Dealing With Weather-Interrupted Cooking

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BreezyCooking

Washing Up
Joined
Mar 25, 2006
Messages
5,803
Location
Culpeper, VA
We've just been put on severe weather/tornado alert here in Culpeper, VA, & so I automatically called husband at work & asked him to bring home a pizza.

Was going to make sauteed turkey cutlets, broccoli, & mashed potatoes, but with the weather today, really didn't feel like being in the middle of cooking all of this & then have the power conk out on me.

Let's say I was cooking this meal & this happened. What would be the best way to deal with this partially cooked food? Anything besides the trash can?
 
I'd look to finish stuff in my BBQ (gas), but that might not be possible with severe weather either.
 
If the turkey was in mid-saute, I'd just stop it, wrap it and refrigerate it. The same goes for the potatoes and broccoli.
 
If it was nice out Alix, that would be a possibility. In fact we used our grill (charcoal) for cooking during the 4 days we were without power during the last hurricane a couple of years ago.

Right now, however, it's raining so hard it looks like snow, & severe electrical activity, hail, & tornado actitivity is on its away according to the TV news & the internet radar screen. What fun!!

I still have to feed & walk the dogs & feed/water the horses. I am NOT looking forward to this.
 
I have lots of experience cooking like this :ROFLMAO: I would hestitate stopping cooking and putting food in the frig, remember the power would be off and you do not want to open the refrigerator door, let alone put in warm food. I would continue cooking the meal any way possible. I have a gas stove and the gas would still be flowing if the power went off. The bbq/grill was a good idea.
 
Ahh - but I have an electric stove & a charcoal grill.

And, yikes, we've just been told a small tornado is heading our way. What fun!! How long do you think it will take me to get 4 dogs, 6 cats, a cockatoo, & 7 horses into the basement?
 
If you have a tornado (a funnel cloud touching the ground) spotted on the ground and headed your way ... why are you playing around on the Internet? If you have funnel clouds (whirley things that are the same as a tornado but not touching the ground) in your area - why are you playing on the Internet?

A couple of nights ago - the warning time for Anna, TX was about 5 minutes before it hit. After that hit - the folks in Westminster, TX had about a 30 minute warning as the hook in the wall cloud (the area where tornado's are spawned) and the Doppler radar could detect wind sheers approached them. 3 people died, 10 here hospitalized, and 26 homes were destroyed .... and this is a sparsley populated rural community.
 
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Hey - I'm lookin out the window - lol!!!!

This time of year thru October we get these warnings on an almost daily basis. In the 10 years we've been here, I've learned the "real" warning signs & am ready to roll in a minute. If I rolled everyone into the basement everytime a tornado watch was broadcast, I'd need to hire someone because it would be a full-time job.
 
Please be careful Breezy, and keep us posted on your safety. Good luck with all the livestock...sheesh...big basement!
 
BreezyCooking said:
Ahh - but I have an electric stove & a charcoal grill.



Well now, that does present quite a problem. And I can offer no solutions.:( Our electricity goes off so often that we have built in several solutions to deal with it. Such as the gas stove that operates without electricity, wood heat furnace which does utilize a fan but can still be used for heat and cooking, when it is cold!! I keep bread which is easily accessible as well as a soy nut peanut butter spread that does not need refrigeration. We keep about 30 gallons of water in containers in the basement. Our grill is under roof on a side porch. We certainly like our electricity but have limited our dependence on it for the routine outages we experience.:ermm:
 
I saw weather report yesterday and it did look like you were in for some very nasty weather. Hope you made it through okay and shame on you, making your poor hubby stop at a pizza shop. :)
 
Well, we managed to dodge that bullet. Apparently 2 small ones touched down about an hour south of us, but the rest of it passed us by.

We ended up with positively torrential rain & strong winds, then everything went very still & very dark, & then the sun came out. Just in time to have pizza - lol!!
 
I agree with those who have said that tornado (and for that matter, hurricane and blizzard) warnings have become so commonplace these days that if you stopped life for them, you'd never cook anything again. The ability to have these warnings is a blessing, but the best way to deal with them is to have your supplies for them in stock all season, your alternative fuels on-hand, throughout the season. Then just proceed. Pound your cutlets very thin so you have minimal stove time needed. I'm with the group who says to toss 'em out if you have them partially cooked and your electricity is out for more than a half hour or so. But you need to have things like ham, tuna, etc on hand anyway, just substitute. Personally, if I really thought a tornado (hurricane, blizzard) was going to hit, I'd prefer my husband come directly home rather than be wandering around town finding food "just in case" it hits.

If I'd quit cooking every time a hurricane or tornado warning went out in Florida, I wouldn't cook from April through December.

In both Hawaii and Florida when the electricity did go out, I'd cover the pan immediately and leave it on the burner. On electric stoves, the residual heat will easily cook a thin cutlet or chop through, just slower.
 
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