I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[Daddy-A]

It was objecting to the turkey breast, the most sinister of all meats.

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Hear hear! Dark meat rules!

A.

[Suzanne F]

... add sugar to whipped cream without first making sure it's not salt 

This happened at a Thanksgiving dinner when my eldest was 4 ... and bless his innocent little soul, while I was busy being upset, he suggested we use the salty whipped cream on the mashed potatoes!  Yummmmmmmmmmmmm!

A.

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I nominate this for best trick learned on eG!!! That is one smart kid.

But my own oops for today: I will never again dump a can of gandules (or any other bean) into the slow cooker when I have already added the peppercorns, whole cloves, etc. etc. that I know I will have to strain out.

[Kapuliperson]

I will never again cook when I am an emotional wreck. :)

[Suzanne F]

I will never again cook when I am an emotional wreck. :)

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Oh, hope things are working out all right for you.

OTOH, a lot of people find that the concentration needed helps take their mind off their troubles. Cooking as therapy, and all that.

[FL Heat]

. . .make a slurry with hot liquid, put a top on the (disposable) container in which I am making said slurry, and shake container at chest/face level.

Hot juice & cornstarch BURNS when it explodes. And it's a <curse word> to get out of long hair.

In retrospect, what the heck was I thinking? I know better than that.

Diana

[foolcontrol]

I once cut sideways with my chefs knife along the fat line between the two pieces of meat that comprise a brisket. The cutting through the fat on the cold brisket and to the bone after suddenly sliding through the rest of the brisket.

At least three times I have attempted to make candy and not used a large enough pan. It really sucks cleaning up caramel and hard candy from the counter and cooktop.

I made a soup recipe from a local restaurant without thinking. It was the same size recipe that the restaurant makes. It ended up making enough food to feed my whole company lunch the next day.

Added rice vinegar to hot and sour soup without being aware that it was supposed to be Mirin (the recipe called for rice wine vinegar and rice vinegar).

I once used salt at a pizza restaurant that was in the cheese shaker. That was a surprise.

[Suzanne F]

. . .

In retrospect, what the heck was I thinking?  I know better than that.

Diana

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That's what we all say.

[RETREVR]

I grabbed the olive oil instead of the clarified butter...

to make hollandais.

Not checked to see if the drip pan on the stove has been cleaned during my week off. The whole unit went up in flames during a rush. I Finished the rush from a flat top an oven and a salamander. Thank god the ansul system didn't go off.

Add just a touch of safron for flavor...

and end up with a screamming yellow sauce.

Empty the pot of pasta water,

which had been replaced by veal stock. (poured half only before I noticed)

Dump the days first order of calamari into a stone cold fryer. The old "dump the filtered oil into the fryer with the valve open" is a classic.

Messier, but not as classic as the "imaginary coffee pot trick". You may have been lucky enough to see the variation of this performed with an ice tea maker. The shear volume makes this a treat. Often this is followed with the "let me set this tray of my crap down on your station while I clean up my mess". If you are really lucky you might even see this followed by the " fire that ticket I forgot to enter". On very rare occasions, depending on the mental stability of the participants, you may see the "mascara running down the face, I don't remember what they ordered on the ticket I forgot to fire that I need in the window right now".

Trust a hostess

Others have:

Made sausage gravy with powdered sugar.

Cooked live lobsters...

in the oven.

Cleaned king crab legs...

and thrown away the claws.

Sous, Left the water running to fill the 50 gal steam kettle after we cleaned up, then came out front to have a beer with the crew.

Three beers later

The entire kitchen is covered in water.

Eaten a chunk of raw ginger on a dare. Then later eat chipoltles on a dare...they were a really tar like batch....they stuck to his gums.

Watched a sous dump 5 gal of cream of asparagrass soup into an icebath while blending it ....10 minutes before lunch.

[jgm]

Forget to put the pot under the coffee maker....nothing like coming back to massive amounts of steaming coffee all over the counter and floor at 5am!!!

