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I watch the cooking channels. I`ve even helped my wife cook. I`ve even cooked a couple of things in my lifetime (though I`m learning not to cut myself and to wear a shirt when frying stuff).

Tonight was a total disaster!!

My wife calls me to ask me to start the hamburger steaks. Basically that`s a large hamburger cooked and served. She tells me what temperature to put it on, how to do it, and even what to do.

I patted the hamburger steaks out into large patties. I placed the large skillet on the burner and turned the burner on. I even salted and used the twisty pepper thing to season it. Then I put the burger in.

Smoke starts billowing out everywhere. I`m yelling to Harry (the African Gray Parrot) to get to low ground, he`s yelling "Harry`s a good boy!!" and the smoke detectors are going off. I grab the cookie sheet or baking sheet or whatever you call that doggone low flat pan you cook biscuits on and open the front door trying to wave some of the smoke out. I`ve got the hood fan going full blast and can`t get the kitchen window open.

Mind you I don`t walk too good in the first place cause I`m on a cane so this was FREAKING ME OUT!!!!

I finally turned the burner waaaaaaaaaaaaay down. The burger stops smoking so much. I now have Blackened Hamburger Steaks. I had to go sit down and smoke a cigarette. Boy. What a night so far.

I called my wife to ask her if she was anywhere near a store. Then I had to tell her that we may just be having broccoli tonight. I didn`t cook that so don`t worry.

I can cook a mean MRE (Meal-Ready-To-Eat). That`s a military meal in the pouch. Course all you need is the flameless burner or body heat for that one.

If you`ve got any helpful hints for a not so experienced cook I`d sure appreciate it.

Dan

 

Great story. sorry about the traumatic experience, give your parrot a hug from me. How about getting yourself a George Forman grill, they are easy and don`t seem to smoke to much. You can put a burger, steak, chicken, fish, veggies on it....they even have books on how to cook on it.

Oven baking is easy as well. you can put in chicken on low ...200 degress season it, cover with aluminum foil and let it go for a couple of hours....it will be delicous and moist.

But a steak on the George Foreman is quick easy, and easy to clean.

Sometimes i cheat and use a lean cuisine taht i cook in the microwave, add some of this and that to it, and you have a chef masterpiece.

Crock pots are great for soups and beef and chili...and these can be a meal to last for a few days or to freeze leftovers for later.

Take this from one not so great cook to another..........my husband thinks i burn everything and cook things on too high of a tempeture,,so i learned easy ways to make good food.

*also chicken stir fry is an easy one. :)

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

Dan - Your story had me laughing!  Laughing so hard I cried.    Thanks!

I`ve been there, done that.  Nor, do I know what occurred.   Though long after the fact, I discovered that the last person who cooked neglected to clean up something that was left over, on and under the burner (electric stove).  I am not fond of FLAME,  so I was using a gas burner - I probably would have been freaking out too.   When I cook, I "wing-it"   . . . sometimes very, sometimes just good, sometimes real bad, . . . my parents and my brother put up with it.  They are still alive to talk about it.

I bet as you were telling your wife the story, she was having a good chuckle.

Yes she was. She did say the Blackened Burger was good.

But I`m going to tell you. That cooking stuff is dangerous stuff. I`ve been mauled by a potatoe slicer (right thumb knuckle), bar-b-qued by leaving my shirt off while frying something (won`t do that again) and found out that Hamburger Helper produces one heck of a fireball (no kidding).

Though the other day, I was multi-tasking. I was boiling eggs while doing the laundry.

Maybe I should produce the Kitchen Guard. They would be stand by`s just in case something went wrong. Then we send them into search and destroy. Well, I do enough destruction in the kitchen myself. So maybe they can be rescue workers.

At any rate, I take my hat off to all of the cooks out there. It`s not as easy as Emeril makes it sound.

Thankfully the smoke has cleared and the bird has fluffed his feathers up again. No permanent smoke inhalation dangers. Although he did look at me funny for quite a while afterwards. I wasn`t worried about the chihahuas (I guess that`s how you spell it) because they are low to the ground already.

Now if any of you have a recipe you want a guinea pig for, just look me and my wife up. I took to eating after I met her (she`s a great cook) and went from a lean, mean, fighting Marine of 185 pounds to a rotund 205 and counting.

Thank goodness I can still shave my head and take the focus off of my belly.

Dan

Well, this is truly a metaphysical issue. It speaks to the turnings of the universe, the alignments of the planets, and some guy named Failure who`s on the 10 Most Wanted posters at our local post office.

Clearly, the problem is you had too many parrots in the kitchen. Anyone who regularly watches the Food Channel knows that even 1 parrot in a kitchen decreases the "smoke point" of cast iron by 50 degrees.

The smoke point is that point at which something begins to smoke. I realize it`s a difficult term, which is why I explained it here. The inter-relationship between parrots and smoke points is far too complex for a forum thread, but you can learn more by simply Googling "too many parrots in the kitchen." (There are hundreds of links.)

I`d suggest next time having a falcon, a parakeet, or if you must, a small sparrow. These three birds are well-known in their ability to raise the smoke point to well over 1600 degrees.

That way, if you use a cast-iron skillet, you can turn off the lights and you`ll know when it`s time to put on the burgers by the soft red glow of the pan. An addeded benefit is that burger steak will be done in under 1.5 seconds, always helpful in these busy times.

