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I will never again . . . (Part 4)

Darienne

By Darienne
in Food Traditions & Culture

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

I find using a fork can help avoid that result. 

 

The pie laden fork fell off the plate.  That's when the trouble started.

 

A waterproof desk protector is on the way from amazon...

(eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted

I shall never again leave a quiche out overnight.  And if you never hear from me, that's what happened.

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted

I will never again drop off the trailer (Princessmobile) for "a few hours, or overnight" repairs without first emptying the refrigerator and freezer.

 

That was last Tuesday, 6 days ago. On Saturday or Sunday, it occurred to me that the trailer's batteries and/or propane might not be adequate to keeping the refrigerator running. It also occurred to me that my splurge purchases from a really good meat market halfway across the state were still in the Princessmobile's freezer.

 

As soon as work was done today, I went to the repair place to check. Batteries almost dead. Propane gone. Urk.

 

I'm happy to report that everything had thawed but was still plenty cold. 4 ribeye steaks, 4 pork steaks, some flank steak, and some other splurge meats were all fine. Whew.

 

The radishes in the refrigerator were a bit, er, soggy, and I haven't opened the carton of heavy cream to see how it fared, but we'll take that damage over the loss of all that meat!

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
Host, eG Forums - nsmith@egstaff.org

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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MaryIsobel

MaryIsobel

Posted
Posted
55 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I will never again drop off the trailer (Princessmobile) for "a few hours, or overnight" repairs without first emptying the refrigerator and freezer.

 

That was last Tuesday, 6 days ago. On Saturday or Sunday, it occurred to me that the trailer's batteries and/or propane might not be adequate to keeping the refrigerator running. It also occurred to me that my splurge purchases from a really good meat market halfway across the state were still in the Princessmobile's freezer.

 

As soon as work was done today, I went to the repair place to check. Batteries almost dead. Propane gone. Urk.

 

I'm happy to report that everything had thawed but was still plenty cold. 4 ribeye steaks, 4 pork steaks, some flank steak, and some other splurge meats were all fine. Whew.

 

The radishes in the refrigerator were a bit, er, soggy, and I haven't opened the carton of heavy cream to see how it fared, but we'll take that damage over the loss of all that meat!

Brava! Sounds like you dodged that bullet. When I was a kid, our family took a two week vacation and came home to a dead deep freeze full of meat. That smell is permanently imbedded in my brain's nose!

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Smithy said:

I will never again drop off the trailer (Princessmobile) for "a few hours, or overnight" repairs without first emptying the refrigerator and freezer.

 

That was last Tuesday, 6 days ago. On Saturday or Sunday, it occurred to me that the trailer's batteries and/or propane might not be adequate to keeping the refrigerator running. It also occurred to me that my splurge purchases from a really good meat market halfway across the state were still in the Princessmobile's freezer.

 

As soon as work was done today, I went to the repair place to check. Batteries almost dead. Propane gone. Urk.

 

I'm happy to report that everything had thawed but was still plenty cold. 4 ribeye steaks, 4 pork steaks, some flank steak, and some other splurge meats were all fine. Whew.

 

The radishes in the refrigerator were a bit, er, soggy, and I haven't opened the carton of heavy cream to see how it fared, but we'll take that damage over the loss of all that meat!

Bht if the meat all thawed - now what? Re-freeze? I thought that was questionable idea.

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, heidih said:

Bht if the meat all thawed - now what? Re-freeze? I thought that was questionable idea.

 

Some of it we're cooking tonight. The rest is already back in a deep freeze. As I understand it the texture may suffer from refreezing. As for food safety, I think it'll be okay: assume any bacterial growth happened at refrigerator temperatures rather than freezer temperatures. Cook it sooner rather than later, cook it thoroughly. No tartare from this batch! 

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
Host, eG Forums - nsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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lindag

lindag

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

Brava! Sounds like you dodged that bullet. When I was a kid, our family took a two week vacation and came home to a dead deep freeze full of meat. That smell is permanently imbedded in my brain's nose!

Yes.  I do know that smell!

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Darienne

Darienne

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

There's that trick everyone should know when leaving home...put a coin on top of a frozen cup of water into the freezer and when you return, you'll know if your freezer lost power and regained it, thus jeopardizing your food supply.  https://www.google.com/search?q=put+a+coin+in+the+freezer&rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA727CA728&oq=puyt+a+coin&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i13i512l4j46i13i512j0i13i512j0i13i30l2j0i13i15i30.7901j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_66QJZZOxBqaZ0PEPzJeZ2AQ_30

 

During last year's Durecho, we had power from our old generator (now replaced by a stand-by generator which cost more money than ...), we were able to store both our meat and that belonging to our neighbors who had no generator.  That loss of power was 7 days for them and they eat higher on the scale than we do.  

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Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Darienne said:

There's that trick everyone should know when leaving home...put a coin on top of a frozen cup of water into the freezer and when you return, you'll know if your freezer lost power and regained it, thus jeopardizing your food supply.

 

I've heard of that trick but it does require advance planning unless you always keep cups of frozen water at the ready. I usually resort to inspecting the ice cubes. I suppose those of you with multiple freezers scattered about might not have ice cubes in all of them.  I've only ever had the one attached to the fridge. 

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
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Another method:  my freezer needs to be manually restarted.  Thus it is easy to tell if it has lost power.

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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MaryIsobel

MaryIsobel

Posted
Posted

I will never again attempt to grate a garlic clove on my brand-new-out-of the-box microplane without using my cutproof glove. Gochujang meatballs with knuckle meat anyone? I was grating into the saucepan with all the other ingredients, it is just for family and the sauce boils for 5 minutes so not about to throw it all out. The knuckle scraping was nothing that a bandaid couldn't fix.

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BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted
On 9/19/2023 at 5:04 PM, MaryIsobel said:

I will never again attempt to grate a garlic clove on my brand-new-out-of the-box microplane without using my cutproof glove. Gochujang meatballs with knuckle meat anyone? I was grating into the saucepan with all the other ingredients, it is just for family and the sauce boils for 5 minutes so not about to throw it all out. The knuckle scraping was nothing that a bandaid couldn't fix.

I usually find one fingernail suspiciously flatter after doing that. Collagen anyone?

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

It got suddenly shockingly cold yesterday late afternoon. Closed doors/windows. Pulled blanket from back of my chair like a cape around my shoulders. Went to kitchen to check on my chard/shrimp/pasta dish. Fringe of "cape" caught on fire. Blue/yellow flame? I stupidly stared in fascination, finally got self over to sink and doused it. I was so cold I never took blanket off and had neice cut the burned part off. My food was great, but the burned material smell! Odd how fire can tranfix you.

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