I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[mrbigjas]

ok here's one: when you're preparing stinging nettles for cooking you wear gloves so you don't get stung. what is VERY IMPORTANT to not forget is, after dinner when you're cleaning up and you see a big pile of stems in the sink, PUT THE GLOVES BACK ON before grabbing them.

[saskanuck]

Here's one from my distant past: make sure the lid is on the food processor properly before you start shredding carrots. I picked carrot shreds off the kitchen cupboards and walls for days. I'd be willing to bet there are some still there in that apartment.

And one from my cousin: do not try to take pizza out of the oven without hand protection. You will drop the pizza pan in pain and shock, and the whole mess will slide off the pan and onto the bottom of the oven, making your mother very angry. This happened when we were teenagers and at her place alone. We decided to make one of those packaged Chef Boyardee pizzas - what a mess that was to clean up. Yech.

Another good thing to remember: if you store pasta salad in an old sour cream container, check your containers before you pack your child's lunch. He will not be pleased to open his lunch and be confronted with a container of sour cream instead of his salad. Poor guy. We still laugh like loons every time I think of this.

My mother once put an unwashed pot that had held cabbage rolls back in the cupboard, thinking it had been washed and dried. When we started smelling something, we finally discovered the pot. Gawd almighty, that was horrible.

[afn33282]

I will never again set water in my beautiful Club aluminum stockpot to boil and then lie down on my bed "for just a couple minutes." I will never do this again because the water boiled off and then my pot eventually melted down into the burner coil. I didn't notice this until I tried later to take the now-cool pot off of the coil to wash it and the entire bottom came off the pot. I then tried to pick the bottom piece off of the coil and the metal had melted down in one big shiny blob through the coil. Picture "The Terminator II". I couln't call my new landlord to borrow a saw to cut the blob off the bottom piece to free it from the coil, because who wants to tell their landlord they have a tenant who falls asleep and melts cast-aluminum pots into their stoves? Luckily when I removed the coil I was able to slip the blob out of the widest spot.

I loved the pot and they do have more on eBay....

[BarbaraY]

Never neglect to taste the pie filling before assembly.

I had recently changed jobs and sugar and salt bins were in opposite positions.

You guessed it. Salted Blueberry pie. Took while to live that one down.

[afn33282]

...check out the latest in the BK/Bayless debate...

←

Hey Al...

Which BK/Bayless debate? Which thread? It sounds interesting. Thanks,

Chris

[lovebenton0]

i will never never never never set a cast iron skillet down on a crowded counter again.... it was not hot, it was not cold, but it was about 70 years old, left to me by a dear departed elderly friend. i've had that skillet for 30+ yrs. i must have bumped it when i was cleaning the stovetop. it now has no handle. when it hit the floor the handle leaped away from the skillet like a live animal!

it is useless to me for stovetop cooking now, just too dangerous for me. but i refuse to give it up, so it has become strictly for oven use, for cornbread, etc.

it did prompt me to order that new Lodge pre-seasoned skillet i've been wanting... but like a good friend you can't replace one with another...

on a #$%&* hot handle note here... i love my handle potholders. got two at the restaurant supply for about $4. just remember to stick them on when you set the pan on the burner. saved me many times now from that "i'm just gonna shift the pan a touch" burns!

and thanks to all the confessors here, i've laughed and cried all morning reading this thread.

[flacoman]

I will never again set water in my beautiful Club aluminum stockpot to boil and then lie down on my bed "for just a couple minutes." I will never do this again because the water boiled off and then my pot eventually melted down into the burner coil.

Been there done that. Had to warm up a baby bottle in the middle of the night

Never even noticed 'till i picked up the pot and noticed the pot MUCH lighter.

[Smithy]

The Cute Guy signed up for Home Economics, lo these many years ago, to the fascination and deep joy of the Girls Who Worshiped Him who happened to be enrolled in that class. Cute Guy experience the fishbowl effect in that classroom, I'm quite sure, based on the reports that came out every day at lunch.

