Share your cooking disasters

[Melalvai]

This idea was inspired by my mother. No, she doesn't have a plethora of cooking disasters. She wants to make one of those cookbook collections of recipes from each family member. I thought "Well, that's nice, only I know I won't use most of them." As the discussion continued it dissolved into cooking stories. Now that, I thought, would be a valuable collection to hand down the generations!

Unfortunately we haven't turned up lots of stories just yet. So I am turning to my Team Estrogen friends, whom I suspect will have more stories than I know what to do with. (I don't plan to do anything with these stories, I just think they'll be entertaining.)

To start off, I'll share my favorite story so far. This isn't mine but my cousin's. Her mom, who is an excellent cook, had had an unusual spell of bad luck with several batches of brownies. The final incident involved flames in the oven. They visited our uncle in Florida, who turned to the kids after hearing this story and said seriously, "Kids, your mom was confused in the 60's. She burnt the brownies and put marijuana in her bra."

I will also note that our supper tonight suffered slightly as a direct result of me writing this post instead of paying attention to what was happening on the stove!

[sundial]

Should it involve a fire extinguisher?

[Irulan]

how about pea soup and a busted blender lid

or, the time my food processor bowl exploded while doing carrots?

[Blueberry]

How about my dad's thanksgiving pie? When I first got an apartment, I decided I wanted to cook Thanksgiving. My dad was the only one who would come, and he wanted to bring a pie. I had a premonition and bought a back up pie

He decided he wanted to bring a sugar free pie, and put 2/3 cup of sweet-n-low in the pie instead of the equivalent of 2/3 cup of sugar. ICK! Was glad to have the back up pie

When I was little and learning to bake, I put baking soda instead of baking powder in a cake. Double ick.

[Running Mommy]

I once caught the oven on fire making a peach cobbler.

Overall I'm a very good cook, so there aren't many disasters. And the few times I do ruin something I get so mad at myself that children and small animals flee in horror. ha ha ha

[Flybye]

Let's just say that if you are using oats that have been around for awhile, it is best to check for little buggies before adding the oatmeal one cup at a time to the mixture as you sample the dough. I was making a HUGE batch of monster cookies - called for 18 cups of oats -and when I got to the bottom of the cannister - there was only about 2 cups of oats left in the bottom, I noticeD LOTS of bugs. LOTS. AND I HAD BEEN SAMPLING THE DOUGH AS I MIXED THE OATS IN. Now that I ride my bike so often, I look forward to swallowing the occasional bug - hack, hack!

Also, when the turkey instructions say "do not stuff the turkey the night before you put it in the oven", well, you should probably take their advice.

It is also best to remove the plastic wrap off of meat BEFORE you put it in the slow cooker.

And, you can't put a pyrex 13x9 baking dish directly on a burner without having it shatter into a bazillion pieces.

I.AM.A.GOOD.COOK.REALLY!

[HoosierGiant]

And, you can't put a pyrex 13x9 baking dish directly on a burner without having it shatter into a bazillion pieces.

Been there; done that.

Ditto the really-a-good-cook sentiment.

[kat_h]

About a month after I moved to England I decided to make a turkey dinner to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with my housemates. Being a fairly typical student house we mostly cooked quick, one dish meals so no one had used the oven before. I checked on the turkey about an hour after putting it in, and discovered that it was merely enjoying a nice sauna. The oven got slightly warm, but I could still put my hand on the metal racks without being burnt. Fortunately one of my housemates had friends who lived down the street so we took the turkey there to cook.

[OakLeaf]

Oh I have all sorts of minor disasters and many of them don't even involve the first aid kit! But my all-time favorite remains one of my mom's when I was 12 or 13.

She was in the middle of baking bread when we were called away on a minor emergency. She figured that the best thing to do would be to refrigerate the dough (to retard the yeast) and to put it in a tightly sealed container (so it wouldn't dry out). The best container she could come up with was the pressure cooker.

Can you see where this is going?

Three hours later when we returned home, the dough had risen enough to create pressure within the cooker and seal the gasket.

She had to pull four loaves' worth of bread dough out of the cooker through the 1/4" vent hole. I don't even remember how long it took!

[nancielle]

About a month after I moved to England I decided to make a turkey dinner to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with my housemates. Being a fairly typical student house we mostly cooked quick, one dish meals so no one had used the oven before. I checked on the turkey about an hour after putting it in, and discovered that it was merely enjoying a nice sauna. The oven got slightly warm, but I could still put my hand on the metal racks without being burnt. Fortunately one of my housemates had friends who lived down the street so we took the turkey there to cook.

Similar story. I decided to host Thanksgiving at my apartment years ago and invited friends/coworkers who, for whatever reason, wouldn't be with family. Never mistaken for a cook/chef, I thought turkey cooked like chicken (instructions? what instructions?) After an hour it had barely taken on earth tone colors. To make matters worse, I had a Barbie-sized oven and a terradactyl sized bird. The heating elements in the oven (electric) were singeing a design into the bird's breast meat and, in the process, setting off the smoke alarm. Even with both racks out of the oven and the roasting pan placed oh-so-carefully on the bottom the heady scent of burning flesh wafted through the small apartment and eventually through the building. I think we finally were able to eat it around 10 p.m. It is still referred to as "The Torching of Birdzilla."

[hipersons]

the disasters usually happen when my boyfriend tries to cook the things I cook...

[bounceswoosh]

Two I remember vividly --

One, I was working on a chili that had to simmer for something like 4 hours. We have a really dry climate, so I have to check it periodically to make sure there's enough moisture. While it was simmering, DH and I agreed to do a WoW (world of warcraft) instance. It shouldn't have taken all that long, but the people we were playing with were really awful. Long story short, I got distracted by the game, it took way longer than it should have, and when I finally got a chance to check on the chili, the bottom half was burnt into the bottom of the pan. A wonderful, delicious-smelling chili ruined in the 7th hour (it took me a while to get all the ingredients together, chopped, etc) of cooking. Much cursing and gnashing of teeth ensued.

Two, a simple crockpot meal. I'd found a recipe online for orange chicken. I put the ingredients in the crockpot and went to the work for the day. I didn't know at the time that this particular crockpot's lid doesn't form a good seal. That, combined with the dry climate and the thawed chicken (recipe didn't specify thawed or frozen) ... well, I got home, and DH met me in the garage. "Come on, let's go out to eat." I protested. I wanted to try the chicken. He didn't want to let me in the house. Finally, I insisted, and walked in. The whole house smelled like severely charred chicken. The chicken breasts were lumps of charcoal, although cutting into them, we found a few tiny strips of dried up meat that at least our cat was willing to eat.

[shootingstar]

My partner gets paranoid that I will accidentally burn some of the lovely made-in-France stainless steel pots. So I don't use some of them since some of these pots aren't cheap.

I'm not kiddin'.

Probably my problem is not babysitting the cooking process occasionally.

BTW if any of you visit, I promise...it is a good meal that I do prepare.

[milkbone]

I don't really have my own story, since I tend to know my limits when it comes to cooking and baking, although I'm a pretty good baker if I do say so myself

When I was a kid, my mom was making Thanksgiving dinner, and she kept commenting on what a "funny looking bird that is", well she put it in the oven to cook and hours ticked by and the same comment kept coming from the kitchen - well dinner time it was and my father went to carve the turkey, yup funny looking bird it was since it was upside down the whole time! LOL...poor mom, but it does make for a funny story.

[Dogmama]

Worst thing ever. Still a joke at the house. Know the dog toys called "Chew man?" They're that pale off white color. We call it "Chew Man Soup"