Friday, May 31, 2013

Kitchen Don’ts

I’m often here showing you pictures and sharing recipes of my successes. Or what I consider to be my successes.

But before (during and after) some of the successes, there were many, many, many failures. Some equipment error, some ingredient error and some plain old pilot error. Yes, that means me.

I’ve made most of the mistakes that others tend to make. I’ve created pretty sparks by putting a container into the microwave without making sure all the tin foil was off. And I’ve spent the day cleaning “snow” out of every crevice of the kitchen after putting flour into the beater and turning it on too high.

But I’d be willing to bet I’ve had more kitchen don’t than the average person. So, for your amusement, the highlight reel:


Kitchen Don'ts | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics

*When I started cooking, I’d boil my pasta to death. Then I realized that al dente is so much better than pasta mush. But the first time I went for al dente, you could break a tooth on what I served.

*I found a great recipe for Coq Au Vin. But you really have to be careful of how you make it. You should end up with Chicken in a Wine Sauce. I ended up poaching chicken in red wine. It was not pretty, and I mean that literally. Any idea how hard it is to eat purple chicken?

*I once made the mistake of buying some “no name” heavy tin foil. Rick and I were having fish for dinner and it’s rare for me to do, but I bought the kids a frozen pizza to have instead of the fish. I put a layer of foil in the oven like I always do, put the pizza on and cooked. When the pizza was done I took it out of the oven, the tin foil disintegrated and the pizza dropped to the kitchen floor. My children were not amused.

*When I have leftovers, I wrap them in plastic wrap and then in tin foil and put them into the basement freezer. Once I defrosted some Potato Kugels but forgot to take the plastic wrap off of the food before putting the tin foil wrapped packet into the oven. I ended up with plastic wrap melted onto the Kugels.


Potato Kugels | www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe
Potato Kugels

*One year I was making my son’s birthday cake and for the frosting I needed to whip some heavy cream. I was tired and it had been a long day. When I pulled out the cream, I realized I’d bought half and half. I beat and beat and beat and beat, determined to win, but eventually had to concede that the half and half was not going to turn into whipping cream no matter how much I wanted it to.

*I had what I call the “three dozen egg fiasco”. I can separate eggs. It’s not that hard and I’ve been doing it for years. I make a cake that calls for 6 eggs, separated and there was one time that I just couldn’t do it. I kept getting yolk into the whites and having to start over. I went through a dozen eggs, sent my husband out for another dozen, then out for a third dozen before I finally accomplished the task. I actually ended up with a dozen eggs left over because when I sent him out for the third dozen, Rick actually bought two dozen more and left one in the car just in case. Smart guy.

*I once made a dish that calls for Sweet Red Chili Sauce. I used Hot Chili Sauce. There’s a difference between Sweet Chili Sauce and Hot Chili Sauce. In fact, there’s a big BIG difference. For the next month, I had to start every single dinner by looking my husband in the eye and promising that there was no Chili Sauce of any kind in that night’s dinner. I think he’s still traumatized.

*I’ve turned on the top oven and put the food into the bottom oven. It didn’t cook well. Or even at all, for that matter.

What are your kitchen don'ts? Care to share?

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Potato Kugels
                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

  
Printable Recipe 

Ingredients:
1 package Simply Potatoes Hash Browns
1/2 cup frozen chopped onion, defrosted and remove the excess water
2 eggs
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup flour NOTE: To make these Kugels for Passover, replace the flour with 3/4 cup of matzo meal.



Directions:
*Grease all cups of a 12 cup muffin tin well. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
*Mix the potatoes, onion, eggs, salt and pepper well. Mix in the flour (or matzo meal), then the oil.
*Make 12 balls out of the mixture. Form them using your hands and add some pressure to help them hold together. Mixture will be wet and won't completely hold together.
*Place each ball into a muffin cup and flatten to distribute the mixture in the cup.
*Bake for 1 hour. Run a knife around the edge of the muffin cups to release.




39 comments:

  1. Oh my! You really have had some kitchen mishaps! I've done the plastic wrap thing too many times to count--and it really stinks up the house. The worst mishap for me occurred when I was a newlywed and invited the entire clan over for supper. I made some sort of chicken plopped on top of a homemade biscuit with a wine cheese sauce over all of it. Well....it looked pretty enough....but it tasted like wallpaper paste on a rock. Horrible. We had to throw the entire meal out and order pizza. I learned my lesson---NEVER experiment on a new recipe for company!!!

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    1. LOL, I learned that one too. Somehow anytime I tried a new recipe for company I ended up embarrassed, never again!

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  2. LOL LOL LOL oh man
    i have been there! ive had lots of snow incidents! smh i still dont learn my lesson!
    umm one time i made lamp chops and they were really terrible and that was 2 years ago. my son still begs me not to make them.
    i cant cook anything with cumin or my husband has a heart attack. apparently i over-cumined some things in the past
    i cant make a steak for the life of me. my husband also broke a tooth.

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    1. Too funny. Now I'm thinking I should have gotten some of your stories to add to this post.

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  3. So funny! Smart thinking of your husband to get the extra eggs lol
    When I first got married I decided I would make a big breakfast just like my Granny does. It turned out NOTHING like my Granny's. My hubby took one at it and grabbed a pop tart lol

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  4. Mmm...plastic kugels! ;) I love that your husband bought an extra dozen and kept in the car, just in case. I feel like my husband would do the same! Great post, Karen!

