The $100 Question: What's Your Worst Culinary Disaster? Tell Andrea from Andrea's Recipes to Win

My son was about 8, my daughter about 6. I was laid up with a terrible sunburn and their father was at work. My legs hurt so badly any time I tried to stand that the children decided to surprise me. They'd never cooked unsupervised before, of course, but they didn't let me know what they were up to and I never imagined it would be this. It was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in the blue box. They put a pot on to boil. They added the noodles and cooked them. So far so good. Then they took the cheese packet, the milk, and the butter, and added them to the pot. By the time I smelled that something was going on and made it out to the kitchen, there was a large pot of boiling water, macaroni, cheese and milk just waiting to be drained and enjoyed. The noodles were slightly orange but that's the closest it came to resembling macaroni and cheese. Still, the love that filled those slightly orange, soggy noodles made delicious.

When I was a little girl, I had to make cookies for a gathering I was going to. When we all bit into the cookies, something seemed different. I forgot the sugar.

 One Friday night, I loaded up my life and headed out... ( http://isledance.blogspot.com )

I was making some sort of stuffed tomato thing and it called for cumin. So I bought some. And used it like it was oregano or something. Can't have too much!

Oh, yes. Yes, you definitely can have too much cumin. They were SO HOT - and I like spicy food! - that I had to throw them out.

Liz Rizzo ( http://blogher.org/blog/liz-rizzo )

I blog at Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ ).

My husband was not feeling well and he requested a dish from India that is commonly served when not feeling well. My final product came out like paste. When I turned the pan upside down the food was completely stuck didn't and fall out. Needless to say, he didn't eat it and I had to go grab takeout.

I've had a few, but I think the funniest was when we had our son and his family over for dinner, and we were cooking rolls. We had just bought this house, and a new oven was on the agenda.
Bubba, the oldest grandson was always playing jokes so while we were eating he said,"Something's on fire!" We all totally ignored him, and then he really got excited. "Serious,", he said, "the oven is on fire!"
Sure enough it was. One of the elements had falling down and a roll was blazing just like paper burning. LOL. We had a good dinner anyway, and yes, a new oven the next week.

www.prayersformymom.blogspot.com ( http://www.prayersformymom.blogspot.com/ )

My sister and I got up bright and early on Christmas morning to start cooking. Our 15-lb turkey was in the oven for almost 3 hours (with 45 mins more to go) when lo and behold, the power went out. This cannot be happening. It had rained during the night, and we could see dark clouds from the back of the house, but nothing ominous to warrant a blackout. Was every household cooking up a storm, draining the power grid? Hard to believe. So, we waited, and waited. And waited some more. Thirty minutes later, still no power. With guests arriving in two hours, we were in panic mode. We have a half-cooked turkey and a ham that has yet to be heated through. Many thoughts crossed our minds. We initiated plan B - cooking the turkey on the BBQ grill on the patio outside. It was a tad windy, but warm, in the high 60s. Fifteen minutes later, the power came back on. We turned around and moved everything back to the oven and the stovetop.

Meantime, I started peeling the hard-boiled eggs. Apparently, I had either boiled it too long or did not soak them in cold-enough water because the shells would not peel off without ripping the egg white. The solution? I saved the eggs for another meal. Thank goodness the blackeye pea salsa was a winner!

In spite of the panic attack, everything turned out delicious.

You can read more at http://mvmaithai.blogspot.com/2009/12/memorable-ch...

My husband loves to tell the story of when we first were married (and I just started cooking)and I decided to make Chicken and Dumplings- well, I ended up with just one BIG dumpling!!!

