dinner disaster

Normally I think I'm a pretty decent cook, but last night, dinner seemed to escape me for some reason.

I had defrosted a chicken to roast, and I had Jeff get it ready to go in the oven so that when we got home from the bird sanctuary, I'd be able to start cooking. Well, the instructions I use for roasting chicken are for cooking it faster at a higher temperature - you blast it at a really high temp for 20 min. and then you turn it down for another 40 or so minutes. Guess who forgot to turn down the oven? As the house filled with smoke and the smoke alarm went off continually, guess who didn't clue in that there was a problem in the oven?? You see, the smoke alarm has gone off every time we've used the oven since January, thanks to a cheesecake spillage incident and thanks to the fact that none of the stores that I've checked seem to sell oven cleaner.

Eventually, I went to check on the bird and it was black. Amazingly, though, the meat was salvageable and only a little dry. I don't recommend this method of cooking, however. I wonder how long I can put off cleaning the roasting pan.

Oh, and the mashed potatoes took forever to cook, so everything else had to wait for over 20 minutes while the water boiled... we ended up eating after 8 pm, which has got to be a record for late dinner.