S/O Proud kitchen moments -- Kitchen disasters

[Shalamar]

Ohh, Baby Snake's boyfriend had never had Shephard's Pie before?  Now I get it.  I thought he was surprised to see it made with mashed potatoes, which is the only way I've ever had it.

[pearls n purls]

I bought shepherd's pie at a deli before.  Instead of mashed potatoes, it had some sort of weird bread on top.  Not good.

This isn't so much a disaster, but I find it funny.  When I was a teenager, I decided to make a dessert.  The recipe called for mixing whipping cream with sugar.  The only type of whipped cream I had been exposed to was cool whip, so I emptied the tub of cool whip into a mixing bowl and mixed it with sugar.  It made it a little bit grainy, but it didn't ruin the dessert.

[Baby Snakes]

Ohh, Baby Snake's boyfriend had never had Shephard's Pie before?  Now I get it.  I thought he was surprised to see it made with mashed potatoes, which is the only way I've ever had it.

Maybe I need to clarify a bit.  My husband (then boyfriend) and I are American so Shepherd's Pie is not well known here.  I learned how to make it from my Irish mom.

[pierrotlunaire0]

There was the year I was going to make Stollen for Christmas.  I start Christmas Eve, making the dough while staying at my parent's house, the coldest, draftiest house in the world.  It. would. not. rise.  I had to resort to setting the oven to 150, let the door open a few inches, and then placing the dough inside.  It finally rose.

But it been 2 hours by this point, and it just was not a happy dough.  Then, when forming the dough, I was supposed to form 2 braids and pinch them together.  Somehow, one braid was enormous, and the other was tiny.  When I set the small one on top of the large, it looked like an airplane propeller made out of braided dough.

Okay, it is finally done, and although rather propeller like, it smelled good.  I turned my head for a second, and the cat decides to check it out.  So, little kitty nibble marks on one of the propeller blades.  Chase her away, slice away kitty nibble marks, and decide to place it in the oven overnight, with some saran wrap on it.

In the morning, my father decides to turn on the oven first thing (why? - to this day no one knows), and only the smell of saran wrap starting to meld onto it warns us.  But it is on the other propeller, so it is balanced.  We sliced off that.

And after all of that: it was meh.  Not horrible, not great, and certainly not worth the work that went into it.

[lilfox]

Ohh, Baby Snake's boyfriend had never had Shephard's Pie before?  Now I get it.  I thought he was surprised to see it made with mashed potatoes, which is the only way I've ever had it.

Maybe I need to clarify a bit.  My husband (then boyfriend) and I are American so Shepherd's Pie is not well known here.  I learned how to make it from my Irish mom.

At least your Shepherd's Pie was done with the typical ingredients.  What I grew up calling "Shepherd's Pie" is better described as layered turkey casserole (turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, usually Thanksgiving leftovers).  I have no idea why my family called it that - we're all Americans - but it would have come as a big surprise to any UK folks.

I destroyed a roommate's pot once when I put on one serving of pasta to boil and then wandered out to the living room and called my mom while I was waiting.  An hour later I remembered to check...  totally scorched the bottom but fortunately had not yet caught fire.

[mmswm]

It is possible to utterly and completely destroy an All-Clad pan.  Lilfox's pasta story reminded me of my oldest son's attempt to cook grits when he was 11.  He put everything together like he was supposed to, but then got distracted for deity knows how long. I was outside working in the yard and came into flames shooting up out of the pan from the burning grits.  He learned his lesson about paying attention when he's cooking.

[jpcher]

Did you know that hard-boiled eggs can explode?

Yup. They can.

Here's the recipe -- put eggs in a pot of boiling water. Take a 3 hour nap. Wake up to loud popping sounds shortly followed by wrath-of-wife and a particularly rancid stench in the air. Enjoy!;D


-- Courtesy of my BIL

[JenJay]

Apparently shortly after my parents were married my Mom decided to cook her new husband his favorite breakfast which included crisp bacon. The story goes that Mom had never made bacon before so she fried and fried it, waiting for it to get crispy. Dad came running when the smoke alarm started screaming and explained to her that the bacon gets crispy after it's been removed from the pan, unfortunately it was far too late for the blackened strips she'd made. 

