Tastes Like Feet!: Your Kitchen Disasters

[Sandman87]

A slightly different kitchen disaster, aka "The World's Most Painful Squirt Gun":

Shortly after I had graduated from housemates to having my own place I was fixing dinner. I had picked up one of those roasted whole chickens from the local supermarket, which I intended to doctor up to imitate one of my Mom's recipes. That part was fine. I also decided to make some mashed potatoes with peas. That part didn't turn out quite so well.

I started slicing up the potatoes prior to cooking them...and forgot to hold them safely. Before you could say "first aid kit" I had sliced the end off of my left index finger. Luckily it was just the very tip, so I was missing just a flap of skin about the size of a pea. Hurt like a bastard. Oddly enough, it wasn't bleeding. I went over to the stove where the light was better to examine it. It looked like it should have been bleeding like crazy. Being just slightly more evolved than a caveman, I did what any respectable caveman would do when confronted by something perplexing; I poked at it with my other index finger. The result was a micro-fine jet of blood arcing gracefully over the stove and delicately spattering the wall. When I say micro-fine, I mean that it was about the width of a human hair. This naturally startled me, and I pulled my poking finger away. The jet stopped. I poked again. Another micro fine jet. On, off, on, off. I had my own all natural squirt gun.

I ended up writing my name in blood on the wall, just because I could. I eventually got around to doing all the first aid stuff that needed doing. After I had sponged the blood off of the wall.

I skipped the mashed potatoes that night, and had a double helping of peas instead.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Sandman87

[stillshimpy]

Being just slightly more evolved than a caveman, I did what any respectable caveman would do when confronted by something perplexing; I poked at it with my other index finger.

 

Double points if you made an "Oog?" type sound while poking :-)  Seriously, my husband is extremely prone to "hey, this part of me hurts....I should probably poke it a bunch!" but he's super squeamish about blood, so I'm going to show him this story in hopes of enacting a "poke it when sore" cure.  

 

Unfortunately, he also has a poor memory, so I doubt it will stick as a remedy.  Still, he ought to turn a fun color!!  I am clearly not above deviling him, but that's partially because I'm always the person who has to do things like drive him to Urgent Care after he's done some brilliant poking. *

 

* I am not entirely unaware of how that sounds, it's just that there aren't many words that actually make that sound any better.  Probing was much worse.  

Edited December 5, 2014 by stillshimpy

[Bastet]

I wound up in the ER - and in surgery a week later to reattach a severed nerve - when my attempt at removing the pit from an avocado went horribly awry.  This was back when I was first starting out, and I had a roommate, but she wasn't home (and she'd have been useless if she was; she might have actually passed out upon seeing the blood, which as someone who will thoroughly investigate any open wound is just unfathomable to me).  Rather than driving with one hand, I had my mom come pick me up.  When she arrived, she was quite distressed to learn I would not leave until I finished cleaning up the bloody kitchen (two fingers stabbed, quite the gusher).

 

What I didn't notice as my mother shoved me out the door was the bloody handprint I'd left on the phone, and the drops of blood on the floor beneath it.  So that's what my roommate came home to -- my car is there, but all that's left of me is a bloody trail.  Thankfully, she called my parents' house rather than the police, and my dad was home to tell her I had not, in fact, been kidnapped by a knife-wielding maniac.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Bastet

[Mountainair]

Oh my gosh! What terrible yet funny stories about cutting off body parts! Blood doesn't squick me out but injuries themselves do. I can't bear to look at my kids or my own injuries and make my husband look. I just can't handle the thought of how severe said injury might be.

I've sliced myself good in the kitchen but nothing a little bandaid couldn't handle. You guys sure are troopers.

When I was first starting out and living with my husband (Then he was my boyfriend, I was 18) I was cooking something that resulted in a small kitchen fire. I had no idea what to do so I calmly said, "Hey, honey, could you come in the kitchen for a second". He comes strolling in casually and is greeted by the stove top engulfed in flames. Naturally, a string of expletives followed and a, "next time why don't you warn me the apartment is about to burn down when you call me in here". 12 years later whenever I call him into the kitchen he asks, "is the kitchen on fire"?

