Author Topic: Share your kitchen disasters...  (Read 98157 times)

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #300 on: January 02, 2018, 01:19:16 PM »
Fresh disaster you say? Weeelllll, this Christmas I learned the difference between cheap and frugal.

My son adores baked cheesecake and I don't mind making it (I don't do it often because it's hard to justify spending all that money on the ingredients...).  So for Christmas I agreed to make a cheesecake; my springform pan is getting a little worn in that the bottom won't stay in because the clips are worn and because it was a cheap pan it's not precisely round any more.

I mixed up 2.5 lbs of cream cheese, sour cream and etc... when I picked up the pan to put it in the oven the bottom fell out.  Cheesecake EVERYWHERE!  The oven, the floor, the cabinets everywhere.

Some did remain in the pan so I baked what I had.  Bad idea people!  The bottom stuck to the rack so that when I tried to remove the cheesecake the ring acted as a sort of scraper so that I ended up with baked cheesecake on the cutting board I was using to support the defunct springform pan.  Cheesecake oozed out of the pan while it was baking so I had cheesecake on the now burned cookie sheet... basically I had a little cheesecake here and there and darn near everywhere.

I ordered a new springform pan from Amazon, not mustachian exactly, but I make cheesecake just enough to be worth the expense.

Oh, I feel for you with that clean-up job!

I haven't had any cooking disasters but I did drop a half-full bottle of olive oil which immediately shattered. I had to pick up the broken glass, mop up the oil with paper towel until the floor was dry enough to vacuum, and mop three times before the floor stopped feeling greasy.

Two days later I dropped a jar of mustard powder without the lid.

>.<

LittleWanderer

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #301 on: January 02, 2018, 02:08:09 PM »
This may be my new favorite thread.


soccerluvof4

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #302 on: January 02, 2018, 03:28:12 PM »
Couple weeks ago I made a real nice Tuna Casserole and then realized I forgot the tuna. This was after it was all baked so it became a tunaless casserole!

JoJo

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #303 on: January 02, 2018, 08:34:03 PM »
I almost burned down my condo making hummus.

ysette9

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #304 on: January 02, 2018, 09:14:05 PM »
A couple of months back my sister was over helping me survive with a toddler and a newborn with a husband away on business travel. We planned pizza for dinner and were doing well with rolling out the dough, getting the toppings on, and everything.

My sister went to preheat the oven and we were hanging out in the living room. Suddenly an unknown voice starts talking to us in the house. I realize it is my Nest smoke detector warning me that it has detected smoke and is about to go off. It starts screeching and I run into the kitchen to see smoke pouring out of the oven. Turns out the cookies we had baked earlier had melted butter onto the bottom of the oven which then started burning.

I had to throw open all windows and doors (in the evening in November; thank god we live in CA), and my sister cleaned the oven while I took two crying children outside. It took a lot of reassuring my toddler to go back into the house, and she talked about the noise of the smoke detector for days after.

Once clean, we started heating the oven again. Suddenly it quit working, along with everything else on that circuit. We couldn’t for the life of us figure out why, even after resetting all of the circuit breakers and the main electrical panel outside. My sister ended up googling stovetop pizza and cooked the pizza crust in a pan. Thank god i have a gas stove because that was on the circuit that went out, but we could light it with a match.

Days later we learned that it was a GFI circuit and the reset switch was conveniently located under the sink. Sigh.

Astatine

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #305 on: January 02, 2018, 09:22:24 PM »
Couple weeks ago I made a real nice Tuna Casserole and then realized I forgot the tuna. This was after it was all baked so it became a tunaless casserole!

Tuna surprise! (the surprise: no tuna)

I almost burned down my condo making hummus.

You can't write something like that without the story :) What happened???

Goldielocks

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #306 on: January 02, 2018, 10:45:14 PM »
I just had a minor fail - I got a new Instant Pot, and tried to steam broccoli. The online recipes all range from 0 - 8 minutes at pressure, and either quick or natural release. I think some of these people must love broccoli mush, since I gave the florets 3 minutes of pressure, a quick release, and they were so soft they were falling apart as I was picking them up off the steamer rack. And they got all olive green and sulfur-y.

Epic disaster from the distant past - cashew-based vegan "mac and cheese". *shudder* Huge batch, into the trash.

