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.