biggest disaster
By Modestah
@Modestah (11179)
United States
June 10, 2007 4:20pm CST
What was your worst cooking disaster?
I have two:
1. I substituted ketchup for tomato sauce in veal parmegiana 20 years ago dh still laments the day, and has not let me live it down.
2. I was making a lovely pork and rice casserole - and as I pulled the glass can from the oven and carried it over towards the table - it slipped from my hands - I instinctively jumped to get out of the way of the boiling hot food - and landed straight down on sharp glass. Got 7 stitches in the bottom of my foot.
however, this last one was actually a good thing. I was not yet married to my then boyfriend, and was cooking this meal (at my parents home) to bring to him at his house. I called him up to let him know what happened and he was to my house within 15 minutes (a normally 30 minute drive) wherein he wrapped my foot and rushed me to the emergency room. When I was released he brought me home, propped up my swollen sore foot with an ice pack and cleaned up the casserole and blood from my parents' kitchen floor. if my folks came home and saw that they would have thought there was an ax murderer on the loose. There was so much blood.
7 people like this
19 responses
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
10 Jun 07
Er... I think it was when I was grade 10.
I stayed at a boarding house for the whole of that year. I remembered seeing a metal pot and thought... why not so instant noodles?
So I loaded the pot with water and put my noodles.. and put it into the microwave oven. I walked out of the common pantry but I smelled something metal burning and heard some sounds within a short one.
It was a mini firework in progress in the oven and I quickly power down the oven. Well, no one told me I can't have metal inside microwave ovens.
Anyway I was ostracized by my friends from a week because I basically ruined the pantry and they can smell it from the floor down even. :P
2 people like this
@Modestah (11179)
• United States
10 Jun 07
oh man! that is a disaster! I hope chinese noodles do not get you in such messes any more! I have heard and seen the effects of metal in the micro before... either a spoon or a bit of tin foil on the food the way it would arc spit and sputter and spark, I thought for sure we would all have radiation poisoning!
2 people like this
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
11 Jun 07
What's equally bad was someone thought I was an alien for not knowing metal pots shouldn't go into the microwave oven.
How was I to know? No one told me and I didn't use it before, plus they put the pot next to the oven. :P
@classy56 (2880)
• United States
10 Jun 07
i was just talking to my daughter about the time i fixed blueberry pies for her cheerleading garage an bake sale.{this was 20 years ago} never made a pie in my life before this..i was told to cook the blueberries an add milk an sugar on top of the stove for 20 minutes an than pour into uncooked pie shells..lol i did an the blueberry filling was runny.but the pie crust came out looking pretty. so i thought the pies was ready to sell.i made 10 pies an sold them for $5.apeice.after they sold all the pies..someone came back an asked for their money back..lol the inside of the pie was all milky an runny..to this day i cant stand looking or smelling at blueberries.lol "i still cant make a blueberry pie after 20 years..
@sunita64 (6469)
• India
11 Jun 07
My cooking disaster is not as great as yours is, well once I was going to a beach so for the way I felt like making some Alu ka parantha for that I boiled the potatoes and forgot to add water to the pressure cooker after some time there was a bang and the lid of the cooker blew apart and when I entered the kitchen immediately I closed the gas and when looked inside the cooker it was all black with charred potatoes.
1 person likes this
@smacksman (6053)
•
11 Jun 07
I made coffee for everyone on board my friends sailing boat as we usually take it in turns to brew up a mug.
I took the order (some white, some black, 2,3 or 4 sugars) and strapped myself into the galley as we bounced along.
It took a bit of time to find the ingredients in the lockers but eventually made it and handed up the bowl full of the mugs into the cockpit.
The crew tucked in as I cleaned up the galley and when I drank my coffee it tasted a bit funny and I thought the water might be a bit off in the tanks.
It was only later that I found that in stead of sugar I had put washing machine soap powder in the coffee!! Well, it looked the same!!
@nelly5 (1424)
• United States
11 Jun 07
My biggest cooking disaster had to be when I decided to cook a really nice anniversary dinner for my husband. It was our anniversary and my husband had to work that day. I decided I would make him a really nice dinner and have it ready when he arrived home from work. Well I was getting everything prepared for the meal and figured I better let the oven pre-heat. I forgot to look in the oven and didn't realize that someone had place the plastic strainer in the oven. Well needless to say, the strainer melted all over and oh my, what a terrible mess I had to clean up. I was so upset, I wasn't able to get it cleaned up and dinner done before my husband got home. He did get a good laugh out of it, of course, after I was done crying. I was just sad because we didn't have a lot of money and I wasn't able to buy him a gift so I wanted to do something special with dinner for him. But now we both look back and laugh, it is a funny memory now..even though I was very upset at the time.
