The drama queen had promised me that she would get up 10 minutes earlier to heat up some pizzas to bring to school. We had some leftover pizzas from Itallianies from our Sunday dinner.
As I had expected it, the drama queen was moving too slowly and still in a zombified state that Monday morning. So I helped her to reheat the pizza in the toaster oven. While the pizza was in the toaster, I went about to do other chores.
About 10 minutes later when I opened the toaster door, fire was spilling out. I was shocked!! There were BIG FLAMES!! My instant reflex action was to blow off the fire! And I jumped and blew, jumped and blew like a delirious woman, while screaming out FIRE to the drama queen. I asked her to wake her daddy up. After a few blow jobs which obviously did not put out the fire, I quickly scooped out 2 cups of water from a pail that is in the kitchen and splashed it into hungry flames. Thank GOD the fire was quickly tamed and then it died off, PHEW!
And guess what the drama queen's first few words were after the fire? "So I guess I have to bring the bread and seaweed to school after all, huh?"
I had already packed bread and seaweed for her but the drama queen wanted something more fancy for recess and promised that she would reheat the pizza herself. And so, she still had to bring her bread to school after all the trouble that I had to go through, ha!
I quickly cleaned up the kitchen and got the drama queen to help to clean up too. What a way to start off my Monday morning!
And the moral of the story is:
Never ever ever use grease-proof paper in the toaster oven. I think what ignited the fire was that the piece of grease-proof paper was too big and part of the paper touched the sides of the inner toaster oven. I had hurriedly tore off a piece of grease-proof paper that morning to line the toaster tray.
So peeps, learn from my mistake. Use only aluminum foil for your toaster oven and if you only have grease-proof paper at home, do tear off a piece that is just fitting the toaster tray. Make sure the sides of the paper do not touch the sides of the inner toaster oven that is burning hot.
And check your toaster closely. Do NOT ever leave it turned on while you attend to other chores and forget all about it.
5 comments:
Baking paper is the one to use in toaster/oven, not the grease proof paper. I made the mistake once too when grilling my pumpkins, can the papers got burnt first.
Hi kcantares, I actually read the instructions on the grease-proof paper box a few times before using. It says that the paper is suitable for baking in the oven. I am quite certain it was the sides of the paper touching the burning oven. Funnily though, I also always use this same brand of grease-proof paper for baking chicken and fish in the oven and it was ok all the time, hmmm....
Baking paper must not touch any of the heating element or it will burn. Here's a safety tip, have a box of baking soda handy, under the sink, near the stove, whatever works. Just throw that on the fire, will put it out. Or put a pot cover on it to stifle the fire. Definitely don't blow on it! That will fan the fire. Also be careful of throwing water on electrical appliances.
Hi Chris, thanks for the handy tip! :)
PTL that no one got hurt.
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