S/O Proud kitchen moments -- Kitchen disasters

[drzim]

I admit that I am very amused by the fact that the kitchen disasters thread is much longer than the kitchen "successes" thread!

My most memorable was the time I wanted to cook breakfast for my mom on mother's day morning.  I had a recipe for cinnamon rolls all picked out from my Betty Crocker cookbook.  Alas, I was only 8 so my dad had to be involved.  Apparently, no one told him that there is a difference between baking powder and baking soda.  We ended up with hockey pucks that tasted horrible.

[Elfmama]

I don't know what I did to ruin the gingerbread muffins that I made, but I suspect that I left out the baking soda, because they didn't rise.  At all.  Not done in the middle either, IIRC.  I cut them into slices, put them back into the oven at about 175^oF, and left them there until they were hard as rocks.

The dog thought they were the best treats ever. 

[Katana_Geldar]

I've managed to get making pastry in the food processor so that it's as good as store bought pastry!

Now it's great for my juices and pies.

[Nikko-chan]

I don't know what I did to ruin the gingerbread muffins that I made, but I suspect that I left out the baking soda, because they didn't rise.  At all.  Not done in the middle either, IIRC.  I cut them into slices, put them back into the oven at about 175^oF, and left them there until they were hard as rocks.

The dog thought they were the best treats ever. 

See I don't think that was a disaster... you at least got treats out of it for your pooch! What would have really been a disaster is if they would have burned!

[Elfmama]

I don't know what I did to ruin the gingerbread muffins that I made, but I suspect that I left out the baking soda, because they didn't rise.  At all.  Not done in the middle either, IIRC.  I cut them into slices, put them back into the oven at about 175^oF, and left them there until they were hard as rocks.

The dog thought they were the best treats ever. 

See I don't think that was a disaster... you at least got treats out of it for your pooch! What would have really been a disaster is if they would have burned!

My mother burned waffles once.  Mom usually burned the first one of a batch, but this time she really outdid herself.  Even the dog wouldn't eat it -- he gave it decent burial in the back yard.

[Mediancat]

My disaster, which is fairly minor, involved making some italian bread sticks. I took bread sticks, brushed them with melted butter, then sprinkled italian seasoning, red pepper and what I thought was garlic on top, then baked them.

They came out nice and golden brown. I had some marinara sauce ready to dip them in. One bite; two bites; okay, what's wrong --

Oh.

What I had thought was garlic powder, turned out to be cinnamon sugar. Cinnamon sugar, red pepper and italian seasoning breadsticks, dipped in marinara, is not tasty.

Rob

[Thipu1]

The cinnamon sugar story reminds me of something that was carried down in our family for years. 

My mother learned to make her spaghetti sauce from an Italian neighbor.  It was a tasty sauce but something was a little off. When I went off on my own, I figured it out. 

When she was told the recipe, Mom wrote it down.  The recipe called for 'three cloves of garlic'.  Mom heard the 'three cloves' but she didn't hear the 'garlic'.  As a result, our home-made spaghetti sauce always included whole cloves but no garlic.

[Outdoor Girl]

That's funny!  But the flavour isn't so off.  My chili recipe calls for whole cloves.

[Nikko-chan]

You don't have to bake rice pudding.


http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-rice-pudding/

That's cooked, just not baked. Hers was assembled, not cooked.

Wait... you mean she served your dad raw rice? As in... still crunchy?

And that in itself reminds me of a story I have probably told on Ehell before. My grandmother loved to experiment with food. So she finds this recipe for angel hair nests... that have to be fried. You can see where this is going. Of course, grandma, being an experimenter, always knew that things did not always come out right, and every time she experimented and invited her daughters and their significant others over for dinner, she always made sure to have a pot of her delicious sauce on the stove, just in case.

This angel nest recipe was a failure. No one liked it. At all. It was crunchy and greasy... all plates were promptly taken away and replaced with lovely angel hair pasta slathered in grandma's sauce. All but one plate. You see, my mother had also brought her S/O that day. My father. He was very new to the family, and insisted upon eating the angel hair nest.

One can just imagine how that went. *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH*

Later my father told me he did it because he was the newest one in the family and he wanted to impress my grandmother!

My response to him? "Her own daughters refused to eat it! Heck, she didn't even eat it, it was that bad!"

eta the story of my grandmothers kitchen disaster.

[Thipu1]

That's funny!  But the flavour isn't so off.  My chili recipe calls for whole cloves.

Hmmm. We'll have to try that.  Mr. Thipu's patented chili includes a small block of unsweetened chocolate to even out the flavors.  Cloves could add a nice touch.  Thank you, Outdoor Girl. 

[siamesecat2965]

That's funny!  But the flavour isn't so off.  My chili recipe calls for whole cloves.

Hmmm. We'll have to try that.  Mr. Thipu's patented chili includes a small block of unsweetened chocolate to even out the flavors.  Cloves could add a nice touch.  Thank you, Outdoor Girl.

The only spice in my sauce recipe is allspice. Its ground beef, dried mushrooms, red wine, allspice, and canned tomato sauce and water, and you cook it down until thick. It has a unique flavor, but its good! Came from a famous Italian restaurant in San Francisco, not sure which one, but Tony Bennett was supposedly a regular.

[blueyzca01]

Fior d’Italia on Mason Street?

[siamesecat2965]

Fior d’Italia on Mason Street?

YES! How did you know that? once I saw it, I recognized the name. My mom was living there in the late 50's/early 60's, and if I remember, someone she knew was married or related to, one of the chef's, adn that's how she got the recipe.

[o_gal]

When she was told the recipe, Mom wrote it down.  The recipe called for 'three cloves of garlic'.  Mom heard the 'three cloves' but she didn't hear the 'garlic'.  As a result, our home-made spaghetti sauce always included whole cloves but no garlic.

We have a family recipe for what we call "Unga". We have no idea whether the name is correct, or got mangled through the years. Most of my paternal grandmother's family was from areas in Hungary and Romania and we've been told that it's most likely Hungarian in origin. The original recipe is to cook together tomatoes, onions, salt, pepper, ground beef, and whole cloves (in a tea ball or cheesecloth so you can easily remove them.) It makes a very thin sauce that we serve over pasta.

Mom's version added green peppers. I took that and added garlic, to bring Thipu's story full circle. And now I think I'm going to make Unga for dinner sometime this weekend 

[robobecky]

This was more annoying than a disaster, but anyway.  I tried to make pizza today for lunch.  Normally I'm a pretty good cook and baker, but not today.  I used the flour that was in the canister and that I thought was whole wheat all purpose flour.  Pretty sure I used whole wheat pastry flour instead.  The result was....not good.  I really need to start labeling canisters.  All purpose flour and pastry flour look really similar!  So delivery for lunch it is.

Another disaster was when I tried to make chili.  It was a recipe I used before and it was great.  Not this time.  I forgot to soak the black beans ahead of time and gave them a very brief soak and cook which didn't work, then the zucchini I had had rotted, so I had to throw it out, and then I burned the chili.  I ended up throwing the whole mess out in the end as it was just gross.  I don't think I've ever messed up a recipe that spectacularly before.  Luckily its not a very labor intensive recipe so its not as if I threw out hours of hard work, it was mostly just upsetting that I wasted all that food.