Nana

I am employed at our local elementary school district's kitchen for over 20yrs. We used to make our own cookies, kids loved them until that one day when I was in charge of making cookies and accidently added salt instead of sugar, I will never forget the look on their faces as they took big bites, most were saying how horrible they tasted and something was wrong with the cookies. Used to daily kid whining and fussing we almost turned a deaf ear until a teacher questioned why they tasted like salt? After tasting them and realizing the mistake, I apologized to the whole cafeteria full of kids. Next day every child got a cookie, we got no complaints and no whining. But, we did get new salt and sugar containers...hehe

When my husband and I first started dating, I wanted to cook him dinner. So, I printed out a baked ziti recipe and got to cooking. When he came in the kitchen to help me plate, he looked at the dish for a long time before asking, "uh, did you boil the noodles?" To my defense the recipe didn't say to! (I was such a newbie in the kitchen, if you couldn't tell.) I got so upset. My romantic gesture! Ruined! So, he ate it anyway.

Later he told me it tasted like an art project.

We were newlyweds and buried in our tiny rental house under almost seven feet of snow. I already knew that my husband loved Reuben sandwiches, and after we got married I soon learned that he also loved French toast.

It seemed only natural to me to make French toast with rye bread for him, to demonstrate that I was aware of his two favorite foods.

Item: There's a reason why people don't use rye bread for French Toast. Tim said it tasted even worse than it smelled, and it smelled like the sweaty lovechild of earwax and toejam.

"Don't be content with being average. Average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top."

Culinary disasters can lead to laughs and happy memories; and it's a good thing too.
Early in my married life -when times were simpler and I knew far less about good cooking- I was preparing my husband's favorite dinner, Potato Chip & Tuna Casserole served with salad and peas. (He's a man of simple tastes, what can I say?)
As I was gathering ingredients, I realized that hubby had eaten the last of the potato chips days before; but hiding in the back of the cupboard was a can of fresh Pringles chips that he had somehow missed.
I carefully layered the chips with the tuna and the cheese. I sprinkled on freshly ground pepper, and then mixed the golden cream of mushroom soup with milk until it was just the right consistency. I poured it over the chip/tuna/cheese layers and popped into the oven. When I took it out 20 minutes later it looked a little "less firm" than I expected, but I added the finishing touches of grated cheese and crumbled chips and returned it to the oven to brown. When I removed it 10 minutes later -a lovely golden brown- and tried to serve it, it was soup! It was not just "not firm," but soup.
The Pringles had melted and turned to ooze. It seems that, when given a milky bath, Pringles revert to their "non-crispy" original state.
With nothing else in the house that didn't need thawed before cooking, I served the "Tuna What-A-Surprise!" in bowls, peas & salad on the side. Whenever we pass the Pringles in the grocery store, my hubby still chuckles and asks if we need tuna.
Pringles, who knew?

Shortly after I had moved into my own big-girl apartment, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the "disconnected" parts of our family that couldn't get home. I was very excited because it was also my first dinner party. My mother nor grandmother weren't there, so I got some advice from a chef acquaintance and tackled The Bird.

I carefully trussed the opening, stuffed butter and herbs under the skin, and proceeded to baste every 30 minutes with wine and butter in a slow-ish oven for hours. The turkey was Golden Brown Delicious and I couldn't wait to serve my picture perfect bird.

We sat down to watch my husband carve, and much to my amazement, the turkey was perfect and moist, along with TWO PERFECTLY WRAPPED PACKAGES OF GIBLETS, that had been strategically tucked away in the cavity and under the neck. Needless to say, not a Thanksgiving goes by that someone doesn't ask how I bake my giblets...

I was making mango chicken quesadillas with my boyfriend. I gave him some of the extra mangos to eat while I cooked. The next day, his lips broke out in a poison ivy-like rash. Turns out he's allergic to mangos.

We're married now, so I guess he forgave me. :)

Hmmm...mine happened just recently, when I was making scones, got distracted and completely forgot to add half the ingredients, things like the shortening and oil and so on. So what I ended up with were semi-scones remarkably similar to the "treats" I used to bake for my horse - basically, whole-wheat and apple cakes with a touch of cinnamon. They were, however, edible, and since we're on a no-throwing-out-good-food kick here, we ate them anyway!