Yep, my tests with the instapot left all my veggies over cooked, too.   Even potatoes (unless for mashing).  I think you need to cook them on a "steam" only setting.  The problem is you can't check close to the end, and you can't get them off the heat immediately.

OTOH, it is great for soups made with mushy veggies and broth, cooked in bulk with lentils or beans or barley....

JoJo

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #307 on: January 03, 2018, 07:24:00 AM »

I almost burned down my condo making hummus.

You can't write something like that without the story :) What happened???

I had just come back from Israel so I was in the mood for hummus.  So rather than canned garbanzos, I had bought dry.  I thought I just needed to soak them to make them tender.  I got home after a day of work and found they were still hard so I googled and discovered I needed to boil them.  I threw them on my flat top burner in a pot and turned on high and went and sat in my living room to watch TV.  A few minutes later I smelled something burning but thought one of my neighbors was using their fireplace.  A few minutes later I discovered it was getting really smoky in my place so I ran over to the stove to find a box of corn flakes on fire.  The box was on one of the back burners and I had accidentally turned it on rather than the burner with the beans.   I grabbed the box and threw it out on my slate entry way and dumped water on it.  Then I changed the batteries in my smoke detector.

Astatine

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #308 on: January 03, 2018, 01:10:22 PM »
Oh wow! Glad you were ok!!



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thedigitalone

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #309 on: January 03, 2018, 02:39:33 PM »
I almost burned down my condo making hummus.

I misread this as "I almost burned down my condo making humans." which significantly changes the tone of the message :)

moof

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #310 on: January 03, 2018, 02:59:39 PM »
Mixed up baking powder and baking soda once, ruining a batch of muffins.

Scale down the ingredients, except the flour, to a 75% recipe for home made mac and cheese.  Still tasty, but the sauce was way too thick.

Tried making Arroz Con Pollo from 10 year memory of a recipe from my childhood.  It was barely edible.  4-5 iterations later I really exceeded the original recipe.  My poor wife tried to make it and used brown rice instead of white rice.  We had a choice between crunchy rice, or overcooked everything else...

Many more I have repressed from memory.

JoJo

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #311 on: January 03, 2018, 05:39:14 PM »
I almost burned down my condo making hummus.

I misread this as "I almost burned down my condo making humans." which significantly changes the tone of the message :)

Well, maybe gingerbread men, but this time it was hummus.


Lauran75

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #312 on: January 04, 2018, 01:09:34 PM »
I was making a batch of banana nut muffins a few weeks ago and one of my cats was insisting on being up on the counter supervising me. One of the steps involved mixing some plant milk w/lemon juice. I mixed them together and then noticed dear cat was sniffing the bowl ... So I put the bowl in the microwave to keep out of her reach til I needed it.

I kept going and did the remainder of the recipe. When it was time to put the batter in the muffin cups, I thought it seemed denser than normal and it also wasn't enough to fill all 12. But I went ahead and put it in the oven.

A few minutes later I opened my microwave to heat up dinner, and - there was the milk/lemon mix! It was early enough that I was able to pull the muffins out and remix them, so not a wasted effort.

Jakejake

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #313 on: January 04, 2018, 03:14:56 PM »
I've been using my vitamix to grind whole wheat berries to make flour for bread.

The usual steps - pull the mixer out, put in the wheat, plug it in, put on the lid, and flip the switch to start.

Somehow this time the start switch was already in the on position, so as soon as I plugged it in, I spewed hard grains of wheat all over myself and the kitchen - the floor, the window sill, behind the microwave, just everywhere.

That was a few weeks ago, I'm still finding them in random places.

Lis

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #314 on: January 05, 2018, 10:04:48 AM »
I haven't had any cooking disasters but I did drop a half-full bottle of olive oil which immediately shattered. I had to pick up the broken glass, mop up the oil with paper towel until the floor was dry enough to vacuum, and mop three times before the floor stopped feeling greasy.

Two days later I dropped a jar of mustard powder without the lid.

>.<

God I've spilled some olive oil on the floor and know how annoying that is to clean up... dropping an entire bottle must have been a nightmare...

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #315 on: January 06, 2018, 01:42:42 PM »
I haven't had any cooking disasters...

Spoke too soon.

Had dinner with friends last night. "What can I bring?" "Dessert."

Attempt one was creme brûlée, which I've made a million times.

