Shaun, I'm so sorry for your loss. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a plastic mesh strainer...

yep, put spaghetti down the garbage disposal and now I have the plumber replacing entire drain lines in the basement.....

"I'm so sorry for your loss"

Clairedeluna that made me laugh! hahahah!

Oh Stacy take it from me, NEVER put artichokes in there either. Big Mistake. Big Big Mistake.

About the garbage disposal: abundant amounts of raw potato peelings shouldn't go into the garbage disposal either...especially on Thanksgiving morning when guests are on the way.

or the ends of asparagus!

or shrimp shells....

"About the garbage disposal: abundant amounts of raw potato peelings shouldn't go into the garbage disposal either...especially on Thanksgiving morning when guests are on the way."

My dear brother helped us learn that a plumber charges triple time Thanksgiving day.

A plumber once told me that 99% of plumbers don't have garbage disposals. He must of been a friend of the electrician who always kept Monday mornings free to fix what husbands tried to fix over the weekend.
Nothing with fiberous peels should go down the disposal. No bananas, apple peels, potato peels, celery, etc. No meat or pasta either, for that matter. I basically use mine for egg shells and other easily ground food.
Jo

JO the plumber who installed my disposal told me the same thing. In fact, he told me that his mother wanted one and he refused to install it for her becuase he hates them so much.

I love mine but I only feed it tiny things that slip down the drain before I can scoop it out.

He also told me that it was not true that eggshells sharpen the blades.

One night after a party where others helped clean up, I turned on the garbage disposal and lo and behold a shot glass was in there. OMG...... what a mess. Had to bring in the shopvac to suck it all out.

Moral to my story here with the shot glass, dont' be sticking your hand in there to find out what's stuck. At first glance, that broken shot glass looked like ice.

I arrived at my daughter's house for Thanksgiving only to be greeted with "the sink is stopped up". Potato peels, they were even in the drain of the other side of the sink.
I really earned my dinner that day after taking off the drain pipes and cleaning them out. I am even careful when peeling one potato.

put spaghetti down the garbage disposal and now I have the plumber replacing entire drain lines in the basement. No meat? Say it ain't so!

Sounds like I need to go back to disposal training.

Shaun, did you know it was plastic mesh?

DH cooked sausage in the toaster over WITHOUT a pan several times! He thought because it was a "toaster" oven it didn't require a pan.

When my dad the plumber was still in business he loved Thanksgiving. He always had 2 men on call and yes he charged triple. But then he was the same man who threatened us with death if we used Tide he said it would eat the pipes. My mom always used Tide she just put in a big glass jar on top of the washer! The piped in that house are still just fine as far as I know and it was built in 1958. The only time the pipes got clogged up was when there were three of us teenagers using tampons and dad had to send someone over to unclog them. Boy did we get a lecture that night. LOL

JojocoÂÂÂ. Egg shells are Ok unless you have a septic system. They never decompose and just sit on the bottom of the tank. Not a problem if you have the tank pumped out every few years but you wouldnÂt want them to get into the leach field.

Claudia

Add copious amounts of onion skins to the list of no-nos. I did that after making a fab Boeuf Bourgignon one night when DHs boss and wife were coming to dinner.

Alexa

Shaun, I have a little plastic strainer just like that except mine is heart shaped. lol.. Love that little one for some reason. Such a nice fine mesh I guess. I saw some like it at the dollar store. You might find another one. Sort of would have liked to see the look on your face as you realized what you did.

My latest faux pas... I killed the sourdough starter I was making...set it on the bakers rack that is over a heat vent, then forgot to feed it.... oooppps..

I guess I just have the magic touch with disposals, because other than a few things (beef and pork bones, raw chicken bones, asparagus ends and shrimp shells) everything goes in and I never plug it up. Cooked chicken bones, potato peels, bananas, you name it.... I've gone through three disposals in 24 years and we always get the super big horsepower model. I've got a triple compartment sink.... maybe it has something to do with the way the pipes are set up? But I think the shot glass would be too much for even my disposal!!

