I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[Anna N]

At a rented cottage for five days - who knew the BBQ was decorative only? Had planned to do a BBQ pizza and was now stuck with pizza dough, all the toppings and no BBQ - no big deal right? Just do it in the oven - hmmmmmmm - no baking sheets of any sort, no large pans that could be used in a pinch - but there's aluminum foil - no? So, put pizza on aluminum foil and into the oven. Oven has no meaningful way of telling what temp it is at - just a dial from 1 to 7 - Guess and guess wrong - pizza pretty much burned but that's not the worst - foil completely embedded in dough - impossible to remove - but we are hungy so.......... turn pizza over ... most of the toppings fall off, and slice horizontally through the crust to remove most of the crunchy crust and all of the foil - YUCK, YUCK, YUCK.

[Rachel Perlow]

I will never again add too much creamy stuff to adjust the color of jello... I was making the "Crown Jewel Dessert" for the NJ potluck, which is cubes of multi-colored clear jello inbedded in a creamy jello matrix. When cut it looks like stained glass. However, when I added the called for amount of yogurt to the strawberry jello, it didn't look creamy enough, so I added extra sour cream. It tasted good. Oh, and then I preceded to fill the bundt cake mold all the way to the top.

It looked pretty for about the first 30 seconds, but I noticed that it was starting to overflow the sides of the plate (bundt cake travel lid, so exact diameter of the mold). It then proceded to crack and then completely fall apart into a multi-colored mess.

Jason managed to snag a pic just before the meltdown, but you can see it beginning to happen. I hope nobody got a picture of the mess it made on the table.

[daw]

Leave the paddle out of the breadmaker - the result is a sort of flour brick, loosely bound together.

[Misa]

When I worked at Jack-in-the-box (ugh) I would routinely stick my hand into the fryer to retrieve something I'd dropped into it. I was operating on two or three hours of sleep a night, at most.

But, I will never again decide to microwave water for tea, go to computer, go back to kitchen thinking "It is probably cold," restart microwave, repeat several times. Notice cup doesn't have as much water as you'd like, so add some cold water. Watch cup explode into bits, cutting AND burning you.

[Misa]

That reminds me of a server I worked with.  Very studious, deep in thought, dead pan serious.  He stunned me on the second week of work with his tip for the day:  "Don't cook bacon in the nude."

Another thing I'll try not to do again. Funny enough, I did it because I didn't want to get grease on my clothes.

[arielle]

I do solemnly declare that I will never again use the 8-inch Global when I'm distracted (usually talking to my husband!) or when I'm wasted.

would you believe oops, i did it again!!!!!!?, except this time it was 4am, and I was distracted by the husband, with whom I was making 'dinner' after a post-work drinking session with our friends!!!!! OUCH!

[intraining]

in school yesterday, the instructor was out of the room while i put a whole rack of lamb on the grill. within about 3 seconds, there was a huge flame. then after about 2 minutes, the lamb was on fire too. i was blowing out the flames but the bones just started igniting again like trick birthday candles. i'm looking at the girl next to me, saying, she's gonna go mad, i was laughing. anyway, all she said was, i would sack someone for wasting a lamb rack, i really would. so i now i know not to do that again. it just wasn't the same as my little portable bar-b-q at home

[Misa]

My folks have one of those. (Or something similar. Their burners are rasied ceramic stuff.) I hate it. It retains heat for 15 minutes after you turn it off.

Living at home, I ruined so many of my mother's plastic bowls by setting them on a hot burner that she finally drilled it into my head that I needed to check the temp first.

So, in college, I did. Tapped the burner with two fingers. I heard my skin sizzle before I actually felt the pain.

Hate that stove.

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Ouch. I do that sometimes... with my hand.

A couple of weeks ago... I had cooked something on the stove. My cat, no matter how much I tell him not to, likes to climb onto the stove and the counter. So, I turn off the stove and put the kettle on top of the burner to protect kitty paws (though it would be a good deterrent, no?) and go into other room. Twenty minutes later, walk back into kitchen to make something for my husband. I move the kettle, start to climb up onto counter to get something from the top shelf and... nearly put my hand onto a glowing orange burner. Luckily, I felt the heat right in time to lift up my hand with just a flicker of a burn on it. It seems that the husband was boiling water for tea. I didn't think to check.

