What's the worst thing you've ever done in the kitchen?

[cynatnite]

My first go at country gravy was a disaster. It got lumpy. I added milk, stirred it quicker and had that stuff flinging all over the place. Gravy on the cabinets and counter tops, on the floor, on me. Even found some that landed on a window and a couple of drops even made it to the sink. Don't ask me how. It was insane. Took me years to try again after that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Burned oatmeal.

[yesphan]

2. Cooked bacon,

naked.

[cynatnite]

3. That's risky. LOL. n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

4. We're talking about cooking, right?

[dchill]

7. Oh. Never mind.

[cynatnite]

8. I left it open to interpretation on purpose. :D n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

14. On second thought, it might be best not to explore that too deeply.

My worst cooking disaster might have been the first time I tried to make homemade noodles by putting the pile of flour on the table, making a well and pouring the beaten egg in the center before mixing. The wall broke through in a couple of places, egg was running all over the place and I didn't have enough hands to catch it all before it was dripping down onto the floor.

Or it might have been the time my sister and I tried to make a cinnamon candy recipe out of my mom's old Household Searchlight cookbook. We didn't have a candy thermometer and tried to judge what stage the boiling syrup was by dropping it into cold water. We didn't get it right and the candy never set up. It was forever known as "Cinnamon Snot", so I will leave it to your imagination as to what the consistency was.

Or maybe it was the time I was going to make cranberry nut bread. Food processors were a new thing then and I wondered if I could use my hand mixer to chop up all those little cranberries that the recipe called for. Turns out that you can't. Did you know that cranberries bounce when they are slung all over the kitchen at high speed?

[cynatnite]

16. Oh, these remind me of the time when I tried to make a chocolate mirror cake...

I made the chocolate glaze and the recipe called to set the bowl in another bowl of ice water. The glaze was warm and it needed to cool.

Well, I left it in too long and when I poured it on the cake and it just stopped because it had cooled. Looked like some diarrhea on top of the cake.

I'm still over the cranberries.

[woodsprite]

28. I'll pass along my Mom's worst as well

When I was a little girl, she fell asleep boiling eggs for Easter egg dying. She had boiled 1.5 dozen, which ended up on the ceiling of the kitchen. We were both crying - me, because I knew she wouldn't boil anymore for my brother and I, and her, because she had to clean up the mess.

[Arkansas Granny]

36. Oh, my. How long did it take to get the smell out of the kitchen?

[woodsprite]

39. For a week or two it was pretty stinky.

I remember her crying and grumbling at herself while she scrubbed down the wallpaper and ceiling, then painting the ceiling over with Kilz and putting a fresh coat of bright white on top of that. It literally sounded like rounds of firecrackers going off in the kitchen.

[HopeAgain]

5. Put Microwave popcorn on 20 minutes

instead of 2. By the time I realized what I had done, I had a totally ruined microwave and a horrible burnt smell all through the house that took months to go away.

[A HERETIC I AM]

60. Same thing will happen with a Chips Ahoy cookie.

Don't nuke it for 5 minutes.

Just don't.


Trust me

[yellowdogintexas]

66. burnt microwave popcorn is horrible.

My boss once walked up to a new employee's desk, slammed the coins down on the table top and ordered her to get that stinky stuff out of her department and start over. The coins were to cover the cost of getting new popcorn from the vending machine, of course

Poor girl did not know this was a supervisor either! She looked around and said 'who does she think she is?" LOL we nearly killed ourselves laughing because we all knew how she felt about burnt popcorn.

[tomp]

6. Left a pot of soup on the burner while I went downtown.

The super had to break a window to get in turn off the burner and the cops came when the super next door reported someone breaking in. The cops frightened the hell out of the super and my apartment smelled of smoke for weeks.

[Kittycow]

45. My husband poured oil into a cast iron skillet, turned on the heat and left

to go talk to his buddy outside. The smoke detector went off and I left the bedroom to find two-foot flames shooting up out of the pan.

All I could manage to do is run outside and scream Fire! They grabbed an extinguisher and took it from there. The only permanent damage was to the linoleum floor where they set the pan down.

I never let him live it down to this day.

[yellowdogintexas]

67. I let the peanut oil catch on fire in my wok. Fortunately, the lid was right there

and I just dropped in on the pan.