As far as goofs, if you asked my husband he'd say the worst was when we were newlyweds and I bought what to me seemed like a really nice big chicken, cut it up and baked it in a sauce for about 40 minutes in the oven. How was I supposed to know that a "hen" was different from a "chicken"??? When I say tough, I mean tough!! Lesson learned: a"stewing hen" is NOT meant to be baked!!!!

Cathy, I had no idea it was plastic mesh. Never even thought about it. But that little strainer was perfect for sitting on a bowl and draining cans of corn or chopped cherries for danishes (which I have to make next week for a brunch) and for sprinkling powdered sugar on cakes. Man I'm gonna miss that lil guy.

Coconut, I'll check the dollar store tomorrow. My face? How about what I said? I'm a sailor.

My mom told me when she was a newly wed, she dried red peppers and then put them in the blender to crush them. They had to clear out of the apartment for at least a day. Another time she put an entire bulb of garlic in some recipe, that was only supposed to use a clove. She didn't know the difference.

Nancy

I recently ruined a strainer, too. One of those little tuna-can strainers. I put it in the dishwasher, as usual, but this time it fell off the rack and into the bottom, and it got warped beyond recognition.

I can't find a new one locally, and for all the ones I've found online, the shipping charges are like five times what the thing itself costs. Makes you just want to smack yourself, doesn't it?

I put spaghetti down the drain one time too. Really clogged up the disposal. I was able to disassemble and get it cleared out..but what a mess! My friend from work had a dad who was a plumber. He said the only thing that should go down a garbage disposal was the very small rinsings of a plate. No large items at all. I have heeded that advice since then and have had no problems.

Speaking of kitchen mishaps....I was making hash browns in my FP and had a piece of potato stuck in the top of the shredder. I was holding a steak knife and decided to use the handle to dislodge the potato. I was very lucky not to have severed a finger or two. How stupid can I be? Let me count the ways. I gave a big thanks to the big guy upstairs for sparing me a very stupid injury.

Duane

Wow I had no idea spaghetti was bad for disposals.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets attached to things. Shaun I do really feel bad for you, its hard when there's this one perfect thing you love!

I love my small white corning bowls with glass covers for microwaving.
I have two and live in terror that something will happen to them.
They only come with plastic covers now and I wouldn't like that at all. I've had them for...? 15 years?

After reading this, I am glad I don't have a disposal.

Compost those things! Make your garden grow! Just keep a small coffee can or step on garbage can near by and when full, toss it into or dig into the flower bed. If the odor hits you, add some newspaper to mix your greens and browns.

Hey, you are going green by doing this.

I'm another one who is seriously afraid of putting the wrong thing down my garbage disposal. I was very excited to put one in, but I've seen my mother clog them up so many times it's not even funny. Luckily, my dad is a contractor/plumber/electrician/all around hero so we've never had to call a plumber at triple time on thanksgiving. I have, however arrived to see her furiously plunging the drain after peeling potatoes and trying to put them all down the drain at once. :) I guess the trick is to just go slow and don't shove everything down the drain at once!

Sorry about your strainer Shaun!

Bri

I've been caught up with massive amounts of potato peels and carrot peels during party prep, but other than that I've not had a problem either. I have a 3/4 hp disposal and the house was built in the early 70's. I wonder if that makes a difference. I never stuff onions,celery or stringy foods down there. but spaghetti? I'd never have guessed!

shaun - Sorry about your strainer. I would get a metal one next.

DH does all the plumbing as he is the son and grandson of a plumber. In the 31 years we have been married - no garbage disposal. He hates those things. I compost everything. :>)
Clare

I must be lucky too (knocks on wood). But we have something called the "disposonator" or something like that. It has a lot of horsepower and could probably chew up a 2x4!

But I do compost most of my veggies/fruit scraps and throw away meat scraps. We accidentally got a date pit stuck in the "disposonator" once...THAT was fun!

Shaun,
I forgot to say that I can identify with your grief! I've got beloved spatula that I've had for 30 years. It's beginning to get some cracks on the handle. I've tried several times to find a new one that I like and I've wasted my money so far. I've actually begun to handwash it instead of tossing it in the dw to try and prolong its life!

