S/O Proud kitchen moments -- Kitchen disasters

[jpcher]

The very first time that I invited my parents to dinner after I got married (toEx) when I was 21 years old.

I bought a corned beef, fixings for a potato salad (my fathers favorite, I really wanted to impress him with this) and fresh green beans. Cheese and crackers for apps, homemade apple pie for dessert (why oh why did I even attempt this? My mom makes the best apple pie in the world!)

The corned beef was sooo undercooked (I boiled it) it could have been used for a bouncey-ball.

The potato salad -- I bought the wrong potatoes (baking instead of red) which I boiled to death so the salad turned out more like mushy potato soup.

The green beans were probably the most edible thing on the table, even though they were overdone.

Apple pie? Probably maybe might have turned out okay? I put it in the oven before the meal started so that it would be hot and fresh for dessert. I forgot to set the timer. Yup. Burnt to a crisp.


My parents were extremely gracious.

Ex was extremely . . . well, let's not go there.

I never wanted to go into a kitchen again.



Do you have any kitchen disaster stories?

[happygrrl]

The first time I cooked corn on the cob, I boiled it for 2  1/2 hours.

I had to call my mom to ask how to hard boiled eggs. (Swear this is true!! I didn't know if you started with cold water, or boiled the water and then put the eggs in)

And the time of the tuna on the ceiling......and the grape juice on the ceiling.......

[gramma dishes]

One of my first meals for my husband was an Italian dish.  I'm not Italian.  I had never cooked with certain specific ingredients before.

Recipe called for a minced clove of garlic.  I didn't know what a clove of garlic was, so I dutifully minced what I had (which took FOREVER!!) and confidently added it to the dish.

Now I know the difference between a garlic clove and a garlic bulb.   

[mmswm]

Oh, boy.  Where do I start. I'm a reasonably decent cook.  One of the ways one becomes a good cook is to experiment and actually try to expand your horizons. Of course things will go wrong from time to time.  Actually, I recently consoled a 20 year old woman when she had an Alfredo disaster, telling her a few of my kitchen horror stories. Ruining a few meals is part of learning how to cook.

So here are a few of my favorites...

I once blew up a pyrex pan while baking chicken.  And by "blow up" I mean 10 thousand little pieces that also managed to break the glass window in the oven.

While cooking fried potatoes, I got the oil too hot and didn't dry the potatoes enough.  This is a bad combination.  I wound up with third degree burns on my left hand from the splattering oil.

While attempting to prepare a white gravy, I accidentally mixed up the corn starch and the flour.  Glue, anyone?

[pierrotlunaire0]

I once had a roommate who decided to make stuffed eggplant.  Instead of olive oil, or even just a plain cooking oil, she scooped out the flesh, and sauteed it in toasted sesame seed oil.  It has been my experience that eggplant acts like a sponge, and boy did it that day.  She used an entire bottle of sesame seed oil (2 cups or so).  The end result was ghastly.  All you could taste was the sesame seem oil, and at that level of concentration, it was more like crankcase oil.

A lot of expensive ingredients (well, for us, we were broke college students), and it was some kind of sludge scooped out of a diesel engine.

[BabylonSister]

I've done the blow up pan too.  Mine was with crème brûlée.  For months I kept finding little bits of glass in my kitchen.


One thing I tried and failed: ravioli.  I couldn't flatten my dough enough and I made some awfully doughy ravioli with only very little filling inside.  That was gross. 


Once, my ex went to get the groceries and he brought back Swiss steak.  I looked online how to make it and it said to braise it.  It turned out very hard and chewy.


My worst disaster however was last year, when my freezer that was full of food came unplugged in the summer and I didn't notice until a few days later because of the smell.  I had to throw away so much food.    I also had a hard time getting the stink out of my freezer, despite lots of baking soda.

[otterwoman]

*snip*

So here are a few of my favorites...

I once blew up a pyrex pan while baking chicken.  And by "blow up" I mean 10 thousand little pieces that also managed to break the glass window in the oven.

That might not have been your doing. There are many reports of the newer Pyrex baking dishes exploding. Did you report that to the CPSC?

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/january/home-garden/glass-cookware/glass-cookware/index.htm

[KenveeB]

Not my story, but my favorite of my mom's: When she was newly married, she decided to make rice pudding. She was upset because it came out so runny, but my dad dutifully ate what his new bride gave him. A few months later, someone at work was talking about her rice pudding recipe. She said, "And then you bake it at--" Mom interrupted, "You bake it?"

Yup, she served my dad raw rice pudding.

And he ate it!

[BabylonSister]

You don't have to bake rice pudding.


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

[MorgnsGrl]

Finished putting the last of the ingredients for a crock of homemade chili into the pot. Turned to grab the glass lid and put it on -- clipped the edge of the lid on the edge of the crock and the lid shattered into a million shards of glass. Half of them went into the crock all over the food, the rest went into the stovetop and onto the floor. I had to throw out the food, obviously, and spend ages cleaning up broken glass, and I was so mad that I'd ruined dinner with one careless move.

[KenveeB]

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.

[turtleIScream]

I am not the world's best meal preparer (although I am getting much better). I can cook individual elements well, and even pair dishes, but am not great at planning and timing everything to come together. My husband used to joke that if I said we were having pork for dinner, that's exactly what we here having and nothing more.

One day, I was so proud of myself. The spaghetti sauce was simmering, the pasta boiling, broccoli steaming, and salad was chilling in the fridge. Everything was coming together for a full meal. Pasta was done, so I carried the pot over and dumped it in the colander. Colander tipped in the sink, and my entire batch of pasta went down the disposal.

[BabylonSister]

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.

He ate her uncooked rice? Now that's love.

[MrsCrazyPete]

Not my story, but my favorite of my mom's: When she was newly married, she decided to make rice pudding. She was upset because it came out so runny, but my dad dutifully ate what his new bride gave him. A few months later, someone at work was talking about her rice pudding recipe. She said, "And then you bake it at--" Mom interrupted, "You bake it?"

Yup, she served my dad raw rice pudding.

And he ate it!

Not my story, but it's a good one! My old roommate was having some kind of potluck at work and everyone was required to bring something. Since he wasn't a great chef (or even a good one) he went to the store and bought one of those frozen apple pies. And took it work in the box. Where it sat in his desk for five hours until potluck time. And he proudly served up a half thawed, squishy, soggy, cold apple pie.  This happened several years ago and I still tease him about it.

[TylerBelle]

Wanted to be like those chefs on tv, though didn't have parchment paper to line baking sheet, so I thought surely wax paper could substitute. Uhh... didn't work near as well as hoped .