[RSincere]

Go to bed early, but my advice is that you suggest dinners out. If he's like most husbands I know, he'll be resigned to chicken sooner than a dinner tab.

You know, that worked. I told him, "I know we just had chicken breast yesterday, but I was going to make chicken curry today with some chicken thighs. Unless you want to eat out!" He just looked at me like I was nuts.

The curry was marvelous, I might add. (Simple Chicken Curry from The Everything Indian Cookbook.)

Edited September 13, 2004 by RSincere (log)

[Ocean_islands]

I will never again trip while carrying my hard-won Italian sautee dish to the tv room!

[Marlene]

Whenever, and I mean absolutely whenever - I put a bottle of wine in the freezer to chill, or a pot of liquid on the stove to boil, and leave the kitchen... I set the oven timer!  I have a digital timer thankfully with a beep that would wake the dead, and it saves my wine (and my kitchen) on an almost daily basis!

.

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I can see me doing this. And then trying to figure out why the timer is going off in 30 minutes or whatever. Stupid timer! I'm not cooking anything

[miiki]

"...leave the cover off of my Weber grill, then have it rain, and have the ash turn to gray brown mush and pour down my landlord's deck..."

Oh shit. Esp if you have a good deal!

"Assume the liquid boiling on the stove was blanching water and use it to cook gnocchi, then hear the pastry cook ask, "What happened to my simple syrup?"

My husband made me sushi [ i lived in Japan and we married there so he was trying to surprise me for a lunch at home - i was a teacher for awhile] with MIRIN not vinegar et al b/c he couldn't read the labels. Yuck! mirin-simple syrup : non-negotiable in what they can do.

the flour in the kitchenaid

alcohol in the freezer-

not labelling things I put in the freezer b/c too lazy after a few drinks. Or just lazy. Okay- after a few drinks.

I am not a prof cook btw- just at home.

Egg white? Lime juice? hmmm no no it's fish stock...maybe?

Some of these kitchen snafus are a bit dangerous- Stay safe y'all.

Miiki

[hathor]

Its toasted bread that gets me every single, lousy time. If I'm making any kind of crouton in the oven in the broiler...it goes from not done to scorched. Every. Single. Time. I've tried hovering. I've tried timers. I've tried tyeing things around my fingers. I've tried having a back up person in the kitchen.

I now just buy 2 loaves of bread....and hope for the best. I'm resigned to my karma.

[schneich]

deglace with absinth n try to burn the alcohol off right away,

neglecting the fact that this stuff has 80%.

WOOOF....

(front hair gone)

t.

:-(

[MArkF]

Kid makes cake for school...dad (me) lets son eat cake...daughter wants brother to "burn in hell"...dog lives in house...dad (me)...lives in small house in yard....my bad...

Mark

[peppyre]

I decided it was time to season my cast iron skillet again. Since I was baking potatoes anyway, it was the perfect time to do it. Removed said skillet from oven after about 1/2 hour, placed on top of stove, then proceeded to GRAB THE HANDLE WITH MY BARE HAND!!

I'm never going to do that again.......

Of course I'll do it the next time I take something out of the oven. I'm surprised I have any fingerprints left.

[Sam Iam]

We cooked filets, and finished them in the oven. I took the hot skillet out and put it on the cooktop and put a pot holder mitton reversed over the handle. Joyce came in, thought "that's a dumb place for that" , removed it, and tried to pick up the skillet. She won't try that again for awhile!

[RSincere]

Two more.

Remove the leave-in thermometer from my loaf of bread with bare hands. Thermometer reads 192 degrees.

Forget to pull my long hair back. Lean wayyyyy down over a low pot on a gas burner to hear if my rice is simmering.

[snowangel]

Use a spatula, not bare fiingers, to dig down into the food processor (blade in place) to redistrubute stuff. Bandaids (the fabric kind) are my friend.

