Cooking Blunders and Mishaps?

Day Dreamer said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

Oy. Took a catering assignment that was more than I could handle. The
food was late, the rice was undercooked, the whole thing was basically
*awful*. It was at least twenty years ago, and I still cringe thinking
about it.

serene
--
http://serenejournal.livejournal.com
http://www.jhuger.com

On Fri 08 Apr 2005 11:49:19a, Day Dreamer wrote in rec.food.cooking:

Quoted message said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

Once, while making the filling for a lemon meringue pie, I measured out
baking soda instead of cornstarch. The result was a filling that foamed
up, never set, and had a nauseating taste. Needless to say, I had to start
over, as this was a pie I was taking to a friend's home for dessert.

The mistake was easy enough; I kept cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in
identical glass jars with ground glass stoppers. I always "knew" which was
which. Labels soon followed! <G>

--
Wayne Boatwright
____________________________________________

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
Sam Goldwyn, 1882-1974

Day Dreamer said:

[snip]
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group
of guests!

My two worst were in college and I inflicted them both on the same
friends. First I tried a jambalaya recipe from an old James Beard
cookbook, which called for a small bit of brandy. Being poor, I was
abashed by the price of good brandy when I went to the liquor store and
settled for something cheap, when the shopkeeper said it was "okay." I
guess he assumed I just wanted to get drunk. It was so harsh and bad
that the dish was literally inedible. I later found out that they had
tried to salvage it by diluting it with other things twice and finally
gave up.

The second time I tried a beef and onions casserole cooked in beer from
one of Julia Child's early books. It called for bringing it to a
simmer on the stovetop before putting it in the oven to finish. My
friends had a beautiful Denbyware casserole--wedding present--which
cracked into four pieces when I put it on the burner. And I was too
poor to replace it....

Somehow, all these years later we are still friends. -aem

Day Dreamer wrote on 08 Apr 2005 in rec.food.cooking

Quoted message said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking
blunders everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large
group of guests!

I'll let nanners go first because I really like her ooooops, it really
makes me chuckle.

--
No Bread Crumbs were hurt in the making of this Meal.
Type 2 Diabetic Since Aug 2004
1AC- 7.2, 7.3, 5.5, 5.6 mmol
Weight from 265 down to 219 lbs. and dropping.
Continuing to be Manitoban

"Day Dreamer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

The first time I made felafel I used cooked chickpeas instead of raw. The
resulting patties simply disintgrated when put in the oil to fry. It was a
pizza night!

--
Peter Aitken

Remove the [censored] from my email address before using.

"Monsur Fromage du Pollet" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I'll let nanners go first because I really like her ooooops, it really
makes me chuckle.

(laughing) I believe people will shoot me if I tell that one again.

nancy

"Monsur Fromage du Pollet" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I'll let nanners go first because I really like her
ooooops, it really makes me chuckle.

From:[email hidden](Nancy Young)

Quoted message said:

(laughing) I believe people will shoot me if I
tell that one again.

Oh please do tell, Nancy! I haven`t heard the story yet!

Dog3 said:

<clapping hands> I get extra points. The SO and I were having both of our
families for Thanksgiving, plus a few friends. About 21 people. I decided
to cook both turkeys the night before. One was about 16lbs the other was a
22 pounder. The 16lb turkey cooked to perfection and I removed the meat
from the carcass and made some stock. I could *not* get the other one to
cook until finished. I fell asleep. Next morning I woke up and there was
smoke all over the condo. I

LOL You should learn to use the smoke detector for a kitchen timer the way my
wife does. :-)

Dog3 said:

I made a pumpkin cake for a work function and forgot to put in the sugar. I
had to start over and did not get the cake finished until 1am. I was so
tired the next day.

I made my first ever cheese cake last year. I realized after about 5 minute of
baking that I had forgotten the sugar. I took the cake out of the oven
sprinkled the sugar over the top and used the electric beaters to beat the
sugar into the cake and stuck it back in oven to finish baking. To tell you the
truth, it turned out very nicely, and had a nice variety of textures.

