Don't forget to tighten the cap on the salt shaker after you fill it up!

Make sure the colander is in the sink before you strain your pot of freshly made chicken stock....

...... and make sure there is a bowl under that colander in the sink to catch the chicken stock.

Give a casual glance to the top of the garage freezer after you close the door & BEFORE you head back into the house...

/tricia

If you are making maple syrup,

Make sure your smoke alarm works :-)

dcarch

turn on the blender to puree tomato soup, make sure to hold a hand towel over the lid . . .

When you turn on the oven to pre heat, check to be sure it's empty.

When you move a skillet from a hot oven back to stove-top, the handle doesn't magically cool down instantly.

Make sure the lid is screwed on the industrial sized bottle of Mr. Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce before you pick it up and shake it vigorously...

If the knife slips from your hand, do NOT try to catch it before it hits the floor.

if you take a glass casserole out of the refrigerator, do not immediately put it in a preheated oven.

If your husband is microwaving a potato and tells you it is unnecessary to prick it, even though deep down you know better, don't believe him.

and turn the oven off when you're done using it, unless you like your kitchen to be oddly warm in the morning.

...decide to make homemade habanero hot sauce...do it outside!

And wear disposable procedure gloves when seeding habaneros. No matter how you try you cannot wash the hotness off your hands.

Candy thermometers should be kept in the china cabinet, not the gadget drawer.

LOL Shaun! That's really what I meant!

Posted by lindac "And wear disposable procedure gloves when seeding habaneros. No matter how you try you cannot wash the hotness off your hands. "

Number one, and don't forget to remove those gloves before you have to conduct certain personal business. Oy vey! :-)

dcarch

decide to thaw your T-day turkey in the lake, tie it to the dock not the boat!

LOL Chase, I'd like to hear more about that.

If you take your minivan in to have the air conditioning system dismantled because you are sure a dead mouse is causing an awful smell, first look under the third row of seats to make sure a bloated tray of chicken pieces didn't slide out of a grocery bag and is still lurking there.

If you go to pick up a clean, empty cookie sheet from on top of the stove burners where you placed it to get it out of your way for a few minutes, make sure none of the burners were accidentally left on.

...make a pot of coffee, put the carafe under the drip spout - each time.

FOAS: Amen!! After waiting 4 burns for conditioned negative association to kick in, I accepted the fact that I was too dumb to learn and bought one of those handle potholders.

Don't leave a full pound of butter within reach of your counter-surfing dog.

And don't do it twice.

And by no means should you EVER go on vacation for five days and come home only to find out you left a chicken carcass in the kitchen garbage can.

..leave cooked chicken on the counter and the counter-surfing dog eats it...not once, not twice, but three times - shame on me!

...it wasn't my Duker...a long term boarder...Duke was a perfect angel and never did ANYTHING bad :-)

Duane

Are making Gingersnap cookies do not just pick up the little container that looks like it has Ground Ginger in it and add the required amount to the batter. Mustard snaps taste funny

What a bunch of ditzes we are, eh?

The vacuum is toast. Taken apart, scrubbed, new bag, sprayed with Lysol ( had to go out and buy a can of that stuff..yuk), left in the shed in pieces to air out, reassembled.

Plug it in, turn it on and whammo....that funk of cheese smell propelled throughout the room. It must be in the hose or something but I washed that out.

Darn, it was a small, light weight commercial Hoover that really worked well and it was only 30 years old!!! Bearings instead of bushings, metal gears instead of plastic, bullet proof.

Whaa....

Bullet proof but not, apparently Parmesan proof.
If you lay out yarn for your next knitting project and leave the room for an instant, if you have a puppy, be prepared for a couple of hours of untangling.

..go away, don't let the gerbil die under the refrigerator.

... have to pick up a large jar don't pick it up from the lid...

Rita

P. S. Metaxa, try some Glade Carpet & Room Odor Eliminator... If it can get rid of cigarette smoke and other funky odors in the carpet it should get rid of a food smell... lol

...smell something funky every time you use your old range, look behind it to see if that's where that chicken you bought a few weeks ago disappeared to.

