True. My friend turns the bird over halfway or so through the cooking process so the breast can brown a bit.
I posted on another thread about my not draining the water from the macaroni while I was making Kraft Dinner. I did try to make my own homemade birthday cake when I was in the 6th grade. It was chocolate and it asked for semi-sweet chocolate, which I added in but unfortunately the recipes assumed that you knew to melt it first before you add it into the dry mixture.
I love this thread!!! You guys are a riot. One of my many disasters was when I didn't know exactly what a clove of garlic meant. I thought it was the whole bulb. So, a recipe that called for 4 cloves but got 4 whole bulbs was definitely inedible. And stunk up the house. Also, not very long ago, I bought a microwave rice cooker (see post on other thread about rice hating me). I put the rice and water in, turned it on to the appropriate time, and went down to the pool. Big mistake. Luckily, nobody called the fire department. Smoke filled the place and I had to end up getting a new microwave. The stench of the microwaved plastic was unbearable. Cooking is so much fun.
These are great stories on cooking disasters. I started baking cookies when I was about 12 years old. I LOVE to cook and bake. I learned a lot from my mom. I do not remember any real disasters when I would cook. However I do remember one about my mom. It was Thanksgiving and she was cooking turkey. While the turkey was cooking, we noticed the pan had a hole and the grease dripped in the oven. Needless to say, the oven caught on fire and the skin of the turkey was black. Would you know that the inside of the turkey tasted fine. We ask mom every year if she is going to make Blacken Turkey. We crack up over every time since my mom is a perfectionist and does not make a lot of cooking mistakes. She is an awesome cook and I learned a lot from her.
I was able to set popcorn on fire in the microwave at my workplace (building at an university) before I started teaching. Because of the two elevator shafts in the building and poor ventilation, the whole nine floors of the building smelled like burnt popcorn. Yeah, it was not funny at the time but people on other floors were saying - what's that smell?????
I always wanted an ez bake oven when I was a kid but my mom said we'd just cook in the 'big' oven. And we did. My mom is an amazing cook...she took a lot of adult Ed cooking classes, worked at one point for Better Homes and Gardens, and was always experimenting with new recipes. I would order kids cookbooks from Scholastic and take them out from the library...I loved home ec in middle school and took a few foods classes in hs...I'm a good cook. My one son loves cooking as well..we're all about taking a recipe and making it our own...I rarely follow an exact recipe (except for when baking) and I truly can't recall any cooking disaster stories.
These stories are hilarious! It's comforting to know that I'm in good company!! One time I wanted to soften a stick of margarine in the microwave. I threw it in for a few seconds before there was a loud pop and a flash of light from the microwave... the margarine stick was in a foil wrapper. I also burned bacon in a frying pan so bad that it melted into black liquid!!!
Yes, my mom gave me the same answer when I asked for it. My mother and grandmother had me cooking at an early age. I've never had smoke coming from the oven or poisoned anyone so I guess I am doing well LOL I think there are some people who just don't have the knack and have to try harder than others. My grandmother used to tell me that her sister was always a terrible cook and did send her husband to the hospital with her cooking one time. She couldn't understand it though since they were only 1 year apart in age and was taught the exact same things in the kitchen by their mother.
One of my blunders occured a few years into our marriage. I created a rice dish that uses about 1 tsp of paprika. I had run out of paprika and had skimped and got a brand that I don't usually get. The color of it was off and the flavor wasn't as pronounced. So, I was making the rice and grabbed the paprika and added the correct amount. The color of the rice wasn't the pretty orange color it should have been, so I added about another 1/2 tsp of paprika. The color was right then, so I finished cooking the rice. When we sat down to dinner and I tasted the rice, I started breathing fire. I ran to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard and soon learned that the reason the rice wasn't the correct color was that I was adding cayenne pepper, not paprika! They were in the same colored container and I assumed the cayenne was paprika. That was the hottest rice I've ever trued to consume. My poor husband, managed to eat one serving of it and didn't complain. But, he did go through 3 glasses of water! My other blunder occurred just last week. I was making the sauce for chicken parmesan and grabbed the black pepper container, opened the lid, and dumped some in. When I looked at the sauce, I soon realized that I hadn't grabbed the black pepper container, but one of cardamom. Again, the manufacturer was the same, so I thought I had the black pepper. Luckily, the sauce hadn't started boiling yet and I was able to scoop out most of the cardamom. I didn't get it all out, but I think the cardamom added a little more flavor to the dish. So, the moral of my stories: always read the name of the spice on the label before adding spice!!!
I did the same with cream cheese when I was a kid, except I produced blue sparks! I remember one time using powdered sugar in a zucchini cake instead of baking powder. And I set a recipe on fire one time while making fudge. Jus this year I was making fudge and the marshmallows must have been a little old, so they didn't "melt" into the chocolate right away. I ended up having to heat and stir it for 10 extra minutes, during which time it turned into chocolate caramel instead of fudge. Too bad there was no was to get it out of the foil wrappers--it just stretched and stretched!!
Hey, Marci....I bet you feel a LOT better about your cooking! See, this is how much we love you: We're willing to share our most embarrassing cooking stories just so you know you're nowhere near alone in this! :lol:
Oh another one was when I decided to nuke an egg using the microwave when I was in middle school to make hard boiled eggs. I placed the raw egg in a bowl of water and placed it in the microwave. I think that I set it for 5 minutes. I left the kitchen to do some chores. Next thing I hear is BOOOOOM. The egg exploded in the microwave. The pressure was so much that it popped the microwave door open. Luckily I wasn't standing in front of it.
I ended up cooking the chop meat in the microwave while attempting to defrost it. I hit the auto defrost button which went on for 2 minutes. I forgot to take the packaging off and didn't realize that because we had less than 1/2 pound of meat it would cook it…… That was tonight. Though I guess my screw up wasn't all that bad… while we didn't have the hamburgers we were looking forward to, my bf came to the rescue and cooked the flank steak we had in the freezer. Steak, veggies and mashed potatoes led to a late but tasty NYE dinner.
In college a friend of mine and I decided to cook a "real" meal for her boyfriend and his roommates. We bought all the fixings for a chicken dinner with chocolate shakes. We made the brownies first and when the timer went off we put the chicken in. I don't think we had a clue how long it would take to make a chicken, but after about an hour nothing smelled like it was cooking and the chicken was still white. We decided to make the chocolate shakes first and ended up putting brownie in them and blending up the wooden spoon in the process. We all got a lot of "fiber" that night. At this point the chicken was still not cooked and we realized that we had turned the oven off when we turned the timer off for the brownies. I still don't remember if we ever ate that chicken or not, but she and I laugh about it all the time.