A lovely recipe I normally do for a quick dinner is spinach lemon chicken with pasta. It calls for 1/4 cup lemon juice cut with 3/4 water. For some reason I put 8 lemons - not lemon juice - actual lemons in it one day.

My fiance (now husband) actually kept trying to eat it before I sat down to eat some. I knew then that he really loved me and was the man for me. He didn't say anything until I told him he didn't have to eat it!

MLO / Melissa

Books, Movies, Games, Ovarian Cancer, and Life in General at http://www.mloknitting.com/

I would NOT call myself a gourmet but I can cook. I do experiment a lot and love to try new things. I tend to read the recipe and use it as inspiration and tend to go off and do my own thing. That being said, here's my story:

We were newlyweds. I wanted to learn how to make my husband's favorites. Among them was Lemon Meringue Pie and Key Lime Pie. I had never made either and from all the I had read the Lemon Meringue was the harder one because the meringue could separate etc. So I started with that one and it was a success. So, I wasn't worried about the key lime pie not one bit. Not even when hubby decided to invite his boss to dinner. I don't even remember the main course any more. I just remember pulling out that pie from the fridge that hadn't set. I'm telling you it looked like jello soup in a pie shell. It was Kelly green because I added food coloring and just liquid. Honestly, it looked like it could have been radioactive.
We all laughed and had ice cream for dessert. My husband LOVES telling that story. I have since mastered all of his favorite desserts and can whip up a Key Lime Pie anytime.
Living and learning.... ;)

In my beginning cooking days while I was still in junior high. For my Spanish class fiesta I was in charge of making the flan a traditional spanish dessert.

Well, after working very hard on perfecting the baking of this flan it turned out to be a complete flop. I think my parents were being nice because they told me they didn't know what the final product should look like and let me take it to school anyways!

My Spanish teacher had one look at it though and deemed it uneatable. I was totally embarassed and not even attempted to redeem myself since!

I was a newlywed and was cooking mu first Perdue Chicken (Just like my Mom did every Sunday). I chose for whatever reason to do this on a work night.

Well it was about 8pm when the chicken was to be finally done cooking, I had all the isdes ready and my husband and I were starving!!

I took out the bird, went to cut it and....NO MEAT! Just legs...and I am a white meat gal! I got so upset (so not like me) that I screamed something about what kind of a store sells a chicken with no meat!!! Then I threw it in the trash can and stomped off to our bedroom closed the door and threw myself down on the bed and cried! (again soooo not like me)
My husband timidly apprached me and said honey...it was just upside down.

Needless to say we dined on some sides that night, so many yaers ago lol!

Let's see..I'm not the one who tried to hard boil eggs in the microwave. That was my husband, and yes, they blew up. I'm not the one who forgot to remove the innerds of the turkey before cooking. That was my mother. My worst culinary mistakes usually involve baked goods and incorrect measurements - I've had way too many loafs of bread turn out like bricks.

An amusing story from when I was in junior high involved an air popcorn popper that my friend and I added oil too. We set off the fire alarm and burned the popcorn, but we didn't set anything on fire!

Cristie
The closest I've ever come to preparing game in the kitchen was one Saturday a few years ago. The dog and I had returned from our dawn walk. And as I stepped out of the shower, I heard my husband on the phone with his parents. At seven in the morning, he said, "I don't know what we're having for dinner." (His parents are passionate about good food.) John continued, "Wait a minute, Cristie's got the Joy of Cooking open on the counter. Let me see...here, 'squirrel, opossum, raccoon'...hmmm, looks like Sam caught something and Cristie's going to cook it up." I envisioned the horror on their faces a thousand miles away.

Well, yes, I was looking at game recipes, but I was going to use beef stew meat. I wanted to try something different. As you know, cooking the same old, same old is boring. It was time to break ground in new territory. So I marinated the meat according to the recipe: "Cooked Marinade for Game" p. 529, and cooked it as one would cook: "Rabbit A La Mode or Jugged Hare" p. 514 (copyright 1975).

