When You Leave the Oven On

This is a short, sweet and delicious blog about what happens when you leave the oven on too long. I could still fit this blog in the challenge category since I had to figure out how to “repair” the chicken. Here’s my story….

We were having a fun day with Lia yesterday, planting vegetables in the garden, running under the sprinkler and then she made lunch which was her homemade cheese sauce and spaghetti. A few weeks ago Lia came up with a recipe for the most delicious cheese sauce. She added some shredded cheese, water, milk and butter to a pan and made a creamy cheese sauce that she added over her cut up chicken. Yesterday she made her cheese sauce again and had it over spaghetti. She gets quite creative with her cooking. Meanwhile I put a pan of chicken and potatoes in the oven for dinner later on.

I cooked my chicken and potatoes for a few hours and go about our day. We had to run out and Rich mentioned there was about 10 minutes left on the chicken so I planted to turn the oven off and let it stay warm. Well I got busy, Lia was finishing watching a show and then we scurried out the door. When we came home about 40 minutes later, I opened the door and the chicken smelled so good! But then I remembered I FORGOT TO TURN THE OVEN OFF!! Dinner didn’t burn, the chicken legs and potatoes were perfect but the chicken breasts were a bit dry from over cooking. So my challenge was to figure out how to quickly make the dry chicken tasty.

I grabbed a jar of Bertolli d’ITALIA marinara sauce (look how chunky it is!) and after cutting the chicken breast in pieces I covered the chicken and microwaved it for a minute. Then I covered it with shredded Italian cheese and melted that. This is all it took to soften up the dry chicken and make a delicious meal! Not sure if the brand of the sauce had anything to do with it, this was the first time I bought this brand and I did so because I got Swagbucks points from it! But now I’m hooked in it because is so thick and chunky.

I like coming up with ways to save the day and this is what happens when you leave the oven on too long but I was able to save the chicken and turn it into a great meal by added sauce and cheese.

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Martha DeMeo

I started my blog on Christmas Day 2014 mainly to review products I received. Since then it has evolved into many other categories of lifestyles, family, money saving ideas, low cost, delicious and healthy meals plus other surprise posts. My granddaughter has her own category, Alex's Articles and the latest addition to my blog is my great granddaughter now has her category, Lia's Likings The Baby Blogger! Lia started blogger at 8 months old and she now has a Friday Story Time blog you won't want to miss! I welcome you to join the conversation, ask a question, give a suggestion or leave a comment on any blog post. I hope you enjoy Lia's Likings, she has some great posts that will make you smile!

16 Discussion to this post

  1. So glad you were able to save the day! I didn’t know that Bertolli had a pasta sauce variety made in Italy. I will have to look for it at the market.

  2. Tamara says:

    Phew, luckily you didn’t burn your dinner!
    Being creative and able to improvise is a great skill to have pretty much everywhere in life, but especially in the kitchen! Lia gets to learn so much from you. Look at her, 4 years old, creates her cheese sauce and makes her Easter sprinkle cake!
    So interesting that you get to purchase Bertolli in the U.S. My go-to brand is Barilla, do they sell it at your supermarket as well?

    https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2023/04/gas.html

  3. Kimberly W says:

    I am constantly wowed by how creative and intuitive Lia is, it’s so wonderful that you and your family foster this in her!

    • Martha says:

      Lia loves learning Kimberly, my hope is that she retains even half of what she’s leaned in the kitchen for when she’s older.

  4. Pamela says:

    Lessons Learned from Lia- I feel a long blog post coming on listing the top 50 lessons she can teach the world!

  5. Danwil Reyes says:

    Good that you’re able to save the chicken breasts using your creativeness. And Lia making her own homemade meal, nice!

  6. Glenda Cates says:

    Great save and now you have a new recipe you can use later on. I am always afraid I will forget to turn the stove off. Especially when leaving the house and I make Charlie and David go back inside to be sure. Which stems from the fires we had as a child.

  7. Dominique says:

    Quick thinking! I usually grab barbeque sauce when I have a chicken breast catastrophe. chicken breasts are prone to such outcomes — at least in my hands LOL

  8. Martha, yes! Thank goodness you weren’t out for another hour, or you would have had to make chicken stew. I love marinara anything, so I love your solution.

  9. I’m glad you saved the chicken. I hope it was tasty. 🙂

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