As many will know, I’m not the sharpest tool in the kitchen. My mum winces whenever she watches me fumbling my way around the stove. I thought that I was getting better at cooking here in Cambridge but today, I returned to my clumsy self.
I had 350 g of mince left so I decided cook fettuccine bolognese. I’ve watched my mum do it before. It looked pretty easy, even for a kitchen klutz. To minimise the risk of disaster, I prepared and lined up all the ingredients on the bench before turning on the stove.
While the pasta simmered in one pot, I fried chopped onions and mince in a pan. “Almost done!” I thought. “Just add sauce.”
I bought the jar of tomato and basil sauce just an hour ago. Placing my hand over the lid, I twisted. Ungh. Nothing happened. I took a deep breath, angled my hands further around the lid for greater leverage and twisted again. UNGH.
“Okay, Joan, don’t panic. You probably just need a greater coefficient of friction.”
I grabbed the red-and-white checked tea towel. Wrapping the it around the lid, I twisted again. The lid didn’t budge.
“Um, um…” I could feel the old anxiety building up again. “It’s a metal lid. I can run it under hot water and it’ll expand more than the glass jar. It’ll be easier to loosen, then.”
I sat the jar under the hot water tap then tried opening it again.
“Noooooo! Why am I so weak?” I had the brains but not the brawn. In the mean time, I could almost hear the the pasta wilting, the onions burning and the mince rubberising over the heat.
“Stupid thing!” I thought grumpily. “What are you made out of?” I scanned over the ingredients.
“Hey, I have all of this stuff.” I blinked a couple of times as an idea grew inside me.
I tried the jar a final time before giving up on it for real. Then, darting between my cupboard, the fridge and the communal spice collection, I pulled out a can of chopped tomatoes, my tube of tomato concentrate, the leftover half onion I had wrapped up before, dried basil, garlic powder, salt and sugar.
I threw it all into the pan and it began bubbling with satisfying vigour. Taste, add salt, sugar, more basil, more garlic, taste…
For the final touch, I chopped fresh chilli and poured it in. I tasted it. Wow! What a kick!
The meal was very tasty. And now, I don’t need to buy tomato-based pasta sauces ever again!
it happens to me many times too. just when everything was bubbling and boiling i had difficulty trying to pry open the bottle lids. haha
You could try the whole ‘knife under the lid’ thing, that seems to work well for me 🙂 Or you can buy these ‘official’ wrench/clamp like contraptions that do the job pretty well too.
I avoid these problems by not cooking 🙂
I do the knife under the lid thing too. Or if I’m really REALLY desperate, I hold the lid (assuming it’s a metal one on a glass jar or something) over the stove’s flames…
I guess all I needed to do was puncture the lid to break the vacuum seal. But the knives we have here are such bad quality that I’m afraid using them on metal would damage them permanently.