Maybe I did something wrong. I remember running out of white vinegar and completing the 3 cups required with apple cider vinegar. But I thought this substitution would be OK. With 3 cups of vinegar, who'd notice a slight apple taste? Yet, now that I think about it, I used a pound of stew meat and a rabbit weighs more than a pound. Yes, I agree this is hard to believe because they look awfully scrawny, at least the ones in the backyard do. So perhaps my proportions were off.

Anyway, I served Jugged Beef that night to my family. By husband, John, is an adventurous eater -he once went looking for fried crickets in a Bancock market. So, he's game for anything. But when he took his first bite of stew, his entire face contorted and his eyes winced tightly shut. His mouth puckered as if he had bitten a whole lemon. When he opened his eyes, he looked at me and mouthed, "Tart." My young children watched in fascination. In a good-natured effort, John took a few more bites. Then he announced that his teeth felt as if their enamel was dissolving. He began feeling his teeth. "No, the back ones are OK," he reassured, "It's just the front ones."

My children looked at me. Was I really expecting them to eat this? Our rule is that they at least have to take a "No-thank-you" bite of everything on their plate. But six-year-old Lauren had just lost so many teeth, she wondered should she risk losing the rest. Three-year-old Dave, however, follows after his father. He was intrigued by this chemically-reactive meal. He took a bite and then began feeling his teeth. I thought they were over-playing the whole thing. Then I ate it, and I admit to swiping a quick finger over my teeth to check on them. Finally, Lauren had to try too. After each bite, they all popped their fingers into their mouths and declared their quantity of remaining enamel.

Needless to say, we discarded the leftovers. But what the meal lost in edibility, it recovered in entertainment.

Our first year married, I decided to make Christmas lunch for our family.

I found an easy recipe for Christmas ham in the crockpot that looked easy.

And it would have been great, with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves.

Except that I thought cloves meant garlic cloves.

Which, as it turns out, don't mix well with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Three years later and I'm still only allowed to bring rolls to family functions.

kayla aimee : only slightly neurotic ( http://kaylaaimee.typepad.com )

What a shame this contest is not open to Canadians. I had a great story to share.

My worst culinary mishap was when I was taking home-ec in MIddle School and I had the recipe that we had mastered in class and I wanted to surprise my parents and make it for them. I had all the ingredients I had the kitchen to myself and started cooking while my parents were out. I thought everything was going well.... I mixed the sugar, salt, apples etc. Little did I know that I used a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. The Apple Crumb cake that I was making came out disgusting. My mom and dad tried to taste it and it was GROSS.... it was so bad that my dog who usually enjoyed raiding garbage cans would not even go near it. To this day I still do not know how to cook and I am 33.

Was the time I invited a couple of our friends over and thought I'd make black bean burritoes, since I was short on time. I make good food! But whoever put that recipe on the internet should be shot. It was horrible, and I had no back-up plan. That was years ago. Now that I'm older and wiser, I know to NEVER try to cook someone else's food for company!

While my little sister's best friend was staying with us, she wanted to make boxed mac n cheese, something I have never made before. Whenever I make pasta, I know to always salt the water, so when I made the macaroni for her, I automatically salted it. Well, apparently there is more then enough salt in the powder because it was inedible! Toooo salty!

One morning I felt inspired to go above and beyond my typical breakfast of a bowl of cereal (not just any cereal, but Special K Vanilla Almond with fat-free skim milk). I like a little morning culinary routine!

I decided on an omelet(!) and with gusto mixed together eggs, cheese, freshly ground pepper, salt, you know the drill. The omelet was delicious, but unfortunately its mouth-watering goodness distracted me from turning off the stove.

