What are some of your cooking disasters?

beautifulsparkles
beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Bonus points if you provide pictures!

-I had to make a chocolate cake at school, and I nearly put it in the oven without any sugar! do'h!
-The cooking teacher was demonstrating how to make pastry, and she used pieces of macaroni to show where to put the butter in the dough. I wasn't paying attention, and stupidly asked ''wheres the macaroni kept'' because I thought I had to add it to the dough!
-I stunk out my aunts kitchen trying to make microwave popcorn. I got distracted and wondered off... left the house before our drive home being very popular with my grandma, aunt and cousin lol
-I offered to make dinner for my mum. I found this delicious recipe online with potato and cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potato. I used sweet potato/kumara as a substitute the first time I made it, and it tasted great, especially after adding some cheese and ginger. When I made it for my mum, I used the blender, and the cauliflower and sweet potato weren't blending properly, so I let the blender go and go and go, and well, it turned to grey goo. I gave some to my mum, and she turnt her nose up, saying it was only fit for baby food, opps.

I'm sure theres more, but I've blocked them out due to self preservation. What are yours?
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Replies

  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    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.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    My latest failure was this past week where I nuked the Greek Yogurt along with my Red River cereal. The yogurt toughened in to rubbery strings.

    And I have been trying to perfect my sourdough recipe for the last couple months. So far, nearly inedible bricks. I have not given up.
  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    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 think the mistake was not trying it again. My parents love it when I make them hot drinks!
  • Duchy82
    Duchy82 Posts: 560 Member
    Attempted quite recently to make a steamed syrup sponge for the first time.

    It was an absolute disaster, it didn't look anything like it was supposed to it collapsed the minute i took it out of the pudding form and to be honest was waaaaaaay too sweet for my liking. It looked so bad I cried with laughter.

    I have a pic but have no idea how to upload it here from my phone....
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    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.
  • mjwarbeck
    mjwarbeck Posts: 699 Member
    Most recently made gado gado and made the peanut sauce without tasting the peanut butter...didn't notice it had long expired and it had gone rancid (becomes very bitter)...looked great...couldnt eat it.
  • Bethie_ess
    Bethie_ess Posts: 42 Member
    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.
  • ForeverSunshine09
    ForeverSunshine09 Posts: 966 Member
    I can't make cornbread muffins to save my life.they always burn on top and refuse to cook everywhere else along with basically exploding all over my oven.

    A long time ago I burnt hamburger helper into basically a black Patty because I fell asleep.

    I also forgot I was boiling water and it all boiled away before I remembered.

    A month or so ago I had a pan try to shoot me. Those buttons on the inside of your pan that hold the handle on just flew off while I was making breakfast sausage. I swear it sounded like a gun shot.

    Once while stirring pasta the pasta spoon broke and I dunked my hand into boiling water.

    Tried my husband's favorite cake for his birthday homemade carrot cake. Which involves like 4 cups of freshly grated carrots. My dumb azz could not figure out how to use the food processor so I shred them by hand with a potato peeler. Baby carrots. Took Forever!
  • Meganthedogmom
    Meganthedogmom Posts: 1,639 Member
    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.
  • cbelc2
    cbelc2 Posts: 762 Member
    Once my son microwaved a frozen burrito for 30 minutes instead of 3 minutes. I tried my hand at Indian food and all the seeds popped out of the pan. I had to chase then down. I went vegetarian and fed my family soy 'ribs' with BBQ sauce. They still talk about that many years later. The dog even turned up her nose at them!
  • liftsalltheweights
    liftsalltheweights Posts: 73 Member
    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
    ManiacalLaugh Posts: 1,048 Member
    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...
  • liftsalltheweights
    liftsalltheweights Posts: 73 Member
    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.
  • ejbronte
    ejbronte Posts: 867 Member
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=t6mzUs8TEDo

    Get past the commercial and then enjoy....
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    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.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    I've ruined 2 pans trying to make rice pudding. Burned the milk every single time. Managed to destroy a Le Creuset pan while trying to warm it up to cook some chicken too (the bottom started popping pieces all over. Weird). Also ruined a crepe pan because the bottom took fire and sent pieces of black stuff all over my kitchen.

    Otherwise, lately it's been some Tuscan bread... followed the instructions to the letter but it turned into a flat bread every single time because it was rising sideways instead of up, and the dough was too sticky to work properly. Very frustrating. Never figured it out, assuming the recipe is just not accurate. But it was still tasty!

    And 1 2 3 cakes. I guess technically I didn't ruin it, it's just a sad excuse of a cake.

    And yeah the refried beans I made last week were very disappointing but I guess it wasn't a disaster as it was still edible... just not as tasty as I had hoped.

    I'm not an adventurous cook though and stick to relatively easy recipes...
  • RWayne48
    RWayne48 Posts: 68 Member
    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 :blush:

    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!
  • ManiacalLaugh
    ManiacalLaugh Posts: 1,048 Member
    stealthq wrote: »
    Only pots and pans go on the stove top.