1 person likes this
@Modestah (11179)
• United States
11 Jun 07
just yesterday I turned on the oven to preheat only to find someone left a Styrofoam plate in there - nothing on it, just the plate. I am glad that it just shriveled up and did not drip and stink like plastic.
It sounds like you made a memorable event out of your anniversary after all.
@raychill (6525)
• United States
10 Jun 07
When I was in high school I was a culinary arts major. Collectively we had plenty of cooking disasters. Imagine it. 16 High school students allowed to cook for their grades! I think our biggest collective disaster was the numerous amounts of times we'd be baking chocolate chip cookies (we did that at least once a week) and we'd realize it was time for our next class completely forgetting about the cookies and leaving them in the oven till we came back 2 or 3 hours later. It's amazing we never started a fire.
2 people like this
@Polly1 (12645)
• United States
11 Jun 07
I just read your other responses. Some of them are so funny. Anyone who has cooked has had a mess up or two. A neighbor gave me a recipe for a pineapple cake, she even gave me a piece of it to try. You take angel food cake mix, mix a can of crushed pineapple and juice with cake mis and bake until brown on top. Thats what I did, the cake is chewy like rubber, it taste good. The lady is out of town, I can't ask her what I did wrong. Another time I was going to cook some hot dogs outside on my moms grill. I had never lit her grill before. I had the hot dogs on a plate, on top of the grill. I turned the gas on, lite a match, stuck it in the hole. It wouldn't lite, I did it again, well suddenly the gas caught, the lid flew up, the hot dogs went flying. Scared the daylights out of me. looking back it was funny, specially the hot dogs flying.
1 person likes this
@courtlynne77 (4839)
• United States
11 Jun 07
What a good guy! When my husband and I first got married he wanted me to make cabbage rolls for him so I gave it a try. I didn't have tomato soup so I used veggie soup with alphabet noodles. I didn't understand how to wrap the cabbage so I just formed these huge burrito-style things. My husband ate them though and never said anything bad to me about them. I was really embarrassed when we ate cabbage rolls at his mom's and I saw how they were suppose to be.
1 person likes this
@Modestah (11179)
• United States
11 Jun 07
they probably still tasted fantastic, right? I admit seeing the little ABC noodles would have given me a chuckle.
I love Galumpki(sp) but I usually give up on rolling the cabbage leaves after the first few and just throw the rest in the pot to cook like a stew.
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
10 Jun 07
In 1994 my mother took an after-school job at the YMCA after school program, and I was responsible for cooking. Well, she didn't tell me to keep cast iron pots on low volume. I tried to make beef stew that night, and I blew it right off the stove!!! Mom had to lick it off of the walls while my sister and I ordered pizza!
1 person likes this
@chiyosan (30184)
• Philippines
11 Jun 07
ohh mine was really a disaster.. i forgot to put water or oil in the pan i was heating and then i forgot about it... it was literally on fire!
my mom had to throw a bucket of water just to keep the fire down or i have burned the whole place.
1 person likes this
@freak369 (5113)
• United States
11 Jun 07
I asked someone to pick up some vegetable oil when I ran out in the middle of making cupcakes. She grabbed a bottle and dropped it off. I didn't pay any attention as I had to make like 150 cupcakes so I had all the batter in bowls, all I needed was to add the oil and mix it up.
She added the oil to three bowls and started mixing them .. everything seemed fine. They went in the oven and didn't rise as much as they usually do .. even so, nothing that frosting wouldn't fix.
When I bit into one I almost threw up. She grabbed olive oil, not vegetable oil. Her retort ...
"Well, an olive is a vegetable"
1 person likes this
@samtaylorskykierajen (7977)
• Canada
11 Jun 07
My worst cooking disaster was when I was making puff wheat square a couple of months ago ( still upset about this one ) , my oven wasn't working so I never gave it any thought and figured I could put my really nice Pyrex bowl on the top of the stove on low just to heat them a bit as I mixed the rest of the ingredients . Seemed like a good idea at the time as it was safe for the oven and I only had the burner on low . Well within a couple of minutes my Pyrex bowl literally blew up in front of me . I was devasted as it was my favorite bowl as it came with a lid and a wicker basket and we had recieved it as a wedding gift when we had got married and I knew it was quite expensive ( so not something I would have bought for myself ). My husband came and cleaned it up and all I could do was cry that this was why I hated to bake because nothing ever turned out right lol .
