Lasagna Debacle

This is the story of how this week's lunch is going to be sandwiches.

Originally, the menu was going to be this awesome looking recipe for turkey, spinach, and mushroom lasagna for lunch and kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew) for dinner.

Turkey Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna

(Healthy. Delicious.)

And

Kimchi Jjigae

(Maangchi)

Before I continue, I would like to say this to the lasagna lover, it is not for the faint of heart. And now I will start at the beginning.



First, we have a new roommate! David's best friend is living with us while he gets settled and established in the Denver area. This is important because it explains why I needed to have 2 dishes to bake the lasagna. Cooking for another person is not a huge deal because I do all my cooking in bulk so adding a little more food isn't a problem. However, I did need a second dish so I didn't have to unnecessarily double my cooking time. So while at the grocery store I bought a Pyrex dish along with our usual groceries.

Well, I began the process of preparing the lasagna this morning (that is Sunday morning).

Ingredients were out and ready to go

Filling cooked and lasagna read to be put together

Lasagna built and ready for the oven

As you can see everything was going great. It did take me a while to prep since lasagna takes a lot of time to prep in general. I would say it took me at least an hour and a half to two hours before it was ready to go in the oven. And I happily put both pans of lasagna in the oven and ate lunch because I was starving. Then I was going to clean up and start on the kimchi jjigae.

After 30 minutes, I took the pans out to remove the aluminum foil as directed by the recipe and I immediately put them back in the oven to bake for another 20 minutes. Once that was done I proceeded to do the dishes.

Well, a few minutes before I was ready to take the lasagnas out of the oven, I heard a huge POP! And this was not the sound of food popping. So I cracked the oven door open (because I forgot I had a light) and saw that the top pan completely shattered. I immediately shut the door, turned off the oven and went to call David (he was driving back from a hike). There really wasn't much I could do since I had to wait for the oven to cool so I told him what happened.

Of course it had to be the top one

Now I would like to point out that the top dish was not even close to the top of the oven. Also, the dish that shattered was the new dish. The bottom dish is an older Pyrex dish. And since the top one shattered, there's no way to salvage the bottom one since glass landed in it. SO SAD. All that delicious food gone to waste. It smelled so delicious and I will never know how yummy it was.

sigh

When David got home, he took several pictures and we headed to the grocery store to get a refund and buy things for sandwiches. Luckily, they were understanding at the store, especially after David showed the manager the photo of the ruined food and dish. When the manager saw the photo, he blinked a few times and said, "They don't make 'em like they used to." And so they gave us a refund on the dish and groceries that were used. Next he's going to get in touch with Pyrex to complain.

Why not just get the ingredients again? David didn't get back home until after 5. And I did not want to spend another 3 hours cooking when we didn't get to the store until after 6. Remember my bedtime is 9. I think I was also emotionally drained from the whole situation. My spirit was crushed and I really couldn't handle doing all that work again. And it means David would be without food tomorrow (Monday). So I just threw up my hands and decided on sandwiches.

When we got back home, David did his wonderful husbandly duty and cleaned out the oven. I realized earlier that I shouldn't clean up since I would have to be squatting and leaning into the oven for a while and I don't think that's good for my body at the moment. I kept seeing myself hitting the oven door with my belly, so I waited for David to come home.

Many reasons I love him =)

We all mourned the loss of our food. But I have to say that I am not harmed, we got our money back, and it looks like our oven hasn't been ruined. So, I just need to look on the bright side.

And that is how sandwiches became lunch for this week.