One day, the Girls Who Worshiped Him tumbled out of class hollering with glee. Cute Guy had reached into the oven to pull out his beautiful pan of muffins. Cute Guy had forgotten about a potholder. After he'd grabbed his pan, his nervous system had taken over as the "HOT!" message hit. He'd yanked back his hands, the pan had gone flying across the room and landed muffin-side down on the floor. Not one muffin came out. The muffins were rock-hard.

Cute Guy went on to lead a fine life anyway, to the best of my knowledge, but he was a long time living that one down.

[daracooks]

... absent-mindedly strain stock by placing a colander in the sink and pouring it all down the drain

←

At least you did that at home in the privacy of your own home. I was on Food Fight on the Food Network and strained my tea infusion into the trash can, captured on film for all to see.

[GSBravo]

... absent-mindedly strain stock by placing a colander in the sink and pouring it all down the drain

←

At least you did that at home in the privacy of your own home. I was on Food Fight on the Food Network and strained my tea infusion into the trash can, captured on film for all to see.

←

Which episode? I've seen all of them at least twice, what you people (and I mean that in a nice way) come up with in that short a time amazes me.

[Hwertheim]

Never....in order to create the perfect crust on bread, seal the oven vent, and pour boiling water into a pan on the bottom shelf...result? Cracked oven window.

....place cast-iron frying pan on burner on high for "a second" to dry, then leave the house for an hour or so.

[mrbigjas]

....place cast-iron frying pan on burner on high for "a second" to dry, then leave the house for an hour or so.

←

hwerther--what happened when you did this? i've always wondered if cast iron on a regular (i.e. not super high power restaurant style) gas stove would reach a state of equilibrium after a while.

[judiu]

Deglaze the skillet I just cooked sausages in with red wine, and turn up the heat to high to reduce it and cook out the alcohol. Pop, POP,POP! Had purple polka dots <everywhere>!

[chuckyoufarley]

I worked in a retaurant that did close to 300 to-go dinners for Thanksgiving. Yeah I live in Southern California.

One of the items in the desert baskets was a bag of Macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies and a few others. My pantry guy Freddy was put to task with producing close to a thousand of these babies.

As the final boxes were being sent out I decided to treat myself to a cold glass of whole milk and one of Freddies fine cookies.

The thing that struck me halfway into the cookie was how damn rich and complex the cookie was. I commented "Damn freddie thats some good cookies man. Your getting better in your old age."

Before I left for the evening I did a quick inventory and found out somehow in one week we had burned through close to 5 industial size boxes of the Lard we used to goose the flavor of the fry oil.

Then It struck me, freddy had sent out 300 dinners with cookies made with lard not shortening.

Great cookies though. Frankly, the best cookies I have ever eaten.

I hope that we didnt serve any vegatarians.

[Mnehrling]

I often say I will never again grab the handle of my favorite Lodge cast iron skillet w/ out protection or checking its temperature first……

Of course, saying and doing are two different things…

[winesonoma]

Deglaze the skillet I just cooked sausages in with red wine, and turn up the heat to high to reduce it and cook out the alcohol. Pop, POP,POP! Had purple polka dots <everywhere>!

←

Drink red wine with a mustache. You should see my keyboard and my shirts. 55 gallons of Wine Away in the garage. I wear the color Burgundy all the time now

[fifi]

. . . . .

Drink red wine with a mustache. You should see my keyboard and my shirts. 55 gallons of Wine Away in the garage. I wear the color Burgundy all the time now

 

←

The second picture down on this example of frying chile sauce (second picture) prompted me to order three black tee-shirts, with pocket for the phone, from Land's End. I will never again wear anything but black when messing with chile sauce.

[Anna N]

I can't believe I just did this! Hubby was feeling bit down in the mouth due to recent very serious surgery so thought I would perk him up with a mini Danish lunch washed down with a couple of shots of ice-cold akvavit and some beer which of course I shared with him - just so I have set the scene for you....

