Mistakes and failures are a normal part of living but how often did you actually learn from them?

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brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,624
6,011
136
mistakes teach me what i am terrible at, and usually convince me not to do it anymore

i was so bad at dating that i haven't gone out for 15 years
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,480
7,221
136
Either that pasta and ice cube tray is HUGE, or that's a super small bowl. :p

The ice cube tray is VERY large. They are specifically designed for freezing food! Random picture off google: (they are 1-cup sizes per cavity)

1688325610978.png

Nothing in my house matches because I have ADHD lol. I buy everything on a whim. These are the bowls in question:


They are ten-inch soup bowls that are 1.5" deep. I like them because anything you put in them looks fancy lol. Also I can drop a 1-cup frozen brick of food in them to reheat & it fits just right! The main reason I got those particular ones is that I went to a restaurant where they used them to make toasted-cheese-topped soup. It was so good that I started making the concept at home myself. This is Panera copycat broccoli & cheddar soup with a broiled cheese top that gets crispy & dippy on the lip of the bowl, along with some sourdough bread. This put me into a food coma for a week, it was amazing lol:

1688325722195.png
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,480
7,221
136
mistakes teach me what i am terrible at, and usually convince me not to do it anymore

i was so bad at dating that i haven't gone out for 15 years

Let me rotate the carousel & introduce you to a new horse called "Success Island". This island exists in the middle of a pond. To get to the Island of Success, you have to walk across stepping stones in the water. The left stepping stones are failure & the right stepping stones are success. BOTH steps must be taken in order to reach the Island of Success! The only way to fail is to quit! It's very important to realize that failing is not the same as failure. When we take a failing step, we have two choices: we can either become embittered & quit, or we can learn from it & become empowered & proceed anyway!

This can be very difficult to do because our inner critic will beat us up emotionally. It will listen to the naysayers in our lives & even generate its own stream of nonsense & try to convince us to quit! I learned this the hard way when I began to learn how to cook, because I didn't even know how to boil water when I first started! (my wife still teases me about that to this day lol) But with cooking, sometime we have to burn stuff & forget ingredients in order to learn how to improve & do better! Many of my best recipes are the result of years of trying over & over again to "get it right". This process of sticking with stuff has a very specific name, called "grit", which is the choice to be persistent over time, even in the face of physical, emotional, and mental barriers:


Arnold had a great Facebook post about how to deal with negativity a couple days ago. The reality is that things rarely go to plan & we're all pretty bad at stuff when we first get started, but the way to get better is by sticking with it relentlessly! This isn't a superpower or magic or a character trait; it's simply a personal choice not to quit when the pressure is on to do so! I always thought that failing = failure, and being a highly emotional person, the internal urge to quite was suffocating! But as it turns out, that's just a temporary illusion from our brain to prevent us from expending additional energy on it, because our brain is an energy manager & wants to converse energy! We can simply make the choice to go back & try, try again! Not easy, but worth it! And that's the secret to mastering stuff...just keep trying & continue to plug away at it!

1688347847984.png
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,738
126
The ice cube tray is VERY large. They are specifically designed for freezing food! Random picture off google: (they are 1-cup sizes per cavity)


View attachment 82540

so i can cook 4 pounds of spaghetti (costco size), stick it in these cubes, freeze it, then just reheat?
so i save time and effort for cleaning the pot and strainer?
plus perfect portion control?
*mind blown*

where can i buy these cheap but without bpa that i expect the ebay china ones to have?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,480
7,221
136
so i can cook 4 pounds of spaghetti (costco size), stick it in these cubes, freeze it, then just reheat?
so i save time and effort for cleaning the pot and strainer?
plus perfect portion control?
*mind blown*

where can i buy these cheap but without bpa that i expect the ebay china ones to have?

