Cooking with a one-handed Genius (that would be me)
I am writing this one handed because earlier today I tried to take a pot out of a hot oven with my bare hand. Just prior to that I was making chili for the ward hoedown and because I rarely cook meat, and I was totally grossed out, I flopped the burger into the pot, trying not to touch it or even look at it, walked away for a minute, came back to stir only to realize that they put some sort of plastic napkin absorby thing under the meat and I’d just cooked it.
And the pumpkin pie I took to book club tonight?? No sugar. Forgot it. How ’bout some dessert thats not sweet at all. Whoop! But it was really pretty with a super flaky crust.
I wish I could stop there, but my dears, would that be any fun, really? I was making a pot pie (after many many days of not so subtle hints from dh) for our selves and the recently babyfied justcallmecassandra, and I was also getting near the end of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, and I walked away for a quick chapter (braw ha ha ha) when Percy got caught in a highly compromising situation that distressed me so much that the smoke went unnoticed until Blossom demanded I explain that terrible smell. justcallmecassandra got her pie two hours late and my family ate dad’s french toast.
But the best story of all, oh I am a genius I tell you, was back when I was a newly wed and I needed the cake to cool quickly because we were late and I needed to frost it, so really why not put that blazing hot pyrex dish into freshly fallen snow? And dh made it even better by first thing calling my new mother in law to tell her all about it. Bless him.
No really bless him, cause after I finished beating him upside the head with a frying pan, my MIL told me all about the time she put her cake in the oven, set the alarm, and when she opened up the oven to retrieve it, found that she’d cooked her cake in a tupperware bowl. That did not turn out well, if you can believe it.
And wow, typing with one hand kinda sucks . . . real slow-like.
Oh, you poor, poor dear. I’ve done the taking something out of the oven with my bare hand trick. Not fun. Not at all.
Let’s see. One time I made tapioca pudding and instead of putting in 1/4 teaspoon of salt, I put in 4 teaspoons of salt. That was delicious, let me tell you.
And last summer when I went to bake my girls’ birthday cakes (two on the same day, mind you) I attempted to double my scratch vegan cake recipes (one chocolate, one vanilla), but got as far as the margarine before I reverted to the written recipe. Double margarine, but only the single recipe amounts for flour, sugar, baking powder, etc. So I ended up (after finally figuring out why I had four layers of greasy mush), baking yet two more double layer cakes, for a total of 8 layers of cake the night before the party.
Once I tried to boil water on the stove in a pyrex baking casserole dish. That went well. Until it cracked in half and exploded all over the stove, I mean. And then there was the time I tried to deepfry in my dutch oven on the stove and ended up with 4 quarts of hot oil in flames. And then I had to CARRY that sucker outside because I couldn’t get it to simmer down, even with the lid. And I left a nice big black ring on my wooden patio table where I set it to cool. Lucky I didn’t burn the house down.
I’m sorry your hand hurts. That sucks. You’re right. :hug:
Comment by Lorian — November 7, 2009 @ 3:22 am
I’ve been so tied up with gas pipeline explosions & gas well dangers lately, so it’s good to see “oops” moments here that are not as catastrophic, except for deep frying in a dutch over. More on that in a moment.
Ah, the thermal shock problems of Pyrex! I shattered a test tube made of it in chemistry by putting in water just after heating it up, trying to cool it fast.
I’ll be nice to my wife, and skip her blunders. But, I made a pecan pie, but forgot to remove the wax paper liner over the crust. I noticed that after baking, so I pulled it out, but it didn’t taste quite right.
I tried to make Baked Alaska, it was OK, but parts of the meringue got burned while other parts needed more cooking. To say nothing of that being the first time I’ve EVER set an oven 500 degrees, per the recipe!
The burned hand from baking reminds me of the story of one place I worked at had a baseball team that played other work department’s teams. One woman in my area on the team burned her hand enough to not be able to play, but not be disfiguring, either. Still the team manager sent out a memo before a game, urging team members not to burn their hands while cooking, or separate their shoulders, like a guy in my group did during a bicycle motocross race.