I was in the midst of making Kaiser Rolls from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. After lunch it was time to put the risen rolls in the oven. After 10 mins or so, the house was filled not with the wondrous aroma of baking bread but the acrid pall of burning plastic. I searched around the oven to see what might be touching a hot surface and found nothing. I TURNED the rolls around to bake evenly and still did not clue in. Continued my search for burning plastic. Ten minutes later the timer went off to say the rolls were ready to be removed from the oven. I pulled the parchment lined "half-sheet" from the oven and plonked it on top of the stove. Still didn't clue in. Finally, l I removed the rolls and the parchment and discovered I had baked them on a cafeteria tray - plastic of course!

The tray was discoloured but had not melted despite 20 mins in a 425 oven.

[dockhl]

I wrote on another board about this idiot at school who's been using them as a cutting matt. 

elyse, tell me this is a joke!!!

NEVER joke about Silpats.

Silpats are not a subject for jokes, I agree!

The idiot at your school outta be expelled . . .

I told him to meet me outside by the hopscotch court at 3:00, but I bet he chickened out and volunteered to clean erasers instead. Brown noser! Maybe I'll volunteer him to debone a frozen leg of lamb....

←

Edited August 4, 2005 by dockhl (log)

[dockhl]

Was making a birthday cake for a family friend.  German chocolate from a box.  That was the request.  Hand mixer was older than I was and the cord was removable from the base (why?).  Due to age or general bad engineering, the cord also tended to fall out of the base unasked.  And did so into the batter.  I pick it up and hey -- it's something with batter on it.  Pop it in my mouth.  Other end of course is still plugged into the wall.  Oh and I had braces at the time.

←

Oh shit................

[origamicrane]

A rich and rather sheltered friend of mine went on holiday for the summer.

2 months later she comes back and i drive her home from the airport.

On getting back to her flat I offer to make some food while she unpacks.

On opening the rice cooker i say

"hey! has someone been cooking here? there rice and peas in the rice cooker?"

yep we had 2 month old steamed rice with penicillin

[tamiam]

Tried to satisfy my sweet tooth tonight by making my favorite brownies. But I kept getting interupted by the phone, the dog, the Hitchcock movies on Turner Classic Movies. Melted the chocolate, amped up the flavor with some really really good cocoa powder, stir and bake. But when I checked up on the brownies in the oven, I saw they hadn't spread at all. They were dull colored, lumpy, looking rather like a mess the dog might make, if you get my drift.

Yup, I put in half as much sugar, and twice as much flour as I was supposed to. Yuck. No sweets for me tonight.

[Zach Holmes]

One day at work my fiancee' called me to tell me that yes, she was definetely pregnant, a kitchen is not the best place to be working when hearing such life-changing news. take a leek, a freshly sharpened knife, and my left thumb and you get several stitches, a skin graft and an interesting new shape to my thumb.

[Teri Everitt]

Years ago, at my first cooking job ever, I was put in charge of making the salad special which was a marinated mushroom and artichoke salad. I learned to cook when I was ten years old from notes my single mom left on the kitchen counter. My family are your basic Anglo-Saxon Celtic mongrels. There was no "exotic" foods in our house...we ate roast chicken, spaghetti etc. I was familiar with garlic powder but had never had to deal with fresh garlic before. Anyway the recipe called for 4 CLOVES of garlic and after I had peeled and grated in about 7 cloves I realized that the salad smelled really pungent and maybe the term clove might not mean the whole thing. Anyway, I looked around to ask the chef but he was doing ordering in the back. The salad was put into the line fridge and I forgot it completely until my next shift when someone asked me exactly how much garlic was in the salad. None had sold at lunch, but by the time dinner service rolled around it was "Industrial Strength Vampire Repellent". They ALL got sent back....I've learned to use fresh garlic with confidence (and moderation) since.

[ChefCrash]

Just before I add a scrambled egg to my Hot n Sour soup, I thicken it with some starch. This time I grabbed the other yellow box in the pantry. Arm n Hammer.

Can you guess what happened?