[joanne3482]

I sliced open the fat part of my hand (below the thumb) opening a can of water chestnuts. My can opener kind of 'jogged' around the can leaving several spots where the top was still attached to the can. In trying to wrestle it open I sliced a good 3 - 4 inch cut in my hand. Now because I don't believe in going to the doctor unless I absolutely have to and because I haven't had stitches in about 30 years I just put a bandage over it and Googled how to know if I need stitches. I also tweeted my friends about it since a couple are nurses. After 2 hours of non-stop bleeding I decided to go to Urgent Care for 6 stitches. 

[PRgal]

Not my disaster, but someone I know once mistakenly put vanilla yogurt in the curry rather than plain.  Let's just say that it tasted...weird.

[EllieH]

Continuing with the bloody kitchen stories, I once cut my ring finger on the edge of a can of tuna while making lunch before work.  No big deal, grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it up and finished getting my lunch together.  Then I went to the bathroom to finish getting ready, thinking I would wash and bandage the cut at that point, surely it had stopped bleeding?  WRONG.  More like hadn't started bleeding, as soon as I took the pressure away my finger went off like a geyser.  Blood everywhere!  Grabbed a handtowel to put pressure back on it, stood around in the bathroom for a while debating if I should call work to let them know I'd be swinging by the emergency room on route and would be late.  Eventually the bleeding slowed enough that I could attack it with some gauze and medical tape I had, to get it really wrapped up, and then I was late enough leaving I basically just had to rush out the door.  When I got home at the end of the day, I was thinking it was a good thing the police hadn't come by, as my bathroom looked like a crime scene!  Bloody towels still hanging up, blood drops all over the sink and counter, etc.  And in retrospect, the cut needed stitches, as it would start bleeding anytime I took the gauze pressure away for the next few days!  Never did get those though, and weirdly, didn't end up with a scar from this incident.

[emma675]

The site of blood makes me sick (ask the nurse whose shoes I threw up on that one time while having blood drawn--I'm still so embarrassed) so I don't do well with kitchen disasters that involve it. One time in college I was trying to open a can of tomatoes when the can opener broke before it was done opening the can. I thought "I can just pry the lid open myself" and proceeded to slice my thumb open with the edge of the lid, slicing through the tip of my thumb, through my nail and into the bone. I passed out right there in the kitchen.

[Bastet]

LOVE those butterfly bandages.

 

I thought "I can just pry the lid open myself" and proceeded to slice my thumb open with the edge of the lid, slicing through the tip of my thumb, through my nail and into the bone. I passed out right there in the kitchen.

 

See, if that had been me I'd have been standing there thinking, "Oh, how fascinating - you can see the bone."  (Along with "ow" surrounded on both sides by expletives, and "Dammit, now I have to go get stitches.")  I'm the one who asked about the surgery to rejoin my severed nerve, "Since it's on my hand, can't I be sitting up so I can watch what you're doing?"  (They were working with needles and sutures the width of hair -- this stuff is cool.)  Alas, the answer was no.

 

I'm also a highly-impatient person who does not wait in line well.  When checking in at the ER, we were delayed by the sheer idiocy of the person at the front of the line.  My mother snapped, and I calmly told her to relax as our turn would come eventually --  She feared I was in shock from massive blood loss.

 

Although blood doesn't bother me, and I've had my share of injuries, there did turn out to be something traumatic about stabbing myself while simply trying to make a salad.  I felt very weird about the whole thing the next morning, and called my boss to tell her what happened and that I was taking the day for myself.  And it took YEARS for that nerve to return even halfway to normal (and that in-between period of painful tingles was not fun).  I can joke about this stuff that happened afterward, but I still get a twinge of something if I have to describe the details of the actual incident.

 

That's the only one of my injuries that was kitchen-related, however.  I mostly stick to forgetting sugar water boiling away on the stove.

[emma675]

 

See, if that had been me I'd have been standing there thinking, "Oh, how fascinating - you can see the bone."

You couldn't really see the bone (it was actually a very clean cut, straight and the width of the edge of the can) so much as the lid stuck into it. I actually had to use a little strength to pull the lid out of my thumb since it went into the bone. The tip of that thumb is still a little numb to this day, although there is no scar.

