S/O Proud kitchen moments -- Kitchen disasters

[Jones]

Pre-Disaster:  My 13yo, the same one who blew up the well pump yesterday, is attempting to make brownies on his own.  Stay tuned for a future disaster story!

Have Faith!

and gently let him know that disasters are a good learning experience!

Who knows, maybe he's better suited for the kitchen environment.

(waiting for updates!)

Son: Mom, why doesn't this look like it does when you do it?
Me: (looking at the box)  Because you're making chocolate cake, not brownies.

I keep the box stuff on hand for exactly this reason.  It gives the kids some experience with doing stuff on their own, but without the total disaster potential of doing everything completely from scratch.  First rule of baking: read the box/recipe. At least he got the mix put together reasonably well.

I guess we're having cake for dessert.

Heh, my sister was about 14 when she decided to make a casserole for dinner. Pasta, cream soup, tuna fish and cheese; simple. Well, she mixed in the soup with the pasta before pouring off the water. When asked why she hadn't poured off the water, she blankly said "You don't pour it off in Hamburger Helper..."

Yes, her only dinner cooking experience to that point had been HH and similar, and somehow we hadn't mentioned "pouring off water" before that point in time.

[mmswm]

Pre-Disaster:  My 13yo, the same one who blew up the well pump yesterday, is attempting to make brownies on his own.  Stay tuned for a future disaster story!

Have Faith!

and gently let him know that disasters are a good learning experience!

Who knows, maybe he's better suited for the kitchen environment.

(waiting for updates!)

Son: Mom, why doesn't this look like it does when you do it?
Me: (looking at the box)  Because you're making chocolate cake, not brownies.

I keep the box stuff on hand for exactly this reason.  It gives the kids some experience with doing stuff on their own, but without the total disaster potential of doing everything completely from scratch.  First rule of baking: read the box/recipe. At least he got the mix put together reasonably well.

I guess we're having cake for dessert.

Heh, my sister was about 14 when she decided to make a casserole for dinner. Pasta, cream soup, tuna fish and cheese; simple. Well, she mixed in the soup with the pasta before pouring off the water. When asked why she hadn't poured off the water, she blankly said "You don't pour it off in Hamburger Helper..."

Yes, her only dinner cooking experience to that point had been HH and similar, and somehow we hadn't mentioned "pouring off water" before that point in time.

Oh, dear.  Fortunately, I have my act together enough to have had them help me cook "real" food.  My 10 year old is my baker though.  He can do a cheesecake with almost no supervision, though due to the weakness in his wrist,  he does require some assistance in pouring batter into the springform pan and getting it in and out of the oven. The cake, so far, as turned out okay, but now I need to go provide some assistance in turning it out of the pan.

[guihong]

I just had an embarrassment, though thankfully I didn't make a mess or waste food  .

The other day, I bought a new manual can opener advertised as "easy on hands and easy opening".  Tonight, when I tried to open a can of green beans, I nearly took my hand off and mangled much of the lid.  I complained to DH about the "carp" can opener, and why can't advertising be truthful, etc. etc.

DH looked the can opener over, and then said, " Gui, you were holding the opener upside down"  .

[mmswm]

Mini-Disaster.  DS has never attempted to turn a cake out of a pan.  It didn't go well.  I had the foresight to have him do it over a large sheet cake pan, so any mess would be at least partially contained.  This was good planning on my part, as when he turned the pan over, his bottom and slipped and he dropped the cake pan and the cooling rack.  We wound up with a bunch of crumbled cake bits.  Not willing to admit defeat, he made some instant chocolate pudding and served the cake bits with the pudding.  I'd say the whole thing was a success.  We got a tasty dessert out of it, even if we had to go to Plan C to get it.

[Amara]

(Very) sharp knife. Onions. Thumb.