Oh well, I did a google on too many parrots in the kitchen. Nothing there helped.

Actually Harry is in the dining room The dining room has been converted to a kind of add-on to the living room because we don`t use it and generally eat in front of the computer. We`ve just readjusted our living arrangements and so we`re becoming used to adapting to this area. That`s a fancy way of saying we moved.

My wife usually cooks but has taken on a job outside of the business as an office manager so usually ends up getting home late. So I work as much as I can with the others to keep the business going plus I try to help her out as much as possible because she`s tired by the end of the day and deserves to come home and relax a bit.

But as you can see, there are some things which can`t be done.

I told her I was going to start wearing my Kevlar helmet, flak vest, and combat uniform when I start cooking. Honestly, it`s like a war zone when I`m in the kitchen. Things flying in the air, burned out craters, the smell of napalm in the air. And they try to say it`s PAM in a spray can.

Now once (and only once) she came home and I cooked her an omellette (spell?). It turned out perfect. I`ve tried replicating the same thing but can`t get it right anymore. It`s always too dark or too light nowadays. But I shall continue my quest by watching the cooking channel and seeing if any of that helps. Probably not. Have you seen how messy people like Paula and Emeril and Rachel get? Mercy. I know where they are coming from.

Think I`ll start my own cooking show. We can call it "Dan in Action"

Dan

I`ve been married 4 years and my wife has cooked one meal for the family.  (me, her, 2 dogs).  She decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.  She was so busy talking to her sister on the phone that she burnt the sandwiches and the soup boiled over.  She is no longer allowed in the kitchen.  Which makes us both happy.  :-)

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Travis Tschepen
Hibachi Bros. LLC

--My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.--

Now that`s funny.

I just found out last night that the reason for the smoke was because it was the lean hamburger meat and since it doesn`t produce much juice to cook in, you have to place small amounts of water to prevent burning. Well, I didn`t add any water. It`s always good to find this stuff out after the fact.

I`d like to hear more Dining Disasters. I think that`s just plain hilarious.

Until next time, this is Dan with Dining Disasters signing off.

(Say that three times fast).

Dan

Hey Dan,

Great story. I have a parrot, too -- Felonious "Vinny the Drill" Monk -- who spends a lot of time looking confused, and sometimes alarmed, at what`s going on around him. But he gets pretty bored in the kitchen so doesn`t hang out with me there much.

What kind of skillet were you using? What temperature did you wife tell you to use? How long was the pan on the heat before you put in the burger? Cast iron is great to cook with, but you need to remember that it holds heat extremely well, meaning you can either use lower temps to start than you might with other pans, or crank it up on high until you get it where you want it, then lower the heat while you`re cooking.

Remember, too, that if you`re having a disaster in the making, you can simply take the pan off the heat until it cools down. For some reason, it took me a long time to learn that. Chefs move pans around all the time while cooking to keep the temperature where they want it.

It`s good to start burgers, steaks, chops in a very hot pan to sear all sides for a rich brown crust and to help seal in the juices. Do the same thing with roasts. Once you`ve turned the meat so that all sides are good and brown, slide the pan into a preheated medium oven (about 350-375) and let it finish in there. If you`re just learning to cook, season the meat after you sear it; a lot of powdered seasonings like dry rubs, chili powder, seasoned salts, will burn very quickly in a super hot pan causing the kind of smokeout you had.

Hope this helps.

Hi Ric,

The pan was high gloss shiney metal which resembled the finish on high polish nickel plated 9mm handgun. I would assume it to be stainless steel. Don`t quote me on that though.

The heat was on 8. We`ve got the standard range/oven combo which has the numbers on the dials. I assumed the dials were like clicking in the iron site of my M-16. Keep clicking til you get it where you want it. Unfortunately once it started smoking.... I was at a loss because even the flipper thing was smoking.

I`m not too good with the vocabulary of kitchen tools. Give me a weapon in hand and I can field strip it blindfolded. But this is new to me. I`ve just started learning to cook over the past year. Before I met my wife, I lived on hot dogs (microwaved) and cardboard pizzas (I can cook those in the oven).

I moved the pan off of the heat source but it kept smoking so I figured what the heck. So I kept turning the dial to get the heat down and just concentrated on trying to save the bird and get the smoke out of the house. It was pretty thick. While I was fanning the smoke out of the front door I was hoping that too much of the smoke wouldn`t roll out to alarm passerby vehicles and I`d end up with fire trucks out here.

I`m going to try the searing thing first and then popping it in the oven afterwards. I can`t do chili powder due to crohn`s disease so I`ll stick with the salt and pepper.

Get this. My wife won`t even let me cook on our outside grill for fear that I`ll blow something up. Imagine that. But at least I`m not a total waste. I can still fix things around the house.

I did find out one thing about the super hot pan. I stated that I had thought the burgers were too fat because they were burning on both sides but nothing seemed to be happening in the middle. I hate raw meat so I just started rolling the sides around the edge of the pan to cook the sides. Turns out the sides of the pan was just as hot as the bottom. Then I used the flipper to cut into the top and bottom of the meat to try to let some of the rawness out and pressed down like heck. Seems to have worked cause they were done (REALLY DONE) when I finished.

I have a feeling though that my kitchen calamities aren`t over yet.

I`ll keep you posted on my next "fire" mission.

Dan