[Sandman87]

Note really my disaster. More like someone else's series of micro disasters:

 

My grandmother was apparently the only grandmother in the entire world who was a mediocre cook (unless she was making baked goods - her pies, cakes and bread were good), but her dinner food was really...something. See, she'd make perfectly reasonable American type dinner food, but she'd make it a few hours before dinner time. Then she'd put it in the oven on "warm" and leave it there until it was time to eat while she had a few glasses of wine. When it would finally be time to eat, we'd be served up a plate of pork chop jerky or chicken that required a sharp serrated knife to cut, with some mashed potato concrete and oven-dried peas. Naturally "Mum" didn't see anything wrong with it since she was half buzzed by that point.

 

The funny thing is that I eventually learned to like meats that had been dried out from being kept warm forever.

[stillshimpy]

My grandmother was apparently the only grandmother in the entire world who was a mediocre cook (unless she was making baked goods - her pies, cakes and bread were good), but her dinner food was really...something.

 

No Sandman, one of mine was a bad cook too. Now, full disclosure, she's also the grandmother who essentially raised me along with my dad (long, weird, overly complicated family history) and she was a) an alcoholic and all the fun that entails b) a registered dietitian who worked for a hospital when she worked c) is the only person I've ever even heard of that managed to lose her driver's license for drunk driving in the early seventies...in the South no less.   

 

So the times (yes, multiple) she set the house on fire actually had nothing to do with cooking.  But she manages to top even your grandmother's method of serving food that had been dehydrated for hours beforehand.  She'd cook once a week, and my dad was actually working in D.C. at the time, so he was only home on weekends (he actually wasn't in politics, by the way, just an academic) ....she'd cook on the weekend and then serve the leftovers from that one cooked meal all week long.  She'd heat them up in the leftover tins from Stouffers frozen foods (because I'm assuming using an actual dish would have been far too normal and sober a thing to do).  

 

It was pretty much unspeakably bad food, but it's also the reason I started teaching myself to cook from a cookbook (Fannie Farmer and James Beard) from the time I was ten onward.  

 

As dire as that all sounds, I actually did grow up to have a very happy life after a fairly miserable childhood,  but some of the memories of food I have as a kid are almost Dickensian.  My grandmother had also been young during the depression, which I think really, really messed with a lot of people in terms of ever feeling secure again.  So she'd do things like buy the spicing packet for spaghetti sauce, which was supposed to be mix with tomatoes and instead, mix it with water and serve it over noodles.  

 

Also, Underwood deviled ham (I know) featured rather heavily which makes no sense considering the dietitian thing.  She'd also buy the very worst flavors of Jell-o imaginable (lime jell-0 parfaits were featured as pretty much the only desert she knew how to make) and I can actually just start laughing randomly remembering the poor, shriveled, desiccated thing that the Thanksgiving Turkey became....with the cranberry jelly from the can, served as a log, with the can marks still visible.  

 

I was always so damned thankful when thanksgiving was over with and only Christmas dinner need be survived.   

[grisgris]

One of my grandmother's favorite meals was Vienna sausages, Kraft macaroni and cheese and served up with Wyler's lemonade which she prepared in a pan on top of the stove. No, it wasn't warm, just odd and she served it out of the old jelly jars that had Flintstones cartoons on them.

 

My other grandmother was a fantastic baker. As she lived out-of-town, I only met her once when she came to visit. I remember her making mincemeat pies for my dad and homemade cinnamon rolls.

[stillshimpy]

Actually, my other grandmother is not a good cook either.  She's still alive.  She's Scottish and lives in the Isle of Bute where she brews endless cups of tea and apparently exists on digestive biscuits and tomato soup unless my mother is there to cook for her. 

 

My mom was and is a good cook, but I didn't really grow up with her.  I think I learned to cook out of dire necessity.  I'm trying to remember some of my early "god that was nearly inedible" disasters and truly, I made some entirely revolting crap as I was learning.  