I think he did it in jest, but it reminded me of Lisa’s story.
After looking at “Mythbusters” testing of the myth of adding water to flaming pan of cooking oil causing a 30 foot high fireball (”normal” conditions made ONLY a 25 feet high fireball!!), you are SO lucky to get away with only that damage! Putting the lid on is one of the better solutions to a cooking oil fire. Water expands like 1200 times from it’s liquid size when it turns to steam, so that leads to a BIG fireball when you throw it on burning oil!
Comment by Mike H. — November 7, 2009 @ 4:00 am
Lorian — I have done the exact same thing. I started doubling a cake recipe and then half way through, forgot that I was doubling it and came out with bizarre, flat, inedible, red velvet cake.
When I lived in Ecuador, we had to completely boil the water before we could drink it or wash veggies with it or brush teeth or anything, so I was always boiling water and always in a hurry for it to cool down so I could use it. In my wisdom I would put a hot pan onto the glass shelf in the fridge… of course the entire refrigerator shelf cracked and we had to have a replacement made. So then I did it again. And then I did it again.
Luckily we were only just married, so my husband didn’t mind having to go to the glass guy 3 times. Now, I’m not so sure… !
Comment by meems — November 7, 2009 @ 4:06 am
Comment by Lorian — November 7, 2009 @ 4:10 am
I have done the taking something out of the oven with my bare hand thing. Um, yeah, shattered pyrex on the stove top. Yeah, grease fires and other cooking disasters. Done the forgetting I am doubling the recipe also.
But for disasters, nothing I ever did quite beat trying to defrost one of those really old refridgerators (it was my mother’s and I swear it was as old as me) anyway, because my time down at my mother’s house was limited, I was trying to hurry. The freezer had been badly neglected and ice was about four inches thick, which was why my chicken mother had me helping her. So, to spead things up, I took the electric frying pan with water in the bottom and figured the steam would help the ice melt. That and melt the plastic around the freezer. One totaled fridge. It was high time she got herself a frost free anyway.
For funny, nothing tops my Mother’s peach cobbler. My mother used to mix salt and sugar in equal amounts to use in canning vegetables. So, once she was making peach cobbler, and used the sugar salt mix.
Comment by alas — November 7, 2009 @ 5:18 am
I was once cooking something in a pan on the hob (I don’t remember what). I forgot all about it, until the stink had me running into the kitchen. The food was welded to the bottom of the pan, and would not come off, so someone told me to put some water and bicarbonate of soda in the pan and heat it on the hob….
I forgot all about the pan (again), and ended up throwing it away. The handle nearly melted, so I was really lucky to not cause a fire.
Comment by Lulu — November 7, 2009 @ 5:35 am
ahh baking disasters…they are legion.
a very simple thing to do is make a blueberry shake and forget to put on the lid of the blender. Not catastrophic really, not a big blunder, but oh the blueberry you will find for months in hard to reach places.
I’m sorry about your hand..I’ve gotten many minor burns-a slew of which were during the twin pregnancy when I had pregnancy induced carpal tunnel…I broke two crock pot lids, 5 plates, a couple bowls and a 9×13 (not a time to be barefoot in the kitchen). I also had many minor burns from steadying a pan I was holding but at times couldn’t feel.
Comment by britt — November 7, 2009 @ 8:23 am
Ah, I used to make habit of exploding pyrex from putting it on the stove and then forgetting and turning on the stove. It literally does explode and almost gave me a heart attack when I did it with a small child in the house (fortunately not in the kitchen). Oh, and the hot pieces burn your linoleum too. Fun memories. Thank goodness I haven’t done that in awhile - knock on wood.
