Monday night I made a really silly mistake. I am almost too embarrassed to share it here, but I feel like you will be understanding, and that perhaps I can warn others not to make my same mistake.
I was making a pot roast and found a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa for her Company Pot Roast. I love her, have made many of her recipes, and was excited to try this one because I knew it would have amazing flavor. One of the last steps of the recipe was to take the veggies and liquid from the dutch oven and puree it in a blender or food processor to thicken it into a sauce. I decided to use my blender, loaded it up with the hot liquid, and then hit blend. Let's just say that the result was explosive. The lid popped off from the hot steam and sprayed burning hot meat juice and vegetables all over me and my kitchen. Now I have burns on both of my forearms and am still finding places in my kitchen that got sprayed. Not to mention the clothes I was wearing are ruined.
I learned that you must have a way for steam to escape when you are blending something hot and that I should have thought about it long enough to realize that my immersion blender would have been the perfect tool for the situation.
Will I make this mistake again, I think not. Will I make this pot roast again, I think not. It did have great flavor and was moist and tasty, but my painful memories will override the desire to try this one again, I think. I do want to say that now that it has been a couple of days I find this to be really funny and laugh when I think about what happened.
A few years ago, before I had a dutch oven I decided to make Barefoot Contessa's beef burgandy for a dinner party. Since I didn't have the dutch oven, I used the insert of my crock pot. Everything was fine until I took it out of the fridge the next day and tried to warm it back up on the range. 10 minutes before the guests were to arrive, the crock pot liner literally broke into two halves and the soup went everywhere - the walls, the range, the floors, EVERYWHERE.
ReplyDeleteWe salvaged the veggies and meat on the range where it was clean but the delicious broth was gone. I cried. I haven't made the dish since because the memory is still too traumatic.
The End.