 

Every now and then I'll still have something go south in a spectacular manner, but it was only in recent years that I actually almost Sylvia Plath'd myself entirely by mistake.   One household tip that I had been told long ago was to pour boiling water down your bathroom sink's drain every month or so so help prevent clogs.  Spare the planet some chemicals, blah blah blah.  

 

So I put the kettle on and went off to start cleaning the bathrooms on the main level, assuming I'd hear the kettle whistle when it was done.   I do not drink endless cups of tea, so it's actually a bit rare for me to use the kettle....which is why I didn't know that you really need to make sure you don't overfill those things.  Since I had four sinks to pour water down, I erred on the side of too much, expecting it would take a while to come to a boil.  

 

Yeah, it forced the lid off before it whistled and boiled over, taking out the gas flame with it.   When I didn't hear the kettle I just kept cleaning other things, waiting for it,  , waiting and waiting for that whistle I didn't really have a firm grasp on how long I'd been waiting until I realized "Huh, what's that sm.....OH NO!"  so gas is merrily filling up the house.   I was very careful not to do anything that might throw a spark as I flung open every window in the joint, and walked the dog while I waited for the house to air out.  

 

Yes, I have switched the baking soda and vinegar treatment for my pipes, by the way :-)  

[ZaldamoWilder]

I say this with the utmost respect.  Ya'll are fascinating.     I've learned not to hold stuff I'm cutting opened (not an ounce of shade, seriously) I could just as easily cut a potato using the board (as opposed to my hand) as a surface.    shimpy I love the word Dickensian but hate the circumstances for you. 

 

My kitchen nightmare is something I feel embarrassed to be defeated by.  Fried chicken.    Average ole, garden variety, hot ass pan fried chicken.  I can't do it.  Ever.   Now batter?  Oh shit, I am the queen of a crispy, buttermilk, corn flakey, seasoned flour batter, but don't try to eat what's inside.  It should either still have feathers or you can use it as a door stop.   Before you're tempted to help yes, the oil is hot enough, the pan is deep enough and I'm well versed with the term golden brown.  I've given up, don't try to save me.

 

p.s. pan fried bacon - keep the flame medium to high, drain the initial batch of fat, then keep turning every couple minutes for chewy.  For crispy let it sit longer than a couple minutes each turn.  It's a pain in the ass but kind of worth it.

 

btw, tastes like orange feet made me throw up laughing.

Edited December 8, 2014 by ZaldamoWilder

[emma675]

I'm afraid to ask, but what are "digestive biscuits"? It sounds horrible.

 

I had one grandmother who couldn't cook very well (bless her, she tried so hard and had a few really good dishes, but overall it was pretty bland) and one grandmother who could cook the hell out of anything she wanted to. She passed away in August and I inherited her recipe box (which is huge) and I'm still organizing it. The thing that's killing me is she has two or more recipes for certain things and I'm not sure which is the "good" recipe. I made three different kinds of chocolate frosting the night before Thanksgiving trying to figure out which one was the recipe she used for my dad's birthday cake.

[Athena]

I'm afraid to ask, but what are "digestive biscuits"? It sounds horrible.

 

Digestive biscuits are semi-sweet biscuit/cookies from the UK that people often have with tea. They also have chocolate covered ones. I love them. 

 

The name is from the idea that the baking soda used to make them helps in digestion.

[joanne3482]

After reading all these "kitchen cuts and slices" stories, I have a recommendation -- stock your medicine cabinet with hemostatic gauze and butterfly bandages. Sometimes stitches are needed, but when they aren't, the butterfly bandages hold better than regular ones. The gauze really does work, as proven by my dad, who takes blood thinners and bleeds like a stuck pig at the tiniest scratch.

My dad swears by krazy glue. He's used it multiple times to hold together a deep cut. Unrelated to kitchen disasters, I have a huge scar on my knee because I fell and cut it open. Instead of using a true butterfly bandage, my mother just cut a regular band-aid into the shape of a butterfly band-aid. As if it were the shape that makes it work. 