Last week, I was chopping onions when *sliccccce* I somehow get the edge of my left thumb in the way and ... suddenly there is blood everywhere. It was pouring out so fast I had to hold my thumb tightly against the bar soap I keep on the sink because I couldn't let go long enough to get to anything else. I turned the water on intending to wash it then cover it with a clean paper towel until I could get to the bathroom, but the flow was so heavy I couldn't lift my thumb off the soap. Eventually, I did wash it, sort of, then had to struggle to open the cabinet where the paper towels were and tear them off. It took three of them so fast did they get stained.

I went to the bathroom and washed it again. But I couldn't leave the thumb alone long enough to get out a bandage without having blood everywhere. So I heaved a sigh, grabbed a pillowcase within reach and wrapped that around it while I attempted, with one good hand to get the band-aid open. It wasn't easy but I did.

Ultimately, it took those three paper towels, one after the other, one pillowcase (tossed later), and three band-aids, one after the other, before the bleeding slowed to a crawl. The next day I was able to see that I had apparently sliced down around six layers of skin. The wound is not large but it is deep--and unbelievably painful even a week later. In fact, yesterday I thought that if it didn't feel better today, though it looks like it is healing nicely, that I would go to my doctor. But it does feel better even if when I hit the wound against something like the topside of a can, I shriek. Better than last week's screaming in the market when I hit it against a shelf corner, though.

The onions were a total loss.

[Kaora]

Confession time: I once shattered a Pyrex glass measuring cup by idiocy.

I thought, for some dumb reason, I remembered reading about being able to heat up a Pyrex cup, and wanted to boil water in it.

Double Stupid: I forget some basic thermodynamics and took the measuring cup right off the stove burner I had it on.  I was having an extra special day.

Thermal shock set in quick and it shattered in my hand.  I do NOT know how I escaped getting hit by flying shards, but I was scared good.  After the shock, I saw some of the shards were the size of my palm, and they went right by me.

I have no idea, but I thank whoever is watching me it didn't.

This one is gross out: I was also washing dishes in Home Ec class, and heard a crack in the water.  I took my finger out of the water and looked at the new slice bleeding out like "Ooh, that's nifty, how did that happen."

Teacher noticed fairly quickly, told me and my sliced tip of finger to get to the nurse's office.  I ended up with a bandaid on it for a month, and retrained myself to type with nine fingers.  I still don't type with the injured one.

My sister and I once participated in making cookies.  We thought to use parchment paper for them.  We forgot one essential detail, as we started smelling smoke and this burning smell.  Did we mention the cookies baked at 450 F?  Luckily, they were pretty much done, so the cookies were good, but there's a book called Fahrenheit 451 for a reason.

I've also done the run of the mill stupid stuff (boxed pasta, and putting in 2 1/2 cups of water versus a 1/2 cup of water, accidentally putting in a TBSP extra of Crisco (those were some unique tasting cookies), and managed to crisp an easy donut recipe that both my mum and my sister can do.  They're supposed to be soft and fluffy; mine were hard.  Exact same recipe, too.

However, I CAN cook.  When I get it right.  I improved a spaghetti sauce recipe when cooking dinner for my family, and it ended up being the best sauce we ever ate.  You just don't let me bake.

[athersgeo]

I'm a mostly-decent cook. In general, if my recipes don't work, it's usually because the recipe calls for too much spice. However...

1) I'm a great clipper of recipes from newspapers and magazines. This particular one came from a newspaper. It was for an Italian desert that involved some form of grain (I can't remember what it was originally; I ended up having to substitute Quinoa), dried crystalised fruit and milk. It all seemed very simple. I followed the instructions to the letter, and yet...I ended up with about three times as much filling as I should have had, and the end result was sufficiently disgusting, texture-wise, that I couldn't eat more than a mouthful. Ooops...

2) My FSIL is a great sweet baker - mostly in the line of brownies and muffins, but she also does various cakes and whatnot too. My brother has a sweet tooth. So, for Valentine's Day last year she decided to try her hand at Kendal Mint Cake...and set fire to their kitchen. I don't believe any serious damage was done (other than to the pan she'd been using) - but I do know she's never planning to try THAT again!

