I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[hathor]

My husband can join the throw-it-out gang.... so depressing....so random!!

[LaurieB]

I, too, will join the Club of:

Pouring stock down the drain (only once, though!)

Freezing a bottle of wine (OK, did that twice)

And one of the first kitchen lessons I learned (of course, the hard way) was the hot soup/blender thing. (I remember my younger son yelling "Dad, you better come in here quick!") (definitely only did that once)

Laurie

[snowangel]

Never confuse halving with doubling when baking. They both have to do with twos. Remember your division and multiplication.

[Mabelline]

snowangel, does that mean you had a LUCY loaf of bread poppin' your oven door?

Some of mine have looked like vaguely amorphous lifeforms when I've gone back to look at them. Scary...My mom warned me to not get around stuff that scary while pregnant, or the child would have a mark.

[Wine_Dad]

Salt story #1: When encrusting a $100 peice of tenderloin with an herb/salt and flour crust, the doubling of the size of the tenderloin does NOT require the doubling of the salt content.

Should you double the salt content you will have the most expensive beef jerky ever made. I think I may even have some left - from 2001.

Salt story #2: Making the cornets for salmon tartar ala Keller when, without thinking, I poured the salt from the container into the measuring device - OVER THE BOWL WITH THE OTHER INGREDIENTS. A little spilled over, ok a ton of it spilled over, and I managed to remove the majority of the excess. Nevertheless, I served the cornets and it was like walking out to a field and sticking your tongue on a blue salt lick. The lesson, if you screw up start over - don't try and cover it up.

[Anna N]

Don't carefully roast some hazelnuts, wrap them in a clean towel to steam prior to rubbing the skin off and then, in desperation, grab the towel to rescue something else from the oven! Hazelnuts showered all over the kitchen. (Done this before, too.)

[Mabelline]

Wine_Dad: Step away from the salt. Carefully. We are the salt patrol, and we are armed.Drop that salt cellar. Don't force us to mace you(Super Capsaicin, bud!) Step quietly to the back, and we won't hurt you

[lemon curd]

I will always make sure the latch on a springform plan is properly closed BEFORE putting it into the oven. A while back at work, I was pre-baking cheesecake crusts. When I went to remove one of the pans from the oven, the ring part detached from the bottom. Somehow I managed to hold on to the bottom part of the springform pan and save the crust. The downside was that the HOT ring did a few rotations around my forearm.

[SushiCat]

Although I too have done many things mentioned here, including the dipping of the finger in the molten sugar I use for gluing my gingerbread houses, I just have to say something I will try to always do again is to cheer myself up while waiting for the advil to take effect by reading e-gullet

[SushiCat]

Wow, these stories are much better than my brussels shots which occurred when I got the rock-dumb idea to flambe some brussels sprouts in tequila.  I think we got about 40 proof brussels sprouts out of that... and I was the only one of age at that dinner

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This was an attempt to make brussel sprouts edible?

[serge]

One day,

I was cooking a big roast beef at low temperature in a oven having a control panel with many one-touch buttons.

So at the beginning, I pressed the light button to check if everything was going fine in the oven and I closed it afterwards.

Two hours later, my guests were in the kitchen and I wanted to show them THE roast.

Big surprise, it was completely raw !

I realised later on that I shut off the oven instead of the light at the beginning !?!

[handmc]

Turn my head for 1 measly second to inform the SO that of course I always use my chefs knife to dice and cut most of the top off my thumb, right through the nail   

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May I recommend the healing powers of triple antibiotic healing ointment?

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The healing powers of a very old single malt may be called for in this situation, at least 1/2 the bottle - while you sits there and wait for the bleeding to stop.

[Jake]

Turn my head for 1 measly second to inform the SO that of course I always use my chefs knife to dice and cut most of the top off my thumb, right through the nail   

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May I recommend the healing powers of triple antibiotic healing ointment?

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The healing powers of a very old single malt may be called for in this situation, at least 1/2 the bottle - while you sits there and wait for the bleeding to stop.

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Indeed, that is exactly the remedy I used. Unfortunately, the damn thing still hurts 5 days later, especially every time I bang it! It looks pretty awful too. Hmm, maybe another glass of that scotch would help......

[JPW]

And for the Thanksgiving edition....

Lesson learned - Things in blenders tend to expand upwards when you turn on the blender.

For my cranberry sauce I had been simmering some fresh cranberries in ginger ale and OJ for about 30 minutes. When to puree it with my immersion blender only to find that the thing had conked out.

Mrs. JPW had the good idea of just using the bar blender. So I poured the hot bubbling mixture in, filling it almost to the top. Place lid on and hold hand over lid. Flip switch and .....

OOOOUUUUCCCCCCHHHHH! That fucking hurt!!!!

Force of expanding mixture forces top off and sends cranberry exploding out.

Somehow I managed to force the top back on and turn machine off, but not before turning my white kitchen into a white kitchen with ruby red polka dots and giving myself a couple of nice burns.

We're still finding bits of cranberry in places.

[Dani Mc]

Cup a bread roll in my left hand while sawing away at it with a dull serrated knife with my right hand.  I know better.  I KNOW BETTER.  Yet my middle finger has a band-aid because not only did I hit flesh, I kept sawing for a second.

