The Confessional: the hall of blown dinners, ruined meals, and other disasters

[natenaaron]

Yes a few but when I am cooking I am not really a recipe follower. I was trying to keep things simple to begin with. Apparently what tastes good coming out of the oven won't taste good out of the pressure cooker.

Guess it is time to follow the recipe.

 

[redfalconf35]

I was at my dad's house this Christmas, and my dad doesn't let people cook bacon in the house, only on the propane grill. He typically takes a pan out there and does it on the side burner, but that wasn't fast enough for me. He has small pans and we had a whole package of bacon to cook.

I took the top out of the broiler pan and stuck it on the grill, and then put the bacon on top of it. I put the grill at a medium heat (400* or so) and shut the lid while I went inside to prepare the other portions of the breakfast sandwiches that I was making.

I was in the middle of toasting the bagels, melting the cheese, and scrambling the eggs when something caught my eye out the window. There were flames leaping 5 feet out the top of the grill, and a massive amount of black smoke! By the time I got to the grill, shut it off, and opened the lid, all that was left was a small piece of charred bacon, a pile of ash, and a ruined broiler pan top. We had egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches that morning.

I figured that the broiler pan would provide enough protection to keep the grease from flaming up, but i was waaaay wrong.

Oh, and another recent one. I was making some pizza, and just needed to roll out the dough. I put flour down and started rolling it out. Hey, this is the strangest flour... is it spoiled? It's way too clumpy!

I put my finger in my mouth, and to my horror, it was powdered sugar! Thank goodness I had just started... I got most of the sugar off and put real flour down. The pizza was actually the best one I've ever made... the slightly sweet crust went well with a spinach, ranch, and bacon pizza.

 

[DoctorShavegood]

and my dad doesn't let people cook bacon in the house, only on the propane grill.
There were flames leaping 5 feet out the top of the grill, and a massive amount of black smoke!

Dad's are smarter than they look.

 

[natenaaron]

Why no bacon in the house. Bacon in the makes the house smell good. Its like piggy fabreeze.

 

[redfalconf35]

My dad has a touch of OCD. His head would explode just thinking about all the aerosolized grease that condensed on all the surfaces in his kitchen.

 

[oc_in_fw]

Why no bacon in the house. Bacon in the makes the house smell good. Its like piggy fabreeze.

+1000

 

[againstthegrain]

Why no bacon in the house. Bacon in the makes the house smell good. Its like piggy fabreeze.

I have a brother who thinks bacon ought to be its own food group.

 

[BubblesTGB]

I have a brother who thinks bacon ought to be its own food group.

I thought it was. . .

 

[yakster]

Not a total disaster, but on my second attempt at making this delicious Artisan Sourdough Rye Bread from a no-knead Breadtopia recipe I decided the let the dough rise overnight in the oven on the bread proofing setting rather than have it sit out in my relatively cold kitchen overnight. the proof setting was too high and the dough had a darker skin on top and didn't get the pan spring or the rise that i was hoping for and ended up looking like a deflated football. The bread still tastes fine, but it's a bit heavy.

First loaf:


Second loaf:

 

[wimbouman]

My pulpo was a mess, I am sad to report.
In the most classic way; forgot it and burn it after all the liquid had gone.

Managed to save some for the salad, and it wasn't even half bad.

 

[Orlando_The_Axe]

So I concocted a new chile recipe. I call it Holay Molé Chipotle Chile. I use some Molé base as a base for the chile (a Mexican savory chocolate chile sauce of Mayan descent) and I use a hefty amount of canned chipotles in ancho sauce. The smokey sweet heat is just right and letting it cook in the crock pot all day really helped all those flavored meld together. It came out so tasty I decided to make it again this time with chicken instead of beef (a more common meat in Molé dishes). Well I forgot to turn the slow cooker down to low before heading out the door to work so it cooked on high for over 10 hours and burned to a crisp. I took a photo after I salvaged what I could. I'm still trying to scrub the pot clean...

 

[AnotherChef]

As a kid I learned to cook from the preachers mother (our neighbors). She was a great southern cuisine cook and made the best cinnamon rolls on the planet!! I was probably 10-12 years old and decided that I would make her lunch one summer day. I destroyed some fresh caught catfish by baking it with chow mein noodles, soy sauce and canned water chessnuts!!!! We were super poor white trash and I was trying to make her the perfect Chinese dish that she always bragged about in the kitchen..... Woof.... Bad decision!!

 

[DoctorShavegood]

I'm surprised we haven't seen more failures. I must admit my first homemade pizza dough was thrown in to the trash. Should a took a picture.

 

[oc_in_fw]

I'm surprised we haven't seen more failures. I must admit my first homemade pizza dough was thrown in to the trash. Should a took a picture.

