Earlier in the week, a number of readers shared some hilarious stories about failed cooking experiences. The stories were so great that I wanted to give everyone a chance to share their kitchen catastrophes just before the heavy duty holiday cooking begins.
Maybe we can all pick up some cooking tips on what not to do. I know that I can use all the help I can get.
Let's hear it - have you, a friend or a relative ever had a cooking catastrophe?
Here are the stories shared on the blog earlier in the week:
From Jdouglas: Granoftwenty, your story reminds me of one my Mom told me from when she and Dad were first married. They had my Dad's grandmother over for dinner, who was a really good cook. My Mom was trying to make something nice, and decided to make homemade breaded fried shrimp in their electric frying pan -- a wedding gift, and all the rage in the 1950's. Poor Mom didn't know you had to shell the shrimp first. Let's say it was a little extra crunchy. :)
From klhjunkmail: I melted a thermometer in the turkey. I didn't realize it wasn't oven-proof. The dome over the numbers was a plastic disk (not glass) which melted and dribbled down the side of the bird. MIL was in the next room. (this woman alphabetized her pantry) I pulled the thermometer out and scraped off the melted plastic - QUICKLY! Then I pushed toothpicks into the area around where it had melted so I'd know what chunk to slice off and toss after the the cooking was done.
From Raesmom: I am trying to let Rae help out on the kitchen a bit more then usual, so the other day we made chili and I let her add the seasonings. She added onion powder, garlic powder, some parsley flakes and of course some Adobo. Well the adobo is very free flowing......lets just say we met our salt intake for the week with that pot o' chili lol No matter what or how I tried to fix it.....all I tasted was salt!!! Maybe its time to take away some responsibilities, or just the adobo hahahaha.
From Observant: I cleaned the turkey and put it in the oven. MIL (mother-in-law) asked where the giblet packet was - I said there was not one that time. We checked the wrapper and then the giant bird - it was so far up in that 22 lb bird and stuck so I had not felt it!! The water had run thru the bird just fine so I had no idea !! We got it out early and all turned out well
From Granoftwenty: I bought store brand flour the first couple of years we were married with no problem but ONCE . We were hosting my MOTHER IN LAW for the Christmas meal - everything tasted GREAT but not an appetizing color : my cookies were grey! my gravy was grey! I thought quick and mixed up food coloring until I got a pretty "gravy' color then added it in extremely small doses to the gravy. I iced the cookies and kept my mouth SHUT! That year I was GLAD my MIL was not a kitchen person - with cooking or helping!
I think my most embarrassing kitchen failure happened about 12 years ago. My grandmother was coming to visit and I was hosting dinner for my parents and grandmother and the rest of the family. I made a vegetable lasagna with a ton of mushrooms. I have a well-documented thing for mushrooms, as some of you know. I forgot to pre-cook the mushrooms. I also added a bit too much pasta sauce, I think. The result was a soupy mess of water-logged noodles. We joked about my lasagna soup for a long time after that. Everyone was gracious, but I definitely learned my lesson about pre-cooking mushrooms before adding them to oven baked dishes.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your great stories!
