I will never again . . . (Part 4)

[Arey]

We need a thread entitled "Damn, You did it again!"   Which is what I said to myself  for the umpteenth time last evening when I went looking for the piece of leftover marinated flank steak I'd taken out out of the freezer yesterday morning and put in the fridge.   Then I looked in the microwave where it had sat for over 8 hours after I put it in to defrost  for a minute or so before putting it in the fridge..  I've done the same thing with Italian hot sausage, pork chops, and countless chicken parts. I avoid all those appliances and things that speak to you but if they ever made a microwave that would shout "Yo! You gonna put this in the fridge how, or you gonna leave it here and throw it out whenever you remember, too late,  you stuck it in here!" and kept on shouting it in an insolent tone of voice, until the item was taken out of the microwave.  I am very good now at checking the fridge door is well and truly shut after not closing it tightly in the middle of a heat wave.  Actually, I'm obsessive about checking that the fridge door is closed.  Maybe if I had a fridge that said every time  I passed it "Yes, my door is closed but while you're here  you might as well check the microwave." ( Now I'm wondering why I imagine  my  fridge as polite and helpful, but the microwave as abusive and belligerent.)

[Anna N]

We need a thread entitled "Damn, You did it again!" Which is what I said to myself for the umpteenth time last evening when I went looking for the piece of leftover marinated flank steak I'd taken out out of the freezer yesterday morning and put in the fridge. Then I looked in the microwave where it had sat for over 8 hours after I put it in to defrost for a minute or so before putting it in the fridge.. I've done the same thing with Italian hot sausage, pork chops, and countless chicken parts. I avoid all those appliances and things that speak to you but if they ever made a microwave that would shout "Yo! You gonna put this in the fridge how, or you gonna leave it here and throw it out whenever you remember, too late, you stuck it in here!" and kept on shouting it in an insolent tone of voice, until the item was taken out of the microwave. I am very good now at checking the fridge door is well and truly shut after not closing it tightly in the middle of a heat wave. Actually, I'm obsessive about checking that the fridge door is closed. Maybe if I had a fridge that said every time I passed it "Yes, my door is closed but while you're here you might as well check the microwave." ( Now I'm wondering why I imagine my fridge as polite and helpful, but the microwave as abusive and belligerent.)

My ancient and cheap microwave continually tells me that I have not checked it and I can only shut it up by opening the door or setting the reset switch and my fridge has the most annoying alarm if I leave it open! What I want is a remote to shut them both up. (By taking care of things from a distance.)

Edited to make it clear that I know these alarms require responding to somehow.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[Toliver]

After our Thanksgiving guests left (with leftovers to take home) we found three plates of dessert covered with Press'n'Seal that someone had left behind. We didn't think twice about them since they could sit out without needing refrigeration. The next morning I looked closer at one of the Press'n'Seal-covered dessert plates and saw that it wasn't dessert. It was a generous portion of the huge pan of mac'n'cheese we'd had with dinner the night before.

DOH!   It got tossed.

Never assume...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I will never again store seven and a half years' worth of King Arthur Flour catalogs.

[Smithy]

I will never again store seven and a half years' worth of King Arthur Flour catalogs.

Oh, but the recipes!

[haresfur]

... pour from a container of dry ingredients in the pantry into a cook pot without thoroughly checking for pantry moths, no matter how well sealed or even if new.

[liuzhou]

Straining the lumpy bits (meat, veg, herbs etc.) out of my carefully tended for hours stock while forgetting to put a container under the sieve to catch the precious liquid.

 

The stock went right down the drain and I was left with a sieve full of inedible sludge.

 

Duh!

Edited December 6, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Darienne]

And I'm back already...  Now I am not a novice in life...nearing the prescribed fourscore years...and I suppose now I am entering my second childhood.  I even wonder if I should post this and render you all certain of what you were beginning to suspect...

 

This morning I was making DH's new favorite, caramel sauce using a new recipe by Epicurious.  The sugar syrup was turning too dark an amber too quickly and I wondered if it were actually burning.  So what did I do?  Oh no!... Yes, I did.  I dipped a spoon into the boiling syrup to taste it and see if it were too burnt to use.  Well, instantly my mouth was.  Upper and lower lips and tongue.  I can't believe I did that!    I simply can't believe I did that.  And yet I did.  Right...and by that time, the syrup really was too burnt to use.

So now, I've made the sauce again and all is well.  With the sauce.  With me?  Not so much. 

 

ps.  Yes, I do know it's fourscore and seven. 

Edited December 26, 2015 by Darienne (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

On 12/6/2015 at 5:06 AM, liuzhou said:

Straining the lumpy bits (meat, veg, herbs etc.) out of my carefully tended for hours stock while forgetting to put a container under the sieve to catch the precious liquid.

 

The stock went right down the drain and I was left with a sieve full of inedible sludge.

 

Duh!

