One of These Days

While I was standing in the kitchen, out of the corner of my eye I saw the Voice saunter past.  The Voice, that lives inside my head, was dressed from top to bottom in fireman's gear.  I rolled my eyes and hollered "It's spaghetti sauce!" as the Voice walked around the corner, this time dragging a fire hose.  

I was preparing a home made spaghetti sauce recipe that a friend had given me.  It is quite delicious and it makes enough sauce for at least three meals.  It calls for two cans of tomato paste and upon realizing I was out of said ingredient, I proceeded to make my own. Google informed me, all that was necessary to make tomato paste was to cook the water out of two cans of tomato sauce.   I had already started this process and not only did I make some dandy tomato paste, I did not adhere it to the bottom of the pan.  

Now it was time to brown the sausages.  I put the oil in my dutch oven and turned on the burner.  While it was heating up, I began to work on the garlic.  This recipe calls for lots of garlic, the more, the better.  I had six cloves of elephant garlic on the cutting board.  Elephant garlic cloves are ma-honkin' big, hence the name.  I was busy whacking them with a knife, to loosen the skins and peeling the cloves when I heard a very faint sound.  It sounded like someone whispered "poof".  I nonchalantly turned around to investigate where the whisper had come from and much to my surprise, the dutch oven had turned into a roaring inferno.  My very first thought was, "Lois lives".  Lois, my mother, was always catching something on fire and we always wondered if maybe she was just a little on the pyro side.  The thought that followed that one was how to get the fire out before the mushroom shaped cloud of smoke that was now boiling across the ceiling like a summer thunder storm, reached the smoke alarm.

Runtly, the ever so entertaining Jack Russell Terrier, does not like the smoke alarm.  It not only scares him, it hurts his ears.  Jack Russell Terriers are known for their ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  Well, maybe not quite that high, but they can jump.  When the smoke alarm goes off, Runtly jumps five feet straight in the air and barks in the highest pitch bark he can muster.  Then he begins to use me to bounce off of, in case I did not hear the alarm.  Staring at the fire, I did have the good sense to turn the burner off.  Now, about those flames.  They were really big, nearly touching the exhaust hood.  Armed with oven mitts and the pan lid, I reached into the flames and dropped the lid in place, just in time for the smoke to reach the alarm.  

The closest thing to wave at the smoke alarm was Runtly's pillow.  One true fact about Jack Russell Terriers, they shed, all. the. time. I'm waving the pillow, dog hair is flying everywhere and Runtly is having a fit.  When the alarm finally quit screeching, I began opening doors and windows and discovered first hand why they tell you to get on the floor when there is thick smoke in the room.  I would also like to tell that I did not walk over to the dutch oven and lift the lid.....but, I did and repeated the above scenario all over again.  

I finally got the pan outside and left the Voice to stand guard over it.  The cooking oil I used states on the front of the bottle that it has a 500 degree smoke point.  I reckon it has a 501 degree ignition point as well.

Eventually, I did get the sauce made.  One of these days I'm going to do one of those ancestry DNA tests......Just to see if there is a crazy, pyromaniac, garlic loving Italian in my lineage.