The custard would not set. Cooked it longer, chilled it longer, didn't even look like setting.

So I cleaned up after that then set about making mini pavs.

They wouldn't harden. I ended up with eight chewy, floppy meringue discs.

I had just bought the eggs but I suspect they were old to have had two egg-based recipes fail like that.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #316 on: January 06, 2018, 01:50:57 PM »
A minor fail, but I just mixed up the amount of soy sauce vs fish sauce in my asian slaw recipe. 1 Tbsp fish sauce vs 1 tsp makes a BIG difference in a small batch of slaw! Luckily, DH will eat anything, so it won't go to waste =P Just added some more cabbage and carried on!

ysette9

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #317 on: January 06, 2018, 02:51:11 PM »
A little fish sauce goes a LONG way

GoConfidently

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #318 on: January 06, 2018, 02:53:35 PM »
I haven't had any cooking disasters but I did drop a half-full bottle of olive oil which immediately shattered. I had to pick up the broken glass, mop up the oil with paper towel until the floor was dry enough to vacuum, and mop three times before the floor stopped feeling greasy.

Two days later I dropped a jar of mustard powder without the lid.

>.<

God I've spilled some olive oil on the floor and know how annoying that is to clean up... dropping an entire bottle must have been a nightmare...

Several years ago I evacuated for a hurricane. No major damage to my home, but power was out for several days, and when I was able to return home the projection was another week without power. It was hot. High in the 90’s and intense humidity. Everyone was miserable, but trash was running and I decided to just clean out the refrigerator and freezer since there was little hope of being able to salvage anything. I dropped and broke an almost full bottle of fish sauce, in my hot house. The combination of the heat and smell almost made me evacuate again. It was so so bad.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #319 on: January 06, 2018, 10:07:44 PM »
A little fish sauce goes a LONG way

It's a good thing we like fish sauce! Meant I couldn't serve to to company though, the way we had planned >.<

I haven't had any cooking disasters but I did drop a half-full bottle of olive oil which immediately shattered. I had to pick up the broken glass, mop up the oil with paper towel until the floor was dry enough to vacuum, and mop three times before the floor stopped feeling greasy.

Two days later I dropped a jar of mustard powder without the lid.

>.<

God I've spilled some olive oil on the floor and know how annoying that is to clean up... dropping an entire bottle must have been a nightmare...

Several years ago I evacuated for a hurricane. No major damage to my home, but power was out for several days, and when I was able to return home the projection was another week without power. It was hot. High in the 90’s and intense humidity. Everyone was miserable, but trash was running and I decided to just clean out the refrigerator and freezer since there was little hope of being able to salvage anything. I dropped and broke an almost full bottle of fish sauce, in my hot house. The combination of the heat and smell almost made me evacuate again. It was so so bad.

Pretty sure that could be an episode of fear factor. *hurk*

BeautifulDay

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #320 on: January 06, 2018, 11:22:32 PM »
I've had MANY cooking disasters.  Most recently, Monday, DH and I managed to give ourselves food poisoning.  Was making a new green chili recipe.  Not sure if the pork didn't get to a high enough temp, if one of the ingredients was contaminated (green chilies were from a local farm) or if there was some cross contamination.  But man were we sick.  first and last time for that recipe.

nancyjnelson

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #321 on: January 07, 2018, 09:03:43 PM »
I poisoned my boyfriend.

We had been dating for several months and I asked him over for dinner with me and my two kids - something he had done a few times the previous month.  He hemmed and hawed.  I asked what was wrong, and he confessed that each time he ate at my place he got sick.  He then proceeded to grill me on how cold I kept the refrigerator, how well I washed the dishes, how I handled clean dishes, where I purchased my food ingredients, etc.  I wasn't amused.

But he was getting sick after eating at my place, so I looked back at the menus.  Each meal had been entirely different - except that dessert had always included something made with chocolate chips - brownies, cookies, bars, etc - in deference to my kids' tastebuds.  A lightbulb went on and I searched through the business section of the newspaper; the local Nestle plant (it might have been Hersey's - I can't remember) had been shut down for several weeks for salmonella contamination, and had just reopened two months previously.  The article reported that some customers were complaining that management had reopened the plant too soon because they were still getting ill after eating the chocolate products.