 

Thanksgiving kitchen disaster - this was my first year cooking Thanksgiving for other people. Since there were only 3 of us I made just a breast (unstuffed). I was so excited. I followed all the instructions online. I used a meat thermometer in the thickest part blah blah blah.  The first slices were beautiful, juicy and just right.  You get close to the bone, though, not so much - pink, pink, pink.  We cut all that pink turkey off and made them into turkey enchiladas. I was a little sad. 

[stillshimpy]

Thanks, Zaldamo , Dickensian is a good word, isn't it?  I can never hear it without thinking of The Wire now and get a good giggle because whenever I use the word Dickensian my mind helpfully (and usually silently) adds "aspect!" to it.  

 

The first slices were beautiful, juicy and just right.  You get close to the bone, though, not so much - pink, pink, pink.  We cut all that pink turkey off and made them into turkey enchiladas. I was a little sad.

 

Oh no! But never fear, you'll always have the "and so we employed a food hack and saved the day, because we are problem solvers....go team!"  memory and no one, in the history of Thanksgiving dinner has ever truly nailed the Turkey the first time out.  Think of how you will do a victory dance when you nail that bad bird next year :-)  

 

I'm afraid to ask, but what are "digestive biscuits"? It sounds horrible.

 

Doesn't it though?  Yet they are actually not bad, it's just that they sport a terrible name.  The baking soda in them was believed to aid digestion.  I personally think it was a brilliant grownup plan to make sure kids never raided that cookie stash.  She could actually make something "millionaire's shortbread" which was shortbread, with caramel coated with chocolate.  

 

Yes, that's right.  A Twix bar, in essence :-)  

[backformore]

I love all the stories of mom and grandmas who can't cook.   My mom BOILED meat.  her favorite accompaniments were canned mixed veggies, and canned Irish potatoes.  The potatoes were the worst.  pre-cooked, little potatoes, that were ruined by the canning process, a very weird texture.  

It was a long time before I realized that I LIKED potatoes, I just didn't like potatoes that tasted like tin cans.  

[GreekGeek]

 

Doesn't it though?  Yet they are actually not bad, it's just that they sport a terrible name.  

I thought "digestive biscuits" were what Americans call graham crackers. Are they different?

[stillshimpy]

I thought "digestive biscuits" were what Americans call graham crackers. Are they different?

 

Yes, they are different and Americans call graham crackers....graham crackers, (edited, morning typing again, I've just realized you know that) in my experience, right down to marketing them as "Teddy Grahams" etc (Honey Grahams, Golden Grahams!) Americans, generally speaking, don't call anything sweet "a biscuit" of any kind.  Although, I moved to a different area of the country a couple of years ago and discovered that nearly everyone here calls dog treats "cookies" so people kept asking me, about my dog, who is so cute it's like a weapon, "Oh....she's cute! Can she have a cookie?!"  to which I'd sort of stare blankly for a moment and ask, "treat?" the first few times before catching on.  

 

As to how they are different, graham crackers have a different taste and texture, digestive biscuits are a bit more like vanilla wafers, only less sweet and slightly grainier.  Graham crackers seem like a very washed out cousin of gingersnaps....again, only slightly grainier.  So they do have a completely different taste. 

 

As for what Scots or Brits call graham crackers, I honestly don't know.   I do know that my mother thinks they are a weird food, specifically because of the Cowardly Gingersnap comparison.  When my son was little, he didn't like Graham crackers and my mother heartily approved of his dislike.  

Edited December 10, 2014 by stillshimpy

[mansonlamps]

No Sandman, one of mine was a bad cook too. Now, full disclosure, she's also the grandmother who essentially raised me along with my dad (long, weird, overly complicated family history) and she was a) an alcoholic and all the fun that entails b) a registered dietitian who worked for a hospital when she worked c) is the only person I've ever even heard of that managed to lose her driver's license for drunk driving in the early seventies...in the South no less.

So the times (yes, multiple) she set the house on fire actually had nothing to do with cooking. But she manages to top even your grandmother's method of serving food that had been dehydrated for hours beforehand. She'd cook once a week, and my dad was actually working in D.C. at the time, so he was only home on weekends (he actually wasn't in politics, by the way, just an academic) ....she'd cook on the weekend and then serve the leftovers from that one cooked meal all week long. She'd heat them up in the leftover tins from Stouffers frozen foods (because I'm assuming using an actual dish would have been far too normal and sober a thing to do).