My favorite story to tell on DH (A truly good cook who, to my envy, can create yummy dishes without recipes and correct a recipe beautifully by taste) decided to make orange chicken, except we were out of orange juice, so he used Sunny Delight. It was equal parts sickeningly sweet and bitter.

I have a lovely memory of deciding to make my family a cake from scratch when I was about 10. I recall it was a bit lopsided but pretty good. My Mom, however, recalls that it was extremely dense and chewy, tasted like dust, and she had to shush my brother when he took one bite and said "What is wrong with this?!"

[mmswm]

My father's favorite story to tell about my mother:

My mother grew up as the oldest of 6 kids: 3 girls and 3 boys.  For a good portion of those years, her parents also cared for some weirdly related sibling group of five, so the household contained 11 kids and two adults.  My mother was responsible for all of the cooking until she got married and moved out of the house. This is the story of their very first meal as a married couple.

My mother was 17 and fresh out of HS.  Quite freshly out, actually.  My father had picked her up on the last day of school and they drove to Charleston, SC, the nearest place with a 24 hour judge that would allow a 17yo to get married without parental consent, got married at 3am and then found a hotel room.  The next day mom found a small apartment while dad found a job.  Both were successful.  Mom wanted to make the meal special, so when they met for lunch and exchanged the good news, she walked to the grocery store while dad got his few friends in the area to help him find some cheap, temporary furniture.  She got to their new apartment and started cooking.  She was cooking what she thought was a small meal. This small meal included:

-10lbs of mashed potatoes
-5lbs of meatloaf
-6 ears of corn
-a 6qt stock pot of collard greens.

Yup, plenty of food for two.

[Thipu1]

Like the Shepherd's Pie story, this isn't quite a disaster but it's funny.

My mother and father were married when Dad was on leave during WWII.  She lived with her parents for the duration and didn't do much cooking because she worked in a defense plant. 

  When Dad got out of the Army and the couple set up housekeeping, my mother wanted to make a special meal for her new DH.  She knew that he loved beef stew and found a good recipe.  The only problem was that it contained peas and DH did NOT like peas. 

She made the stew without the offending vegetable and proudly served it in their brand-new home.  Her DH was appropriately appreciative.

'Gee, honey.  If this had peas it would be just like the stew we got in the Army'.   

[jedikaiti]

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

I would have eaten that dinner happily, even if everyone could smell me for blocks.  I LOVE garlic.

Not mine, but my daughter's.  To be fair, she was only 14 at the time.  She planned to make mashed potatoes, so she peeled the spuds and got out the masher.  I said "Where's your pot of boiling water?  Haven't you started it yet?"  "Boiling water?  What do I need that for?"  "Um ... to cook the potatoes."  "I have to COOK them, TOO?"

I have a sensitivity to raw garlic and onions... love them cooked in food, but some (most) days even being around while they're being sliced and diced burns my nose and gives me a headache. So when cooking with onion & garlic, I buy jars of minced garlic, and dried diced onions; as a result, I measure garlic in spoonfuls rather than cloves.

One day I saw Alton Brown making chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, and thought it looked good. Mom & Dad bought me a crock pot that Christmas, and the little recipe book that came with it had a recipe, so I figured I'd give it a go, and make chicken with 40 cloves in the crock pot for dinner.

Problem 1: I never cook with whole chicken, and it didn't occur to me to thaw it beforehand. Sure, normally I'd thaw chicken before cooking, but usually I'm not putting chicken into a crock pot for a whole day. Bird wouldn't even fit, so I ran down to the store and got a whole chicken, not frozen, and cut into pieces. Much better.

Problem 2: I had NO IDEA how many cloves were in a bulb of garlic. So I guesstimated. I looked at a bulb, figured there were maybe 5 or 6 cloves to a bulb (imagining each clove was a wedge going from center to edge, much like a piece of pie), and bought quite a few bulbs of garlic. Even once I realized the error, well, they seemed really small. So I figured I should use extra.

The end result was a very tasty, tender, moist chicken that made all who consumed it walking vampire slayers. My breath after that dinner could kill Dracula at 100 yards. Thankfully, Dad was a good sport and Mom loves garlic.

The next day - after the leftovers had been sitting in garlic flavor in the fridge overnight - that tasty chicken made my tongue and lips tingle. I didn't dare eat any more after that.