Do not leave bananas on top of the fridge when you are leaving for 2 weeks.

[andiesenji]

Now I did it!

I have a big chest freezer in the garage where I keep my meat.  I am only 4'11" so I can't reach to the bottom of the freezer.  So I keep the meat in plastic bags with the handles up so I can reach them and pull out what I need.

Yesterday I had to go digging in the freezer to get out the ground turkey breast.  I pulled out a bunch of bags.  Yeah, you guessed it, tonight I went out there and realized I left a bag out in the hot garage.  Was it the soup bones?  No.  Was it the bag with only 8 chicken drumsticks?  NO.

FOUR pounds of ground chuck (bought fresh at full price), 3 3/4 pounds of round steak (reduced), 2 pounds of veal shoulder (reduced).  Twenty bucks worth of meat.  Now not only are we going to be eating chicken until kingdom come, but my husband doesn't even like chicken, so I serve beef in between to make him happy--so he's going to be crabby for the next couple weeks.  Grrrrrrrr.  I am so upset about this I'm going to bed early!

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This can happen to anybody, with any kind of freezer. I have a huge upright freezer and sometimes have to move things out when I am redistributing things, putting new stuff toward the back, bringing the older stuff to the front.

I have a big U-shaped red plastic thing that I found in Staples or Office Depot which is supposed to hold folders or whatever. It lives on top of the freezer and when I open the door and take anything out that has to be replaced, I hang that red thing over the top of the door. Now the door won't close until I remove it and it reminds me to turn around and take whatever is now setting on the storage shelf behind me and put it back in the freezer.

You can get something similar and hang it over the side of the freezer. If you can't close the top you will remember that something needs to go back inside.

Andie

[Squeat Mungry]

Yet another reminder that I simply do not have what it takes to be a professional: NEVER TRY TO CATCH A FALLING KNIFE!!! Duh! How many times does it take?

Squeat

Edit: I've heard it expressed more eloquently: "A falling knife has no handle!"

Edited October 2, 2004 by Squeat Mungry (log)

[RSincere]

You can get something similar and hang it over the side of the freezer. If you can't close the top you will remember that something needs to go back inside.

Thank you, Andie! That's a really good idea. Anything to keep me more organized/less of a scatterbrain is good.

Rachel

[Squeat Mungry]

I seem to be on a roll. Never again will I wash one of my collection of mid-century Bauer mixing bowls and place it precariously at the end of the drying rack, then try to wedge a cutting board in at the back, only to have the bowl smash into pieces on the floor. Goddammit! I'm not cooking anything next week!

[Smithy]

I seem to be on a roll. Never again will I wash one of my collection of mid-century Bauer mixing bowls and place it precariously at the end of the drying rack, then try to wedge a cutting board in at the back, only to have the bowl smash into pieces on the floor. Goddammit! I'm not cooking anything next week!

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Ohhh, that hurts. Reminds me of a time in high school when I was putting away the dinner dishes. These were my mother's new dinner dishes, ceramic, to replace the indestructible Melmac with which we'd been raised. As I dried each plate I stacked it on its mates...on the edge of the drying rack. The last plate was the last straw, and the drying rack tipped up, crashing the entire lot into the porcelain sink.

[Kevin72]

I seem to be on a roll. Never again will I wash one of my collection of mid-century Bauer mixing bowls and place it precariously at the end of the drying rack, then try to wedge a cutting board in at the back, only to have the bowl smash into pieces on the floor. Goddammit! I'm not cooking anything next week!

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That's funny: I just happened to hit on a bad run of luck myself. Mine happened a couple weeks ago: lots of nicks, dropped nearly everything I picked up, spilled warm stock all over my just-mopped kitchen floor, made pasta sheets that got too dry while I was cleaning said mess and then crumbled when I picked them up, etc. So I'm on a two-week cooking break while the wife takes over.

That's kind of a subtopic I'm interested in: does anybody go through a "streak" where they get lots of cuts/burns, break things, burn food, etc. in a short frame of time? Seems like I'll have a run of bad luck and then I'm done for the year after that.