Loved your post because families are extremely complicated and interesting and make us who we are, but the crazy ass crap that got us here? Can only be relived by those who went through it with us.

I can't parallel your stories exactly but there is enough there to actually make me laugh out loud now that I've survived the adversity! I know I'm weird.

Edited December 11, 2014 by mansonlamps

[Sandman87]

 Although, I moved to a different area of the country a couple of years ago and discovered that nearly everyone here calls dog treats "cookies" so people kept asking me, about my dog, who is so cute it's like a weapon, "Oh....she's cute! Can she have a cookie?!"  to which I'd sort of stare blankly for a moment and ask, "treat?" the first few times before catching on.  

"If you give a dog a cookie, she'll want a glass of milk..."

[KnoxForPres]

Such great stories. What enjoyable reads!

We had a supper club when I was out of college/best time of life era. It involved anywhere from 3 to 6 girls. Well one didn't have experience cooking, but really got an A for effort.

There is a dish called Tomato Pie that is so good in the summer! Pastry, tomatoes, fresh basil, mayo, cheese and some seasoning. Heather went to the farmers market and got gorgeous tomatoes as she was making us Tomato Pie. Well, she got a Graham cracker crust. It was bad as this is definitely a savory dish. I get it though bc she was probably in baking aisle and saw it and thought "yes".

She also brought one of those velveeta, sausage, Rotel type things to a Super Bowl party I had. Well, for reasons unknown she got maple sausage and result tasted like syrup with stuff the good Lord didn't intend (sausage excluded). It was revolting.

[Mountainair]

Such great stories. What enjoyable reads!

We had a supper club when I was out of college/best time of life era. It involved anywhere from 3 to 6 girls. Well one didn't have experience cooking, but really got an A for effort.

There is a dish called Tomato Pie that is so good in the summer! Pastry, tomatoes, fresh basil, mayo, cheese and some seasoning. Heather went to the farmers market and got gorgeous tomatoes as she was making us Tomato Pie. Well, she got a Graham cracker crust. It was bad as this is definitely a savory dish. I get it though bc she was probably in baking aisle and saw it and thought "yes".

She also brought one of those velveeta, sausage, Rotel type things to a Super Bowl party I had. Well, for reasons unknown she got maple sausage and result tasted like syrup with stuff the good Lord didn't intend (sausage excluded). It was revolting.

Oh man! I love Tomato Pie and look forward to making it every summer. Too bad she went with the graham cracker crust, yuck! I always like to add cooked Bacon and Sauteed onion to mine before baking!

[joanne3482]

My mom BOILED meat.

 

I sometimes boil chicken which makes it easy to shred and then I do something else with it (like mix taco seasoning into it or make it into enchiladas or taquitos). I don't just serve the boiled chicken. :) 

 

It was a long time before I discovered I liked brisket and pork chops. My mom boiled the brisket. So gross. Pork chops she would (to quote my father) "cover them in cement (bread crumbs) and deep fry until they were hockey pucks." I was in college and a friend was making pork chops and he broiled them. A whole new pork chop world opened up. 

[KnoxForPres]

Oh man! I love Tomato Pie and look forward to making it every summer. Too bad she went with the graham cracker crust, yuck! I always like to add cooked Bacon and Sauteed onion to mine before baking!

Bacon! Genius! Now I want to make Tomato Pie! So I assume you cook bacon it, crumble and do you add to mayo or is it in the layers of tomato? And sautéed onion sounds divine as well.

[Sandman87]

A whole new pork chop world opened up.

Sounds like a place that Finn and Jake would visit in Adventure Time.

[Mountainair]

Bacon! Genius! Now I want to make Tomato Pie! So I assume you cook bacon it, crumble and do you add to mayo or is it in the layers of tomato? And sautéed onion sounds divine as well.