The majority of people (including my kids and I) were not affected, but my boyfriend had recently finished three weeks of antibiotics after a work trip to a country where he shouldn't have drank the water, so he had nothing left in his gut to protect against any lingering contamination.

I replaced my supply of chocolate chips with the rival brand, which resolved the problem.

Noodle

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #322 on: June 13, 2018, 10:39:06 AM »
Surely we have had some excellent kitchen disasters in the last six months!

This week I managed to make GRAY waffles. It was a birthday cake waffle recipe that called for adding a large quantity of sprinkles to the bowl. Turns out as soon as the sprinkles hit the batter the dyes started to run and by the time they were folded in at all the colors had blended to a dark gray. After the waffles were done you couldn't really tell but the waffles weren't that great anyway. Luckily waffle ingredients are really cheap.

ysette9

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #323 on: June 13, 2018, 10:50:55 AM »
Oh my. That doesn’t sound appetizing.

I put lots of little blueberries in my pancake batter in the bowl rather than individually adding to each pancake in the pan. This makes the batter a pinky-purple, usually in swirls, which is kind of fun.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #324 on: June 13, 2018, 11:17:03 AM »
Surely we have had some excellent kitchen disasters in the last six months!

For my birthday week I bought myself some extra fancy foods as a treat. I also had a severe migraine around that time, which caused a lot of weird symptoms including weak/shaky hands in the prodrome period. In the course of a week or two I managed to drop on the floor:

1. A raw sirloin steak
2. An entire pecan pie (in a container, which bounced, flipped open and tipped out the pie face-down)
3. Some $40/lb fancy chocolates (in a container, which flipped over and dumped everything out)

Sigh. (I did manage to rescue some of it, but, still...)

Roadrunner53

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #325 on: June 13, 2018, 11:25:04 AM »
Years ago the Hub decided to cook bacon on the grill. It was cooking so nicely and then WOOMP a fire erupted about 10 feet tall! Our neighbor was getting his morning newspaper and was hollering over to us thinking our house was on fire! Within seconds after the Hub turned off the gas the fire was gone but so was the bacon. LOL!

Another time we rented a condo on vacay. I noticed right away that the oven had an issue and was in the clean mode which is like 900 degrees. So I called and they sent a maintenance guy or two over and they declared it was fixed. A couple of days later the Hub and I got a pizza and put it in the oven on warm in the box. Done it a million times at home. We were proceeding to eat a salad and then we would eat pizza. Within a few minutes the box burst into flames and the whole condo was filled with smoke! They had to send maintenance over with a gigantic fan to clear out the smoke. It took hours and hours and hours. In the meantime they bought us a new pizza, a bottle of wine and a fruit basket! LOL! I was mad considering I had told those people there was something wrong with the oven! They took out the stove that night and brought a new one the next day!

I have had many, many mishaps over the years. I will have to think of more and post later on.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2018, 07:03:02 AM by Roadrunner53 »

albireo13

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #326 on: June 14, 2018, 06:45:35 AM »
Making homemade maple syrup, from sap we tapped from our maple trees .... fell asleep while boilng it down in the pot ... woke up to burnt sugar and smoke in the house.  Ruined the pot.

I've done this twice.   LOL

Roadrunner53

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #327 on: June 14, 2018, 07:06:32 AM »
When I was a kid my dad was going to cook steak on the grill. Those were the days when all we had was charcoal grills. He was waiting for them to get hot and had the steak on a platter. He placed the platter on the little stone wall around the porch. He went back in the house to get something and came back outside and the steak was gone! Our dog glomped it up and we had hamburgers! LOL!

Davnasty

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #328 on: June 14, 2018, 07:17:08 AM »
I often go home for lunch and some days I eat a combination of leftovers to clear out the fridge. It's more common than I would like to admit that I open the microwave to find leftovers I put in the day before. One time we didn't use the microwave for a couple days and a bit of casserole was in there long enough that we found it by the smell.

BrightFIRE

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #329 on: June 14, 2018, 11:59:57 AM »
I haven't had any cooking disasters but I did drop a half-full bottle of olive oil which immediately shattered. I had to pick up the broken glass, mop up the oil with paper towel until the floor was dry enough to vacuum, and mop three times before the floor stopped feeling greasy.

Two days later I dropped a jar of mustard powder without the lid.

>.<

God I've spilled some olive oil on the floor and know how annoying that is to clean up... dropping an entire bottle must have been a nightmare...

