What are some of your cooking disasters?

I thought I'd make breakfast for my parents. I got an early start 3:30 I think and asked them for guidance every few minutes. I measured the coffee as instructed, levelling each scoop as I had been taught in home ec class. Must have been very watery coffee. I am sure my parents were grateful that I did not repeat the exercise.

I've been cooking a long time and most days everything is great.
I share partial credit for one when I was 4-5 years old. My older siblings and I were home alone and they decided to use the air popper to make popcorn. They didn't really know how to use it so they just kept dumping in popcorn. We had popcorn everywhere by the time my parents returned. My part was mainly finding containers for the popcorn.
When I was a bit older but still small I wanted to make popcorn on the stove. The hot pan was too heavy for me so I put it down on a vinyl covered chair and melted the chair seat. Kind of hard to hide that mistake.
As a teenager, I once made a cake with icing that turned rock hard. Turned out the recipe was for small decoration not frosting a whole cake. I remember beating the cake with the knife to try to break through.
I've been married 16 years. Dh loves my cooking but apparently I made some soup in year 2 that he will never forget because it was so bad.
Turkey burgers with peach that fell apart into horrible mush. I just don't do well with ground turkey but that was vile. I threw it out and we ate out that night.
I'm sure food on the grill caught on fire at least once.
Overcooked asaparagus at Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. It was edible.
I think most recently I forgot to put sugar in banana bread but it wasn't a disaster as it was sweet enough from the fruit.

My children have been forever scarred by my attempt at making "healthy waffles". Whole wheat flour, apple sauce and pumpkin to replace fats...everything about the recipe sounded like it should taste great...but they were awful.
That was about 7 years ago, and they still bring up the "healthy waffles" when I try a new recipe.

I'm usually pretty good at throwing things together and making delicious meals on a whim. Well, I kept hearing about everyone using Greek yogurt in place of things. I figured I should whip up a Greek yogurt Alfredo sauce for dinner one night... That turned out to be one of the most foul things I've put in my mouth and I have not purchased plain Greek yogurt ever again. That crap went in the trash and we went out to eat that night.

I made my husband dinner when we were dating. It was supposed to be chicken and biscuit casserole, kind of like a chicken pot pie in a casserole dish and the crust was biscuits. Instead of buying regular ones I bought the grands and it sucked up every ounce of gravy and I was left with a nasty, dry, tasteless mess. My husband really didn't like it and he was quite honest with telling me how bad it was (as if I didn't already know!). That got me banned from the kitchen for a very long time.

ManiacalLaugh wrote: »

As a teenager I tried to make instant Jell-O from a box for my mom (who had the flu). I never got it to gel, even though I heated the water and refrigerated it like I was supposed to.

To this day, I still can't figure out how I managed to screw up instant Jell-O...

You probably didn't add the cold water.

When I was really little, one of my first cooking attempts (and disasters) was to try and make my mom hot cocoa. I think she had a cold or something like that.

I added the mix and the water to the mug, mixed it well and stretched as far as I could to put it on the electric coil burner. 10-ish minutes later there was a crack like a gunshot, and hot cocoa came spilling out everywhere though the mug looked fine. Mom runs out, cleans up the mess while I'm apologizing and crying, and then goes to lift the mug. It had broken clean around the bottom. Lesson learned. Only pots and pans go on the stove top.

I grew up with the microwave so really didn't know how to cook - when I started to cook I would preface new meals with "there's always takeout" ...which was used on occasion

I also boiled out a tea pot...unfortunately it was a ceramic tea pot and it adhered to the ceramic stove top and when it cooled it cracked through two burners on the top! Very expensive lesson, went out and bought a whistling teapot asap

I cannot take the credit for this last oops - but someone I know made garlic bread then proceeded to make cookies forgetting to use a clean butter knife - garlic cookies are really not that good!

I'm a reasonably competent cook but last month I ruined two separate sauces when I thoughtlessly added red wine vinegar to my simmering béchamel right after whisking in the milk. Curdled. Repulsive.

I once put a (glass and plastic) French press directly on a hot burner when I was exhausted as well...melted plastic everywhere, it was horrifying.