Kitchen mishaps and disasters

I come back to the kitchen at the appointed time, and lo and behold, the frittata has been cooking over a medium high heat this whole time.

When I jerked my hand from the hot handle, I must have hit the knob on the stove and turned it on. I think.

Anyway, the frittata had developed a lovely black crust.

I salvaged what I could - ate a bit of it, but it wasn't very tasty. Threw it out. along with $6 of pricey, burnt, farmers market asparagus.

Will try again tonight with cheaper broccoli.

drummerboy said:

Will try again tonight with cheaper broccoli.

 That's the beauty of cooking - you can always (mostly) eat your mistakes!

Ouch...you are reminding me of my own painful frittata pan handle burn a few years back...

Not frittata, but finishing steaks in the oven after searing in the pan.  

Same mindless mistake (and I did it twice!).

Ouch. I've seared both wrists (at different times) on the hot rack while getting cookie sheets out of the oven. Almost everyone I know who cooks has at least one of those marks.

BTDT. Have the scars to prove it... Cast iron and flesh are not compatible. As a tip though, honey on the burn will take away the pain and reduce scarring by a great deal. I burned my wrist a few weeks ago and used honey. You can't even see where it happened. I burned my elbow crease with the iron and didn't put honey on it. Scar.

I've found that if you can get ice or cold water on it as soon as possible, you won't even get more than a very mild burn, if anything.

drummerboy said:

I've found that if you can get ice or cold water on it as soon as possible, you won't even get more than a very mild burn, if anything.

That is the correct 1st aid rule - sorta.  You need to keep the cold on the area, till there is no more pain.  That can take 6-8 hours, or even longer.

Last time I did the frying pan stupidity, I put ice cubes into a small freezer bag, and grabbed around it.  I had to refill it with ice cubes some 4-5 times, but by 2 AM the pain was gone.

The alternative is sitting with your hand/arm in an ice water bath for pretty much the same length of time.

I’ve sliced fingers a few times.  Oddly enough, I have never cut myself when my knives are sharp, it’s usually when they’re starting to get dull and are in need of sharping.

Though there were no injuries involved, I recently screwed up a cookie recipe.  Not the end of the world, but the mediocre results did show me that America’s Test Kitchen knew exactly what they were doing when they came up with their explicit instructions and ingredient list.

tomcat said:

That is the correct 1st aid rule - sorta.  You need to keep the cold on the area, till there is no more pain.  That can take 6-8 hours, or even longer.

Last time I did the frying pan stupidity, I put ice cubes into a small freezer back, and grabbed around it.  I had to refill it with ice cubes some 4-5 times, but by 2 AM the pain was gone.

The alternative is sitting with your hand/arm in an ice water bath for pretty much the same length of time.

 I was skeptical, but I urge you to try honey. Honey has antibacterial properties and will--I swear--make the pain go away and reduce the scarring. I've been cooking since I was three (child abuse, I believe), and have burned myself rather badly at times, but only in the past few years I've used honey (if I remember). It's like a miracle cure; maybe just an amazing treatment. The worst part is the honey dripping off the burn. Ha!

Maybe even stranger than honey - soy sauce.  It really does stop the pain, and seems to speed healing and reduce or eliminate scar.  No idea at all why this would be.

Worst mishap #1:  Didn't get the blender lid on tight when pureeing split pea soup.  It was hot, it went *everywhere,* and i looked like the creature from the black lagoon, but green.  Found more of it years later when we moved out, too.

Most embarrassing mishap:  Ex and I at age 24 or so did total Thanksgiving dinner for his mother and sister, all the way down to making the bread for the stuffing.  Regrettably, i forgot salt in absolutely everything.  They were very game about it....

Not a cooking mishap, but a kitchen mishap.  In the late 80's Coca Cola came in 3 liter bottles (and my family still drank soda).  I was in the kitchen and went to open a new bottle, which apparently had been shaken or dropped, and although I could see the condiderable carbonation it was too late to get the cap back on.  It exploded all over the kitchen, shot up to the ceiling, it was everywhere.  My father who was home and couldn't understand why I didn't screw the cp back on, made me clean it up by myself.  It felt like it too forever and I was racing to get it done before my mother got home.

My mother refuses to use a pressure cooker because back in the 1950’s, before they had all the safety features they have  today, her mother accidentally blew one up.  It took out the kitchen window and the lid was embedded in the ceiling.

Personally, I love the Fagor Lux that I bought from KALM a few years ago and use it a lot 

I've burned my hand this way lots.  But now I remember that I'm going to forget.  Now, when I pull the skillet out of the oven and set it on the stove, I just leave the pot holder on top of the skillet handle, just to kind of flag the situation.  

breal said:

I've burned my hand this way lots.  But now I remember that I'm going to forget.  Now, when I pull the skillet out of the oven and set it on the stove, I just leave the pot holder on top of the skillet handle, just to kind of flag the situation.  

 That's what I do!

That's what I do too.

Now anyway.