Several years ago I evacuated for a hurricane. No major damage to my home, but power was out for several days, and when I was able to return home the projection was another week without power. It was hot. High in the 90’s and intense humidity. Everyone was miserable, but trash was running and I decided to just clean out the refrigerator and freezer since there was little hope of being able to salvage anything. I dropped and broke an almost full bottle of fish sauce, in my hot house. The combination of the heat and smell almost made me evacuate again. It was so so bad.

I did a similar thing a few years ago. Moving into a brand new, never been lived in apartment, in July... I dropped and broke an entire bottle of fish sauce in the doorway. It was amazing how high up it splashed on the stairwell.

Many years ago, I lived in an apartment without a pantry, so I made a makeshift one by putting shelves in the coat closet next to the kitchen. Once, as I picked up the cocoa powder, the lid came off in my hand. I still remember the slo-mo cocoa powder box tumbling end over end, spraying cocoa all over the carpet next to the kitchen. It took forever to get that smell out of both the carpet and the vacuum!

ysette9

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #330 on: June 14, 2018, 12:16:40 PM »
The smell of cocoa powder i would be okay with. Fish sauce..... not so much. A little fish sauce is great but a lot is awful.

Unrelated, but years ago my mother bought bags of cocoa nibs to use as mulch in the garden. The whole garden smelled of warm chocolate for several weeks which was delightful.

OtherJen

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #331 on: June 14, 2018, 12:17:53 PM »
I haven't had a good one in a while, but one of my favorites in recent memory was the addition of 2 tablespoons rather than 2 teaspoons of baking powder to a cornbread recipe. It took me far longer than it should have to figure out why the batter was bubbling and foaming.

I'm still not sure how my husband managed to set a skillet on fire by pouring vinaigrette into it.

We gave up on electric drip coffee makers a couple of years ago in favor of a pour-over pot and kettle, but our last electric maker had a little flaw such that it would still try to make coffee if the filter basket wasn't exactly seated in the machine, but the hot water and grounds would somehow leak out the back of the machine and down the wall, rather than into the carafe. That was always super fun to deal with at 6:30 am.

GuitarStv

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #332 on: June 14, 2018, 12:23:48 PM »
I have a kitchen related disaster . . .

My dad once carried some gasoline in a container that wasn't sealed properly in the back of his pickup truck.  It spilled in the back of the truck cab, and repeated cleanings couldn't get the smell out.  So, my dad turned to some old fashioned ingenuity to fix the problem.

Since coffee is a strong smell, he headed to the kitchen and brewed several pots, sticking them in plastic buckets.  Then he put the plastic buckets in the back of his truck cab overnight to overpower/absorb the gas smell.  The next morning he set off in his truck to do some errands . . . spilling the buckets of coffee all over the back of the cab.  That cab smelled like gas and stale coffee for the next fifteen years that dad had it.

:P

Bendigirl

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #333 on: June 14, 2018, 05:58:12 PM »
Two words....homemade tofurkey.
Our vegan son was visiting for thanksgiving, so this great mom thought, hey...I’ll make a tofurkey.  I scoured recipes, fond a well rated one.  Bought organic tofu and proceeded to study the recipe and followed all the steps. 
It smelled bad, even when putting it all together.  It made my house stink while it baked. 
It was seriously nasty and did not taste like, look like, smell like a turkey.  Not even close.
Kid took the leftovers...he has never confessed what he did with them but I do believe they are at the bottom of the strait of Georgia.
Sorry fish...

MDfive21

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #334 on: June 18, 2018, 10:41:54 AM »
my first day on the job as a cook at the business/tennis club i worked at 20 yrs ago, i was tasked with making the cheesecakes for the next day.  i made the first batch but they were very dense.  chef said do it over.  i made another batch, same result.  they were like mud.  so the chef says do them again and i'll watch to make sure you're doing it right.

it turns out i was using one package of cream cheese for each pound the recipe required.  also turns out that each package is 2.5 pounds!  i wasted like 10 pounds of cream cheese, not sure how many eggs and about 4 hours.  felt like i could just crawl into the garbage disposal and down the pipes. 