This happened to me one time when I was only about 18 or 19. I was browning some ground beef and forgot to put a colander under it before I dumped the whole kit into the dog food dish, which was clean, but already contained kibble. I only meant to drain the fat into his food. My trim, muscular dog who accompanied me on horseback rides nearly daily ate extremely well that night. 

 

I feel for you liuzhou, good stock takes a lot longer and is a lot more work than browning a pound of ground meat.

 

15 hours ago, Darienne said:

And I'm back already...  Now I am not a novice in life...nearing the prescribed fourscore years...and I suppose now I am entering my second childhood.  I even wonder if I should post this and render you all certain of what you were beginning to suspect...

 

This morning I was making DH's new favorite, caramel sauce using a new recipe by Epicurious.  The sugar syrup was turning too dark an amber too quickly and I wondered if it were actually burning.  So what did I do?  Oh no!... Yes, I did.  I dipped a spoon into the boiling syrup to taste it and see if it were too burnt to use.  Well, instantly my mouth was.  Upper and lower lips and tongue.  I can't believe I did that!    I simply can't believe I did that.  And yet I did.  Right...and by that time, the syrup really was too burnt to use.

So now, I've made the sauce again and all is well.  With the sauce.  With me?  Not so much. 

 

ps.  Yes, I do know it's fourscore and seven. 

 

Well, you know, Darienne, such lapses are not always age-related. (See my story of my brain abandoning me above, when I was in my late teens.) The brain is such an amazing, wonderful thing, but sometimes without any logical explanation, it seems to just check out and most of us have done something really dumb, which we want to kick ourselves for at least a time or two.

 

I hope your lip heals nicely. Ouch!

 

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Double the egg whites in my waffle recipe, just because I have too many egg whites and want to use 'em up.  The first waffles off the iron were OK in terms of cookedness, but had a weird flavour and texture; the second waffles never came off the iron at all.  I had to pry the lid open with a butterknife, and I've got a neat bakelite-contoured burn on my thumb from the handle.  Oh, did I mention my waffle iron is closing in on 100 years old?

Edited December 27, 2015 by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

[AlaMoi]

Prime Rib Chili.....

 

left over slabs of prime rib is one of my all time favorite ingredients for a nice chili.
here's the chili - it's as simple as it gets.  way more satisfying that a forty hour cook with twenty-nine half teaspoons of "somethings"

 

2 cans dark red kidney beans
1 can diced tomato - garden fresh is _way_ better, but tricky in North American Decembers....
1 cup chopped onion
0.5 cup diced green pepper
seasoned with 2+ tablespoons chili powder + 2-3 bay leaves + s&fgp to taste

 

drain and reserve the juice from the beans and tomato.
with a little oil, saute the green pepper&onion.
add beans & tomato & seasoning
use reserved liquid to keep pot moist / adjust consistency to preference.
simmer about 2 hours to meld flavors.
amount of salt will depend on the beans&tomato products used.....use a spoon, taste it....

 

now, previously I would chunk up some left-over prime rib and toss it in the pot to warm through toward the end.  
this year I got more adventuresome and browned the prime rib cubes to develop of fond-for-flavor.
do NOT do this!  see pix - no clue as to how they will upload.

the prime rib got hard and chewy from the excessive heat.
the chili taste was fine, but I ruined the beef.

 

Edited December 27, 2015 by AlaMoi (log)

[ElainaA]

I will never again store fermented black beans in a quart glass canning jar right next to currents in an identical jar in a badly lit pantry. I came close to some very odd stollen for Christmas morning. I saw my error pretty quickly but it still took awhile to pick all the little buggers out of the fruit and nut mix. If I missed any, no one commented.

[BeeZee]

I will never again...use a disposable aluminum pan for 6 lbs of brisket unless I double pan or put a baking sheet underneath to stabilize it.

I should say...I will never again trust my husband to take said brisket out of the oven because I had to go out for the evening. He picked it up by the two ends and it apparently creased in the middle, allowing some of the precious gravy to spill out into the oven and onto the floor. Which I found out the next morning when he blamed me for not warning him to be careful.

[Shelby]

6 minutes ago, BeeZee said:

I will never again...use a disposable aluminum pan for 6 lbs of brisket unless I double pan or put a baking sheet underneath to stabilize it.

I should say...I will never again trust my husband to take said brisket out of the oven because I had to go out for the evening. He picked it up by the two ends and it apparently creased in the middle, allowing some of the precious gravy to spill out into the oven and onto the floor. Which I found out the next morning when he blamed me for not warning him to be careful.

Are we sister wives?

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Well, my husband can't successfully turn my broken thermostat oven from broil to bake, and it's an old 70's model which is labeled quite clearly in actual English and has NO electronics. Because the T-stat is broken, temperature must be regulated with a timer, oven thermometer and manually manipulating the temp like a wood fire.

 

I asked him one time when I was washing chicken (yes, I still do, carefully) or something (maybe kneading dough) that would have taken a long hand wash and dry to give me what I thought was a little hand. No go. I had to go ahead and do the extensive hand wash/dry and do it myself. The whole time, the timer alarm is going off. I do not even know if it's passive aggressive, but who is that oblivious? 

