Kitchen Nightmares- July 4th Stove Edition

We had a small, quiet July 4 planned.  Hubby had just started his week’s vacation and so we invited my mom to come over.  We had steaks, hamburgers, Hidden Valley Potatoes, and green beans on the menu.  Hubby was also going to go get some small fireworks for later on.  Only the fireworks happened earlier than planned and it was NOT the kind we hoped for.

Hubby had picked up some of those disposable foil cooking pans that he uses for grilling.  I decided to be a little lazy and make my Hidden Valley Potatoes in one of them so that clean-up would be a breeze later on.  I normally use a glass casserole dish to cook them in.  The steaks were almost done and the potatoes had been in the oven for about 40 minutes so I decided to start prepping the green beans.  That’s when I saw steam coming out of this little slot on the top of our stove.  I peeked inside the oven and when I opened the door, smoke came out.  Thinking maybe it was just something slightly dripping from the pan (butter), I closed the door again.  I was about to take it out of the oven and that’s when I noticed flames inside.  I slightly panicked and opened the oven door.  I ran to the door to yell for hubby.  I threw flour on the fire. I knew water was a no-no.  We got the fire out and the flour cleaned up from the kitchen floor.  My mom arrived and I was so embarrassed and mad at myself.  I wanted to cry.

We decided to pack up everything else and head to my mom’s house.  She ran by Wendy’s and picked up baked potatoes while we made our way to her house with the food.  It was still a great meal (minus the Hidden Valley Potatoes, of course), but I felt awful.  We can only conclude that the foil pan had a slit in the bottom of it and the butter just melted all over the oven element.

We called the Sears Home Repair line on Monday and they sent a technician out Tuesday.  He was really nice and helpful.  He checked the oven over and said we needed a new element on the bottom for sure, and that it would be $446 to repair AND the wait for the part would be over a month.  Parts are backlogged due to Covid.  Yikes!!  I sure couldn’t wait a month (or possibly longer) for that part. And the price of repairs was just too close to the $530 we originally paid for the stove over 5 years ago.  Weighing our options, we just decided a new stove would be the best way to go.

We stopped at our local Sears and found one we liked, very similar to the one we had, but the wait for this stove would be possibly up to two weeks and the salesman couldn’t even guarantee that it would be that soon.  We live in a fairly small town, with only one other store that sells appliances, so I was getting very discouraged by this point.  We drove over to the second store and thankfully they had one in stock and it could be delivered the next day.  We were so grateful!

Our new stove arrived the next day in time for me to make a great dinner that night of green bean casserole and chicken and rice casserole.  I’m still learning the quirks and sounds of this new stove, but I know one thing…I will never put another foil pan inside of this one!  EVER!

This experience also taught hubby and me a great lesson.  We haven’t always been very diligent about keeping an emergency fund.  However, starting last summer we really made a point to start saving money.  I was so thankful that we had the money to cover this stove without going into debt.  Of course, a new stove is great but having the means to get it without feeling the pinch financially was an even better feeling.