Cooking mistakes

[LibraryLady]

Want to share some amusing cooking mistakes?

First time I cooked pinto beans by myself, I was about age 12. Mom told me to fix them for lunch as she and the neighbor repaired the roof on the barn. I didn't know they had to be washed first. They were very gritty. Mom was angry and embarrassed when we all sat down to lunch.

First turkey I ever cooked I didn't know the giblets were in the neck, wrapped in parchment paper....so they were cooked that way! I have read on message boards that I am not alone in this mistake. My mother raised turkeys and up until then, all the turkeys I had any experience with were freshly killed/dressed.

Pinto beans: I cannot tell you how many pots of beans I have burned. I'd put them on, begin to do other things and forget I was cooking. A few were seriously burned--3 layers of charred beans! I finally learned to set a timer for 20 minutes and go stir the beans, reset the timer and proceed. (Lots of baking soda and soaking the pan will remove the burned beans.)

Worst pie: I overcooked the lemon filling and it was like yellow rubber in the crust.

[millergrovesue]

Being a rather adventurous cook I've had many many mistakes.

Did the giblets in the turkey with the first one too. Also made the mistake of cooking one in those plastic cooking bags many years ago. At the end of cooking time there was a bony carcass with meat lying all around it.

I can't leave any recipe alone and frequently make up my own. Of course I never write anything down. Poor Bob has been known to say "Gee, that was really good. Too bad we'll never have it again." He knows no recipe will ever be the same twice.

[Red Oak]

It was my wife and I first Thanksgiving after we were married, I suggested the I smoke the turkey before baked it.

She agreed, so on the pit it went.


As it cooked the grease dripped onto the coals and the resulting flames engulfed the turkey.

I grabbed it with my BBQ mitts and tried to put out the flames, but only managed to set my mitts on fire, and I had to drop the turkey. The flaming carcass rolling down a small embankment in the back yard and that put the flames out.

I picked it up and washed the dirt and grass off with the water hose and put it back on the pit, further away from the coals thinking I had dodged a bullet.

Later when I took the bird inside I was met with a deadly glare, and she said "I saw what you did to that Turkey"

She finished baking it and we ate it

[BillB]

This isn't cooking but I'll share it anyway. It's semi related.
There's nothing wrong with admitting how dumb I was.
My wife was gone for a week and I was taking care of the house.
I ran out of dishwasher detergent and filled the dishwasher soap well with liquid dish soap.
When I came back into the kitchen, I was almost knee deep in suds. It was spreading into the adjacent room.
I turned the dishwasher off and took a wet bath towel and beat the suds down so I could mop the mess up.

[John in Plano]

Made salsa one day and chopped the tomatoes then the onion and it was a strong one, started dicing the jalapeno my eyes stared tearing from the onion so I rubbed my left eye and started for the right one. Yea it burned, so I wash my hands with dish soap then tried to wash out my eye and that made it worse.

Jalapenos, habineros etc are now chopped using gloves and are the first item chopped when needed. Any area they touch are treated as a haz mat area and treated accordingly.


Wife bakes a lot of cookies. One time she managed to reverse her sugar & salt measurements.

[crocmommy]

It was my wife and I first Thanksgiving after we were married, I suggested the I smoke the turkey before baked it.

She agreed, so on the pit it went.


As it cooked the grease dripped onto the coals and the resulting flames engulfed the turkey.

I grabbed it with my BBQ mitts and tried to put out the flames, but only managed to set my mitts on fire, and I had to drop the turkey. The flaming carcass rolling down a small embankment in the back yard and that put the flames out.

I picked it up and washed the dirt and grass off with the water hose and put it back on the pit, further away from the coals thinking I had dodged a bullet.

Later when I took the bird inside I was met with a deadly glare, and she said "I saw what you did to that Turkey"

She finished baking it and we ate it

we have a winner....made me laugh.

[BigTex]

Don't worry, I get to the point eventually.

There was a period of time that my working environment was not pleasant, I was sort of "farmed out" to a corporate department and I felt that I was not only misused, but I was answering to some corporate types who weren't very bright. One of them was the CEO's protégé, right out of graduate school, no practical skills and totally lacking in anything that might be mistaken for a management style. I had no choice but to do work for them, but I didn't care to socialize with them. So when the office pot luck Christmas lunch rolled around I had no desire to participate and made up some excuse for why I couldn't attend. In retrospect I wish I had been there because . . .

It seems this guy's wife baked a pie for the lunch. She was a Junior Leaguer who probably didn't cook very much (not disparaging the Junior League, just putting the picture in the frame). When they tried to cut into the pie they couldn't cut it. Upon inspection they discovered that she had baked the pie in a two-pie crust pan without removing one of the pie crusts and the paper separator.

All of those people are now out of my life, but I always enjoy telling that story.

[Jami]

Once when making chili, I accidentally switched the measurements for chili powder and cayenne pepper. Boy, was that chili HOT!

[grouchy]

When I was about 18 I made a mistake lighting the oven on our stove. (We used propane)
Got lucky.

[tx3653]

About 15 years ago a friend told me about his wife's cooking mistake. He said he got home from work and as he stepped out of his car in the driveway he was hit by a strong garlic smell. He went in the house where the smell was overpowering.
His wife was cooking something where the recipe called for Garlic 3c, so she added 3 CUPS of garlic powder. It didn't get eaten, it got trashed. I bet even the trash crew got a huge sniff of garlic when they dumped it in the truck.

[GFB]

When my wife was a young kid, she wanted to surprise her grandmother by baking a cake.

She didn't realize that "eggs" meant..without the shells.

Grandma got a big surprise, and my wife's family still razz her about the "eggshell cake."

[jellowrestling]

It was my wife and I first Thanksgiving after we were married, I suggested the I smoke the turkey before baked it.

She agreed, so on the pit it went.


As it cooked the grease dripped onto the coals and the resulting flames engulfed the turkey.

I grabbed it with my BBQ mitts and tried to put out the flames, but only managed to set my mitts on fire, and I had to drop the turkey. The flaming carcass rolling down a small embankment in the back yard and that put the flames out.

I picked it up and washed the dirt and grass off with the water hose and put it back on the pit, further away from the coals thinking I had dodged a bullet.

Later when I took the bird inside I was met with a deadly glare, and she said "I saw what you did to that Turkey"

She finished baking it and we ate it

we have a winner....made me laugh.

Me, too. My wife laughed out loud, but asked, "Was it good?"

[Red Oak]

It tasted OK, it was hard to tell if you were getting Bermuda grass or sage in the dressing

[jellowrestling]

It tasted OK, it was hard to tell if you were getting Bermuda grass or sage in the dressing