3) When I was a very, VERY small person, my mother was making chips (fries) in her chip pan. As chip pans are wont to do, the dingdangity thing caught fire. My father's response to this? Sling the whole flaming mass out of the back door and down the back garden...! (Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this one isn't that we didn't burn down either the house or the garden, but the fact that after this mum continued to use a chip pan up until my father died in 2009... And yes, there were a couple of other near-misses with the darn things.)

4) Then there's gone-wrong-again apple sponge - mum decided to make an apple sponge for desert one Sunday lunch. Unfortunately, for reasons that we've never been adequately able to explain, the sponge didn't cook all the way through and was, in fact, quite soggy and batter-like in the middle. Mum was upset. She was even MORE upset when my brother and I demanded she make it go wrong again next time! (One person's kitchen disaster; another person's kitchen triumph...)

5) My late father fancied himself as a cook. And while he didn't do a lot of it in later life, I can remember eating quite a wide variety of dishes on a Saturday night (his night to cook). However, one he never repeated was making Steak and Kidney Pie with stout added to the gravy. He'd had it that way in a high class London restaurant and enjoyed it and thought it would be an okay thing to try at home - and it might have been, had he not used Guinness that was well beyond its use-by date...

6) When I was in my late teens, I worked as a kitchen assistant in a nursing home. The actual chef at the nursing home...wasn't. Notoriously, on one occasion, he made cupcakes that, when dropped, bounced right back up to your hand... Anyway. For the evening meals (which is what I saw to), there was a set of four weekly menus, which we rotated through and generally, chef made whatever it was supposed to be that night and I reheated it. (Or made sandwiches and soup, if that's what the evening called for.) So we get to bubble and squeak night, very early on in my career there. It's in this big, huge tray that has to go into the oven to reheat. I get it in there, stick it on and, fifteen minutes later, as the residents are filing into the dining room, I go to pull it out and...splat. The whole contents of the tray end up on the floor. I am absolutely mortified. One of the nursing staff asks what's happened; I explain. She stares at me for a moment. I think "I'm about to get the sack". Then she says "Wait, he did WHAT?!?" Turns out, what the chef had left me to heat up as bubble and squeak wasn't, in fact, anything remotely like bubble and squeak; it shouldn't have gone in the oven...and any way, none of the residents liked the stuff! I also learned that night that I could make soup and sandwiches for forty people inside fifteen minutes...

The sequel to this occured a month later. Chef had done exactly the same thing for bubble and squeak. When I arrived, one of the nursing staff took me off to one side and said "Don't suppose you could arrange for another accident to happen to the bubble and squeak, could you?" The NEXT month, there was no bubble and squeak on the menu - the nursing staff had finally got it changed!

[Twik]

Not me, but a roommate.

Rice Crispy Squares. A recipe on every box. A recipe, I always thought, that *no* one could mess up. Well, here's how to do it.

1. Go to store for marshmallows and rice crispies. Instead of regular rice crispies, buy the "holiday" kind with tiny green marshmallows already in it as decoration.
2. When mixing the marshmallows and butter together, eat half of the marshmallows, instead of adding them to the mix.
3. Since the melted mixture doesn't look right with half of the marshmallows missing, add 1/2 cup of water "because I think that's what Mom did to make it melt better".
4. Add the hot mixture to the rice crispies. The tiny marshmallows will also start to melt, turning the mixture an interesting blue-green colour, very similar to that found in the mold on month-old leftovers. Or the walking dead.
5. Put the zombie squares in a pan, and let cool.
6. Cut the squares and serve to your friends, who will note that the uncalled-for addition of water has made the square no longer crispy. In fact, the recipe could be renamed Zombie Rice Soggy Squares.
7. Wonder why you get to eat ALL the squares.

[Diane AKA Traska]

Not me, but a roommate.

