Dinner gone bad

[chickwhorips]

so tonight was my first night that i made dinner and it really didn't turn out at all and that's being nice about it. be it luck or something else, every other dinner i've ever made turned out. i didn't know what to do. BF invited a co-worker over for dinner too. i feel like a complete @$$ for how it didn't turn out and how i reacted.

if anyone is wondering i attempted to make a new stew recipe and it turned out WAY WAY to salty. i just followed the recipe and worked so hard on it. i was devistated and all i could do from crying is not say a word. which probably didn't help either, didn't look so good infront of company.

i'm sure i'm not the only one in this boat, but i still feel bad about it. i'll be able to laugh about it sometime in the future, i'm having a hard time doing that right now. i just feel like its all my fault. i take so much pride in my cooking and i feel like a total failure. :(

[snapdragen]

You're not a failure - all cooks have mishaps. Did you use a lot of canned vegies or something? That could make a stew too salty. I remember reading somewhere that if something is too salty, you should put a potato in it and cook it for a while. Supposedly the potato is going to absorb the excess salt. Or it could be an old wives tale and I don't know what I'm talking about.......:p

[Veronica]

It's a little late, but save new recipes for non company nights, or family.

It's really okay. We still laugh about the disgusting Swedish meatballs and meatloaf I made in our first year of marriage. It was at least 12 years before I attempted another meatloaf.

V.

PS We've been married 20 years. I was 7 when we got married. :p

[chickwhorips]

snap my first thought was to put potatos in it, i heard the same thing, but there were already potatos there. kinda laughed about that thought.

i put to much bullion in it. that was the problem.

the most devistating thing: i used all my fresh carrots and i don't know when i'll be able to get more.

[Veronica]

Can you rescue the carrots? Pull them out and wash them off and put them in a different stew. Or add more water?

V.

[snapdragen]

Oh, bouillon - tres salty. Can you get canned beef, chicken or vege broth easily? That would probably work better.

As much as I admire you living "in the bush", I'm not sure I could go without regular fresh vegies.

snap *feels like she needs to mail chick carrots* dragen

[Veronica]

snap *feels like she needs to mail chick carrots* dragen

I turned to Thom and asked,"How much does it cost to overnight veggies to Alaska?" :D

V.

[Geonz]

Oh, send 'em to me... I LOVE salty :) :) :)

Commiserating with you, thouigh... a rough night!! It will fade... like those biking scars...

[LBTC]

Isn't powdered mustard the antidote for too much salt? Not sure, I'm not cook, but I play one on holidays and a couple of times a year when people come over...:rolleyes:

Sorry 'bout the seeming catastrophe, Chick. Maybe you can salvage the carrots! Good luck!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[velogirl]

You're so not alone. I used to love to cook and I always made a big deal out of having dinner parties. And I always tried new recipes. I had many disasters. But the salty one is kinda funny and a good memory I have of my parents (both deceased now).

It was Easter 1989 or 1990 (I can't remember) and I was just a couple of years out of college. I had just had knee surgery so couldn't travel so I invited my parents to have Easter dinner at my little apartment. I was a HUGE coffee drinker and a pot was on when my parents arrived. Being all big-girlish, I offered my parents coffee. My dad and I both drank black but my mom liked cream and sugar. She also liked instant cofee, but that's another story.

Anyways, I give mom her coffee in one of my fancy coffee mugs. She didn't really drink it but I didn't think much of it.

I'd also baked muffins -- big, fluffy apple muffins (or some type of fruit, I don't remember). Mom takes a bite of her muffin and I notice she kinda spit it out into her napkin. Dad eats his whole muffin. I finally eat a little piece and it's totally salty. I decide to throw the muffins out to the birds (note, the birds wouldn't even eat them). I decide to make another batch of muffins....same result. I finally realize I'd put the salt into one of the cannisters and used it, thinking it was sugar.

My dad was the world's nicest guy and wouldn't have said anything because he loved me.

We all just laughed and laughed.

Oh, earlier in the week mom had spent the night with me when I had my surgery. She had thought my coffee was bad (I liked nice, flavored coffee), but we realized that she had used the salt then, too. Of course, she didn't tell me that at the time.

Silly me. I had this big-girl cannister set and needed to fill all four cannisters so I put the salt in one!!!

[Xrayted]

Hmmm, I can't say I haven't ruined a dish or two over the years. It happens. Overall, I'm considered a pretty good cook. When I cook for a gathering, it's usually the first to be gone.
Well, CWR, I say use it to your advantage. You like to hunt critters. Critters like salt. Put it out in the back yard like a salt lick and you've got meat all winter long without leaving the property. :cool: :D
I, of course, couldn't kill anything unless it was trying to have ME for a meal. I'm one of those people who, if I meet the meat while it's still alive, that's it. Nothing but veggies and fruit for a week. (Try that one on spelling/grammar police! ;) )

X.