Comment by Lori — November 7, 2009 @ 10:01 am
I love that you refer to the “timer” as an alarm. LOL
Comment by wistfulblue — November 7, 2009 @ 10:11 am
I wear a small scar on my left hand from heating a jar of hot fudge in the microwave. When I put a spoon in the heated fudge it exploded onto my hand, nice and sticky. Luckily it didn’t start really hurting until after I had finished the ice cream.
Burns are terribly painful. Maybe a kitchen vacation is in order?
Comment by numi — November 7, 2009 @ 10:32 am
First breadmaking in the heat of summer in a 2nd floor walkup in the MidWest. Forgot the salt, thought it ruined, tossed the dough in the trashcan under the sink where, hot humid and happy, it rose to pop the top on the trash can and spread all over the undersink. Cleaned it up, punched it down and cleaned up after it several times before hauling the pile of happy dough out to the outdoor trashcan,
placing bricks on top the lid.
First dinner party - whole chicken. Didn’t know there was a bag of liver/kidney in the cavity, served it with the chicken. So embarrassed.
Didn’t believe that baking potatoes and squash would actually explode in microwave and oven. They do. In both.
Daughter got a yeast infection. Read that putting the panties in the microwave would sterilize them. It did. Course, microwave also set fire to melting latex in the wasteband. House smelled like a tire fire for days.
Husband (a chemist), spilled some chemical on his shirt (first shirt I’d made him, I’d had a devil of a time getting the collar on and the plaids matched). He tried acetone to clean off the chemical, it melted the sleeve. Last shirt I ever made him.
Comment by Betty Jo — November 7, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
Lol.
My worst was when I was a teenager, just learning how to cook. I made my first “alll by myself meal” to feed the family, and I was so proud. I made peach pie.
My dad took a bite of it.
“Is it good?” I asked.
He looked over his glasses at me. “No,” he said, finally.
I tried it and almost threw up. I’d accidentally substituted salt, for sugar. Classic.
My siblings ate it anyway, they declared it “tasted like maccaroni and cheese.”
I had one friend who made bread and accidentally forgot to put in the flour.
Comment by sare — November 7, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Now I don’t feel so bad that I used masa instead of cake flour in my angel food cake last night!
Comment by Stephanieeeeeee — November 7, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
My mom tells the following story: she was doing a semester in Israel and their group was staying in a kibbutz, when a guy in the group decided to make hamburgers in the communal kitchen. The Rabbi nearly had a seizure when he found out.
When I was first living away from home, I put a sandwich in one of those sandwich toasters and forgot about it. The toasters turn themselves off when the sandwich is done, but this ancient model apparently relied on a thermometer, and turned on again every time the sandwich got cold. I smelled a little smoke and went into the kitchen, but as soon as I got there the toaster had turned off, and the smoke had dissipated. I didn’t see any problems, so I went back to my homework in the other room. This happened several times before it dawned on me that the sandwich toaster on the counter was on, and had a sandwich in it. Brilliant.
Also, one time I had dinner guests from out of state who I basically never see, and as I was cutting my chicken, I somehow managed to flip my entire plate of food upside down onto my lap. I still have no idea how I did that.
Comment by ariel — November 7, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
My friend just emailed this to me - I think she’s implying I might have some stories to share!
Just this week, I put some water (with olive oil and some spices) on the stove to boil. I left the room, starting watching something on the computer, and completely forgot about it until about 25 minutes later when I smelled smoke (I should mention that I had disabled my smoke alarm for being to sensitive). I ran into the kitchen to find a pot full of flames and plenty of smoke.
So yeah, I pretty much caught pot of water on fire and could have burned down my whole apartment building. I kind of wish I had a picture of the pot of flames. It was kind of cool.
One time I caught spaghetti on fire. Who even knew pasta was flammable? I’ve caught at least one dish towel on fire too.
Really puts all the forgotten ingredients and substitutions gone wrong in perspective (although I’ve got my fair share of those stories too).
Comment by Megan — November 7, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
Comment by Lorian — November 7, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
And all these years I have tried to keep my poor cooking skills hidden!