FindingFI

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #335 on: June 19, 2018, 11:36:02 AM »
A couple years ago I learned the slow cooker kidney bean lesson others have mentioned.  The ground turkey chili tasted great, and my boyfriend and I each had a full serving for dinner.  It wasn’t until later that the full aftermath set in and we both had to call in sick to work the next day.  I have since been banned from all chili making, even after identifying the cause of our digestive distress. 

Nearly burned down our house cooking duck.  Our grill has an infrared burner on the back that makes a fantastic rotisserie chicken and standing rib roast, so obviously it must make a wonderfully crunchy roasted duck as well.  The chicken and roast both get oiled and seasoned and come out wonderfully, so I oiled the duck. that was mistake #1.  My boyfriend pre-heated the grill which included the rear burner and also the bottom outside burners as well.  The two outside burners get turned down or off depending on the desired cooking temperature.  I didn’t notice that they were still on high when I put two trussed and oiled ducks on.  Mistake #2.  The already fatty and now oiled duck dripped on the bottom burner and the grill went up in flames, getting hot enough to break the thermometer and discolor steel.  Did I mention the grill lives on our covered porch? 

And there’s every time I have ever attempted to make chocolate fudge.  I have made this recipe with my mom a handful of times and under her direction it always came out creamy and smooth and amazing.  I have tied to make it on the own 3 times now and every single time it turns to cement as soon as I add the chocolate chips.  I’m guessing it’s got something to do with the temperature that makes the chocolate seize, but at this point I can’t be bothered to figure it out.

Sibley

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #336 on: June 20, 2018, 08:20:15 AM »
A couple years ago I learned the slow cooker kidney bean lesson others have mentioned.  The ground turkey chili tasted great, and my boyfriend and I each had a full serving for dinner.  It wasn’t until later that the full aftermath set in and we both had to call in sick to work the next day.  I have since been banned from all chili making, even after identifying the cause of our digestive distress. 

Nearly burned down our house cooking duck.  Our grill has an infrared burner on the back that makes a fantastic rotisserie chicken and standing rib roast, so obviously it must make a wonderfully crunchy roasted duck as well.  The chicken and roast both get oiled and seasoned and come out wonderfully, so I oiled the duck. that was mistake #1.  My boyfriend pre-heated the grill which included the rear burner and also the bottom outside burners as well.  The two outside burners get turned down or off depending on the desired cooking temperature.  I didn’t notice that they were still on high when I put two trussed and oiled ducks on.  Mistake #2.  The already fatty and now oiled duck dripped on the bottom burner and the grill went up in flames, getting hot enough to break the thermometer and discolor steel.  Did I mention the grill lives on our covered porch? 

And there’s every time I have ever attempted to make chocolate fudge.  I have made this recipe with my mom a handful of times and under her direction it always came out creamy and smooth and amazing.  I have tied to make it on the own 3 times now and every single time it turns to cement as soon as I add the chocolate chips.  I’m guessing it’s got something to do with the temperature that makes the chocolate seize, but at this point I can’t be bothered to figure it out.

As a child around age 12, my mom made a duck in the oven. I then thought it would be nice to clean  the kitchen for my mom, including the oven. I turned on the oven's self cleaner function. Some time later, I was standing in front of the oven with the fire extinguisher and the phone, ready to call 911 if the grease fire in the oven didn't go out on it's own. Mom never made another duck.

Roadrunner53

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #337 on: June 20, 2018, 08:26:46 AM »
I don't get the kidney bean comment? I have made chili in the slow cooker many times with no issues.

A couple years ago I learned the slow cooker kidney bean lesson others have mentioned.  The ground turkey chili tasted great, and my boyfriend and I each had a full serving for dinner.  It wasn’t until later that the full aftermath set in and we both had to call in sick to work the next day.  I have since been banned from all chili making, even after identifying the cause of our digestive distress.

OtherJen

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #338 on: June 20, 2018, 08:44:51 AM »
I don't get the kidney bean comment? I have made chili in the slow cooker many times with no issues.

A couple years ago I learned the slow cooker kidney bean lesson others have mentioned.  The ground turkey chili tasted great, and my boyfriend and I each had a full serving for dinner.  It wasn’t until later that the full aftermath set in and we both had to call in sick to work the next day.  I have since been banned from all chili making, even after identifying the cause of our digestive distress.

