This is what I have to tell myself too often: “Laura…Slow Down!” (Yes, I talk to myself.)
Especially when I get in the kitchen. What can I say? I like to be efficient. I don’t measure ingredients. I often don’t close cabinet doors. I usually stir together three recipes at one time.
All of this is fine…but it can get me into trouble. Sometimes slowing down and taking the extra two seconds to close a cabinet door (so that my tall husband doesn’t crack his head on it when he walks by) is a good thing.
So here’s what I did last week. I’m only telling you this out of the kindness of my heart and so that you can be sure and avoid the same trouble. Really…I’m not telling you this so that I will feel ridiculous all over the internet. Why in the world would I do that to myself?
Anyway….last week I was making breakfast cake. I had been a good mama and soaked the grains overnight. I was getting an early start in the morning so that I could have the cake ready for Matt to eat before he needed to leave for work. I was doing everything right.
I put all of the ingredients into my food processor, because I find it so much easier for my food processor to stir together my soaked grain recipes. Otherwise my arm muscles rebel against all the stirring.
Yet that particular morning, even my food processor was having a hard time breaking up all the big clumps of soaked flour and oats. “I’ll just push some of it down with a wooden spoon,” I thought to myself.
Yeah, you know where this is going don’t you?
Instead of turning off the food processor like a good girl…I “efficiently” poked the wooden spoon down into the thing while it was running. Hey, I was being careful. I know what can happen to wooden spoons when they meet up with a fast moving blade.
And then what I knew could happen…did happen. Duh.
Ooh, I was so mad at myself. I broke my favorite wooden spoon. AND…I had to throw out the entire batch of breakfast cake. Do you know how many wasted ingredients that is? Butter…raw honey….farm fresh eggs…organic grains… sob
Oh, and then I had no breakfast for my family. sob
However, I figured I’d prefer to have no breakfast for my family rather than having to rush a little boy to the emergency room with a splinter in his esophagus. At least I made that decision correctly that morning.
So, my kitchen tip for you today is this: Don’t put wooden spoons into a running food processor.
Oh, thank you, Laura.
You’re very welcome.
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This post is linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays.
Oh Laura! If you only knew the things that I do on a regular basis! I actually put together a little book of the daily mishaps I encounter!
Just last week I brushed my teeth with sunscreen instead of toothpaste! I knew that the baby powder flavor wasn’t quite right-especially when I wanted a minty fresh taste in my mouth!
Do you know how many times I have sprayed oven cleaner in the oven, forgotten about it, and then baked something in the oven?
The good thing is that I give my choir girls (I direct a choir)a laugh over all these catastophies… my husband, on the other hand,well he simply shakes his head and keeps walking…. far away… If you have time, check out the blog I posted regarding a bottle of vinegar and a scrub pad (it is an older post). I think you would enjoy the story.
I did this same thing ONCE (it only took once to never do it again!) with milkshakes and a blender! Sorry it all got wasted.
Yes- thank you for the tip. I will remember this for years to come. =)
I’ve been trying real hard to get up with my husband and make him breakfast (He wakes 3 hours before the rest of the family.) I was terribly excited to make it this morning and then I burnt it! So I feel your pain about ruining breakfast. :D
I just posted about blogging with transparency this weekend! So thanks for keeping it real!
http://insidethewhitepicketfence.blogspot.com/2009/04/keeping-it-real-graffiti.html
My husband did this too while making smoothies in the blender. :-)
I am not a risk-taker by nature, so I typically avoid doing things that have even the smallest risk of potentially causing a problem (not always a good characteristic, I realize). Or maybe I’m just a cheap-skate, because I don’t want to have to buy another wooden spoon.
In any case, I warned my husband about it, but being the risk-taker that he is, he said, ‘I’m being careful,’ and he was genuinely surprised when the blender actually caught the spoon.
We spent the next hour forcing strawberries, bananas, and orange juice through a fine metal strainer because we REALLY wanted those smoothies. We didn’t really consider the whole ER risk involved with the possibility of splinters in the esophagus . . . Maybe I AM more of a risk-taker than I realize!
On the bright side, I don’t think DH will ever attempt to use a wooden spoon in the blender again! :-)
oh you should have just kept blending it and called it extra fiber! Tee hee!
I love your blog and appreciate your transparency! One question on the breakfast cake – which we LOVE here – is it supposed to be like real cake or is it still runny in the middle?? I’ve cooked it the 25 min. and it’s a little runny in the middle but thought maybe it’s supposed to be like oatmeal. Please set me straight on this – I’m having a debate with another family member who was here trying it. THANKS for all your great recipes!
Oh Laura! Thank you for being so open about your kitchen disasters! Just yesterday, I was using my blender to make smoothies. Between me running back and forth between the fridge and the blender, I had one dog helping himself to the left overs from lunch, and the other jumping up on the counter to investigate the new noise. Needless to say, she managed to punch the pulse button on the blender, with the lid off and sent my wonderful smoothie all over the ceiling!
I licked out the remnants from the blender.
Oh NO! I can’t stand to lose one of my wooden spoons either! I broke one just the other day!
You sound like me today! I was doing so good I got up early to bake my bread. I baked 4 loafs and they smelled sooo good! I used some dough enhancer that I thought would be fine because it had been in the fridge and it wasn’t expired even though it had been in there for almost a year and well all my bread is sooo bitter! I wasn’t so much stuff that I can’t afford to waste! Now I need to figure out what to do with it so it doesn’t get all wasted!
Joy
sounds like something I would do… sigh
I have the same question as Julie. I was going to bake the cake this morning. Turned on the oven at 6 as I pried my eyes open. Then finished reading the recipe about soaking and left it sitting on the counter (cereal instead for breakfast). So, it soaked until 1 this afternoon and then my arms got a workout stirring in the honey. I cooked it for about 40 minutes b/c the middle was still so runny. My 12 yo son ate the middle with no complaints but I’m just wondering what I did wrong!
lol! I just blogged about my cooking disasters this week too. Mine involved a new recipe for coffee cake and playdate guests coming over right as I opened the oven door and found… well, you’ll have to go look at the picture, lol.
Oh, this totally made me lol, because it reminds me of a family member who shall remain nameless (but it’s not my hubby :).
She has this super bad habit of putting straws into her blender, to taste the smoothie before deciding to stop blending, adding more stuff, etc. More than once, we have discovered bits of straw in our smoothies, because she forgot one was in there and blended it all up (she has a Vitamix, so it makes lovely small straw bits!). She is also known to put chunks of spatula plastic into food processor dishes, when she uses the spatula to push it down on the sides while it’s running.
So you are not alone. At least you just did it this one morning! And I’m guessing it was scrambled eggs and smoothies for breakfast, huh? :)
My DH tells me -every time I cut it on- “don’t stick anything in there while its running!” lol
But he’s the one who walked by the blender the other day and pushed a button WHILE THE LID WAS IN IT!
;-)
I also discovered what can happen to a wooden spoon in a blender. It’s not a pretty sight.
I have had similar experience with a mixer, and I knew better, too!