Not too long after devouring this eggy treat, the smoke alarm in my apartment started going off. Genius that I am, I knew I should wave something in front of it...and what else could be better to wave at a smoke alarm than a frying pan. Yes, my instincts guided to me to grab a still sizzling hot pan, run from the kitchen to the hallway, and start waving the pan over my head to make that sound stop. Anything to make that sound stop.

I was not counting on the boiling hot oil splattering from the pan onto my arm, causing me to drop said pan which then burnt a black circle into the carpet of my rented apartment.

And I've been a cereal-for-breakfast girl ever since!

iruninheels.typepad.com

When I was in high school I made vanilla pudding - from scratch - using one of my great-grandmother's pots. As the pudding warmed, it took on a stomach-churning shade of green. Gramma's old pot was 100% aluminum. The pudding tasted good, but it looked like - well, you know...

My husband and I love to cook. Usually our cooking tends to get out of hand and we have been known to have some cooking adventures that start at noon and end up eating at 2 am.

One Christmas, we were not travelling so we asked a friend (who does not cook at all) over for christmas dinner. My hubby wanted to try to make country ham. Easy - we got a large smoked ham and we just had to soak the ham in water for several days before cooking.

No problem. We soaked the ham for 3 days, changing the water daily. He got it in the oven at a good time and we even finished before 10 pm.

Not so good is that it was supposed to be cut paper thin and was soooo salty we couldn't eat it. We forgot to put some salt in the water to draw out the rest of the salt from the dried ham!

sandy vincent

We were newlyweds, and both on a diet. I tried making a "diet" chocolate pie with Alba 77 (a diet aid from the 70's - 80's). We also had company tht night. I served the guys, went back into the kitchen, and when I came back, they were BOUNCING the pieces of pie on their plates. It was very rubbery, to say the least....

One Sunday, one of the first after we were finally able to move into the old family home place which had been remodeled for us, I decided to make my darling husband a traditional Sunday-after-church lunch - fried chicken. Yum! Yum! I called my mother Betty, an EXCELLENT cook, and asked how to make it.

She gave me the very simple instructions....

1. rinse off the chicken legs in some running water
2. heat some grease in the iron skillet
3. break an egg and dip the legs into this
4. coat the legs in some flour
5. fry until done in the skillet

5 easy steps. But what momma did not know was that she had a daughter who could always find an easier way to do something. And I did. I would mix my egg and my flour and viola...I would satisfy my husband and do it in less time.

Mental picture of the end result...think pancakes in the shape of a chicken leg. Mmm. Mmm.

We still have Sunday chicken after church. We just have it at the Corner Cafe for $5 per plate.

http://tireswingsandfireflies.blogspot.com/2010/01... ( http://tireswingsandfireflies.blogspot.com/2010/01... )

I use to play with food a lot (and still do today). One time... I don't know what happened, but an applesauce cake (single layer) made with yeast spilled over into the oven while rising. No biggie, I just cleaned it out and baked it.

Uh... it wasn't burnt or anything like that, it was just. Hard. As a Rock. and had sank down to the half-way mark of the pan. It was very flavorful, but you had to suck on it to get the flavor out. Oh! And... I had to break it apart with a meat cleaver.

My aunt (who I was living with at the time) continually reminds me of what she affectionately calls... the hockey puck from hell. It could've cracked ice! and tasted MUCH better than the real thing.

I think I was still in high school when I baked cookies with my older sister and her boyfriend, who were home from college for the weekend.

We had clear glass canisters in the kitchen and one of us grabbed one that had white powder in it. Flour, right? We measured out the flour and proceded to mix, but the dough just wasn't getting thick and doughy like it should. So we added some more. And some more. And some more.

Then my sister tasted the dough, made a face, tasted the 'flour' and said "It's powdered sugar!"

My worst culinary disaster was just a few months ago. I wanted to make a half cake for my toddlers 1.5 year old birthday and instead of just using Betty Crocker mix and calling it a day I decided it had to be from scratch!

I made the cake and icing and when I went to frost the cake the cake started sliding down and the icing was running all down the cake.