I did this over and over again, until I bought a coffee maker that wouldn't work until you put the pot under it. That was great, except I kept forgetting to turn the damn thing off. Coffee would burn down and then BAM, one exploded pot. After 6 exploded pots, I went out and bought a coffee maker that had to have the pot under it to work AND turned itself off after two hours.

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Using an electric teakettle (which turns itself off upon reaching the boiling point) and a French press prevents this. I have never forgotten to put the pot under the basket, nor have I forgotten to turn it off before the coffee dries out and the pot blows up. Not because I'm more together than you, but because I never even bought the coffeemaker, because I KNEW I couldn't be depended on to put the pot under the basket, or turn it off before leaving the house. For some of us, there's merit in understanding who we are, and just working with it...

[jgm]

i just put two eggs in a bowl and then in the microwave, thinking they would be poached in a minute and a half... but then after i heard the big explosion, i looked in the microwave, and the bowl i had put them in was empty and the microwave was totally covered in egg.

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I once decided to make the cat a treat, by putting chicken giblets in a bowl in the microwave. The explosion is kind of a soft muddy one, but it still the kind that resonates in the pit of your stomach.

Don't tell anyone, but I just opened the door, and after everything cooled down, the cat was permitted to do the first cleaning of the microwave. She enjoyed it much more than I did the second one.

[Dian]

Don't tell anyone, but I just opened the door, and after everything cooled down,  the cat was permitted to do the first cleaning of the microwave.  She enjoyed it much more than I did the second one.

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OHMYGOODNESS! Haha! That is funny! But it makes sense, why waste it?

[Darcie B]

This thread has kept me occupied and laughing for days! I see myself in many of the posts (stock down the drain, grabbing hot handles, halving only part of the recipe and others), but wait, there’s more!

#1: I will never again turn the burner on under a pot of water and leave the room to watch TV. I turned on the wrong burner, the one with the leftover sausage grease and plastic spatula in the iron skillet. Return to see a puddle of melted orange plastic and auto-ignition of the grease. This leads to

#2: I will never again pour water, even a little bit, onto a grease fire. I finally got the fire out by removing the skillet to the Formica countertop (scorch) and blanketing it with flour. I managed to clean up by the time my mom got home (I was 16).

#3: I will never again try to get scorched and still hot caramel out of the pan with a spoon. I managed to flick some of the blazingly hot black sugar syrup onto my upper lip. It quickly cooled and easily peeled off WITH MY LIP STILL ATTACHED TO IT.

#4: I will never again ask my husband to help me clean under the refrigerator. He brings up the LEAF BLOWER and re-textures the walls with greasy cat fur. Took me hours to clean…

My friend will never again put water on to boil in my copper teakettle then leave with us for dinner. Vaporized tin lining smells bad.

[fifi]

#4: I will never again ask my husband to help me clean under the refrigerator. He brings up the LEAF BLOWER and re-textures the walls with greasy cat fur. Took me hours to clean…

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This one got me...

Welcome Darcie B! Sounds like you will fit right in here.

[arielle]

#2: I will never again pour water, even a little bit, onto a grease fire. I finally got the fire out by removing the skillet to the Formica countertop (scorch) and blanketing it with flour. I managed to clean up by the time my mom got home (I was 16).

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I remember doing this when I was 18(?) - the kitchen ceiling and upper walls were utterly blackened. Hours of standing on a chair with my head tilted back and my arms above my head.........and then I had to clean the ceiling afterwards!

Oh yeah, welcome Darcie B!

[Lonnj]

Try to chop herbs while also watching tv and carrying on a conversation. This led to a trip to the emergency room and showering with a bag on my hand for two weeks.

Funny moment though. While I was in the elevator on my way out of the building, I had my hand in a kitchen towel, resting on my head (trying to keep it elevated). A guy gets into the elevator, asks me what I did to my head. Not thinking clearly, I hear "what did you do to your hand?" thus my response, "I cut the top off." He freaked out.

Lonn

[s'kat]

Nice one, lonnj.

[MichaelB]

In my home kitchen --

Bone 35 rabbits on Wednesday evening.

Make rabbit stock overnight Wednesday.

Strain stock Thursday morning.

Put bone sludge in garbage.

In the 85F garage.