That is probably the reason why there aren't a lot of failures here

 

[Mad Hatter]

The first time I tried making bread was an interesting experience. Rather then a tasty white bread loaf, I got a white brick. Near as I can figure I used water that was too hot and killed the yeast.

 

[bahomebrew]

This is a great thread. I have been cooking meals for my family since my son was born. Before he came along, my wife and I ate carry out or cooked elaborate meals together, but that changed and right quick when all of my spare time evaporated overnight. Even carry out is very involved for new parents(or at least for us) so I got my game together and started making simple quick meals that would give us the energy and nutrition we needed to keep up with the demands of a new child. I have had some real hits and some misses. I can always tell on the misses because my son and my wife will be very complimentary but when I go to do dishes, their food was more or less untouched. Sweet, really that they don't want to spoil my fun, but when it hits, they go for seconds and thirds, so I can't complain.

My biggest miss never even hit the oven let alone the table, so that's a pretty big miss. I was making a pork/duck cassoulet(I think that's french for casserole and it has beans, duck and pork in a nice gravy like sauce). I was moving right along, using a 13 by 9" glass casserole. I had it on the stove top straddling two burners to cook evenly but my stock hadn't completely defrosted. Still quite cold. Those of you who have experience with hot glass becoming instantly very cold can guess what happened next. The casserole dish exploded into a thousand pieces some of which ended up in the living room. I think I'm fortunate that none of it came up into my face, but I was so furious and dismayed and humiliated, so much so, that I contemplated trying to save what would have been the mouth thrashing-est cassoulet ever. Ironically, I knew what can happen when you toss super cold on hot glass, but in the heat of the moment(pardon the pun) it never crossed my mind, until, you know, there was glass flying in all directions. That remains the worst kitchen mess I have ever cleaned up, and though I would love to try that recipe again as it was smelling and looking delicious, it's still too soon(two years later).

 

[Shave_Rat]

I'll add a few to the list here...

A long time back, when my income was pretty meager and the pantry was looking *very* lean, I decided to use up a can of spam that had been in a care package from my mom. Say what you want about spam, but I have fond memories of fried spam sammiches as a kid. I wanted to do something different though, and figured I'd chunk it up, mix it with some various veggie bits I had in cans and the freezer, stir fry it together and have it with rice. This in itself was a decent enough plan, I merely missed the mark when I went to spices and seasoning. The big mistake, you ask? I tried to make curried spam stir fry. Well, "tried" is incorrect.. I did in fact make curried spam stir fry. The "tried" part only applies to the eating of said stir fry. It was like a salt lick, with some curry after taste, only saltier.

I've failed at an attempt at developing something I was going to call my Brewers Stew. The idea was interesting to me (still is, actually, I may revisit this and try again someday). Basically, a beef and guiness pie filling, also using marmite in the ingredient list, served in hearty hard crusted bread bowls. Not sure what went awry, but the filling came out ridiculously sweet, which I thought odd, considering the amount of savory/salty ingredients used, with no sugar added in any way.

My failed meatloaf, where I tried to use shredded carrots as a filler with the meat, mostly as a way to hide them in something I'd eat, to kick up my veggie intake... secret: I'm not overly fond on most veggies, but a struggle with type II diabetes a couple years back which resulted in a few weeks hospitalized convinced me my diet had to change. The carrot flavor completely overpowered the meat, and they were still pretty crunchy. No amount of ketchup could get me to choke it down after the first couple tries at eating it.

A *really* long time ago I was recruited to do a last minute bday cake for a friend. Like so tight of a time frame I should really have said no, but forged ahead anyways. Have you seen what happens when you put buttercream frosting on a cake that is still very warm to the touch out of the oven? It's not a pretty sight, let me tell you. The border and roses decorations all just half melted into the initial top layer of frosting, the whole thing becoming a semi liquid goop on the cake. It also took on a grainy sort of texture. Tasted decently enough, sure... but yeah.. very ugly. lol

 

[natenaaron]

The border and roses decorations all just half melted into the initial top layer of frosting, the whole thing becoming a semi liquid goop on the cake. It also took on a grainy sort of texture. Tasted decently enough, sure... but yeah.. very ugly. lol

I made the same warm cake mistake and the whole thing ended up looking like a melted candle. I was trying to impress my GF. She married me anyway. I should have jammed a rope in the top and called it a candle cake.

 

[Shave_Rat]

I made the same warm cake mistake and the whole thing ended up looking like a melted candle. I was trying to impress my GF. She married me anyway. I should have jammed a rope in the top and called it a candle cake.

I'm betting it's a pretty common mistake. lol

 

[FishenFool]

There was the time a long time ago when I took a gallon ziploc storage bag filled with spaghetti sauce from the freezer and placed it into a pot of boiling water and it only occurred to me that this wasn't a boiling bag as the bag proceeded to melt. We were so poor that we had little choice but to duck it up and eat spaghetti with a soupy thin sauce.