I popped it in the freezer thinking that would harden it, but it didn't. I opened the freezer in just enough time to catch it from sliding onto the freezer door!

It was a mess and looked so gross and actually wasn't all that great.

See pix on my blog.
http://beforethebabywakes.blogspot.com/2010/02/slo... ( http://beforethebabywakes.blogspot.com/2010/02/slo... )

Oh goodness, suebob! This is possibly the best story of the lot!

We were about to have a house full of family for our 1st Thanksgiving feast as a married couple. We made our own bread, we prepared a turkey with all the fixin's. Everything was set when we remembered we needed to wash the lettuce greens. For some reason our salad spinner was not working and we were left with wilty, soggy lettuce. I laid out paper towels across the floor (small Manhattan kitchen with no counter space) and spread the lettuce out on top. Then I grabbed my blow dryer and dried each piece. We finished right before the guests arrived and no one ever knew. Until now.

My husband and I were on a low-carb diet and doing great, but we both have a chocolate weakness, and nibbling dark chocolate just wasn't cutting it. I found a great Flourless chocolate cake recipe on Recipezaar, and it had excellent reviews. The basic ingredients are butter, sugar, semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, and eggs.

My mistake was attempting to use an artificial sweetner to make it even more guilt-free.

The batter was super thick like I was making the most dense brownies on the planet. I tasted it. Gross. Not sweet at all, very bitter. So I added more Splenda. Tasted again. Added more Splenda. I finally relented and stuck it in the oven.

About 40 minutes later, my cake was not spongy as the recipe said it should be. I cut into it and it crumbled apart like dark chocolate chalk. Then I tasted it. It tasted like burnt dark chocolate chalk.

Into the garbage it went. I think this was the first and hopefully only time I've thrown something away without eating any of it!

Hmmm ... I'd have to say burning stew (to the point that I had to toss the pot out with the stew) is right up there at the top!

Barbara Shallue writes about her life at http://barbarashallue.typepad.com and is contributing editor of http://jobs4autism.com.

Seriously. Can someone screw up twice baked potatoes? *raises hand*

I thought I'd be clever and vlog something I could actually cook (since I have a history of making dinner disasterous) but as it turned out... well... it didn't turn out.

Shocker.

The vlog is here: http://undomesticdiva.typepad.com/undomestic_diva/... ( http://undomesticdiva.typepad.com/undomestic_diva/... )

~Megan
http://www.undomesticdiva.com

My friends and I used to trade off hosting Buffy the Vampire Slayer dinner nights at our apartments/houses back a few years ago (I don't want to date myself too bad).

Anyway... most of my friends enjoyed cooking, but I didn't have a lot of experience. I wanted to impress them, so I was making shrimp pasta and homemade garlic bread. I have slaved all afternoon.

We had been watching the show and eating our pasta, and just as Buffy and Spike kiss, one of my friends asked what the awful smell. I look toward my kitchen, and there was smoke coming out of the oven. I was horrified.

Needless to say following that night I ordered pizza for the group.

Laurie

http://laviedelaurie.com

We love homemade Rice Pudding and my Kids kept bugging me --pleeeaaaase Mom :) Everything was going accordingly to plan ( so i thought ) and when the Pudding was done ,the Kids were ready to eat. my youngest one took her first spoonful and spit it right back out going " yuk Mom !". I tried mine ... and she was right ! instead of Sugar somehow i got a hold of the container with salt :( Since then i keep the Salt in the org. Container ..LOL :)

Life is to short to sweat the small Stuff :)

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=9978369

Only after a failed attempt to make them, try them, throw them up in the sink, and a google search did I find out it was a waste of time.

Seriously, the recipe is made of black beans. Despite adding chocolate to it, it still SMELLS and taste like BLACK BEANS.

I can still taste the grittiness of the beans.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

2 words: VANILLA Soymilk

No fix for this.

