How to Avoid Kitchen Catastrophes

Well, since we ain't had much debatin' goin' on here, I decided that I am going to make this a joint debate/advice blog! Meaning, that I am also going to be giving y'all advice on occasion! Not saying that this advice will be worth while, or mean anything to you, but it might learn some of ya on a few things. Or maybe it will just make you laugh. That's fine too! Also, if you have anything that you want advice on, just let Patty know! She'll be happy to oblige you with as good of advice as she can muster! It may not always be practical...but oh well. Iffen ya want serious advice, just specify that, and she will give you as serious of advice as she can possibly think of! But if you just want fun or funny advice, she likes doing that as well! =) Probably better, more 'n likely. Okay, so enough of that. I really do have some advice for y'all today! And as the title suggests, it has to do with cooking in the kitchen and other things that happen in the kitchen! And all of these tid bits of advice have come from experience. I'd advise you to play close attention! Hah. These things have actually happened to one of the members in our family! I will tell you in parenthesis which member it was each time. Hope ya find this amusing! And maybe it will help you avoid future kitchen catastrophes! =D
 Advisory #1. Don't let Patty and Josie in the kitchen! This could be trouble. It could be disastrous. It could be detrimental. It could be incredibly messy. And it could be somewhat humorous at times, but I don't think you want to find out!
 Advisory #2. Pay very close attention to advisory #1! Make sure you know exactly what it means, and please follow it to the T! Once you have understood it, and agreed to abide by it, you may proceed on to Advisory #3.
 Advisory #3. Turn the light on when you first go into the kitchen. It just might help some. (Josie gets on to me a lot for not turning the light on when I go into some rooms. However, I usually do flip the switch when going into the kitchen. Just not in the washroom sometimes.)
 Advisory #4. When heating up a can of something, it might be wise to open the can first, and put the contents in the pan, instead of just putting the closed can with the contents inside of it still into the pan. And thinking that it will cook that way! Oh, and don't forget to turn the burner on either! Nothin' ain't gonna cook without the heat! Unless you are outside in 120 degree weather or something, then it might start to cook, but probably wouldn't finish. (This happened to Patty when she was just learning to cook at age 9. Anise had asked her to put a can of tomato soup, I think it was, in a pan and warm it up. So, I did just that! I put the can in the pan that was on the burner, and left it that way. The burner was not on. The contents of the can were still in the can. The can was unopened. Anise comes in a little later to find it like this. She then tells me that I have to OPEN the can and dump the contents out of it! And I also have to turn the burner on! Oops. I now know that! Hah.)
 Advisory #5. When making pizza, don't forget to put a pan underneath the dough when you are rolling it out and putting the toppings on! Because then it makes it very difficult to transfer this fully made pizza over to a pan so that you can put it into the oven to cook it. It needs a pan under it! (Irene was once making pizza, and she had gotten it all ready to go into the oven, and then when she tried to pick it up, she realized that there was no pan underneath it! Oh dear! So, she had quite the ordeal trying to get it onto a pan without completely destroying it. She did manage to get it onto a pan in fairly decent shape! It still tasted good! =) I think she will remember to put a pan underneath it from now on though.)
 Advisory #6. Don't use a steak knife to cut up chicken! It is much to sharp to be using it like that. And you are most likely going to get hurt one way or the other. (Dandi can testify to this one. She was cutting up chicken with a steak knife in January 2010, and ended up cutting her first finger very severely. She had to be taken to the emergency room and have stitches put in it. It was not very nice at all! And I'm sure it hurt somethin' fierce. It sure did bleed a lot. That knife cut deep. It was rather scary!)
 Advisory #7. Maybe it would be best to check and see if the "shield" thing is on when you get ready to shake spices into something. If it is not on, then the result will be a big pile of that certain spice in whatever it is you are cooking or baking! And you most likely DO NOT need that much! (A few months ago, Patty was making tomato sauce for enchiladas, and got out the cummin and started shaking it into the sauce...without checking to see if the shield was on first...then she looked down and saw a rather large pile of cummin in the sauce! Oops. That wasn't supposed to happen. So she carefully scooped as much as she could out with a spoon. But there was still more than necessary in the sauce when she was done! However, thankfully, it did not taste bad! But it still would probably be a good idea to check before you dump!)
 Advisory #8. Don't turn the electric mixer on full speed when you are mixing up pudding or something, and the bowl is already close to overflowing! It WILL indeed overflow then! And fly all over the kitchen and you as well! It will result in quite the mess. And of course, you have to clean it all up when you're done. (Patty was making Kansas Dirt awhile ago, and was making the pudding stuff, and the bowl was already very full, but she put the mixer in there and it was on a pretty high speed, and boy did white stuff go everywhere! Well, what can I say? I'm a messy cook! No matter what I cook, I will make a mess! Guaranteed.)
 Advisory #9. When washing dishes, and there are several of them, it might be best to stack them in the drainer carefully and not too high, otherwise they might topple over! Well, the good thing about it is that it makes a nice loud bang when it falls over! Just as long as there ain't nothin' breakable on top, there shouldn't be no harm done. (I have a tendency to stack things up in the drainer as high as I possibly can. And yes, they have fallen over sometimes. But I haven't had the catastrophe of somethin' breakin' yet, so that's good. I just like to see how much I can fit in there at one time!)
 Advisory #10. When washing water bottles or something, don't forget to put the lid on them before you start shaking them. Soap and water will go quite far, let me tell you! (Josie was washing dishes one day, and when she got to the bottles, she filled them up with water and started to shake them to get them clean. They did not have the lids on them, so yes, the contents did indeed fly out! Same goes with when you are washing plastic baggies, maybe don't squeeze them so hard when washing them! The water can squirt out very easily! But it's kinda amusing.)
 Advisory #11. If you want your toast to actually get toasted, you should probably plug the toaster in first of all, or make sure that it is still plugged in, sometimes someone comes by and unplugs it without you seein'. You'll be waitin' in awful long time for them to pop up iffen ya don't! I don't know how many times we have done this (several of us have), and how long we've waited for them to pop up! Oops. But usually it happens because someone else has come and unplugged it, and we forget to check and see if it is still plugged in when we push the lever down.
 And there are probably more things that I could give you advise on, but that will be all for now.
 And y'all feel free to leave cattle trails about whatever you like! =)
                          Go chew the cud! It's good for you.