Until garbage day on Monday.

I am still really surprised that the garbage man emptied the can without first calling the Sheriff's department to have that can inspected.

[NeroW]

I love this thread.

I will never again make 8 quarts of raspberry vinaigrette with fryer oil instead of salad oil.

[andiesenji]

In my home kitchen --

Bone 35 rabbits on Wednesday evening.

Make rabbit stock overnight Wednesday.

Strain stock Thursday morning.

Put bone sludge in garbage.

In the 85F garage.

Until garbage day on Monday.

I am still really surprised that the garbage man emptied the can without first calling the Sheriff's department to have that can inspected.

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Yuch, I can just imagine - CSI would be there............

I bag this kind of stuff and drive around to the back of my property and dump it near a couple of Joshua trees that are home base for several ravens, the very efficient waste managers of the desert. Whatever they don't get during the day, the coyotes get at night. (These are mighty big ravens, not like the much smaller blackbirds.)

[Lexica]

Hand my husband a ziploc freezer bag containing a chicken's back (from that night's spatchcocked chicken) and giblets package and expect that he will understand it's supposed to go in the freezer, not the trash can.

He says he thought I'd put them in the bag to keep the cats away from them. Sure thing - once they've figured out how to get past the child-proof latches on the trash can cupboard, that freezer bag should stop them in their tracks.

[fifi]

In my home kitchen --

Bone 35 rabbits on Wednesday evening.

Make rabbit stock overnight Wednesday.

Strain stock Thursday morning.

Put bone sludge in garbage.

In the 85F garage.

Until garbage day on Monday.

I am still really surprised that the garbage man emptied the can without first calling the Sheriff's department to have that can inspected.

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Ummm... Am I the only one that freezes her garbage.

[snowangel]

In my home kitchen --

Bone 35 rabbits on Wednesday evening.

Make rabbit stock overnight Wednesday.

Strain stock Thursday morning.

Put bone sludge in garbage.

In the 85F garage.

Until garbage day on Monday.

I am still really surprised that the garbage man emptied the can without first calling the Sheriff's department to have that can inspected.

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Ummm... Am I the only one that freezes her garbage.

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In those hot days of summer, I do (hangs head in shame) keeps the nasties in the fridge in a container specially for the nasties until night before trash day.

We, in Minnesota, are now in the season when nighttime temps tell us that no matter what you put in the trash on Thursday right after the trash man comes, not to worry.

[MichaelB]

In my home kitchen --

Bone 35 rabbits on Wednesday evening.

Make rabbit stock overnight Wednesday.

Strain stock Thursday morning.

Put bone sludge in garbage.

In the 85F garage.

Until garbage day on Monday.

I am still really surprised that the garbage man emptied the can without first calling the Sheriff's department to have that can inspected.

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Ummm... Am I the only one that freezes her garbage.

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In those hot days of summer, I do (hangs head in shame) keeps the nasties in the fridge in a container specially for the nasties until night before trash day.

We, in Minnesota, are now in the season when nighttime temps tell us that no matter what you put in the trash on Thursday right after the trash man comes, not to worry.

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The six liters of fat and scum from that batch of stock, the reduced braising liquid from the rabbit legs and the 60 liter pot of veal stock were in the fridge. Now that stuff gets seriously nasty smelling in the summer heat. Ever wonder what that awful smell out back of a restaurant is? Unless the management are pigs, it ain't the cans or the dumpster. Someone's job is to hose those out every so often. It's the barrel of grease and fat that awaits pickup from the renderer.

[TheFoodTutor]

Forget to put the pot under the coffee maker....nothing like coming back to massive amounts of steaming coffee all over the counter and floor at 5am!!!

There is a restaurant corrollary to this, and it's sometimes referred to as "making upside-down tea." It's when you're brewing a big cannister of iced tea, but you leave the receptacle upside-down. It's also known as "making floor tea."

I've done it, and I've also forgotten to replace the nozzle on the cannister, once again causing tea to shoot out all over the floor.

And people wonder why I hate iced tea.

[s'kat]

And people wonder why I hate iced tea. 

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Or sweettea, for that matter.