    Oh yeah.... I forgot about the day I learned that particular lesson. Oops. (Glass casserole dish, in my case.)
  • peleroja
    peleroja Posts: 3,979 Member
    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.
  • MommyMeggo
    MommyMeggo Posts: 1,222 Member
    Im pretty decent in the kitchen.
    Baking im not so good at- which is probably better for my waistline.
    However my last disaster was a pineapple upside down cake- which turned into a giant wet pile of goop when I flipped it over.
    ...and yes I picked at it because it was the most delicious pile of goop ever to be in my kitchen.
  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
    Just before, I had all the leafy bits of a celery left over, so I juiced it with some water, than I added the leftover greek yoghurt, lots of cinnamon and two ripe bananas... the first sip tasted okay, not great when I first had it in my mouth, then the after taste was foul... I don't often waste food, but I spat it out. I will have to figure out what to do with left over celery leafs.
  • blondie_mfp
    blondie_mfp Posts: 62 Member
    I was making a batch of cinnamon-caramel popcorn, which required melting the caramel ingredients in the microwave. I used my regular kitchenaid plastic bowl like I had used many times prior... only this time, when I took it out of the microwave, the entire bottom of the bowl fell through and spilled boiling hot caramel everywhere! thankfully, I jumped out of the way and was not burned. :blush:

    lesson learned: always heat things in the microwave using GLASS bowls.
  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
    From my facebook page "So, I brought the ingredients for vegetable/chicken soup a week ago, and I still haven't made it! The celery looks like its seen better days. What a dork!

    I had a bad cooking experience with it last year which has put me off making/eating it, hopefully not forever. Basically, I couldn't be bothered making soup, so I kept putting it off. Eventually, I cut up the celery, onion, carrots and cabbage and put them in the pot. I couldn't be bothered cooking them, so I left them in the fridge for a day or two, then cooked it. The soup looked funny and tasted kind of weird."
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    My husband says burnt is his favorite flavor... :D
  • acheben
    acheben Posts: 476 Member
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    Just before, I had all the leafy bits of a celery left over, so I juiced it with some water, than I added the leftover greek yoghurt, lots of cinnamon and two ripe bananas... the first sip tasted okay, not great when I first had it in my mouth, then the after taste was foul... I don't often waste food, but I spat it out. I will have to figure out what to do with left over celery leafs.
    I use celery tops and other vegetable scraps when I'm making chicken or vegetable stock.
  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
    I tried making hawaiian or margaretta calzone (folded over pizza), and the insides tasted horrible and the pizza dough kept expanding and expanding. It did not look or taste right, lol. I had a delicious calzone with my friends when I lived in the UK and really wanted to learn how to have it at home.
  • beautifulsparkles
    beautifulsparkles Posts: 314 Member
    acheben wrote: »
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    Just before, I had all the leafy bits of a celery left over, so I juiced it with some water, than I added the leftover greek yoghurt, lots of cinnamon and two ripe bananas... the first sip tasted okay, not great when I first had it in my mouth, then the after taste was foul... I don't often waste food, but I spat it out. I will have to figure out what to do with left over celery leafs.
    I use celery tops and other vegetable scraps when I'm making chicken or vegetable stock.

    I've never make stock. What do you do it with? how do you store it? we don't have a very good freezer at the moment.
  • zdyb23456
    zdyb23456 Posts: 1,706 Member
    I tried a crock pot pinterest recipe with chicken, stuffing mix, cream of chicken soup, sour cream (maybe? I can't remember exactly) and green beans. I know my crock pot runs hot so I let it cook on "keep warm" while I was gone. Came home to a dried out, burnt mess. I tried to salvage the top part that wasn't scorched, but you just couldn't avoid the burnt taste. I ended up tossing all of it :(

  • quiltlovinlisa
    quiltlovinlisa Posts: 1,710 Member
    At 46, I've had an awful lot of cooking disasters.
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    acheben wrote: »
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    Just before, I had all the leafy bits of a celery left over, so I juiced it with some water, than I added the leftover greek yoghurt, lots of cinnamon and two ripe bananas... the first sip tasted okay, not great when I first had it in my mouth, then the after taste was foul... I don't often waste food, but I spat it out. I will have to figure out what to do with left over celery leafs.
    I use celery tops and other vegetable scraps when I'm making chicken or vegetable stock.

    I've never make stock. What do you do it with? how do you store it? we don't have a very good freezer at the moment.

    In answer to your stock question, I use stock for soups, pot pies, stews... Hmmmmm yummy stuff!
  • acheben
    acheben Posts: 476 Member
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    acheben wrote: »
    beautifulsparkles wrote: »
    Just before, I had all the leafy bits of a celery left over, so I juiced it with some water, than I added the leftover greek yoghurt, lots of cinnamon and two ripe bananas... the first sip tasted okay, not great when I first had it in my mouth, then the after taste was foul... I don't often waste food, but I spat it out. I will have to figure out what to do with left over celery leafs.
    I use celery tops and other vegetable scraps when I'm making chicken or vegetable stock.

    I've never make stock. What do you do it with? how do you store it? we don't have a very good freezer at the moment.

    I use it in soups/stews and to cook rice/orzo. You can usually replace water with stock for more flavor. I store it in the fridge for about a week or freeze in individual servings.

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