 

I don't ask for even the slightest, simplest help in the kitchen anymore. Somehow we have been together for 17 years, going hard on 18 on Valentines Day in 2016. Go figure? 

[liuzhou]

4 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

it's an old 70's model which is labeled quite clearly in actual English and has NO electronics.

 

Your oven or your husband?

[sartoric]

I will never again fumble while opening a precious packet of Kampot pepper carried all the way from Cambodia.

 

At least half ended up on the floor, as did I, on my knees for 30 minutes picking them up.

[Martin Fisher]

Not recommended: 

Nothing exercises the vocal cords quite like a 5 lb. rock-hard frozen chicken sliding out of the freezer and landing on your toes!!!!!

@#$%@#!!! %%$@$!!! @#$%%!!! 

Ouch!!! LOL

[Porthos]

4 hours ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

Not recommended: 

Nothing exercises the vocal cords quite like a 5 lb. rock-hard frozen chicken sliding out of the freezer and landing on your toes!!!!!

@#$%@#!!! %%$@$!!! @#$%%!!! 

Ouch!!! LOL

I added wire baskets to my upright freezer and both refrigerator freezers because I got so tired of frozen food landslides.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

That is a great idea, @Porthos!

 

I try to keep the landslides at a minimum, although they sometimes happen. I always wear sandals in the kitchen, so have become very adept at jumping out of harm's way. I just get tired of having to remove everything in the freezer to find something I want to use and know is in there. Once I even put the sought item back in with all the other contents, and had to repeat the process. Doh!

 

This will eventually save money for me, because I dread taking out frozen items one by one, while holding back a landslide, so much that I've been known to waste items when they get buried in the freezer and stay in there too long. I may look for plastic baskets though, because I despise having my hands frozen or scalded. Also when I'm working in the kitchen, my hands are usually slightly damp from washing and manage to get stuck to anything metal in the freezer.

 

Anyone else ever notice that when you take an item out of the freezer, unless it's right on top, there's actually less room in there after putting all the other things back in? I expect it's because they are more pliable when not frozen and conform to the other items already there. I can never assemble that puzzle back together just right, so always end up with less space after removing something from the freezer. It's not fair (whine) !

[Okanagancook]

Freezers are wonderful yet at times, frustrating.  I got a new upright awhile back.  I used a Sharpie to label the shelves in the main compartment and on the door (D1, D2.....).  My freezer inventory includes a column of where the forking hell it is in said freezer (I have a chest freezer downstairs which also has the compartments labelled).  For me, this the best way to find stuff and I am using more from the freezer with this approach.  Also have a column for date added.  The only trick is to keep it uptodate.  For the most part it's working.

[Kim Shook]

27 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Freezers are wonderful yet at times, frustrating.  I got a new upright awhile back.  I used a Sharpie to label the shelves in the main compartment and on the door (D1, D2.....).  My freezer inventory includes a column of where the forking hell it is in said freezer (I have a chest freezer downstairs which also has the compartments labelled).  For me, this the best way to find stuff and I am using more from the freezer with this approach.  Also have a column for date added.  The only trick is to keep it uptodate.  For the most part it's working.

We have 3 freezers - two in the shed and the one attached to the fridge and this method saves my sanity.  We have to redo the list occasionally because we get lazy about adding and subtracting from it, but it is MUCH better than it was before The List!

[Darienne]

I think so far I win this one...for home use.  We have four freezers.  Two chest freezers:  one in the garage (mostly dog meats) and one in the cellar (our food),.  Two fridge freezers: one in the garage and one in the kitchen.  I keep track on two pages of typed spread sheets.  I hate keeping them up-to-date.  And, of course, DH doesn't know where anything is.  Ever.  It's a guy thing.

As for using the freezers.  I wear a pair of cotton gloves every time...I've hurt my hands just too many time.  (That's the 'never do that again' part.)

[Martin Fisher]

3 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Freezers are wonderful yet at times, frustrating.  I got a new upright awhile back.  I used a Sharpie to label the shelves in the main compartment and on the door (D1, D2.....).  My freezer inventory includes a column of where the forking hell it is in said freezer (I have a chest freezer downstairs which also has the compartments labelled).  For me, this the best way to find stuff and I am using more from the freezer with this approach.  Also have a column for date added.  The only trick is to keep it uptodate.  For the most part it's working.

 

FWIW, I set-up a spreadsheet that also tracks "time in the freezer" so that products get used-up while they're still of good quality.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/138271/freezer-inventory-tracker

There are some improvements in the later part of that thread.

 

 

 

 

[MelissaH]

We still have our Google spreadsheet freezer inventory. We have columns for type (soup, chicken, beans, or whatever), the specifics (cut of meat, kind of bean or soup), package size, how many of them, location in freezer, and date). About once a year, usually when it's nice and cold, we go through and make sure that things are up to date. For us, the real advantage is that both of us can access and update the shared document. And because Google automatically tracks changes, it's easy to see who took the last whatever!