[chickwhorips]

couldn't rescue anything. carrots and all went into the trash. the dogs thought it smelled good, so thats positive.

oh and our company was a last second thing. didn't find out about it till 3 hours before eating. if i would've known i would've made something different.

velogirl i feel ya. thankfully i'm not the only one with a sodium problem. my dad is like yours. my first omlete i made as a kid had tons of shells in it, i wouldn't eat it but my dad did and smiled the whole time. gotta love dads.

[Haudlady]

My favorite incident (and yes, we all laugh NOW...) involved a case of mistaken identity.

Did you know that, in unlabeled jars, very hot chili powder looks remarkably like paprika? :eek: But, um, the chili powder is used in VERY SMALL AMOUNTS, whereas paprika can be used liberally. Whoops! :o Needless to say, the main part of the meal was inedible.

Two good things have come out of this, though... my chili powder is now profusely labeled (HOT - and a picture of a campfire on it!)... and DH does the cooking! :rolleyes:

[Kimmyt]

I'm forever misreading recipes. It's a trait I think I inherited from my mom. With recipes, we usually have to have someone else make sure we're not skipping steps or forgetting important things like, oh, marinating? Or cooking time?

The other night I was going to make my very first pot roast. Unfortunately, having never cooked one before, I didn't realize that those suckers take like 3 hours to cook. So me at 9 pm making a late dinner, realizing that if I made my planned meal for my boyfriend who was coming home from CO for his birthday (first time I'd seen him in 3 weeks) realizing that I had NOTHING for dinner unless we wanted to eat at midnight.

Lovely boy he is, he drove to the store (after just having flown in a few hours ago!) and bought some pork chops which took MUCH less time to cook and the night was salvaged.

Very rarely had to completely throw out food, but one time I remember and The Boy still teases me about was when I wanted to make this nummy recipe of cuban pork with this topping of sauteed plantains and curry rice. The rice turned out great, but I guess I thought it said 1 cup of lime juice and not 1 T of limejuice. I think i read the line above it. Woops.

Let me tell you, plantains covered in almost nothing but lime juice is reeeally gross. And it ruined the meat too! But at least the rice was good!

K.

[Melstar]

Join the club chicwhorips :p

Mom's a fine cook and sometime i wonder... what happened? When i moved out of home to New York, the only culinary skills I had was how to make those instant noodles thingies and maybe egg. My flat mate was just as hopeless and lets just say we were on a ready make supermarket sandwich diet for a while :D .

But the good news is yours truly has improved a little now. It helps to have a partner who is a food gourmet who makes it his sole mission in life to replicate everything we eat at a restaurant at home!

[doc]

My favorite incident (and yes, we all laugh NOW...) involved a case of mistaken identity.

Did you know that, in unlabeled jars, very hot chili powder looks remarkably like paprika? :eek: But, um, the chili powder is used in VERY SMALL AMOUNTS, whereas paprika can be used liberally. Whoops! :o Needless to say, the main part of the meal was inedible.

Two good things have come out of this, though... my chili powder is now profusely labeled (HOT - and a picture of a campfire on it!)... and DH does the cooking! :rolleyes:

This is a minor one, but funny and similar to your mishap. My poor little 4yo daughter was eating applesauce and wanted cinnamon on it. Naturally I grabbed the chili powder (powder looks identical and same label, same jar) and sprinkled it on her applesauce. She wanted to eat it but kept telling me it was spicy. Since she is often quite fickle, I kept telling her "oh stop. it's the same cinnamon we always use" This went on for a while until I agreed to taste it to prove her oh so wrong. Oooops!! Apple sauce in the trash. Big apology from mom. New bowl of applesauce with cinnamon in it. I read the jar 5 times to make sure!

[luv'nAustin]

I baked a birthday cake for a family member one year and forgot the sugar. We still ate it, just made sure that each bite contained plenty of ice cream!

Sorry to say that they continue to remind me about it with each birthday cake I bake. I provide plenty of laughs for this family!

[rocknrollgirl]

Because this will make everyone feel better.

I pride myself on being a good cook...now...but 20 some odd years ago was a diffterent story.
I did the first ever roasted chicken dinner for the not yet DH. It was one of my favs as a kid, and hell, how hard can it be? You just stick the thing in the over and roast it...right?

Well who knew that you had to shove you hand up its cavity and remove that weird, half frozen package of parts? Not this young chickie.

So I just roasted it, sans removal of frozen parts. Needless to say the half cooked, finished product was NASTY!!! and I still get my ribbed about it by the DH....

YUK!!!