I cook the bacon then sautée the onion in the bacon grease. Crumble the bacon, mix it with the onion and add it to the layers of tomato! I'm telling ya, no other way to make it :)

[KnoxForPres]

I cook the bacon then sautée the onion in the bacon grease. Crumble the bacon, mix it with the onion and add it to the layers of tomato! I'm telling ya, no other way to make it :)

I'm tellin ya, that's the only way it will be made from here on out! Thank you!

[stillshimpy]

I can't parallel your stories exactly but there is enough there to actually make me laugh out loud now that I've survived the adversity! I know I'm weird.

 

We can be weird together on that one, masonlamps.  Once you're all the way through to the other side, in possession of a good life and having your wits about you, it's just natural to develop a genuine appreciation of how darkly comedic it all is.   I will laugh my butt off at some things that I guess sound really dismal to other people, but it sounds like you know, once you make it through to the life you build for yourself? Time for The Victory Laugh :)  

 

So guys, I bought a hanging oven timer, because I need to try and re-calibrate my oven thermometer.  I found directions on EHow (and I have the name of a good repairman lest this turn out to be one of my less successful ventures) and there's something clearly off about one of my ovens. 

 

Woo hoo! Here's hoping we don't have any Yuletide fires :-D 

Edited December 18, 2014 by stillshimpy

[KnoxForPres]

It was a long time before I discovered I liked brisket and pork chops. My mom boiled the brisket. So gross. Pork chops she would (to quote my father) "cover them in cement (bread crumbs) and deep fry until they were hockey pucks." I was in college and a friend was making pork chops and he broiled them. A whole new pork chop world opened up.

I'm yet to find that whole new world. My mom made a pork chop and rice dish which I think had rice, cream of something, hell maybe a Liptons packet? The rice was divine, I loved the crunchier parts, haha. But the chops? Blech!!! I have never ordered a pork chop out or had one prepared well but it's likely due to my equating them to, so well said, hockey pucks.

[stillshimpy]

By the way, I successfully re-calibrated my oven temperature/thermometer :-)  It wasn't just a little off either, it was off twenty-six degrees!  Apparently the more often you use your oven, the more it is likely to drift.  I have double ovens and the bottom was was almost entirely spot on (one degree off) but the top one, which I use almost daily, was way the heck off.  

 

Explains a heck of a lot about some recent baking misadventures.  

[emma675]

stillshimpy, I have the same problem. My oven is off by about 24 degrees but it was built in the 1960's so it's been used quite a bit (it's one of those old "oven and a halfs" where I've got a full sized oven on one side and a small half oven on the other). I had many baking disasters before my mom got me an oven thermometer.

[P2C2E]

In college, we didn't have an oven thermometer but my roomate swore up and down that it was off by 25 degrees. We ended up buying a thermometer and sure enough, she was right! She had some weird baking mojo though, she would know things were done baking by looking. She never had to stick a knife it, just knew by looking. 

[Shannon L.]

Well, my 13 year old tried to bake her very first cheesecake yesterday and neither of us read the directions carefully and it fell apart.  We tried to salvage it after reading what we did wrong.  Today we'll taste it and see if it's edible.  But, we won't be able to put it out for guests.  I hope it is edible because if not, that's one expensive mistake!

Edited December 25, 2014 by Shannon L.

[Sandman87]

OT: Speaking of Emu, did I ever mention the time that I looked up from mowing my lawn one day to find myself face to face with an emu? Damn bird did a stately inspection march around the property, then left. Just one of the joys of living someplace where neighbors raise livestock.

Don't even get me started about the horse on my front porch...

[mansonlamps]

stillshimpy, I have the same problem. My oven is off by about 24 degrees but it was built in the 1960's so it's been used quite a bit (it's one of those old "oven and a halfs" where I've got a full sized oven on one side and a small half oven on the other). I had many baking disasters before my mom got me an oven thermometer.

I am so jealous of your 60s oven and a half. My aunt had one in the actual 60's and I thought she and my uncle were so wealthy because of it. I literally was telling the sales guy at HH Greggs about a week ago that I thought they should still sell those ovens because they are so useful..

[Bastet]

I have an oven like that, too, from the late '50s.  When I finally remodel my kitchen in the next couple of years, it will have to go, because there just isn't a way to keep it within the new layout I intend to create.  And as much as I'll be excited by that improved layout (more counter space and a better work triangle), I will miss the hell out of that oven.