Smoked up the kitchen for a while though

[LisaM]

9. Used three tablespoons of baking powder in a cake instead of teaspoons....

predictably, it bubbled all over the place and I remember trying to frantically scrape it back in before I could get the pan out of the oven. So funny!

I also had a spice rack catch fire on a burner. I had just moved into a new apartment, and was making a pot of tea. Turned out the burners were wired backwards, and the spice rack was sitting on the back burner I turned on by accident. I couldn't afford a new one, so had a singed spice rack for years! (I remember the landlord blaming me for it, too, though he did fix it. For about a year he'd ask me, "burned anything up lately?&quot

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Baked a beautiful, cherry glazed ham for my boyfriend. When he

went to cut it, discovered I had left a layer of plastic packaging on it. My first disaster, was a peach pie topped with a cheesecake like topping. It had been a Pillsbury Bake off winner. Somehow, I got the chili powder instead of nutmeg into it!

[mercuryblues]

62. Ah. you just reminded me of my sis in law

and brought a big smile to my face.

She put cumin instead of cinnamon in a pumpkin pie. Every Thanksgiving I would ask her if she was cumin over for dinner.

[bluedigger]

12. Ida Mae Lupinski.

[DUgosh]

13. Three things come to mind

Cake overflowing pans into hot oven, opening a bottle of pink champagne on New Years that exploded, the same thing happened with buttermilk carton I was shaking - thank goodness the popcorn ceiling in kitchen is the same color.

[malchickiwick]

15. Befouled Maker's Mark with Coca Cola -- quelle horreur!!

It wasn't for me; it was for a friend. I begged her not to make me commit such an offense, but to no avail. I had no other whiskey in the house.

[zipplewrath]

18. Johnnie Walker Blue

Saw a guy do that with Johnnie Walker Blue and Sprite once.

Shoulda called 911 on 'em.

[mitch96]

49. I love Makers Mark...

If you get a chance check out the tour of their distillery.. Neat place..
m

[SummerSnow]

17. I threw spaghetti in my aunts face after she made a disparingly

remark about my mother who died. Yep, sauce and all!! Wait, you said the worse thing right?

[dameatball]

52. I give up. You win!!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. I thought of another one.

Not me but my ex, who most of the time was a pretty good cook. But one day he made muffins using baking soda instead of baking powder. I came home to find a plate of muffins on the dining room table with a little piece of paper on a toothpick stuck on one of them. The paper had a drawing of a skull and crossbones. The muffins really were terrible.

Also - not really a cooking story - when my brother and I were teenagers we made a still on the kitchen stove (while parents were out) using equipment purloined from the high school chem lab and some fermented lemonade. It tasted terrible but it burned with a clear blue flame.

[Runningdawg]

20. The first time I used a microwave was at a friends house

He went to work, I slept in, decided to heat a bagel for breakfast. Knowing microwaves were quicker than the oven I sat the timer for 5 minutes. I was outside with the dog when the smoke alarm/fire alarm went off. Nothing like having to call your friend at work to tell him you burned up his kitchen.

[pnwest]

21. Two equally bad I can recall right away - Newly on my own, cooking my first

Thanksgiving turkey, didn't know about the neck and giblets being inside - figured that out halfway through cooking, got it out, put the turkey back in the oven, next time I went to baste the turkey, it fell out of the oven onto the floor, I got so frustrated and upset I threw the whole damn thing in the trash - boy friend said "no way, man!' fished it OUT of the trash, we washed off the cigarette ashes, basted it AGAIN, and put the damn thing back in the oven. Ended up just fine! .....quite tender for having been beat to shit like that!

Second disaster - remember those square, aluminum electric skillets from the 70's? Had one, was making my first attempt at real, honest-to-goodness, southern fried chicken - which requires a good inch, inch and a half of cooking oil...... went to turn the pieces over, the skillet slid forward in slow motion and fell all the off the counter, face-down on the floor - oil eeeeeeeeeeverywhere, and thank GOD I was wearing jeans and shoes. No burns, but FUCK was that a pain in the ass to clean up all that oil off the floor. Decided I was a fan of baked chicken for a lllllong time afterwards, LOL

[cynatnite]

24. My husband would've yelled, "I paid thirty fuckin' dollars for that bird. I'm eating it." LOL. n/t

[pnwest]

38. LOL!! We were very young, and the grocery store had a deal, where you spend

X amount every week for 6 weeks, get a free bird, and he was like "We paid $25 a week for that turkey, we're NOT throwing it out!" LOLOL!!!