...roast a turkey, make sure you put the string thingy that came with it where your cat can't get it, or you might wake up the next morning to see a terrified cat being chased by several other cats, after that string hanging out the said terrified cat. (tmi?)

... use a glass pie pan, don't follow the instructions in the recipe to put the prepared pie pan with dough in the freezer for 30 minutes before blind baking, so you don't have to use weights. Seemed like such a good idea, too.

Sally

You all are so funny!!! I've done a few of the very same things.
Don't leave a pumpkin pie on the counter to cool and go to church...the cat ate some out of the middle.
Linda

... have just cooked fish in a Pyrex baking dish in the oven and just plated the fish, don't think you can save time cleaning the glass dish later by putting it in the sink now and running water in it. >>Boom

..poke the rubber spatula down the sides of the blender while it is running = shorter spatula.

..make apple butter without a splatter shield you will have to clean the ceiling, walls, counter, cabinet doors, floor, and your hair, apron, pants, shoes, ears, and the car parked outside.

Nancy

have a bottle of liquid makeup that has a pump dispenser and it needs to be shaken, don't shake it with one finger on the top and one on the bottom....dispensing makeup on the mirror, wallpaper, sink, counter top etc. before you realize what you are doing.

jude

are married (or have a roommate) don't assume the other person knows that mopping will get rid of that sticky substance that appeared on the floor after something spilled.

DO not give an older lady (90+) a pressure cooker and find out she put pot holders over the pressure valve to stop the noise unless you plan to clean the floor, walls and ceiling of that new green color. DH's uncle did to as a gift to his mom many years ago.

Two Thanksgiving blunders:
I set my frozen turkey outside the back door to thaw. Either a cat or a raccoon came along and nibbled part of it. Have you ever sent your husband out for a thawed turkey on Thanksgiving morning? He found one, because his parents were invited over.
BIL was making giblet gravy, decided to strain it but forgot bucket to catch the drippings, so gravy went down the drain. That's why they invented canned gravy.

Take a hot roaster pan out of the oven and put it on the counter, be sure there aren't any of those rubberized pot holder thingies on the counter, because when you go to put the roaster back in the oven, and smell that very peculiar smell and smoke billowing out from your oven..you'll now from whence it came,, trust me, been there done that.And the worst part is you don't realize what has happened because the pot holder thing is stuck to the bottom of the pan and has turned to a gooey molten mess.

If you roast chestnuts in the oven it is a good idea to prick them first unless you enjoy oven interior, surrounding kitchen walls and ceiling cleaning.

And...exploding chestnuts can burn exposed flesh.

If you put the leftover Thanksgiving turkey out on the screen porch to cool, make sure that the outdoor extension cord is not running out the porch door... allowing neighborhood cats to access aforementioned turkey. So much for leftover turkey sandwiches, potpie, hash, etc.... darn cats!

If you use your stove as an extra counter, make sure you don't turn on the burner under the item you've put on the makeshift "counter", when you're also using it as a stove.

(grandmother ruined a pie doing this and I ruined a crock pot/dinner party)

rob333, I had to laugh at your "If you"...my carving board has a unique pattern on it's bottom side. Set off the smoke alarm too!

Never assume they didn't put the giblet bag in a turkey just because you searched and searched and didn't find it. (I still maintain someone smuggled it in there afterward. That's my story and I'm sticking too it.) And of course this had to happen when the gossipy cousin was around to see it when chopping up the bird. She just *loves* spreading that story of my first Thanksgiving. Of course she fails to mention that *she* shortly thereafter learned that you shouldn't cook a ham while it's still in the plastic! And the demonic possessor inside me *loves* to counter with that story when she spreads my little boo-boo. Amazing how it's funny to tell about me but I'm awful for telling on her. I just say I at least didn't have to pick dripping plastic off the ham that she served...