Friday, June 3, 2011

How To Burn Toast

My first experience with fire while cooking, happened when I was 14.  My sister and I were making stir-fry for the family while my parents were gone.  The pan we were using suddenly lit up on fire.  Because my sister and I took the lessons on fire safety seriously, we she remembered to put a lid on the pan to suffocate the fire.  It worked!

From then on, my cooking experiences weren't full of fires (well, okay, maybe that one time while I was cooking (toasting?) garlic toast...).  They were more of the charcoal variety.

For about 6 months, I was really into cooking.  I tried recipes galore and felt pretty Rachel Ray-ish.  Sure I *might* have burned garlic (while sautéing) and other vegetables here and there but you could hardly taste it!

So I thought.

Once Ben quit one of his jobs, I told him I could not cook anymore.  He took over without complaint.

One evening, I asked that he make the kids' favorite dish: hot dog spaghetti (much tastier than it sounds).  Part of the process is sautéing hot dogs with celery and onions.  After stirring the ingredients around, he asked if he needed to burn the hot dogs.

"Burn the hot dogs?" I asked, quizzically.

"Yeah, you know the way you usually do it?"  he innocently responded.

"Um, babe, that's on accident.  They aren't supposed to be burnt," I laughingly said.

"Oh.  I thought that's how the recipe went,"  he responded, sheepishly.

And now you know why Ben gladly took over the kitchen responsibilities.

On a side note, the spaghetti is usually accompanied by salad and garlic toast.  To keep with tradition, I burn one batch of garlic toast before getting it right remembering to watch the toast.   Thankfully the kids are used to the smoke detector going off.

P.S. We will be bidding Provo farewell tomorrow.  We are thrilled to see our kids again!  That is, if we finish packing and cleaning on time.  Ha.

10 comments:

  1. Ah, the joys of distracted cooking. Yup. I burn things too. Yum. Just adds a little color, right?



    Good luck with the move!

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  2. My smoke detector is so sensitive at our place - and it's wired into the house which means I can't even just take the battery out. Sometimes it'll go off 4 or 5x while I'm cooking one meal!! :( And, I didn't even burn anything, haha.



    Hope your move goes well hun. :)

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  3. I like to think of it as "the art of the char."

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  4. Best of luck with your move. I will be thinking about you and can't wait to get some updates.

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  5. Yep, done the distraction thing WAY too often. What do you expect with a house full of kids and phones that ring and a poor mom with PTSD that can't usually remember the important thing I was going to write down by the time I get something to write with???? You are very lucky to have a dh that helps out in the kitchen!

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  6. Burnt. I've done that at times. With Indian food, you don't notice it until you put it in your mouth.

    Good luck on the move Amber!

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  7. It took me two and a half year of our marriage to finally feel really comfortable with my new-found (painstakingly developed while serenaded by many a fire alarm) cooking skills. Now I am seven months pregnant, can't find my marbles, and have subscribed to the "distracted cooking" category again it seems. They tell me things will never be the same. Well, if that means Grant cooks a little more, that's fine by me. At least we have husbands who cook, right? :)



    Best wishes with your move!

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  8. So, what your saying, is that if I want to stop having to cook EVERY night... I should start innocently burning various ingredients in dinner. I could do that...

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  9. Hope the moving and reunion have gone well. I have to tell you about a secret my wonderful husband taught me: Use a timer. Can you believe it works?! ;)

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