I've got a 1HP disposal and like I said, I've never stopped it up and believe me, it has seen some massive quantities of food over the years with 4 teenage boys!

Forgot to add one more thing about the disposal. Always run it with cold water. Hot water can cause the food you are grinding to warm up and stick to the pipes in a gummy sort of way (especially pasta). Run cold water for a few seconds, then run the disposal, then another shot of cold water.
Jo

The morning of my wedding, before jumping into the shower, I put my diamond engagement ring in a Dixie cup with white vinegar (a tip I read would make it sparkle) and set it on the top of our upright piano, where I thought it would be safe and out of the way.

My godmother, who had made my gown, came to the house to give it a final pressing. Done, she went around and did a final tidying up so that everything would be pristine when the photographer got there for home shots.

She saw the cup, dumped the contents into the sink, then tossed it. You can imagine the panic that ensued when we discovered the ring had gone into the garbage disposal.

In the end, my ring was retrieved with no harm done, though I still cringe whenever I hear a disposal grinding. I've never had one in any of our homes.....

My resent mishap took place at my mom's. I was there to take care of her after a recent surgery. I was making dinner for her and my daughter. I preheated the oven without looking inside of it first. My mom keeps all of her cutting boards, cookie sheets ect. in there. She also kept splatter screens with plastic handles that turned the oven and kitchen into a smelly, smokey mess! Some help I was!! Gina

LOL, Gina, I've done that at my stepmother's house!

I don't ahve a garbage disposal and now I'm glad I don't, like Peppi, I compost everything that the chickens won't eat and recycle anything that's recyclable.

Sorry about the strainer, Shaun, but now you have an excuse to go shopping for another one!

Annie

Sorry about the strainer, Shaun.

Another thing you don't want to put in the disposal is carrot peels! Yep, called roto rooter and they couldn't fix it! No charge, either. DH finally unplugged things himself.

Also, if you have a septic system, don't put meat down the disposal. Proteins and grease and egg shells are no-no's for septic systems.

Tami

Sorry about your loss, Shaun. It is so hard to find a replacement for an old something that you loved... the new one just isn't the same! But, good luck with your search... I wish you much success.

I also do not have a disposal, and apparently that's a good thing! Seems like you can't use it for anything, which kind of defeats the purpose.

I broke the handle of my rubber spoonula the other day. I was stirring a batter that was way too thick and didn't want to dirty a wooden spoon. It snapped right in half! I went out and bought the same one an hour later.

I was young and hadn't had a garbage disposal very often until then. I learned! Now that the kids are grown (and ex is gone) I find I have very few troubles with things in the disposal that don't belong there. In the past I've fished out paper clips, pennies, popsicle sticks, and other forgotten small items that caused the disposal to jam. The potato peels were the only clog I ever had. I'm an expert "jammed" disposal fixer!

Shall we discuss the number of tea towels and potholders I've set on fire?

Gina- that reminds me of when I baked a birthday cake for my then boyfriend (now DH). I was living in a shared house and we had cats that could get into anything to get food- they managed to open a cupboard and pull out a bag of bran which they scattered through a sculptured carpet. So after we had a piece of the cake, we were going out and I wanted to keep the cats away from the remainder. I decided to put it in the oven as I was the only baker in the household.
When we came back, I smelled heat. Ack! One of the others had got a wild hair and put the oven on to preheat. Fortunately it hadn't been on long and the icing had melted a little and drooled down onto the plate, forming a seal that kept the cake very fresh for a few days :-)

Yup yup, I went shopping! I got a cute little white plastic strainer and a METAL one that is somewhat larger than the one I killed.

Life goes on.

I've also needed a triple time plumber because I clogged up my daughter's sink with potatoes in the morning before she was going to have a luncheon.

I've also "baked" some items in an oven that aren't meant to be cooked--like plastic trays and cups that my mom had put into her oven because that was the handiest place she could think of. Unfortunately, she lived in a high rise building, and the fire alarm in the building went off before I realized what I'd done.

My most recent stupid thing was last Saturday when I put a lovely turkey breast in the top oven, complete with the oven probe, and turned on the BOTTOM oven. This I discovered when I wondered why it was taking so long for the *%#$% thing to be done.

