Dinner and the Smoke Detectors...

I LOVE to cook!

I grew up in a household where dinner was all about putting a meal on the the table {or rather dinner trays or floor (pizza nights) since we ate in the living room} quickly and with the least fuss as possible. Hamburger Helper was HUGE in our house. My mother worked full-time and raised 3 children by herself. I look back on some parts of my childhood and though I know I didn't have some of the things other children had {like those sit down dinners} I can say without hesitation that my mother loved us and worked herself to the bone...we didn't help her out much.

Now that I have my own family I've had choices to make. One choice my husband and I made was that I would stay home. Another was how I would feed them. Though I grew up on Hamburger Helper, I can probably count on one hand how many times my family has eaten it. Instead, being a SAHM has allowed me more time to experiment with recipes and find foods my children will like. I'm not the greatest cook and I don't always succeed though I rarely burn whatever is cooking like you see on TV.

So...going back to dinner and the smoke detector...

Around Christmas I decided it would be "fun" to make my Grandma's party mix and while mixing it in the oven some spilled out. At the time I didn't realize I didn't get it all cleaned up as some fell to the back corner and I'm not really an "oven cleaner". Since then, without fail, whenever I use the oven the smoke detector goes off from the little pieces burning away in the back.

I can prepare the best pot roast or chicken cooked to perfection, yet there goes the loud "beep, beep, beep".

Any other person might actually clean out their oven for the cleanliness factor or for simply not having the detector go off anymore. Me? I still leave it. Even as I sit here writing about it, knowing the oven is cool so I can stick my body in and wipe it out, I know I won't.

So, while I grew up with memories of Hamburger Helper, my children will grow up with memories of home cooked meals and the smoke detector going off like clock work. I doubt they'll know what to do when when they move out or get married, cook and have...silence. They've been conditioned to it. Around here, dinner is synonymous with the smoke detector!