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My father did this with a bagel. You were fortunate to walk away with just a band-aid. Daddy had to have surgery to get some tendons restrung, and he still has nerve damage.

Cooking barefoot is probably the dumbest thing I've done. Nothing like bubbling hot pan juice narrowly missing the top of your foot to get you to put some shoes on. I got a few splatter burns. I don't want to think about what would've happened had I not jumped away in time.

[Suzanne F]

From post-holiday shopping: I will never again give in to the fabulous bargain of 40-ounce packages of pristine, large white mushrooms reduced from $7 to $4 -- and buy FOUR packages (that's 10 pounds, the equivalent of a full case); process them into duxelles, sauteed slices, large dice, small dice, and wedges; and then realize I have to make room for them in fridge and freezer.

Anyone want to come over and have pot luck with stuff like kimchi topped with dulce de leche?

[bergerka]

And for the Thanksgiving edition....

Lesson learned - Things in blenders tend to expand upwards when you turn on the blender.

For my cranberry sauce I had been simmering some fresh cranberries in ginger ale and OJ for about 30 minutes. When to puree it with my immersion blender only to find that the thing had conked out.

Mrs. JPW had the good idea of just using the bar blender. So I poured the hot bubbling mixture in, filling it almost to the top. Place lid on and hold hand over lid. Flip switch and .....

OOOOUUUUCCCCCCHHHHH! That fucking hurt!!!!

Force of expanding mixture forces top off and sends cranberry exploding out.

Somehow I managed to force the top back on and turn machine off, but not before turning my white kitchen into a white kitchen with ruby red polka dots and giving myself a couple of nice burns.

We're still finding bits of cranberry in places.

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At least cranberry is a pretty color?

By the way, how does simmering them in ginger ale work out? Is it tasty?

I will never again open the refrigerator during a busy dinner party (when I've already had four glasses of wine) without looking on top of it first. The jar of bacon fat someone had removed from the freezer and placed up there was too close to the door. CRASH!

Glass and bacon fat everywhere, and if there is ONE itty bitty teeny tiny sliver of glass on my floor, anywhere, I will step on it. So far I've found five slivers since Thursday.

K

[peppyre]

Do not check egullet, then decide to do some dishes while baking cookies. Then decide to freak out when you see smoke billowing out of your oven and try and grab said cookie sheets with wet hands and a wet dish towel. End result: Charred cookies for eGullet event on Sunday and no more fingerprints

[Daddy-A]

End result:  Charred cookies for eGullet event on Sunday and no more fingerprints

On a positive note, you're now perfectly suited for a career as a cat-burglar!

Near disaster in the Daddy-A household as I was making demi whilst prepping for cookie making and at the same time ripping Christmas music into the computer (for Sunday ). Luckily J noticed the demi getting dangerously close to the roof-tar phase. A splash more stock and disaster averted! No I'm not making demi-cookies!

A.

[tryska]

always always always check to make sure you have all your ingredients before starting.

stupid roommate decided to use up all the flour to make cookies that she binged on, and didn't bother mentioning it or replacing it.

me? i didn't find out we were out of flour until i was ready to sprinkle some into the gravy i was making.

[Viola da gamba]

Most recent lessons learned:

Australian cookbooks have temperatures in celsius, not farenheit - that may be the lightest, fluffiest potato-herb bread I have ever made.

DO NOT forget to turn the pressure cooker down when making soup - unless you want to redecorate the kitchen.

DO NOT forget to put water in the bottom of the pressure cooker when cooking potatoes - it WILL warp.

Popcorn popped in a saucepan without a lid makes a really cool mess (sadly, I had permission - but it was still a lifelong dream that I have now realized).

DO NOT ask Mr. da Gamba what he thinks of the pastry leaves painstakingly cut to decorate the top of the steak & mushroom pie - he can't tell the difference between leaves & fish.

ALWAYS confirm which canister is salt & which is flour when baking at someone else's house. Salt is not a good substitute when doing a flourless chocolate torte.

Edited November 30, 2004 by Viola da gamba (log)

[Luckylies]

Pour untasted wine into a batch of stew on the stove.  Did it once with a bottle of Michigan wine, which made the stew (and the whole house) smell like Chateau Mucilage. 

See, there IS a good reason to have a slurp while you're cooking (besides the enhanced creativity!). 

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drink too much of the wine while making the stew.

freeze the wine.

roast anyting that looks like a dog (very small suckling pig)

cook eggs on high heat on the stovetop

ask a friend "does this need salt?"

slow-roast pork for models.

[Really Nice!]

Pour untasted wine into a batch of stew on the stove.  Did it once with a bottle of Michigan wine...

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Fenn Valley?

[winesonoma]

Pour untasted wine into a batch of stew on the stove.  Did it once with a bottle of Michigan wine, which made the stew (and the whole house) smell like Chateau Mucilage. 

See, there IS a good reason to have a slurp while you're cooking (besides the enhanced creativity!).  

←

drink too much of the wine while making the stew.

freeze the wine.

roast anyting that looks like a dog (very small suckling pig)

cook eggs on high heat on the stovetop

ask a friend "does this need salt?"

slow-roast pork for models.

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Can I slow roast models for pork?

[Toliver]

slow-roast pork for models.

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Welcome Luckylies!