I guess we eat different food than was planned. It’s even better that extra people are being dragged over so they can have a good dinner. Our family takes in strays for holidays. Sorry nothing to eat people, but ma does have a cake. :mad:
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Borrow someone else’s oven. Take the food over to their house and cook it there today, or tomorrow if they’re, like, next door. Not everyone you know is using theirs to cook mass quantities of food for Easter Sunday; to a lot of people, it’s just another day.
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Then stick Saturday’s cooking in the fridge and heat it up in the microwave on Sunday.
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And you can microwave some of it from scratch.
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Strays who are putting their feet under someone else’s table for a holiday are thrilled to pieces to have a Crisis occur while they’re there–it makes it feel less like a well-organized do-gooder charitable donation and more like an actual family get-together. Ask them to pitch in, they’ll rise superbly to the challenge and enjoy themselves thoroughly. For starters, they almost certainly have a domicile that has an oven–ask to cook something in their oven.
…not to imply that I think that taking in strays for a holiday counts as a do-gooder charitable donation, 'cause I don’t. 'Tis a fine and noble thing.
But some folks, when offering hospitality to strays, do come all over lordly and insufferable about it, and some strays are therefore touchy on the subject. And if they see that the Lord of the Manor’s oven is broken, and all the lords and ladies are having to shuttle hams and rolls in and out of the neighbors’ ovens, it makes it all a bit less like noblesse oblige.
Microwave-fu is an art.
For Thanksgiving we nuke the bird. It’s delicious.
Bless you, DDG. I have been a “stray” since my divorce six or so years ago. It seems Thanksgiving and Easters always find my kids at their dad’s house. Some of my most fun holidays have been at the homes of my brothers on these holidays, and yes, we are happy to partake in a crisis. A sense of humor goes a long way! Your suggestions are wonderful.
You can do a crapload with slow-cookers and crockpots, maybe steam veggies in a rice cooker. Get creative with delegating stuff to the people with working ovens, wing the rest and don’t forget the sense of humor.
The fridge still works, so cold beer will help things go swimmingly!
You can use my oven. Let me know what time your plane arrives, and I will even pick you up at the airport.
::: Flees:::
As far as I’m concerned the dinner is now toasted cheese and the cake. I might even toast the face of Jesus on it if my mood improves.
Well, lots of stuff can be done on the stove! My mum and I decided this year to do corned-beef-and-cabbage for Easter, since we weren’t able to get together for St. Patrick’s this year. I’m bringing desert, so I don’t think the oven will even be turned on.
Awwww…that’s totally defeatist. 
Buck up! Harness the amazing forces around you and watch the Universe dance to your tune!
Seriously. Before lunch on Saturday is wayyyyy too early to throw in the towel and resign yourself to grumpily serving bread and cheese. For EASTER? No way. At least throw in some pre-sliced ham from the deli, make an effort.
C’mon, now, get creative. Who do you know who has an oven you could borrow?
We had a snafu in our gasline and the repairs are taking longer than I thought, but really it isn’t a huge deal because with a microwave and a hot plate you can cook quite a lot! Is your stove broken as well or is it just the oven?
The oven broke a couple of days before my birthday, one time many a year ago. So, I ended up having a store-bought Angel Food cake, decorated by my mother as my birthday cake (if I recall correctly). I think I enjoyed it, and later requested Angel Food cake as birthday cakes. It was not the end of the world.
Of course, our stove was functional, and we were never invite everyone and their neighbor over for birthday people, anyway.
My mom’s worst fancy-meal-gone-bad involved the oven lightbulb that shattered into a gazillion shards when some juice from the roast splashed onto it. At least you have the luxury of time to work on “Plan B.”
I vote for the “bum the oven from the neighbors” option. I’m sure most people who aren’t using theirs would be more than happy to bail you out.
Good luck!!! Look at it as a story you’ll remember years down the road.
A smoker and a BBQ grill.
You’ll never use an oven again.
One year, the oven went on the fritz just before Christmas dinner, which seems to be the traditional time for it.
Fortunately, we were housesitting for neighbours nearby, so there was my mother, running down the block with the huge turkey, cramming it in the oven at their place, cooking it, and racing back home with a cooked turkey.
Preach it sistah! I lurves my slow-cookers and crockpots. Matter of fact tomorrow’s ham will be cooked in a slow-cooker roaster oven thingy.
I want this made into a sampler to hang in my kitchen.
I lurves my smoker and grill too Lady Mack.
Matt I have this image of your mom runnin’ up and down the street with a twenty pound turkey tucked in her arm like a football. It amuses me greatly.
You could say “to hell with it” and pack off everybody to a restaurant serving an all-you-can-eat Easter Sunday Brunch. There might even be adverts in the paper for this.
One Xmas morning I awoke to my dad calling to announce he was coming over with a 30% roasted turkey and could I preheat the oven to 350? No worries.
My sister’s doing the ham for tomorrow, baking it in the oven but then slicing it and piling it into a crock pot to keep warm for the trip over. We’re cooking a couple of pot roasts in a slow cooker here for the alternative meat, freeing the oven for rolls and pies and such.
See HD you can do it!
Actually, my oven is broken, too, and it’s been a week. Fortunately I don’t have any big meals to gook for anyone. I don’t have a microwave, either, so Friday I went to the grocery store and stocked up on things I don’t need to cook.
In conclusion: canned sardines are not all that tasty. Maaslander cheese, though: mmm.