Too funny, sweet old memories..........that's been......35 years? Christ I'm old.

[Sophia4]

29. We are dropped turkey buddies. Dropping a turkey was also my worst mistake in a

kitchen. And I wasn't old when it happened either.

[PufPuf23]

68. Reminds me of a step daughter cooking her first family Christmas dinner in a new marriage.

Lynette never has been much by nature that interested in cooking and domestic stuff.


We and other family were visiting from out of town and Lynette could not find the baking pan for the turkey she planned to roast Christmas day.


We were all concerned and helped with the pan search. When she mentioned she had purchased the pan and cooked her first turkey at Thanksgiving, I looked in her oven. The pan with a quite green turkey carcass from her Thanksgiving meal were still in the oven. Like I said, Lynette never has been that much a cook by nature.

[FloridaBlues]

22. Almost set my entire kitchen on fire, darn toaster ovens!

[woodsprite]

23. I had 2 major "oopsies" in one dinner that I cooked for my family and fiance.

1) I had misread a recipe and put 3 Tblsp of baking soda into a cake recipe rather than 3 tsp. My mom had me crying when she said "It'll be fine dear, as long as we can get it out of the oven."

2) I was trying to do raw fried potatoes and onions and totally lacked patience. I ended up putting water in the pan and boiling them until they went dry, added some butter, fried them until brown (by then the onions were REALLY brown). To hide the mistakes, I added a good dollop of sour cream and some fresh dill. They tasted fine, didn't look that great, but that's the one and only time I've done fried potatoes in almost 50 years.

[cynatnite]

26. The family loves fried potatoes, but hates the work...

I buy the frozen ones at our local salvage grocery store. Just gotta fry 'em up.

[Chipper Chat]

25. painted the walls dark green

Big mistake

[Sophia4]

27. I dropped a turkey (on the floor) at Thanksgiving years ago.

Strangely enough, that was the one year that I baked two turkeys (one was a freebie), so we still ate turkey.

But I tend to drop things, and that was the worst cooking faux pas ever.

[Arkansas Granny]

37. Doesn't the 5 second rule apply to turkeys?

[Sophia4]

44. It took a lot more than 5 seconds to pick up the remains of that turkey

and dressing, etc.

It would otherwise had applied.

My family cringes a bit when they contemplate Thanksgiving at my house. But really, I'm a pretty good cook.

My husband reminded me that the cooking dish broke, and that is why the turkey dropped.

Not the worst thing that every happened to me, but not one I will ever forget.

[Arkansas Granny]

46. That's why you never let guests into the kitchen. Too much like making sausage.

[Sophia4]

48. Good rule!

[Freethinker65]

30. Burnt boiled eggs

[iamateacher]

31. Pie crust

I was making an Apple pie from scratch for my grandfather. It came out tough as leather.

[MFM008]

32. Forgot to put flour

In a cookie recipie.

Forgot I wasn't making an angel food cake
And turned a bunt cake upside down.....

[thbobby]

33. Had recipe for corn flake crusted fried chicken

But used sugar frosted flakes instead.

[ailsagirl]

34. Attempted to bake "Shake 'N Bake" chicken

But the oven was so dirty/greasy that once the chicken really started to cook, it became so smoky
indoors that the fire alarm went off. Then, as I recall, I was unable to shut the damn thing off!!

My fault for not cleaning that oven!!

And I haven't attempted S&B since

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

35. Luckily I've never set a kitchen on fire, although

I did once forget about a pan of grease I was heating up so as to pour out. All of a sudden I heard a "POOF!" and looked up to say a layer of smoke getting lower and lower, and the grease on fire. Turned the burner off, dumped salt into the pan which put out the fire and opened windows. No real harm done.

Ever since then when doing anything similar I set a timer.

In terms of cooking disasters, my worst was probably trying to cook swordfish for dinner. Not sure what I did wrong, but it was inedible. My husband and I took maybe two bites, looked at each other, dumped the meal and went out somewhere.