Who knows what wondrous thing I'll do tomorrow?

I had a Chinese ceramic spoon go down my disposal once. I had to take the whole darn thing apart to get the chips that were wedged between the wall of the disposal and the grinding plate. Believe me, I am very careful with my Chinese spoons now.

As for treasured kitchen gadgets, I bought a bunch of tiny glass bowls from the dollar store. They hold about a third of a cup, and I use them many times a day. They're perfect for giving my cats a small treat, for one thing. For another, when I'm prepping to make a meal, they're wonderful for holding quantities of crushed garlic, ginger, spices, chopped herbs etc until ready to use. I make a lot of Indian foods, which often require that a variety of spices be added at several different times during the cooking process, and things go much more easily if I pre-measure the spices into these little bowls. They're also great to hold small quantities of dipping sauces/spice mixtures for the dining table.

One by one, they'd get broken though. As you never know what is going to be offered at the dollar store, I panicked and went down and bought up several more packs of them (they come in packs of 4). Now, thinking about it, I'm getting nervous and think I will go down and buy several more! :D

Those little dollar store glass bowls are just the right size to plug a garbage disposer opening if they happen to get in the right spot while the motor is running....even when you shut off the disposer they seem to be wedged in with a supernatural power...
Ask me how I know....
Also, those glass marbles one uses in flower arrangements are very very difficult to fish out of a garbage disposer....and make a horrendous noise when you turn on the disposer with one or 3 or 4 in there.
Again...ask me how I know!
Linda c

I'm really shocked at all the things people are putting in their garbage disposals. I scrape plates off into the trash and then only the smallest rinsings go into the disposal. My friend Jimmy who is an engineer (and works for the water and sewage department) said that the less you put into the disposal, the lower your sewage bill will be and that it puts an extra strain on the water department to have to process all the garbage that people could otherwise have put into the trash or composted.

Lately, I've been accident free, but I did clog up the pipes when I put the bathroom rug in the washing machine. We had to open the drain beside the house, and fuzz from the rug was apparently what was clogging it. The plumber just now left.

Lars

I'm also a habitual composter, but I did install a disposal unit in my brand new kitchen, as my own little luxury for handling the little bits that I wouldn't want to wash down the drain.

I had a somewhat shocking event the other night as I was test driving my super-duper new gas range. I was searing salmon fillets on a griddle before finishing them in the oven. I used the cheapo Canadian Tire camping griddle that I had used for years on my old wussy Kenmore cooktop, but when subjected to the combined output of two 17.5K BTU burners (not quite on max), it warped and twisted so badly I thought the salmon would slide off from both sides at the same time! Oh well, it has no sentimental or any other kind of value, so it will be retired quite soon (after it flattens out).

LOl cooksnsews, what a picture you painted!

I don't have a disposal. Just figure with septic tanks would be better not to have one. Also my compost pile might miss out on some stuff.

Shaun, I'm glad you found a replacement and an extra metal one besides. Nice.

I didn't do anything "stupid" that had a bad result, but it sure made me feel stupid. I was just getting ready to make a loaf of pumpkin bread and wanted to turn on the radio (boom box) that I keep on top of the 'fridge. I unplugged it yesterday because I moved the 'fridge out and cleaned under and behind it. I plugged in what I thought was the radio and tried to start my tunes so I could get baking. I pressed the power button and nothing happened. I unplugged and replugged. Still nothing. I pressed every button on the panel and didn't not so much as the stand-by light would come to life for me. This went on for a good two minutes and I was really getting upset because I've only had the thing two months. Then I looked down and noticed that I had accidentally plugged in the mixer instead. There it was... the WHITE round three pronged cord to the mixer stuck in the outlet, and the BLACK skinny "regular" cord dangling down the side of the refrigerator. I burst out laughing, the cat stared, and I plugged the right thing in. Timer just buzzed... gotta take the pumpkin loaf out now :o)

Even worse than that was proofreading this post, making the appropriate changes, and pressing submit instead of preview. Will it ever end!?