S/O Proud kitchen moments -- Kitchen disasters

[KB]

That puts me in mind of my mother-in-law's gravy.  Her gravy is absolutely horrible.  It's basically just skimmed-off fat, with no thickener or seasoning added at all.  At my first Thanksgiving dinner, she asked if I'd like some.  Because I love gravy and I didn't know what hers was like, I happily said yes - and watched in horror as liquid fat was poured all over my dinner.   

My grandmother used to make gravy by washing the cooked roast under hot water with the gravy boat standing underneath it in the sink. That was your gravy. *shudder*

[Diane AKA Traska]

That puts me in mind of my mother-in-law's gravy.  Her gravy is absolutely horrible.  It's basically just skimmed-off fat, with no thickener or seasoning added at all.  At my first Thanksgiving dinner, she asked if I'd like some.  Because I love gravy and I didn't know what hers was like, I happily said yes - and watched in horror as liquid fat was poured all over my dinner.   

My grandmother used to make gravy by washing the cooked roast under hot water with the gravy boat standing underneath it in the sink. That was your gravy. *shudder*

Th--  I'm having difficulty thoughting... brain is trying to flee after eyes reported that...

[snowfire]

^  My stomach just grabbed its passport and headed away at high speed.

Both of those awful excuses for gravy....SHUDDER!

[gingerzing]

Haven't made it through all of these, but wanted to share a couple of mine.  FTR - I have been in the kitchen (with Mom or Grandmas) since I was "knee high to a grasshopper" and cooking on my own pretty much since I was 10ish.   I have had my share of not enough water in the pan and overcooked something or others. 

The first summer that I worked as a cook in a summer camp kitchen.  We cooked about 3/4 of the food - including bread and baked goodies - by scratch. 
It was the first day and we (the full kitchen staff of 6) needed to get the meal made for the staff lunch. So before the tour of the kitchen we were cooking.  I had been put in charge of carrot cake.  I dislike eating carrot cake, but was fine making it.  I followed the directions to the T since I had not done large batch baking/cooking before.  While weighing out the dry ingredients, I thought that the flour had a bit funny in texture but had been told that they used commodity flour so just thought it was a different quality than I was use to.  The kitchen manager (KM) decided to wait until my cakes came out of the oven before we did the big tour. (we had the main kitchen, but also a downstairs storage area and packout room to inspect.)  My cakes came out of the oven and I was horrified that they were so flat.  KM said that we would check over the recipe after the tour to make sure that I had not forgotten anything like the baking powder.   As we were going around the different stations of the kitchen, we stopped just before getting to the baking area to a bin under the scale that I had used for weighing the dry ingredients. 
"This is the Non-Fat Dried Milk that we use to make the hot chocolate/cocoa in the mornings..."  As KM went on with that explanation, my eyes got really big and I almost burst into tears.  "KM?  I know what I did."
Yep, I hadn't realized that the flour was over with the sugar (second bin next to it) and had thought that the NFD Milk was flour.  So, basically I made a pudding cake.  The camp director and most of the staff thought it was really moist.  SIGH.    It was a story mentioned even in my two summers as the assistant kitchen manager.

[Browyn]

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.

I grew up in Massachusetts, Shepards pie is very well known and on a lot of pub menu's; however, we have a lot of people of irish decent (including me) in the northeast.

[lilfox]

Oh, bad gravy stories.  I went to Thanksgiving dinner once at a friend's, and her gravy was watery fatty broth.  She said she did everything correctly (added flour/cold water mixture while the pan drippings were bubbling) and it never thickened.  It was ... unfortunate.

I only recently learned how to make gravy from scratch - always used the jar or canned stuff, and I still keep a stash handy since my gravy can be hit or miss in terms of tastiness.

[ladyknight1]

My FIL, who is an excellent cook, buys jarred gravy. *Shudders*

I would love to invite all the people who have been victimized by bad gravy to a meal at my place. I can make awesome gravy from anything, as long as meat or mushrooms are involved.

[Carotte]

Yeah, I did not burn my chili con carne today!
I have a bad habit at my new home with this stove+those pans (so my SO stove and pans) to turn it too high and forget about the things that have to cook for a long time. That being mostly my SO famous paste sauce, that, last time, ended up with a good thick burned bottom.

Anyway, since I went grocery shopping without seeing first what kind of spices we had I went the easy way and bought a pre made mix that turned to be a tad too spicy for me. So question, what can I add to tune down the spiciness?
The only 'stand alone' spice I had was curcumin, I added a bit of it but didn't want to mess around too much.

I ended up adding a small piece of dark chocolate in my bowl during diner, it wasn't bad and helped with the spicy, but I'm not sure my SO would like the taste if I do it for the batch.

[Outdoor Girl]

A little sugar might tone it down.  I'd try it in a separate bowl before adding it to the whole batch.

[ladyknight1]

Dairy is my go-to for overly spicy food. Sour cream and or cheese work well.

[missanpan]

Dairy is my go-to for overly spicy food. Sour cream and or cheese work well.

Ha, this reminds me of my sister's kitchen disaster.

Once she made a batch of curry but couldn't understand why it was so tasteless. So she kept adding a chili powder. It kept getting hotter but still no taste. Then she realized that she forgot the salt. She didn't want to throw out her curry so kept eating it but with a glass of milk. She had to eventually throw it out because she ran out of milk.

[gramma dishes]

Yeah, I did not burn my chili con carne today!
... what can I add to tune down the spiciness? ...

I did that once with an overdose of a new name brand of strong chili powder and I just added a little tomato juice.  It didn't exactly tone it down, but it did dilute it a little so it didn't seem so strong.

[greencat]

I neglected to account for all the sources of salt going into a casserole and added extra salt to it.  I had to toss it out because it just wasn't edible.

I did the same thing to a much lesser degree making paella - I used cooking wine in the pre-seasoned rice and forgot that both of those things are salted already.  That was still edible though.

I had more of a kitchen mishap than a disaster.  A small sheet of dough for cinnamon rolls does not need an entire stick of butter to make the cinnamon filling.  I ended up making kind of a cinnamon strudel? when the dough wasn't enough to contain the filling and kind of fell apart around it when I tried to roll it.  I just plopped it into a square glass pan and baked it that way and then cut it into squares at the end - still tastes good!

[siamesecat2965]

Not too bad of a disaster but I wanted to make jambalaya from scratch. However, I neglected to taste the andouille before adding it in, and it was QUITE spicy. So i proceeded to make it, and with that, and the other sprices, the end result was it was almost too spicy to eat. My eyes were watering and my mouth burning.  It did mellow a bit over time, but next time I made it I cut back on the spices and it was fine.

[Dazi]

Not too bad of a disaster but I wanted to make jambalaya from scratch. However, I neglected to taste the andouille before adding it in, and it was QUITE spicy. So i proceeded to make it, and with that, and the other sprices, the end result was it was almost too spicy to eat. My eyes were watering and my mouth burning.  It did mellow a bit over time, but next time I made it I cut back on the spices and it was fine.

Quick tip.  If this ever happens again, make a batch of plain boiled rice and add it into the jambalya.  It should tone it down.  Another option is to add shredded cheese to it (while it's not the "proper"way to serve, is tasty).