For the first year of my marriage I didn’t ever add spices, cook from scratch, offer to host a dinner, or even make waffles because I had been teased about my cooking skills from age…I can’t remember. Here’s why:
1. left to take a shower while beans were processing and found them a few hours later (i have actually done this every year now with a variety of foods)
2. Left a bagel cooking in the microwave for 10 minutes (was distracted by boy at door-the smoke billowing into the room was classic)
3. Helped turn batches and batches of cookies into rocks.
4. Cooked a dinner for some friends which included eggs-that pan was a goner!
A few years later I have started cooking things other than tacos made with canned refried beans and nothing else (my husband even jokes about this) and dh has taught me how to make pancakes from scratch. I have moved on to greater problems such as:
1. Attempting to make bread and while trying to “fix” it ended up with 6 loaves, 2 pizza crusts, 20 breadsticks, and a few burnt rolls. (Didn’t fit the mixer obviously, so I put it on the table and had dh help me knead it)
2. Forgot to turn of the stove, pulled dinner out of the oven and placed it on hot stove…we soon figured it out.
3. Cooked potatoes, obviously not well enough, everyone was throwing up that night-oops!
So the list could go on and on! Is this what has made me a feminist, the fact that I can’t cook to save a life?
Comment by Dev — November 7, 2009 @ 5:05 pm
I like to think I’m pretty good in the kitchen, so let’s just keep these blunders between us
When baking cookies, I reaching in to pull the pan out using a towel instead of a pot holder. The towel touched the heating element at the bottom of the oven. As I pulled it out of the oven the flames puffed and, being the calm individual I am, I screamed and tossed the pan, cookies, and towel. Luckily, the towel hit the living room carpet which allowed the the fire to spread. I finally thought well enough to turn on the sprayer on the sink, to put the fire out. That worked, but wet ashes are a particular pain to clean up.
Comment by Enna — November 7, 2009 @ 5:19 pm
Oh, I have lots of stories.
Before we were married, dh suggested we make cookies for the singles in the ward. That was well and good, until we got near the end and not enough batter for a whole pan, so he suggested we add some oatmeal to make it go a bit further. So I got in the cupboard and went to it, and boy was he surprised. “Why do you add rice to the cookies?!” I didn’t know what oatmeal or rice was. Oops.
Once we had our home teacher and his wife over for dinner and I made a dish from Betty Crocker, spaghetti with white clam sauce. It used canned clams so it wasn’t too expensive for our bare-bones budget, but I hadn’t lost all my frugality and used dried parsley instead of fresh. Of course, 2 T of dried parsley makes “white clam sauce” better named “green clam sauce” or perhaps, “sludge.”
I did the wax paper on the pecan pie, too, Mike H., but I didn’t notice it until after the entire thing was done and served. To my in-laws, no less.
Mostly, I just avoid cooking now!
Comment by TAG — November 7, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
Oh, I should have said that he lived with a bunch of single Mormon guys who would buy 50 pound bags of rice and put them in oatmeal containers . . . hence my confusion. And the fact that I’d never eaten either in my childhood home!
Comment by TAG — November 7, 2009 @ 5:31 pm
Once I cooked microwave caramels in a roommates Tupperware bowl. Normally, Tupperware is completely microwavable, but caramels get very, very, hot when cooking. I opened the microwave to find a hole melted towards to bottom of the bowl and caramel goo leaked out everywhere.
Another caramel incident (I cook a lot of things, but caramels are one thing I mess up consistently)–I made a batch for a friend’s birthday. It wasn’t cooled/solidified by the time I need to leave, so I decided to take it soft, and figured we could certainly find a way to enjoy it gooey if we needed to. So I set it (probably being in a hurry and absent-minded, as I frequently am) on the sofa back and ran to get something else. In my defense, it seemed stable enough at the time. When I came back, it had slid and caramel goo had oozed out of the pan and down multiple sofa cushions.
