wee OT: Lesson Learned: Don't take shortcuts!

Learned a very valuable lesson tonight. Don't take shortcuts!

Usually, I'm very meticulous about what I cook and how I cook it.

Tonight, my wife and I decided to make some pizza dough in our bread machine while we watched a movie.

Sure, no big deal, right? It is if #1 you've never tried the dough recipe in a bread machine before and #2 if the recipe is a 1 pound recipe and your bread machine is a 2 pound bread machine and you double the recipe without testing it first.

Result? Complete and utter disaster!

After the movie, we went to check on the dough... and it completely overflowed. It was wet, sticky, gooey, tacky... except it wasn't in the bloody pan! It was in-between the bread pan and heating element.

What to do?

I did a few searches, and found it would be easier to clean if the dough was cooked. So, I did what any annoyed lazy bastard would do on a Friday night... I popped open a beer, put on Lord of the Rings, and set the bread machine to run a full bread cycle.

About a third of the way through the second DVD, I could smell something burning. I knew instantly I had made a mistake.

I rush into the kitchen, and it's FILLED with smoke... the bread machine looks like it's a white big green egg on it's side, with a solid column of putrid smoke is billowing out of its vents. I immediately killed the power, then opened up the doors to the back yard and a couple of other windows and turned on the laundry & oven vent hood fans.

Then I peeked through the bread machine window, and could see two black areas where some of the overflowed dough had dripped directly on the heating element.

I think I may have to just toss the bread machine... a cross between burned coffee and burned microwave popcorn permeates the air, and it originated in the bread machine. And it's my fault, all because I wanted to take one shortcut after miserably failing from another.

Who wants to spend a Friday night cleaning a bread machine? Certainly not me... but now, I get to spend a Saturday trying to clean it, and when I can't, I'll have to replace it. /le sigh.