On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 14:49:19 -0400, [email hidden] (Day

Dreamer) said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

I made my first apple pie. When we cut into it, somehow it had become
applesauce pie. That and the fact the crust was like cement caused it
to end up as doggy treats.

Poor dogs, I should have been charged for animal cruelty.

They eat all my cooking mistakes.

;-)

Rusty

--

"How can anyone govern a nation that | http://www.geocities.com/minuteman_missile/
has 246 different kinds of cheese? | Minuteman ICBM History Website

- President Charles De Gaulle of France

It was a Lasagna that did me in.

I figured there was enough liquid in one that I was making
that I didn't need to cook the noodles first..... big mistake.

I layed down a layer of dry lasagna noodles on the bottom and top and
then cooked the critter for about an hour at 350 degrees.

About a half hour I could start to smell that something wasn't right
and needless to say it was burn't black top and bottom.

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Day Dreamer) said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

I had a house full of company one New Year's Eve early in my marriage.
I had just finished slicing the pork loin and had it all beautifully
arranged on a big stone platter when my hubby, not realizing how juicy
the meat was, quickly whooshed it off the counter to take it into the
dining room. Luckily, my best friend happened to be standing in the
doorway of the kitchen so that no one else could see the entire loin
fall upon the floor in roughly the same arrangement it had been on the
platter. Having just scrubbed the floor that afternoon and, having not
enough food otherwise, we rescued it from the floor and served it.
Everyone raved about the dinner and we all had a great time. But ever
since, I've had a tendency to cook way too much food for guests (often
two or more entrees) just in case of a similar disaster.

Emma

Not exactly a cooking story but many years ago in my youth and first
marriage honey bunch and me had a Russian Wolfhound (borzoi).

One day we had decided to try baking bread from those frozen
supermarket dough packages and had put three of them into
bread pans and left them by the living room window to thaw and rise.

As you can imagine we forgot about them and actually left the house
to go visit the neighbours for coffee.

The dog ate all three and I go to sit up most of the night listening to
the moans and groans coming from the dog's stomach.

Nancy Young said:

"Day Dreamer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Monsur Fromage du Pollet" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I'll let nanners go first because I really like her
ooooops, it really makes me chuckle.

From:[email hidden](Nancy Young)

Quoted message said:

(laughing) I believe people will shoot me if I
tell that one again.

Oh please do tell, Nancy! I haven`t heard the story yet!

(smile) This is the edited version.

I decided to make a ham. I thought they all came in those cans, the
ones with the neato keeno keys, the ones that would break off the
instant you tried to open the can?

I glazed that thing beautifully. Couldn't wait. Ham for dinner, oh
yeah! (I actually looked forward to ham out of a can?)

I did not know they were shrink wrapped in plastic inside the can.

This became evident as the ham shrank and the plastic ... wilted ...

I

Quoted message said:

guess under the weight of all that glaze. That little shrunken ham,
encased in a deformed plastic bag ... it was humiliating.

Yes, I baked a canned ham in plastic. Hey! the plastic was

invisible!

Quoted message said:

nancy

Reminds me of my ex insisting on doing Thanksgiving... yep, you guessed
it, she didn't remove the packet of giblets... not only that she
defrosted the turkey by leaving it atop the washing machine in the
basement, for three days! It didn't smell right to me so I didn't eat
any. But her parents made pigs of themselves eating their daughter's
wonderful dinner, and they spent a night in the hospital. Guess what,
she insisted on doing Thanksgiving two more times, left the giblet bag
in each time. I knew better than to ever eat anything she cooked.

Sheldon

Serene wrote on 08 Apr 2005 in rec.food.cooking

Quoted message said:

I like to recycle and I buy large bottle stuff at Costco. That said:

I was frying up some home fries...Thought they needed some more oil.
So I squirted in some, from a recycled plastic bottle. I used similar
bottles to hold the oil and the Dish Soap, another plus was the soap
and the oil were close to the same colour. I didn't notice
immediately...but did wonder WTF when I started to get suds in my fried
potatoes.