 

And try buying something now that will still be working in 65 years.  Goddamn disposable society.  But I digress ...

[harrie]

 Don't even get me started about the horse on my front porch...

 

I am so jealous.  Any horse that showed up on my front porch would become my horse. 

[PRgal]

Are half ovens the ones where there's a regular oven and then a smaller one that pulls out like a door on the left side?  I've seen 1 1/2 ovens recently, but both pull out like regular ovens (the smaller one is on the top.  Maybe that's not a real oven but a warming one?).  I have a normal oven on my wall and a steaming oven above it.

[stillshimpy]

PRgal, chances are good that she may be talking about the "Frigidaire Flair"  often referred to as "the oven from Bewitched" , but if not, the principle is the same: 

 

 

I had one in the house I lived in as a child.  The pull out range-top was a seriously flawed design but those ovens kicked butt. 

Edited December 26, 2014 by stillshimpy

[Shannon L.]

 

Shannon L., how did the cheesecake turn out? Unless it was terribly under/overcooked, I'd have layered it in parfait glasses with some fresh fruit and served it anyway. Don't waste anything with cream cheese in it!

The taste and texture were great!  Sadly, it was just really ugly  :)  Alternate ways of serving it never occurred to me--I've never been that creative.  If it happens again, I'll do that (thanks!).  But, like I said, it's such an expensive dessert, we probably won't make them that often. 

[Bastet]

Are half ovens the ones where there's a regular oven and then a smaller one that pulls out like a door on the left side?

 

Mine are side-by-side, yes, but the smaller one opens just like the full-size.  This shows the general idea (mine has more features and thus more controls).

Edited December 31, 2014 by Bastet

[GreekGeek]

I have an oven like that, too, from the late '50s.  When I finally remodel my kitchen in the next couple of years, it will have to go, because there just isn't a way to keep it within the new layout I intend to create.  And as much as I'll be excited by that improved layout (more counter space and a better work triangle), I will miss the hell out of that oven.

 

And try buying something now that will still be working in 65 years.  Goddamn disposable society.  But I digress ...

Too bad you can't find a way to remodel your kitchen and keep your vintage oven. I have a Chambers Range, something like this one here: http://antiqueappliances.com/graphics/products/chambers/1952_c_model_gas/1.jpg. I don't know its exact age, but it's been in the house as long as I can remember and I'll turn 60 this next year. A few years ago I took a tour of Georgia O'Keefe's house outside Santa Fe and saw the same one. Still going strong. If it ever does give up the ghost, I think I'll go into mourning.

[emma675]

My oven and a half is a 1960's GE where the full oven door opens down like a regular one and the half oven door opens to the side. One of my burners is going out, the clock no longer works and the storage drawer underneath no longer opens, so it's on its last legs. I've actually found ones at Sears by Kenmore and Fridgidaire makes one, too; they are 40 inches wide. I am going to look at these next week when things are hopefully on sale--I don't want to remodel my whole kitchen just to get a new oven.

[blueray]

When I was in school we had to take home and careers. And for the cooking part of the class we were divided into groups of five and told to make cookies. In my group we mixed up the salt and sugar. So we had very salty cookies lol. I think the only reason we passed is the teacher felt sorry for us.

[PRgal]

When I was in school we had to take home and careers. And for the cooking part of the class we were divided into groups of five and told to make cookies. In my group we mixed up the salt and sugar. So we had very salty cookies lol. I think the only reason we passed is the teacher felt sorry for us.

 

Unless they were chocolate chip or raisin, I guess you made crackers or some sort of hybrid...

[PRgal]

Attempted baked falafels tonight.  Let's just say that they were somewhat disastrous.  Some recipes called for cooked chickpeas (if using dried), while others said don't, just let them cook in the oven when you bake.  I opted for the latter because I was worried that I'd turn the chickpeas into hummus!  Needless to say, they had trouble binding.  I added an egg and baked them in a muffin tin - they were somewhat salvageable.  If I were on Chopped, I'd probably be gone.