Comment by ifrit — November 7, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
I’ve spilled an entire pan of simmering creme brulees onto the heating element on the bottom of the oven, tried to remove cookies from the oven with a wet dishtowel, completely forgotten to add the eggs innumerable times, tried to make a strawberry tart a day ahead for a fancy Easter dinner with friends and instead served a slushy strawberry soupy mess (apparently strawberries continue to juice even after going in the tart). My frosted cakes are so ugly that other people can hardly resist taking over the spatula when I wield it.
Last night my kids exploded a hot dog in the microwave. Must take after their mother
Comment by Shelah — November 7, 2009 @ 6:16 pm
ifrit, funny! I once made some caramel on the stove, and then poured it into a plastic, yes plastic, bowl. Which suddenly had no bottom, and there was melted plastic and gooey caramel all over the stove. Sweet.
Comment by Lorian — November 7, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
I’d say I made a cake (the busy day cake recipe out of the old Betty Crocker cookbook) weekly when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I’d make butter frosting and color it a few different colors and I’d frost that baby as soon as it came out of the oven. I just couldn’t wait!! My family still teases me about those “Dr. Suess” cakes.
Comment by lache — November 7, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
About a month after I got married, I made my grandma’s mac and cheese recipe for dinner one night. It looked kind of funny and not at all like I remembered, but I served it anyway. After one bite it was clear something went terribly wrong. I had added sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. Think of the combination of extra sharp cheddar mixed with sweet milk. It was disgusting. My husband actually kept eating until I made him stop because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
Comment by bookharlot — November 7, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
Heh. The first time I made my own caramel, I decided to taste it. With my finger. Wow. That hurt.
Better than the time I cut a little hunk off of my pinky with a mandoline. You wouldn’t think a pinky slice like that would hurt so much, almost make one pass out, and keep one from sleep with the throbbing pain and the accidental bumps whilst tossing and turning. I have to cover my eyes when people use those on the Food Network. *snerk*
And I’ve set at least two tupperware bowls on top of recently turned-off burners…
Comment by SarahNicole — November 7, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
I have a bread recipe that you put a pan of water under while it bakes, I used to use my brownie pan, but the water was ruining it, so I decided I’d use one of my pie pans.
I had the pie pan in the oven ready to go, put the bread in, and poured a cup of water into the pie pan, and KaBOOM. Little bits of blue glass EVERYWHERE.
Smart, I know.
Last week I dumped the unpopped popcorn kernals down the disposal. My Mister fished them all out again, but wasn’t too pleased.
Then there was the time I set the dishrag too close to my gas stove and it caught on fire.
Or using an oven mitt to hold onto a loaf of hot bread that I didn’t want to wait to cut into. I sliced clear through the oven mitt (luckily I didn’t cut myself). The mitt is still useable, but is a glaring reminder of my idiocy.
Comment by Alliegator — November 7, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
x2!
A chlorine bleach & water solution is much safer, if you don’t mind possible color damage. Plus, the only time my wife has ever had a yeast infection, I told her:”Be more careful when you’re baking, don’t scratch, or get any baking stuff near there”. At least she laughed. Yes, I’m strange.
They used rubbing alcohol as a step of a parts cleaning process at one place I worked. Someone accidentally replaced those baths with acetone, and the plastic carriers for parts started to dissolve, and the chips epoxied to the substrates in the parts came off, doing massive damage to the parts. Also, nail polish remover is often acetone, and it “melts” keys in keyboards. So, please, no nail jobs near keyboards.
I found it AFTER it was baked.
I thought there was kosher beef.
At one apartment on my mission, we had a dated fridge, and it would not keep things cold enough. I grew up with frost free fridges, so I didn’t connect that with the 3 inch thick ice in it. Eventually, we broke all the ice off when we decided to give it a deep cleaning, and, wow! The fridge suddenly worked TOO good! Everything was frozen solid in it! Milk, margarine, etc. The thermostat had gone bad, and it was cooling all the time!!
