelief exclaimed "You Baked?!" Ha ha - they are really good pies too.

The story behind the pies:
Part One: I tried to break my oven (while it's still under the 1 yr warranty that came with the house) by using the handy self-clean option (it always broke my other oven) - because the temp is off by about 25-50 degrees, which can seriously affect the timing and doneness of whatever you're baking. And it was cool and windy yesterday, so I could open windows while heating up and smelling up the entire house. We have a bottom oven plus my mom's in the event it did break. It still works, darn it, 25-50 degrees off too.

Part Two: For Thanksgiving, I thought I'd make a pie or two. Didn't happen, but I had purchased the ingredients. My friend Lara needed almond paste, and I just so happened to have it on my pantry shelf gathering dust. She only needed a couple tablespoons, so she returned the unused portion. After looking at it sitting so forlornly in my fridge the past couple weeks, and having one of those Visiting Teaching appts right smack dab in the middle of my day - which meant I couldn't go anywhere, I decided, what the heck, let's make pie! I'm sure my VT'ers thought I was a nut, excusing myself several times to check on the pie progress. As soon as they left, I threw together the Toll House pie since I had 2 pie crusts. I figured my kids would like it better than the fruit pie. Wow - who knew it only takes like 10 minutes to throw together a chocolate chip pie?!

As soon as that pie was out of the oven, in went the lasagna's I signed up to take to the Theater kids for their dinner last night. So my oven was on for like 6 hours! Still works, 25-50 degrees off.

Mariah was the only one who sampled the Toll House pie last night (Can you believe that!?! They had popcorn instead. What's wrong with these people?) - it's not like my pies are horrible either! So today they all have a slice of it in their lunch bags. It's a case of bringing the mountain to mohammed. I balanced it with pretzels, peanut butter, carrots and celery. Am I not the most wonderful mother and homemaker in Tennessee or what?!