Rice Crispy Squares. A recipe on every box. A recipe, I always thought, that *no* one could mess up. Well, here's how to do it.

1. Go to store for marshmallows and rice crispies. Instead of regular rice crispies, buy the "holiday" kind with tiny green marshmallows already in it as decoration.
2. When mixing the marshmallows and butter together, eat half of the marshmallows, instead of adding them to the mix.
3. Since the melted mixture doesn't look right with half of the marshmallows missing, add 1/2 cup of water "because I think that's what Mom did to make it melt better".
4. Add the hot mixture to the rice crispies. The tiny marshmallows will also start to melt, turning the mixture an interesting blue-green colour, very similar to that found in the mold on month-old leftovers. Or the walking dead.
5. Put the zombie squares in a pan, and let cool.
6. Cut the squares and serve to your friends, who will note that the uncalled-for addition of water has made the square no longer crispy. In fact, the recipe could be renamed Zombie Rice Soggy Squares.
7. Wonder why you get to eat ALL the squares.

I'm totally making Rice Crispie treats with bluish food coloring for Halloween!

[GreenHall]

Well, I think that beats my Rice VERY Crispy Squares from this weekend.
I LIKE making Rice Crispy treats using the microwave to melt the butter and marshmallows.  This time, the marshmallows weren't looking right, so I added extra time.
Apparently I got the melted marshmallows all the way to hard crack before I started adding the Rice Crispies.
Still tasty, just very very crispy/crunchy.

[jedikaiti]

I am going to be giggling over Zombie Rice Krispie Squares for the rest of the day.

What is Bubble & Squeak?

[Twik]

4) Then there's gone-wrong-again apple sponge - mum decided to make an apple sponge for desert one Sunday lunch. Unfortunately, for reasons that we've never been adequately able to explain, the sponge didn't cook all the way through and was, in fact, quite soggy and batter-like in the middle. Mum was upset. She was even MORE upset when my brother and I demanded she make it go wrong again next time! (One person's kitchen disaster; another person's kitchen triumph...)

Apparently the idea for Molten Chocolate Cake had a very similar genesis, although by a professional chef.

[Thipu1]

I am going to be giggling over Zombie Rice Krispie Squares for the rest of the day.

What is Bubble & Squeak?

When I was a child, Bubble & Squeak was something served on the day or so after a meal of corned beef and cabbage.  Left-over boiled potatoes were mashed up, mixed with left-over cabbage and bits of corned beef. The whole thing was then fried into a cake and served up. 

It was delicious but it was a sure-fire artery killer.  We always assumed that the name of the dish came from reactions of the human digestive tract a few hours after the meal. 

I can understand why this would not be popular with older adults.     

[Snooks]

2) My FSIL is a great sweet baker - mostly in the line of brownies and muffins, but she also does various cakes and whatnot too. My brother has a sweet tooth. So, for Valentine's Day last year she decided to try her hand at Kendal Mint Cake...and set fire to their kitchen. I don't believe any serious damage was done (other than to the pan she'd been using) - but I do know she's never planning to try THAT again!

Isn't Kendal Mint Cake just peppermint creams covered in chocolate?  Where did the fire come from?

[blue2000]

I am going to be giggling over Zombie Rice Krispie Squares for the rest of the day.

What is Bubble & Squeak?

When I was a child, Bubble & Squeak was something served on the day or so after a meal of corned beef and cabbage.  Left-over boiled potatoes were mashed up, mixed with left-over cabbage and bits of corned beef. The whole thing was then fried into a cake and served up. 

It was delicious but it was a sure-fire artery killer.  We always assumed that the name of the dish came from reactions of the human digestive tract a few hours after the meal. 

I can understand why this would not be popular with older adults.     

I've heard it described as fried Brussels sprouts, bacon and potatoes. Supposedly the name is the noise it makes as it is cooking. Your version actually sounds tasty!

But, yes, some people may not be a big fan of that. Especially cold. Eww!