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September 11, 2009

Menace in the Kitchen.

I feel as if I should cue the creepy “Jaws” music because today I’m discussing a very serious topic…

Dangerous kitchen equipment.

There’s loads of potential for injury in the kitchen, but the one bit of equipment that has injured me the most, the one piece I fear is the…

Grater

Yep, the humble grater.

I’ve grated my knuckles on numerous occasions, drawn blood and bled on the cheese. These days I steer clear of it because grated knuckles take forever to heal!

Which piece of kitchen equipment do you fear most?

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15 Comments

  1. Janice Seagraves

    Let’s see I too have grated my knockles instead of the cheese, and I cut my finger down to the bone with the butchers knife. The blending as exploded the blender, actually I just forgot the put on the lid but it looked like it expoded. The garbage displosal used to give me nightmares, and so did the microwave.

    That’s it I guess. You are right about one thing more accidents happen in the home then out of the mean streets.

    Janice~

  2. Lucinda

    I’m generally very careful, and my husband is in the kitchen more than I am. I do have a tendency to touch the wrong parts of the toaster oven and burn my fingers.

  3. Elaine

    Hi!
    I used to fear the vegetable peeler the most, as it ALWAYS managed to cut my fingernails.
    I too used to dread the grater, but I don’t any longer. Why? I bought a grater from IKEA last year. It was $6.99 for a set of two. It sits on the counter, has rubber feet so it doesn’t move, and you grate ACROSS in front of you rather than up and down. The best part (to me) is that it comes with a lid, so I can grate and refrigerate until ready to use.
    I just went to ikea.com. It was in the second picture — a red one and a black one — as one has my “usual” grating consistency and the other one is really fine grating. These should last me a lifetime and was one of the best investments I have ever made. (And no, I don’t work for IKEA!)
    Good luck!

  4. Christina Phillips

    LOL. I don’t like the cheese grater either. Another one is the potato peeler. It REALLY hurts when you peel your finger instead of the potato!!

  5. Anne Jones

    I fear the knives most of all, although I am more than capable of making anything into a dangerous object.

  6. Helen Hardt

    Okay, I swear the following is true, LOL. This isn’t actually kitchen equipment, but it freaks me out. You know those biscuits and rolls in a tube? I can’t open them because they scare the hell out of me when they pop. I end up throwing them across the kitchen to get them to open!

  7. Julia Smith

    LOL!

    Everything about raw meat gives me the creeps. So I don’t cook any. I can’t even bear to see pictures of raw meat in store fliers.

  8. Marissa Alwin

    Bacon! that splattering grease kills my hands! But my family loves it. Everytime i cook it the fire alarm goes off! its become so that my family has become desensitized to the sound. the other morning my son stumbled into the kitchen about five minutes after it rang…”Weren’t you scared the house might be burning down?” I asked. He snagged a piece of bacon,”No, Just knew breakfast was ready.”

  9. Shelley Munro

    Janice – I approach the garbage disposal witj trepidation too. These days we’re composting most of our fruit and vegetable waste so we’re not using it as much.

    Lucinda – ah, yes! The burnt finger trick. I’ve done that before.

  10. Shelley Munro

    Elaine – that sounds like an excellent grater. Maybe I should check out our specialist kitchen stores here in NZ. They’re bound to have something similar.

    Christina – I’ve never had any problems with my potato peeler. They’re probably too blunt to do damage. We don’t peel our potatoes very often so that could be it too. I usually attack them with a scrubbing brush.

  11. Shelley Munro

    LOL – I hear you, Anne. Danger lurks there for us to find!

    Helen – that sounds like fun! We don’t have the tube thingies here but I know the ones you mean. I’ve seen them in the US supermarkets.

  12. Shelley Munro

    Julia – I’m not that fond of looking at meat in its raw state either. I can cook it but I pull a lot of faces.

    LOL Marissa. I take it you don’t cook in a naked state? Bacon does tend to spit a bit, doesn’t it?

  13. Linda Henderson

    I did away with my grater and started using a small food processor. I always grated my fingers and I dreaded useing it.

  14. Elaine

    Marissa, Shelley, etc.
    Re bacon:
    I cook the entire pound of bacon, cut in half, on a regular dinner plate in my microwave. I cook for 10 minutes on High, drain the grease, and continue cooking for another 5-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the bacon and how well you want it cooked.
    There’s no grease splattering on a stovetop. I DO use a plastic cover (from Dollarama, a local dollar store) on top of the plate, but it isn’t necessary.
    When I am done cooking the bacon, I put it in a plastic container and store it in the freezer. Whenever we want to eat bacon, I reheat the bacon in the microwave and it is really yummy. If I’m expecting lots of company, I’ll cook up perhaps 5 lbs of bacon and freeze it. Then it doesn’t take long to make breakfast and everyone is delighted. It’s also easier when you want bacon bits for a salad, etc. to just take what you want and put the balance back in the freezer….
    I hope this helps.

  15. Shelley Munro

    Linda – the food processer is a boon for making coleslaw. It definitely saves knuckles.

    Elaine – I’m a vegetarian and don’t eat bacon, but I have cooked it before. My husband loves cooking and cooks all his meat these days. Hubby is a fan of microwaving bacon and sausages too because it releases so much of the fat.

    Cooking in bulk like that sounds like a great idea, especially if large quantities are involved. I have to say though that when I did used to eat meat, I enjoyed my bacon extra crispy and a microwave doesn’t do that.