I'm using TRIACs, but the PIC isn't switching them. It just sends a signal to an analog driver chip that becomes activated whenever both the PIC is sending a signal and the AC voltage crosses zero...really neat the way it works actually- quite ingenius!. So yeah this clock thing is just something in excess.
The project is already so straightforward (hardware-wise at least) that I want to do something extra on it...otherwise it's just a PIC reading thermocouple data via SPI and setting a pin to be high or low.
My biggest problem right now is deciding on what to use for an interface. I want to be able to graph the ideal temperature profile and superimpose it on the actual temperature as the whole thing goes along so I need a pretty big graphic LCD, and a keypad or something to set the temperature profile. Problem is I hate working with buttons and screens and have never before needed to make something with a user interface.