1 person likes this
@creematee (2810)
• United States
11 Jun 07
I learned the hard way that pyrex dishes don't go from stovetop to oven. I was cooking tuna casserole (yes, the same that I'm bringing to your dinner party!) Anyway, I was sauteeing the onions in the pyrex baking dish on the stove top. I then mixed the rest of the ingredients together, and then put into an oven. It must not have been a pre-heated oven, because within seconds the dish shattered into a million pieces. Fortunately, my hubby wasn't THAT hungry, and helped me clean up after the oven cooled off. (what a sweetie!)
1 person likes this
@vonne28th (1494)
• Philippines
11 Jun 07
When i made a recipe i got from a cookbook. I think it was my worsest thing i've ever done in the kitchen. I spent a lot of money from that recipe but it turned out to be the most awful dish i've ever tasted.
1 person likes this
@ctv101103 (859)
• Philippines
12 Jun 07
mine would be the time when i tried to bake a cheesecake. i was still in college then. i saw a recipe off a cream cheese carton so i decided to try it out. it was my first attempt at baking. the cheesecake was overbaked! it was really hard when it came out. i could throw it and give someone a bump in the head. lol! now, i only buy ready-made cheesecakes from bakeshops. lol!
@mamasan34 (6518)
• United States
11 Jun 07
My worst cooking experience was a couple of years ago when me and my brother were frying eggrolls for my mom. He made me laugh so hard, I dropped the eggroll into the hot fryer and the grease came back at me and burned most of my left hand and parts of my upper arm. I couldn't believe it. I have a very large scar on my hand and fingers and some small scars from grease spatters on my arm. There is nothing really I can do for the scarring, but my husband was in Afghanistan at the time and I just told him it was a small burn nothing to worry about, he came home on leave and saw the scars and he was livid. I told him i would rather have him worry about himself than me while he was over there. I wasn't dying so it wasn't that big of a deal. My mom was so sweet, she would bandage my hand and put creams on it and make sure it was clean when i was over there. I was 34 at the time and I told her I could take care of myself, but she sure wasn't about to let me do it alone lol!
@teleios (737)
• Philippines
11 Jun 07
i once tried to cook chicken cacciatore for my sister and brother. it was only when we started to eat that we noticed that the chicken was so bland. i realized that i had forgotten to season it! i didn't know that i had to! now, i don't cook. i just eat! :)
@lexus54 (3572)
• Singapore
11 Jun 07
When I was 18, I served 2.5 years in the navy as part of my national service obligation. One day when I was on board a ship, I decided to bake a cake when the cook wasn't around. I followed the recipe and after all the mixing of ingredients, I put the cake into the oven and adjusted the thermostat. When the baking time was up, I opened the oven door, and to my horror, the cake came out black like coal. It seemed the the oven's thermostat wasn't functioning well, but no one told me about this before I baked. It was rather embarrassing because my shipmates were waiting to devour the cake. And when they asked me where the cake was, I had to tell a white lie and said that the cake was finished already. The truth was the cake was FINISHED, gone and burnt beyond recognition!! I've never baked a cake since.
@bambi_doe (566)
• United States
11 Jun 07
Get ready your going to laugh your buns off at this one...When I was first married 25 years ago my hubby wanted some rice krispie treats and so I asked one of my friends for the recipe... the recipe called for the cereal - marshmellows - butter... well she did not have the way to do it and so I melted the butter added the marshmellows and cereal and put it in a baking pan and stuck it in the oven... Needless to say it burnt black and stunk like a skunk...I through the whole pan and everything in the trash...I ran to the store and bought already made in a package and air freshener and went home put them on a serving platter and told him that I made them for him. I have never made them since then. Hugs
@Modestah (11179)
• United States
11 Jun 07
oh no! I could just imagine! must have been really smokey too! rice krispy treats are supposed to be the easiest things - they ended up quite an ordeal for you. maybe you are not the only one to have done that since they began to put the recipe on the boxes.
shoot, didn't the commercials start telling us not to bake them too?
@bambi_doe (566)
• United States
11 Jun 07
Yes they do now and my hubby just asked if I was trying to make them again and asking for the recipe... I said I don't think soLOL.Hugs