That’s a new one on me!
And my youngest son was 5 when he helped himself to microwave popcorn. The first time, he set the timer for 10 minutes. The smoke smell lasted for 2 months, in the summer, with windows open even.
Comment by Mike H. — November 8, 2009 @ 1:50 am
I decided to make homemade chili when I was first married– I cut up the jalapenos myself with a knife and no gloves. Of course I rubbed my eyes. I remember lying in bed that night with shooting pains up my arms, eyes still stinging.
And then there was the time that someone brought us dinner when I was on bed rest with my second pregnancy. She got mixed up and put the jello salad in our warm oven, and the lasagna in the fridge, so that when my husband got home to serve it, there was no dinner, and a little melted emergency in the stove.
Comment by Paula — November 8, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
Hey, Mike, yes spaghetti is flammable. In houses where I had an old stove which had to be lit manually, I always kept a few pieces of spaghetti on the stove to light one burner from another without wasting a match. I’ll also use a piece of spaghetti sometimes to light a candle which has burned low into a candle jar where a match would be difficult to reach. It’s also useful for lighting multiple candles, like on a birthday cake, so that you don’t have to keep striking another match.
Comment by Lorian — November 8, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
If it makes you guys feel any better, we had a sign on the wall at one of the labs I worked in reminding people not to put Pyrex beakers directly onto burners. That’s right: highly-trained professionals (with PhDs and everything!) do it too.
1. Sort of related to cooking disasters, once I had to refill the sulfuric acid at the lab. Not a complicated task. The container was sort of like a giant glass jug, maybe 20 gal (in order to mix the solutions thoroughly after putting them in the jug, you had to bear-hug it and shake it around… which was another safety issue all on its own, and not part of this story). I reached into the cupboard labeled “sulfuric acid,” pulled out a jug, and WITHOUT READING THE LABEL stuck a funnel onto the big glass jug and started pouring.
Well actually the jug was hydrochloric acid since somebody put it in the wrong cupboard, and as you might imagine, this is not a good combination. The reaction produced a lot of gas very quickly, which blew the concentrated hydrochloric acid still remaining in the funnel all over the lab and myself. The resulting chlorine cloud chased everybody out of the lab for 30 minutes until it cleared. By some miracle (thanx Jesus!) none of it hit my face.
2. Once I put a Papa John’s pizza in the oven without remembering to take it off the paper tray. It caught fire in the oven. Exciting! We finally got to use that fire extinguisher! I can’t remember why but I still tried to eat part of it that “didn’t look like it got much fire extinguisher powder on it.” Fire extinguisher powder is surprisingly tasty on pizza, but alas, not meant for human consumption.
Comment by mellifera — November 9, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
Not so much about cooking, but when in Lithuania as a missionary, we came home one evening to find that our Soviet-era refrigerator/freezer has somehow morphed into a microwave. Everything in the freezer was being cooked–a package of ground beef that we had purchased that day was browned and ready to serve. I inspected the plumbing on the rear of the unit and found that the hose carrying coolant had split. Of course, I didn’t have any proper plumbing repair supplies (or know-how), so I used what I had at hand–bubble gum. My companion and I chewed up several wads of gum, I laid it on thick around the split hose, and we went to bed. The freezer was fine in the morning! (And, judging from the strength of that gum wrapping job, the freezer is probably still working almost 10 years later). Perhaps we could make bakeware out of bubble gum?
Comment by TyInTheSky — November 9, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
When I got married my husband convinced me to start using stainless steel pots and pans. It took me at least a year to get used to using them. About a year ago, I was frying some pork chops and I turned the heat on high and let the oil sit for a while. I placed a pork chop in the pan and the oil went flying. I got at least 10 spotted burns on my hand. Since the oil burns were all over my hand and fingers, I had to be creative with the bandaging. It was so embarrassing and everyone I came in contact with at work and in classes asked me what happened. I had to solely use my other hand for a couple of days since it hurt to bend my burns.
