Last night I was prepping dinner. I decided to make my own version of a super moist baked chicken recipe. I mixed together a half cup of mayonnaise, two teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of pepper, two teaspoons of paprika, teaspoon of thyme, and the zest of a lemon. I smothered the chicken breasts in the mixture, placed them in the baking pan and put them in the oven to bake. I started peeling my potatoes to go in the pot of almost boiling water I had on the stove. I looked over at the stove and realized something was not quite right. I forgot to turn the oven on! So I took out the chicken, (Silly, scatter brained me! You would think that I would have noticed that it wasn’t hot when I put the chicken in! Sigh!) turned the oven on to 425 degrees, and waited for it to heat up. I then noticed the oven making a clicking sound. (Our stove/oven is gas.) Anytime anything makes a clicking sound it is generally not a good thing! I checked to see if it was heating up, it was not. I turned it off and tried it again. This time it seemed to work. I waited a while and put the chicken in the oven. It never reached the 425 degrees, and it took forever for my chicken to bake. At one point I think it even stopped heating because it didn’t feel hot enough when I opened the oven door to check the chicken. About an hour and a half later we took the chicken out of the oven and finished cooking it on the stove top! Was I ever frustrated!!!  Despite all that went wrong the chicken actually turned out really good! We will have to have a repair man come and check out our oven this week! (Our dryer is also making a funny knocking sound. However, it is still drying. We’ll probably need to have that looked at too!)

The kids had fun playing in shaving cream yesterday afternoon! Emma was like, what am I supposed to do with this? I don’t think she really liked how it felt on her hands.:) David had all kinds of fun with it! He had it smeared all over the table, himself, and we eventually ended up in the bathtub where he continued to smear it everywhere! At least he was very clean by the end of it! 🙂

This afternoon David and I made brownies! He did pretty much all of it by himself today. I just had to help him measure the ingredients, and make sure the batter was completely mixed up. Yes he had ingredients everywhere, and chocolate all over him! Everyone knows the best part of baking is licking the batter!:)

I usually bake my brownies in the oven, but since our oven is on the fritz, I cooked them in our iron skillet. I had never done this before, and was very skeptical that they would turn out to be edible. They are wonderful! I was very surprised! I use Rachel Rays fudgy one pot brownie recipe. I fell in love with this recipe the first time I tried it! It is so easy, and the brownies are incredible!

A funny David story: At lunch today David was having a difficult time eating his food. I asked if he had had a lot of snacks at church. Come to find out they had breakfast in between services this morning, and David had a donut. The funny part is the way David started talking about his donut. He said with a serious and sort of breathlessness, “That donut was very sweet. It was so good. You have no idea how good that donut was.”

Andrew and I had to turn our heads and crack up under our breaths! 🙂 It was so funny! If only I had it on video!

Here is our menu for the week! Assuming our oven is fixed soon!

Mmm…delicious!

Monday: Lunch, Ham and Cheese paninis with chips. Dinner: Steak, baked potatoes, spinach salad.

Tuesday: Lunch, Polish sausage and navy beans. Dinner, Chicken celery bake.

Wednesday: Lunch, Sloppy joes and french fries. Dinner, Chicken piccata

Thursday: Lunch, Beef noodle stir fry. Dinner, Curried rice, grilled fish and asparagus.

Friday: Lunch, Grilled chicken fajitas. Dinner: Pizza and salad.

Saturday: Lunch, eat out. Dinner, Beef enchiladas.

Sunday: Lunch, Crockpot sesame chicken, with steamed rice and broccoli. Dinner, Baked Spaghetti