Making do

The day before we went to Napier and Hastings, our oven broke.  It now doesn't heat at all, and (presumably relatedly), the temperature control can now wind round and round continuously, rather than stopping at the 'max' position.  Martin's checked everything he can check without success, so now we need to get an electrician in.  We're going away again on Friday, so won't have time to start that happening till after we're back.

I use the oven rather a lot, so was initially a bit thrown.  However, I've been pleased with how well we've done without it :-)

a fruit cake for friends' 10th wedding anniversary - made in the crockpot

inspired by the success of the fruit cake, a carrot cake for afternoon tea, also in the crockpot.  I purchased oval cake tins for our oval crockpot years ago, and they're getting a lot of use right now!

Our niece stayed recently.  Her last morning with us was also around the time Sarah returned from holiday, so we wanted to do a nice "Goodbye Aisha, Hello Sarah" breakfast.  Pancakes for 4 take ages to cook, so normally with those numbers we do American-style biscuits and gravy instead.  Usually the biscuits go in the oven, but they came out fine cooked in batches in the skillet on the stove - and were still a lot less hassle than pancakes :-)

I was also running low on the low-GI bread I make for myself.  I remembered I used to make pseudo*-pumpernickel in the crockpot instead, so I made a couple of loaves of that instead.  It's actually been really nice having it for a change :-)
*'pseudo' according to me - the recipe is for 'pumpernickel'.  It's a nice bread, but really not much like what the Germans call Pumpernickel!

I've used our neighbour's oven once (to make crackers - there's no way they would work in the crockpot or skillet!) and will likely make more at her place later in the week.  But other than that, I've got by OK.  Still looking forward to having an oven again, though!