We're now divorced, but one of his good qualities was a willingness to eat out when I requested. I have vague memories of perhaps two other times what I tried to fix was just awful. He was always patient and good natured about the disasters, and immediately ready to head off to a restaurant.

[Freddie]

42. That is precisely how I DID set my kitchen on fire

Was frying donuts and got distracted and didn't turn off the burner. Threw water on the fire - big mistake with a grease fire! - but it put the fire out and I "only" ended up with a scorched wall. Homeowner's Insurance is a wonderful thing. And I buy donuts, not make them.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

50. Luckily I was very aware not to throw water on a grease fire.

A box of salt was handy and worked well. Despite the thick cloud of black smoke in the top two or three feet of the kitchen, I did not get any smoke damage, and as soon as I opened windows and turned on the attic fan, it dissipated very quickly.

It did make me extremely sensitive to how easily and quickly a kitchen fire can start.

[Freddie]

59. Yes indeed

That was in 1994, no "mishaps" since. Was an old house with no smoke alarms. Amazing there wasn't more damage than just a scorched wall and smoke smell.
Recent mishap - frozen shrimp scampi in a glass casserole dish I thought was oven -safe. Exploded in the hot oven with glass, shrimp and garlic butter all over. A joy to clean

[SeattleVet]

40. One disaster, one miscalculation, and one 'whothehellknows'

Disaster: heating a few tablespoons of oil to make popcorn on the stove. Got distracted and was called outside for something. Kept hearing a weird noise - eventually realizing that it was the smoke detectors in the duplex I was renting at the time. Ran in, grabbed the pot off of the stove, and part of the melted bottom fell off as I was tossing it into the sink. Melted through the linoleum and partway into the masonite underlayment. Smelled terrible. I was going to be moving out in a few weeks. Told landlord, and he wasn't too upset, since he was planning on some major upgrades anyway.

Miscalculation: When I was in high school my parents were going out one night, so they left some ground beef for the 3 kids to make their on dinners. We decided to each make our own, and divided the meat into 3 masses. My two younger sisters made hamburgers, but I decided to get fancy and pack the meat around a tomato, so I'd have a nice cooked tomato inside a big meatball. I had to stop frying it when the meat started getting too toasty, but the tomato was still as cold as it was when I first put it in. Had a dinner of (over)cooked ground beef and raw tomato that night.

<whothehellknows>: Another popcorn mishap. Popcorn in the microwave. Not sure what happened - best I can figure is that I must have pushed the button above or below the one labeled 'Popcorn'. Popped, and then burned. Took months to get rid of the smell in the microwave, but only a few weeks for it to clear from the rest of the house.

[matt819]

41. Two incidents, thankfully from many years ago

When I was a kid, showing my little sister how to whip cream. I was whipping the cream and it seemed a little beyond cream. It turns out I think I made butter. But to check on how thick it was, I pull the blades, still beating, out of the bowl. Got butter all over the kitchen. Smart move.

Next, some years later, trying to impress my girlfriend, now my wife of 30+years. I was trying to impress her with my cooking, so I decided on a flourless chocolate cake. I don't know why, but that's what I chose. I mixed everything up and then realized I didn't have a springform pan. Whoops. So I used a loaf pan. It's in the oven for maybe 5-10 minutes when it dawns on me I forgot the sugar, and the cake only had unsweetened chocolate. So I pulled it out of the oven, put it back in the bowl, added sugar, beat it all up (not spraying the kitchen this time), put it back into the loaf pan and essentially baked a chocolate brick. It was appalling. We were in a class together at the time, and I had the nerve to bring it to share. No one wanted part of my chocolate brick.

I've made some awful stuff over the years, but these two incidents stick with me. At least I didn't set the kitchen on fire, so there's that.

[mokawanis]

43. About a month ago

I took a glass dish out of the oven and set it on a hot burner on top of the stove (mistakenly thinking the turned off burner had cooled down). When I noticed the smoke coming off the dish I reached for it and picked it up right at the moment when it exploded, showing glass shards and cake all over me and the kitchen.

[ailsagirl]

47. Another one

I put a full glass of grape juice (think of the sugar!) on the counter, and my cat jumped up and knocked it
over and it spilled ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. Even on the ceiling, not to mention the cabinets.