Canned kidney beans are fine. Dry kidney beans should be boiled for 10 minutes before slow cooking to deactivate a natural toxin. https://www.dadcooksdinner.com/slow-cookers-and-red-kidney-bean-poisoning/

Roadrunner53

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #339 on: June 20, 2018, 09:22:57 AM »
Oh! I never used dry beans in chili! Good to know!

Goldielocks

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #340 on: June 20, 2018, 02:50:53 PM »
RE- fudge seizing with chocolate chips added -- try using higher quality chips, buy a bar of quality eating chocolate or baking chocolate.  The mid / low grade chips will seize.   The very cheap ones do this with almost every "melting" recipe other than cookies, which is how I noticed.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 02:04:12 AM by Goldielocks »

Helvegen

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #341 on: June 20, 2018, 05:32:34 PM »
I attempted to make a pina colada cake with food processed frozen pineapple instead of canned crushed pineapple. For whatever reason, it never completely baked. It made the house smell absolutely delicious, but the cake was thrown in the garbage. It was just...weird.

FindingFI

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #342 on: June 21, 2018, 07:29:09 AM »
RE- fudge seizing with chocolate chips added -- try using higher quality chips, buy a bar of quality eating chocolate or baking chocolate.  The mid / low grade chips will seize.   The very cheap ones do this with almost every "melting" recipe other than cookies, which is how I noticed.

Oh, that could be!  Pretty sure mom always used Nestle and I'd bet I bought store brand/generic every time.

Penn42

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #343 on: June 21, 2018, 05:36:06 PM »
I made some green bean and mushroom casserole a few months ago. This is how it went down.

Took the pyrex pan with the casserole out of the oven, set it on the stove next to the boiling potatoes and hit the shower real quick while the potatoes finished cooking. Turns out I had left that burner on low from when I was prepping the casserole and whilst I was in the shower KABAM. I  thought the cat knocked a glass off the counter or something. Nope. It was the pyrex pan with my casserole exploding into a million glass bits.

I was SOL for dinner that night and what was supposed to be my dinner for the rest of the week.  It sucked.

Gilly

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #344 on: June 21, 2018, 05:53:28 PM »
A week ago I ended up vacuuming the stove top.
Fresh ground pepper in my omelette was what I was going for. Peppercorns everywhere was what I got.
New household rule: Don't buy the Aldi pepper grinder even though it is cheaper.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #345 on: June 21, 2018, 09:27:15 PM »
It was the pyrex pan with my casserole exploding into a million glass bits.

Aww. That one was extra sad for some reason.

My mom accidentally let a pot with a glass lid boil dry on the stove while she was trying to steam some vegetables. She pulled it off the stove and pulled off the lid, then hesitated because she wasn't sure if it was OK to run water in the pot when it was so hot, or if it would ruin the enamel or something. While she stood there with the lid in her hand for a couple of seconds, the glass in the lid spontaneously shattered into a bazillion pieces, all over the floor, leaving her holding the little knob on top...

Noodle

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #346 on: November 09, 2018, 10:24:01 AM »
Since we have another thread posted with a self-described "terrible cook" who is trying to improve, I thought it might be comforting to have a reminder that all cooks have bad days!

I think my biggest disaster of the last six months or so was a cake that was based on a pancake mix (I know, I was trying to use up stuff in the pantry.) The batter tasted so awful I didn't even try to bake it. I wished I had just pitched it in the first case instead of wasting the ingredients I added.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #347 on: November 10, 2018, 07:58:50 AM »
I think the worst lately is when my dear, dear colorblind husband made dinner before I got home. He has always struggled with chicken- can't for the life of him see when it's still pink it the middle.

He served me a lovely salad with hummus and veggies and semi-raw chicken. =(

After this instance, I reminded him of our meat thermometer. He has instead pretty much stuck to cooking beef when I'm not around to help 'color check'. It's a shame, because those salads of his are damn good!

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #348 on: November 10, 2018, 08:13:55 AM »
My first attempt at a poached egg made me laugh a few months back. It looks a bit like a tribute to pac-man for anyone somewhere in the world that is familiar with the 80's arcade game.


ysette9

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Re: Share your kitchen disasters...
« Reply #349 on: November 10, 2018, 01:04:49 PM »
My first attempt at a poached egg made me laugh a few months back. It looks a bit like a tribute to pac-man for anyone somewhere in the world that is familiar with the 80's arcade game.

Hahahaha