[jedikaiti]

My father is a notable cook.  He is perhaps most notable for his blueberry-buckwheat pancakes, which are speckled gray all over with occasional blackened bits and taste like plastic, and for his hot-dogs-and-rice.  Did you know that cooking rice and hot dogs in the same dish results in pink rice?  The flavor is... indescribable.

The incident that has gone down in family legend, however, is the time my father received a bread machine for Christmas.  While he had never given any indication that he wanted a bread machine, when his friend mailed one to him, he was delighted.  So delighted that he insisted on using it RIGHT THAT SECOND.  The fact that we did not have bread-making ingredients did not slow him down in the slightest.  He was perfectly happy to use half whole-wheat flour and half cake flour, substitute baking powder for baking soda, use the leftover margarine when he didn't have enough butter, and when he ran out of margarine, the last teaspoon was olive oil.  Oh, and the yeast packet that had been unearthed from the spice drawer was listed "best used by [three years ago]." (Note: it's Christmas Day, so no stores are open.)

He assembled everything in the bread machine and turned it on.  The machine whirred quietly to itself, mixing the ingredients, and then paused to let the dough rise.  By the time the dough had risen, we had almost forgotten it was there, but when the machine started to knead the dough, we were reminded.  The poor machine started kneading with a gentle "wum... wum... wum..." sound, but soon changed to "wum...  wuuuumm... WUUM... WUUUeeeeem... WUU *CRACK!*"  At that point, it became completely silent, but the "baking" light turned on.

Two hours later, the house was filled with a not-unpleasant, but not-bread-like smell.  The machine gasped that it was finished, and Dad proudly got out a bread knife and the jam.  After about five minutes of swearing, a football-sized and -colored mass fell out of the bread machine onto the counter with a clunk.  The assembled family began giggling.  Dad tried to cut a slice of bread, but even with the bread knife was completely unable to penetrate the crust.  At one point, the loaf slipped out of his hands and fell on the floor with a noise approximately equivalent to that of a textbook being dropped from the same height.  The family by now was laughing out loud.  Dad expressed his firm desire to have a piece of that bread, and got out the hacksaw.  Ten minutes later, we were able to stop our hysterical laughter enough to prevent him from getting the hatchet, and someone hid the chainsaw.

The loaf, with a slightly scratched crust, retired in victory.  The bread machine disappeared into the attic, never to be seen again.  Dad will not allow discussion of his baking skills at any holiday gathering.

I'm not done reading this thread yet, but you win. I couldn't hit reply until I'd taken a few minutes to calm down, start breathing again, and could stop crying enough to see the screen. Still blurry, but I can see.

I am going to be giggling at this one for a WEEK!

[ladyknight1]

I tried making sugar free flapjacks (oat cookies) for my DFIL who loves them but is diabetic.  So I replaced the brown sugar and golden syrup with Splenda and black treacle.  They looked ok, they smelt ok and until you swallowed they tasted ok....and then came the aftertaste.  If evil had a taste then this was it.  My DH is well known for eating anything and everything and even he managed one bite.  Never, ever again.
Snip

Oh, do I sympathize with that.

[ladyknight1]

There was also the great barley inundation.

We were going to make a beef and barley soup.  I had to work and, since Mr. Thipu had the day off,  he said he'd make it.  We'd made soups together before and this recipe was quite similar. All seemed well.

There was one thing I hadn't counted on and that proved to be the problem. 

The soup we made together was a pea soup.  A batch used the entire pound bag of split peas.  For the barley soup, a third of a cup is usually enough. 

You guessed it.  Mr.Thipu used the entire pound bag of barley.  When I got home from work, the pot was absolutely choked with the stuff.  The lid was starting to pop up.  The dish wasn't soup anymore.  It was a beef and vegetable flavored barley. 

It wasn't bad but we were eating barley as a side dish and for breakfast for almost a week.

This happened on Friday to us! I had prepared the soup and asked DS to add the barley and peas. He added the whole box. DH used the salad spinner to get the broth out of some and salvaged the soup.

[gramma dishes]

This happened on Friday to us! I had prepared the soup and asked DS to add the barley and peas. He added the whole box. DH used the salad spinner to get the broth out of some and salvaged the soup.

Now THAT'S creative thinking!!