[mitch96]

51. The infamous zucchini incident

Not the worst but so stupid it made me chuckle..
So it was my third or fourth attempt at zuc bread.. Got out the recipe, ingredients and bowls. All went well and into the oven pre heated to 350ºF. After about 20 min I do the old toothpic trick.. still wet.. no problems. 30 min? still wet.. Hummmm normally 25-30 min cook time..
35? nope. 40? nope, still wet.. WTF?? A full 50 min and t'pic came out dry.. Let it sit for a bit and then turned it out.. Fuck.. rock hard on top and gooey wet on the bottom..
What the hell did I do?

dummy. you BAKE a bread not BROIL a bread.. I laughed my ass off for not checking Bake/Broil setting... what a putz...
m

[RKP5637]

53. Put regular soap in the dishwasher. What a mess. n/t

[Itchinjim]

54. My wife on the kitchen table right before her parents came over for dinner.😈😈😈😈

[alittlelark]

55. Accidentally turned on full Vita-mix without lid....

O. M. G.......

[CelticWinter]

56. funniest thing i remember

was hubby wanted chocolate chip cookies so he decided to make them. He took the cookie sheet out of the oven and couldn't understand why all his cookies melted. I took a taste of the dough and gagged, it was so sweet, I asked him what he put into it and he grabbed the confectioner's sugar canister instead of the flour, stating well they are both white. That was 35 yrs ago and he has never lived it down

[dhol82]

57. Got a new bread knife.

It was really high end and did I mention sharp?
I had bought a baguette and needed to cut it in half to store in the freezer.
I was in a rush because I had a class to go to and was running late.
Did I mention rushing, distracted and sharp?
Seven stitches in my forefinger. Took a while to get the bleeding under control so I could even get to the doc in a box.
Always watch what I cut these days.

[AncientGeezer]

58. Accorging to my wife...anything related to fire and a pot or pan...

She was 100% right

[CTyankee]

61. I had a fire alarm system installed at the top of the stairs to our basement, but it was very near

to the stove. When I was frying some chicken, it went off. I stopped cooking it and removed the pan but the Fire Dept. came anyway. I was mortified but they shrugged. Probably nothing they hadn't seen before...

I decided it wasn't worth it and disabled the fire alarm system in the kitchen.

I know, I know...

[mercuryblues]

63. I made homemade baked beans to take to a

cookout. They were still hot when I put them in a Rubbermaid container, snapped the lid on to transport. Went and grabbed the potato salad out of the fridge. The top blew off the Rubbermaid container because of the heat. Beans and juice from the ceiling to the floor.

I was making a rum cake. The recippe calls for a glaze and you add the rum after you are done boiling it. Then poke holes in the cake and pour it over. While I was pouring it (I'll blame the kids for this) I got distracted. I poured about 1/2 of it on the counter, down the cabinets and onto the floor.

In the cake it stays moist. on its own? It was hardening as I cleaned it up. I thought I had it all. For years I was scraping spots of it off the front of my cabinets and in my drawers. I swear the only way I got rid of all of it was when we remodeled the kitchen.

Or the time I left the icecream sitting on top of the refrigerator instead of putting in the freezer? Yeah, that was fun to clean up.

[easttexaslefty]

64. The time I caught the thanksgiving

turkey on fire.

[yellowdogintexas]

65. Volcano Pie...

My first attempt at Chocolate Angel Pie, which has a meringue crust.

I would have sworn in court that the recipe said 450 degrees.

Nope. 250. Just warm enough to dry out the meringue which had been spread inside the pie pan.

It bubbled and popped and scorched. Black smoke came out the oven vent in the back burner.

I had to do something else that used the chocolate filling.

I have never tried to make it again.


This was not my first go-round with meringue either, so I can't even plead ignorance.

[kwassa]

69. Dropping a large glass jar of marinated mushrooms in olive oil on the floor.

Shattered, spread all over the kitchen. Glass shards and mushrooms in olive oil and Italian spices.

It

took

so

long

to

clean

it

up.

[smirkymonkey]

70. I slaughtered an entire restaurant staff once, but I was just having a really bad day.

I don't think I would ever do it again. People got really mad at me.

[Jokerman]

71. The "margarita fire hose".

I tried to make frozen margaritas in a cheap, plastic blender. An ice cube got jammed and it blew a small hole in the side causing a high-pressure stream of cold liquid to cover me and just about everything else.