Respect the mandoline

Everyone warned me, but did I listen? Yeah, I did. I just figured I would be careful and I'd be OK. Wrong.

So anyway, I sliced off the end of my finger with the mandoline. Here's how it happened, and the lessons to be learned. Don't worry, there won't be any pictures, except this one:

It's the *ring* finger - I'm not flipping the bird. Yes, my awesome wife decorated it as a Jayne hat.

I had a big cut of beef, partially thawed, which I intended to cut thin and make jerky. Problem is, I hadn't cut off all the gristle on the edges, and it was a little too solid still, so it wouldn't go through the mandoline easily like it's supposed to.

I thought if I just sliced off that gristle, it would go better, and so I was pressing a little too hard, and... I don't remember if my hand slipped, or the meat, but it doesn't matter. I slipped, and I was looking at a little piece of skin lying on the cutting board and a chunk missing out of my ring finger.

Could have been a lot worse, really. It was a clean cut, small, didn't hit any bone or finger nail. I applied pressure, elevated, wrapped it, and sought medical attention. (In case you're ever in this situation, that's what to do. BTW, no, they can't reattach your missing bits.) I could have cut a lot more, or a lot more deeply. It's going to be fine.

Lessons learned:

1. Everything going through the mandoline should fly through it with ease. If it doesn't, just don't use it! Simple as that. If you're having to apply any real pressure, you have a chance of slipping like I did. It's not worth the risk.
2. Do all your modifications before you put something through the mandoline (before freezing if it's meat). It's just there to make little slices. It's not for detail work.

I think this can still be used safely, just with great caution. One of my friends recommended these cut-resistant gloves. I think I'll get some - could be useful for all kinds of cutting.

Fun with the dehydrator

I tried dehydrating a bunch of things over the weekend: sweet potatoes, apples, and beef. Results were mixed.

First of all, I take back what I said about the mandoline not being good at slicing sweet potatoes. That was because those ones had been sitting in our kitchen for months getting dried out and tough. When I sliced up fresh sweet potatoes, it was no problem.

I seasoned some only with salt, some with salt and cinnamon, and some with salt+cinnamon+cayenne (I like it hot). All got a little olive oil sprayed lightly on top of the spices. They dried up nicely. If I left the skin on, the edges were curled up in a pretty way. But I overdid the salt on all of them, and I didn't really care for the texture on any of them - I guess I'm expecting sweet potato chips like the ones that get fried in oil. Doesn't seem to be a way to make that with a dehydrator. Also, when I left them out for a few hours after drying them, they sucked up some moisture and were basically limp leather. Not too tasty.

They looked pretty good and were crispy... at first.

So, I moved on to apples. I think it's pretty hard to go wrong with apples. I had four different kinds of apples; I think the Granny Smith, Fuji, and Gala came out well, with Braeburn a little lackluster. For these, I threw together a little seasoning including lemon juice, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. The sliced apples were in this for a few hours while I did other things.

On top I left one row of plain apples for comparison. Two trays below were flavored. Didn't feel a need to peel any of them - good nutrients in those peels!

I also blended up some apples (peeled this time) and some pears with a teaspoon of cinnamon in the food processor so I could dry them into "fruit leather" (somewhat like Fruit Roll-ups, except without adding weird stuff to the fruit).

Pear-apple-cinnamon blend on the mat