--
No Bread Crumbs were hurt in the making of this Meal.
Type 2 Diabetic Since Aug 2004
1AC- 7.2, 7.3, 5.5, 5.6 mmol
Weight from 265 down to 219 lbs. and dropping.
Continuing to be Manitoban

SHIVER ME TIMBERS said:

Not exactly a cooking story but many years ago in my youth and first
marriage honey bunch and me had a Russian Wolfhound (borzoi).

One day we had decided to try baking bread from those frozen
supermarket dough packages and had put three of them into
bread pans and left them by the living room window to thaw and rise.

As you can imagine we forgot about them and actually left the house
to go visit the neighbours for coffee.

The dog ate all three and I go to sit up most of the night listening to
the moans and groans coming from the dog's stomach.

My wife ignored my advice not to give out dogs turkey. It must have been
just after Thanksgiving last year (only turkey cooked here that year) we
went out visiting for 4-5 hours. When I got home I could see through the
glass on the door that our off white floor was brown. And I don't mean a
brown spot here and there, but almost the entire floor.

We couldn't figure out which dog had done it. The better behaved one
always acts like he is afraid of being blamed and the other one really
wouldn't care.

Aw, these are all great! Please, keep `em coming! I`m really getting a
good chuckle!

Me - I`m pretty good in the self-injury category - usually a burning,
but sometimes a cutting or stabbing. I tend to commit the act of
"drinking while cooking", (wine) hence forgetting the usefulness of
potholders and oven mitts. The last time, I leaped when my oven timer
went off to take out a pan of baked chicken and stuffing - grabbing it
without potholders. Ouch!!! I got it just out of the oven and then
dropped it upside down on the inside of the open oven door when the
searng pain hit. BF removed the food from the oven door, and we ate it.
But ooooh, the blisters I had on my fingers!

Quoted message said:

After hanging around this group for awhile, I thought it might be
interesting and perhaps humourous to hear of the worst cooking blunders
everyone has ever made.
Ever completely screw up a recipe? Try to improvise and have it go
wrong? Start a fire? Drop the food? Injure yourself?

Bonus points if said blunder happened while cooking for a large group of
guests!

Recently, but I don't get the bonus points: I was putting together a
romantic dinner on the beach for my girlfriend and me. We were going to have
tomato-orange soup, vanilla-scented shrimp salad, and Portuguese bread
(which contains a large amount of cornmeal).

The dressing for the salad is a kind of vanilla-tarragon mayonnaise. I
*didn't* improvise, but the dressing was HORRIBLE. The flavor of vegetable
oil was overwhelming, and it couldn't be redeemed.

Then it turned out that my yeast -- purchased that very day, with an
expiration date well in the future -- was dead. I tried TWO sponges, but it
never rose.

The soup was merely okay.

We ended up stopping by a deli on the way to the beach.

Bob

(Day Dreamer) said:

Me - I`m pretty good in the self-injury category - usually a burning,
but sometimes a cutting or stabbing. I tend to commit the act of
"drinking while cooking", (wine) hence forgetting the usefulness of
potholders and oven mitts. The last time, I leaped when my oven timer
went off to take out a pan of baked chicken and stuffing - grabbing it
without potholders. Ouch!!! I got it just out of the oven and then
dropped it upside down on the inside of the open oven door when the
searng pain hit. BF removed the food from the oven door, and we ate it.
But ooooh, the blisters I had on my fingers!

My somewhat similar story didn't involve injury, just airheadedness. I
think I was taking a pizza out of the oven, and couldn't find the oven
mitts anywhere. Finally, in an act of desperation, I grabbed the
hand-drying towels and took the pizza out that way.

Well, I don't wash dishes nearly often enough. There were dishes
everywhere, and no place to set the pizza down. Then I spotted some real
estate on the dining room table, and asked Crash to please move the oven
mitts out of the way so I could set the pizza down.

DUH!
Carol
--
Coming at you live, from beautiful Lake Woebegon