My oven is back in business, thanks to my resident repairman. (My son)

Friday night, he searched the internet and ordered the parts. Today, the parts arrived. Tonight, he fixed the oven. Thanksgiving is saved!

By the way, I take no credit for his abilities. We never formally studied electronics in the 13 years I taught him. He just was interested and I had the good sense to get out of his way.

My husband and I always encouraged our son to do real work at an early age though, and he taught our son quite a bit about electricity and volt meters etc. while doing work around the house.

I think kids can do far more than we give them credit for. We tend to insulate them and keep them in the play workshop world too long instead of letting them do real jobs (with close supervision, of course).
 
Here is the culprit--a small, innocent looking relay--that because of its failure, could have burned down the house!

The surprising thing was that they were German made. We were expecting them to be of Chinese origin. Both were replaced, so the oven is back in business.

My final Thanksgiving food tip is to cook the turkey upside down.

I have done this for years and it results in very juicy white meat. I usually start it upside down for at least 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Since we don't carve the bird at the table, presentation is not an issue, so I left it upside down 1 hour longer last year. If you have those new silicone hot mitts, you can just grab the turkey and turn it back right side up after the alloted time and let it finish baking. If you don't have the mitts, turning can be a little challenging--but worth it in juicy white meat.

Maybe tomorrow I will get back to blogging about 4K. I needed to take a break and talk about more pleasant things for a bit, so thanks for bearing with me. The recipes also gave me a chance to try out an older laptop that came my way with the remote desktop feature on my computer. That was fun!

Almost had a meltdown yesterday after I turned on my oven to start dinner. I threw in 3 sweet potatoes, set the temperature and did some other kitchen-y things. I thank God I did not set it to auto-start and leave as is sometimes my habit.

As I was cutting up some salad, I smelled something burning in the oven. Hmm, that's odd, I thought. Guess it is time to clean the oven? But the smell got stronger. I peeked inside and found my sweet potatoes rather blackened on the tops.

My oven is one of those Acubake type, the heating element alters from top to bottom to keep the temperature even. It works very well--usually. Yesterday, as my techno-boy tells me, the relay died in the open position (that means on). Even turning off the oven had no effect, the element stayed on! We resorted to turning off the circuit breaker.

Well, now you know my favorite way of making sweet potatoes. I just wash them, cut of the ends a tiny bit to prevent exploding spuds, and throw them on the oven rack at 350 degrees until tender.

What I would like to know from you is do you know of any horror stories of auto start oven timers? I find it very convenient to put something in the oven, set the timer and temp, and then leave. Love that coming home to a ready meal.  But now I am wondering if I must add auto start to the list of things not to do--like leaving the house with the dishwasher or dryer on?

Please share your ovens gone wrong stories with me if you have any. I want to know if auto start is trustworthy.

PS I was to have made Thanksgiving dinner. It may still be on my horizon if I can get my oven fixed in time. In the meanwhile, I am going to dig out some of my favorite recipes to share with you later.


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