When cooking your evening meal; it helps if...

[lucysmam]

You actually turn the cooker on to heat up before putting the lovingly prepared chicken in

Any other tips?

When using an electric rice cooker it's best to remove the instruction manual from the heating element BEFORE you turn it on.

Aarggh, jigsaws, my husband washes spoons and measuring jugs left unattended.

it helps to take out the bread dough that's proving in a plastic bowl before heating up the oven...

Check that the cabbage you bought has not rolled out of the shopping and into a hidden place in the car, assumed to have been left in the shop and discovered some time later by following the smell.

Don't use your hand to check if the cooker electric ring is heating up..... it was....

Check that you have actually turned on the electric rice cooker. Not much fun realising you have uncooked rice in cold water when the rest of the meal is ready to be served.

Don't buy stewing meat if you want a roast. DH went out to get a joint of beef to roast, and came back with brisket. So it's beef casserole tonight. Later than planned.

Make sure you don't leave the roast potatoes in the oven to be discovered the following day.
How I didn't notice they were missing I don't know, they are my favourites

“I melted a child's lunchbox once. It contained some mangled crusts and banana peel, so it saved me having to wash it” 😂 I’d call that a win 👍

Colanders are something I seem to melt with frightening regularity

When cooking with chopsticks, remember to use your metal set when deep frying chicken... not the plastic takeaway set

When you turn the oven on to pre-heat it, you make sure that you've first taken MiL's expensive, hand-made chocolate birthday cake out of the oven, where you put it earlier to 'keep it out of the way'.

This is NOT what it looked like afterwards.

When making your 'show stopper' Baked Alaska for 8 good friends you are rewarding for helping you move ...

Check that you are not using soft scoop ice cream

When microwaving peas to add to egg fried rice, it helps to take them out of the microwave and actually add them to the rice, not leave them there to be discovered the next time you use the microwave (too many times to count).

You don't scrape the carefully (and finely) diced carrots into the washing up water.

Ask yourself very sternly, "Am I pouring this through a sieve because I want to discard the liquid down the sink, or am I trying to sieve out some unwanted bits and need to collect the liquid in a bowl?

Two words ‘oh fuck’. Mulled wine 😩

At least once a week remembering that turning the oven ON really does help 🙄

When you put a round tin of steak and kidney pie in the oven don't forget to pierce the lid first, thereby avoiding an explosion, bits of pie shooting the oven door open and hitting the walls and ceiling and neighbours running upstairs to check that I haven't been shot

When making parmesan crisps as a vair posh topper for your starter, don’t use tinfoil. It sticks.

When having people round for dinner, make sure you move the family heirloom bone handled carving fork off the cooker where the meat is resting before lighting the hob for the peas. I had no idea bone burnt so effectively. Oops.

And when roasting chestnuts over a fire, remember to pierce them. ‘Chestnuts exploding over an open fire...’is a popular song in our house now.

When putting a ready meal from the freezer into the oven, and following the instructions to place the foil container onto a baking tray and then into the oven, check that you have grabbed an actual baking tray not a plastic chopping board.

When baking bread, do not forget to add the yeast.

That the tea bag goes in a cup then you add the boiling water NOT add the boiling water to the tea bag jar!

Not an actual meal but...

DH regularity makes ginger biscuits that are gluten free and definitely as good as a ginger snap. Because they are GF the list of ingredients is a bit longer than for an ordinary biscuit, but he makes them so often that he has the recipe in his head. Or he thinks he has. So far he has made a batch without ginger (still tasty) and two batches without sugar (which turned out kind of like little gingery scones). The last were saved by being turned into a base for cheesecake!

Don't chop all the meat and veg... And promptly drop on the kitchen floor.
DH saved that day with his brilliant takeaway collection skills...

Remember to turn off hobs after use. If you accidentally leave a glass pan lid on one... Don't put it in cold water to cool down. Clearly broken glass out of a sink isn't fun.

That when your Mother tells you she can smell burning from the kitchen when you are washing up at the sink turned away from the oven.... DON'T IGNORE HER!!
The next thing I knew she was sprinting past me with flaming oven gloves in hand and throwing them over the top half of the kitchen stable door into the courtyard!!
I of course had put them down on a oven ring that was switched on!!

Putting water in the pan when cooking rice helps the rice to cook evenly and not burn and stink the whole house out