Comment by shannonj — November 9, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
I hate those bad cooking streaks. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who has them!
Comment by EmilyCC — November 9, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
One time I decided to roast marshmallows under the broiler in my oven. I stuck them in there and after a minute or however long it was they all burst into flames. We’d recently practiced fire safety for FHE so my girls (who were about 5 and 7 at the time) both screamed “FIRE!” and ran out the front door as fast as they could. I knocked the fire out with a towel then thought, “That is one of THE stupidest things I have ever done!” I was so glad nothing worse came of it.
Please never do this yourself!
Comment by Cindy — November 9, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
mellifera: I hear about those kind of “oops” moments in the semiconductor industry. Fabs & labs are evacuated due to such errors.
The really dangerous mix errors are a solvent/flammable liquid mixed with an oxidizing acid. I got irked when I would find IPA around the acid sinks at places I worked.
Back in the kitchen, I wonder about baking soda vs. baking powder mix ups. The potential is there.
Comment by Mike H. — November 9, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
Smelling burnt popcorn for 2 months would be the worst.
My husband occasionally reminds me of one of my flops by asking, “What’s for breakfast? Salt-o-Meal?”
Just last week I was just teaching a friend how to make bread and we burnt the bottom out of her tupperware because we set it on top of the stove to let the dough rise, not making the connection that the oven was on and the tops of stoves can get hot.
I took an entire dinner to my friend’s house for a dinner party there. One of the guests asked if we were vegetarian. “No, no, I just burned the meat dry in the pan.” Good thing I had taken plenty of side dishes.
When I was pregnant I was super spacey about burning food and empty pans and we have the black circle on our doormat to show for it. Gotta get the smoky pan out of the house!
We could, of course, expand this post to include other duds such as discovering wet clothes left in the washing machine for about a week. No wonder the house was stinking - I couldn’t figure it out.
Comment by Eileen — November 10, 2009 @ 4:33 am
re:32 “I didn’t have any proper plumbing repair supplies (or know-how), so I used what I had at hand– bubble gum. My companion and I chewed up several wads of gum, I laid it on thick around the split hose, and we went to bed. The freezer was fine in the morning!”
Great story. Husband once got a Father’s Day card with a pic of the Titanic sinking. It said “Bring me the duct tape. I think I can fix it!” Bubble gum, baling wire and duct tape. Heck, with those things you’d think we could solve World Hunger! they work so well on everything else.
Comment by Betty Jo — November 10, 2009 @ 10:31 am
We do so much wash , even with just 4 of us, that it’s only a day or 2 at the most. But, even that can smell weird, so I found re-rinsing that load with 1/4 cup of vinegar works well. No, the clothes do not smell like vinegar afterward.
My last night of my mission, the outgoing missionaries would spend the night at the Mission Home. One of the topic was the worst meals we had, and they were all self or companion inflicted. One missionary & his companion were low on food, and decided to make waffles with what they had. But, the companion somehow thought the powder he was using was one of those “just add water” type of pancake/waffle mixes, but it was actually straight flour!
So, they had to gag those things down.
Comment by Mike H. — November 19, 2009 @ 6:28 am
Can I just say that I love, love, love, my extra-large capacity washer. Yes, I do. Great idea about the vinegar, Mike.
Comment by Kimberly — November 19, 2009 @ 9:33 am
haha sounds like you need to check out www.thebitchstoppedcooking.com
Comment by mz652 — December 6, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
[…] numi, commenting on fMhLisa’s post “Cooking with a one-handed Genius (that would be me)” at fMh: I wear a small scar on my left hand from heating a jar of hot fudge in the microwave. When I put a spoon in the heated fudge it exploded onto my hand, nice and sticky. Luckily it didn’t start really hurting until after I had finished the ice cream. […]
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