My descent into karmic oblivion seems to have been arrested. Perhaps the bug flipping was effective in proving my good intentions in the world.


The oven, however, remains unimpressed and inoperative. I'm pretty sure that our range is original to the house. It is, like the rest of the establishment, kind of odd - four burners with a griddle in between sitting above two ovens, one quite little the other much larger than average. It's nestled into some custom cabinetry making replacement difficult - a newer range is almost guaranteed to be much smaller and would leave a gap where no finishing of the wall or floor is present. So we've made do with its quirks - very slow preheating, random temperature hold and all the rest because replacing it would merely cause different problems.


Sears no longer supports this model (although you can reference the parts needed on the website, you just cannot buy them) so we now have been pretty much backed into a corner, stove-wise. And, despite my blustery happiness about redecorating the kitchen, I am less than happy because well over half of our budget will now go to an appliance that will in turn require spending the other half just fixing the ugliness cause by buying the new appliance in the first place.


And this is how I found myself grilling pizzas for dinner the other night. The Boy Wonder really wanted pizza and I had all the ingredients so no way was I about to let a little issue like a lack of oven stop me. I recalled reading in some fancy-pants cooking mag years and years ago about pizza grilling so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. And I was right, much to the Boy's delight.


A quick oiling, a good preheating before turning the flame down to the lowest and forming "personal" size pizzas for easy maneuvering did the trick. I used homemade dough, so getting the pizzas from the platter to the grill was a little tricky. If you're inclined to using pre-made crusts that part of the operation would be smoother. Once the dough was set and beginning to turn golden, I moved the pizzas to the cooler upper rack for finishing. Most excellent and fascinating to small children, if the Boy Wonder is any indication.


In other news, I've bought all the ingredients required to can butterscotch sauce. I'm super psyched about it - it'll be a great accompanyment to the chocolate sauce for Christmas presents. I know two or three ice cream monsters who will be very pleased indeed.