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Thursday, April 04, 2019

I ruined dinner twice in one night!

I took out the Instant Pot to steam some potatoes and vegetables for dinner and noted that the steaming basket was already in place so I peeled some potatoes and tossed them into the pot, added some carrots, and poured in a cup of water...which in turn poured out of the base of the Instant Pot, cascaded off the counter, and splashed onto my feet.

I froze, confused—shocked, even—and my eyes settled on the Instant Pot liner, which I had sat on the counter to dry after I washed it this morning (and thus it was most definitely not inside the Instant Pot, where it was supposed to be).

Luckily, I hadn't turned the Instant Pot on and I hurriedly removed the vegetables and then ran upstairs muttering, "Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no," praying that Instant Pots are like cell phones and that it will just dry out and be perfectly fine. I hopped onto the internet and found that Instant Pots are like cell phones and our pot will probably dry out just fine (even if it doesn't, it's at least cheaper to replace than some cell phones, so there's that).

Sometimes the internet can be a very unwelcoming, even threatening place. But today I read a thread about dumping water into an unlined Instant Pot that had 324 very supportive comments and have never felt so grateful for the internet in all my life.

"Me, too."

"Just joined this club."

"Count me in. I'm letting mine air dry before using it again."

"Good idea. That worked for me."

"Baking at 11:30 PM. Bad idea. I could almost taste that rice pudding, too."

"Now a member of the club—with 2.5 cups of MILK!!!"

"Oh, bother. Me, too."


"Adding to our numbers with onion soup mix and 2 cups of water. Guuuuuuys!"

"I also had to restart my circuit breaker."

"I just freaking did this—but with tomato juice?!? Did I kill it?"

"1 cup dry beans and whole carton of vegetable broth over here."

So I am not the only idiot out there. In fact, I have plenty of company. Thanks, internet!

But my story gets better.

With the vegetables already in the steaming basket, I decided to go ahead and steam them on the stove. It might take a little bit longer, but I had a bit of extra time. So I added some water to a pot and put the steamer in and things were going great. When I checked on things, the vegetables weren't quite done and the water was getting low, so I added more water and put it back on the burner.

We have an electric stove, which is frustrating. It was hard to get used to a gas stove years ago and now I'm finding that it's hard to get used to an electric stove again. Once those burners get hot they stay hot! And I guess things got a little too hot...and all of my water evaporated...and the silicone covers on the feet of the basket started melting!

There was a horrible burning smell and I yanked the pot off the stove and was met with an absolutely noisome burst of steam. The entire bottom of the pot was black and the vegetables were effectively ruined.

"We can have mashed potatoes," Grandpa suggested.

"I don't think mashing them will help..." I said, mournfully. "I'm afraid they'll still taste like...oh. You mean instant mashed potatoes. Yes. Yes, we should do that because these are just garbage now."

It was kind of a low evening for me. Not only did I ruin dinner—I ruined it twice in one night!

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