I haven't tried this one, but it looks like there's a KIRF here for $13:


The features look the same:

1. Food-grade silicone with 1-cup cavities
2. Metal support ring
3. Ability to bake in them (can bake mini loaves of banana bread & whatnot)

So one container has 4 cups, so if you're doing 4 pounds, you may want to get multiple units if you want to freeze everything all at once. I have 4 trays myself & then keep the rest in a bowl or bag in the fridge if I need to freeze a second batch the next day but can't get it to fit in my 4 trays. It's really nice because I get sick of eating leftovers really easily, but I don't mind having them a few weeks (or months) later, so this lets me save individual servings in the freezer & stack them efficiently! Also, if you have a dollar store in your area, they sell ceramic bowls that fit one cube perfectly to reheat in the microwave! I freeze soup, chili, pasta, shredded meats, basically anything relatively soft & small enough to fit into the cubes!
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,557
13,801
126
www.anyf.ca
I always freeze individual sauce servings in mason jars and just boil the pasta as needed, but guess if I wanted to I could just include the pasta in the sauce and freeze that as one...

Those cubes still seem kinda small though for a meal. I would be tempted to freeze in these instead:


That's usually what I do for stir fries, I will make a big batch and freeze them. I add rice at time of eating though, I freeze the rice in mason jars. I find if I mix it in and freeze the consistency is not great. I'd have to experiment with pasta to see if it works out to just freeze it all as one instead of keeping sauce separate.
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,480
7,221
136
I always freeze individual sauce servings in mason jars and just boil the pasta as needed, but guess if I wanted to I could just include the pasta in the sauce and freeze that as one...

Those cubes still seem kinda small though for a meal. I would be tempted to freeze in these instead:


That's usually what I do for stir fries, I will make a big batch and freeze them. I add rice at time of eating though, I freeze the rice in mason jars. I find if I mix it in and freeze the consistency is not great. I'd have to experiment with pasta to see if it works out to just freeze it all as one instead of keeping sauce separate.
They do make a larger, square 2-cup model. I have this one & use it for things like sherpard's pie & whatnot.

1688404580652.png

I also have their stoneware containers that fit the cubes, so you can reheat or bake directly by dropping the frozen cubes into the trays. They work awesome!

1688404622726.png
 
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JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,738
126
So one container has 4 cups, so if you're doing 4 pounds, you may want to get multiple units if you want to freeze everything all at once. I have 4 trays myself & then keep the rest in a bowl or bag in the fridge if I need to freeze a second batch the next day but can't get it to fit in my 4 trays. It's really nice because I get sick of eating leftovers really easily, but I don't mind having them a few weeks (or months) later, so this lets me save individual servings in the freezer & stack them efficiently! Also, if you have a dollar store in your area, they sell ceramic bowls that fit one cube perfectly to reheat in the microwave! I freeze soup, chili, pasta, shredded meats, basically anything relatively soft & small enough to fit into the cubes!

Ok, then cook 1/2 a box (2lbs) of Costco spaghetti .
1 cup is 8oz so 4 cups should hold 2lbs?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,480
7,221
136
Ok, then cook 1/2 a box (2lbs) of Costco spaghetti .
1 cup is 8oz so 4 cups should hold 2lbs?

One pound of dry pasta cooks up to about 8 cups (generally one pound of dry pasta = 4 cups of dry pasta = 8 cups of cooked pasta). I use a crockpot-style heated lunchbox to reheat sometimes. They have a 120V wall version:


Plus a 12V car version:


You can get power adapters for either (AC to 12V for indoors or an inverter for the car). Takes a couple hours to thaw out & heat up, so I just set my alarm for 10am if I want it warmed-up by noon. A+ over microwaving it lol.
 
Jul 27, 2020
28,175
19,192
146
No, but no one was in the room and you never forget that feeling.
I know it too. Tried inserting a three pin plug into a wall socket, without grabbing it properly and my finger touched one of the prongs of the plug. It was instant "BUZZZZZ" all through my body in less than a second before I let go. Just one second more and my heart would have stopped. It was 220V. I was around age 11 maybe?
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,738
126
I also have their stoneware containers that fit the cubes, so you can reheat or bake directly by dropping the frozen cubes into the trays. They work awesome!

View attachment 82576
this how you make brick chicken?
or is the name not the final shape when served? :p
 
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