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    1. I know, smart. I think the only reason I didn't need another dozen is because he already had it waiting!

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  5. I once set the linoleum kitchen floor on fire in my parent's old house. They were not amused!

    Funny stuff here!

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    1. Well they may not have been amused, but you'll be happy to hear that I am!

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  6. Haha ... I've done the plastic wrap thing!
    So many dos and don'ts in the kitchen ... Maybe I should just stay out of there!

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.•*´
    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    www.raising-reagan.com

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  7. This is too funny! I have had the foil stick to the food--especially with fish. What a mess!

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    1. That's another good one. I may need to write a second post with everyone else's mishaps!

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  8. Too many to even admit. Let's see...baking soda instead of baking powder in the biscuits (BLEH!), forgetting the sugar in a pie, letting the hot oil boil over when making crab rangoons (scary - very scary), a chocolate angel food cake that never rose (I passed it off as German brownies or something, to rave reviews)and the inevitable HAIR IN THE CROISSANT/BISCUIT/ROLL (if there's a hair, my husband will find it.) Most of my screw-ups are because I'm doing way too many things at once, at mach speed.

    The Kugels look yummy - I pinned them for later.

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    1. Love the Angel Food Cake/German Brownies thing. Now that's what I call taking lemons and making lemonade!

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  9. Let's see.....
    It took me a year to figure out how to make a decent meatloaf. My husband and I tried to recreate coconut chicken....failed HORRIBLY. I once set the toaster on fire because I was multitasking and left a poptart in it. It got stuck and caught fire. I don't make steak....that's Matthew's department. I've screwed up instant potatoes.....

    On a good note, though, my first turkey that I ever made turned out absolutely delish!

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    1. Well then, lesson learned. Turkey for dinner. . . every night!

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    2. Ah pop-tarts, that was another of my early cooking experience disasters. I microwaved a pop tart for 2 mins in middle school. I started smelling smoke so went to check on it, charred black pile of goo!

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  10. Pretty funny stuff and sweet of you to admit... We've all been there. The top/bottom oven incident was really funny. And the Kugels look amazing, sans the plastic wrap.

    Have a great weekend, Slu

    ps: saw your FB post earlier... hope you're feeling better.

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    1. As long as we're admitting, I've done that top/bottom oven thing more than once.
      And thanks for the good wishes. Allergies are the worst.

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  11. I love the ones with your hubby! How smart is he to not only buy an extra dozen eggs but to leave them in the car so as not to offend you? Lol. And the chili sauce? Priceless.
    One of my best cooking moves was buying fried chicken from the deli and putting it in the oven to heat up in the PLASTIC container it came in. Right on the rack. Black plastic melting into strings stretching from the rack to the bottom of the oven.... awesome.

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    1. Oh, I cannot even imagine what that smelled like, and how much time that clean up must have taken. Hope you're laughing about it now.

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    2. What clean up? It was a rental. Kidding ;)

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  12. This post was very encouraging! You also saved me from future disaster because I always assumed that if I was in a pinch I could whip half and half into whipped cream.
    Justin Knight- Writing Pad Dad
    Writing Pad Dad Blog

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    1. See, not only a witty post AND a recipe, but also a public service!

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  13. Replies
    1. I'll try to keep on. Hope I don't burn the house down.

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  14. Salt instead of sugar, boiling pasta in cold water instead of waiting for the boil, mixing cream too long until it became butter, baking food in the oven without turning it on...I tell you, this is why we eat out :)

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    1. Ha ha, all great ones. No wonder you eat out, LOL.

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    2. I've done the pasta thing before. When I was younger I was babysitting one time and had to make the little girl spaghetti. I'd never made it before and didn't read the instructions. First the noodles burned on the edge from resting on the edge of the pot because I didn't break them or push them down in as they softened, then they didn't cook long enough (or maybe it was too long, just know they didn't turn out right). The 3 year old girl did not eat more than 3 bites of dinner that night. She was too polite to say she didn't like it though! So cute.

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  15. In high school my friend and I were making chocolates for our boyfriends for valentine's day. We started with store bought chocolates and tried to melt them. We started with microwaving them in "microwave safe" tupperware for about 2 minutes. Microwave safe tupperware is not microwaved chocolate safe though! We ended up with melted chocolate, and melted plastic! That batch got thrown out... Next we moved on to the stove, where we ended up with burned chocolate. Overall it did not work well. I tried again a few years later, this time microwaving it 30 seconds at a time in a real bowl, stirring and re-microwaving it for another small increment. Worked out much better then!

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    1. LOL, that's a good one. You're lucky you didn't start a fire, that would have been fun to explain.

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  16. I also made pumpkin pie one time, put a tablespoon of nutmeg (or was it cloves?) instead of a teaspoon! That pie was not too edible..

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    1. I did that once with Chili. I confused the amounts of 2 of the ingredients and had to throw out the entire batch. What a waste.

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  17. I love that you're willing to admit your mishaps! I once was making a teriyaki sauce for some delicious burgers we love, and I accidentally grabbed the can of baking powder instead of cornstarch (same shape and size). For some reason, the sauce never thickened up!
    Thanks for sharing this yummy recipe on Saturday Dishes!

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    1. Ha, I love mishaps. They're not fun at the time but we always seem to get a good laugh later!

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  18. Mmmm, plastic Kugel! I must have gone through 4 rolls of kitchen twine trying to tress my first turkey. The thing looked like it had been hog tied when I was done with it!

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