Comedy by Women for Women on-
www.funnynotslutty.com ( http://www.funnynotslutty.com )

True story: Easter 2004 I was 11 weeks pregnant and determined to make my *own* fancy Easter dinner, complete with chocolate covered strawberries. The internet recipe called for a double boiler but said if you didn't have one, you could make your own by stacking two pots.

So I did.

I spent the rest of Easter day and night in the emergency room with burns all over my face, neck, hands and arms and returned home to a chocolate-y explosion (literally) my poor husband had to clean up. For weeks.

Photos here: http://undomesticdiva.typepad.com/undomestic_diva/... ( http://undomesticdiva.typepad.com/undomestic_diva/... )

They don't call me 'undomestic' for nothing.

~Megan
http://www.undomesticdiva.com

I am Irish, and I make an excellent Irish Soda Bread. We have a wonderful St Patricks Day party that we attend every year.
Last year, I volunteered to make the soda bread.

I was relieved - I had JUST enough of several key ingredients to make a double batch. I got everything ready and put it in the oven and went to get ready.

When the timer went off, I opened the oven, and realized that something was very VERY wrong.

I couldn't figure out why the bread looked the way it did. Flat and gooey and pasty and just....weird. Lumpy and unappetizing. Worse, I had a whole crowd of increasingly inebriated friends, who really needed some bread to soak up the Irish Car Bombs they had been consuming for hours.

I stood there and reviewed the recipe over and over again. And then I realized. I used baking POWDER instead of baking SODA.

It was a very sad day. Thankfully, there were plenty of opportunities to drown my sorrows. And plenty of mashed potatoes to soak up the booze.

I love to cook. I love to try NEW things. Always new things. The weirder a recipe sounds, the more I have to try it. So when my favorite farmer at farmer's market was handing our recipes for leeks and his sheet included "Orange-Leek Soup" I had to try it.

I remember my exact thought. "That sounds so weird that it can't be good!" But did that stop me? Noooo. It made me want to make it MORE.

So I peeled and chopped and seeded and juiced. And when I was done, I had a huge pot full of orangeish soup. I got a spoon. I took a taste.

I kind of hate to tell you this because it is so horrible. If you are sensitive, you may want to leave now.

The soup reproduced - exactly - the taste of bile. As if one were to, as bloggers love to say - "throw up in my mouth a little."

The whole pan went down the drain. Sad, but absolutely true.

As I thumbed through "The Low Belly Fat Diet Cookbook" my tastebuds awoke to the imaginary delicousness of low fat Moussaka! I grabbed my beef, eggplant, and finest tomatoes to create this fantastic Greek dish. Unfortunately, the cheese/milk topping failed to form while baking in the oven. My dish turned to mush and tasted like what I imagine to be a tush!

I have baked bread hundreds of times. While baking bread one time, my children were asking many questions concerning their school work. I thought oh I can handle this no problem.

The bread was baked, out of the oven and cooling on the racks when I sliced off a piece to taste the warm goodness. It tasted horrible. "What happened to my bread?"

I went over every step to realize I forgot to put the salt in with being so busy answering my children's questions. My son swore he would never talk to me again when I was baking bread, and to be honest I don't think he ever did bother me again.

I was trying to make a dessert for my high school "world culture day", and had settled on flan, since it was my favorite at the time. The first thing the recipe said was to caramelize sugar in boiling water, stirring "constantly". Unfortunately for me, when they said constantly, they meant CONSTANTLY. No scratching your nose, or turning to pick up a pot holder...yup, I burned the sugar-water to the sides of the pot. The smell was awful, and the pot was a wreck. I can't remember how long it took me to scrub it out, but it can't have been fun!

One of my friends was sitting at the breakfast bar in my parents' kitchen, watching all this, and he remarked, "If the way to man's heart is really through his stomach, then you must be taking the decidedly longer route." :P

I volunteer to cook at church a couple Sunday nights a month for the youth group. We also get adult Bible studies, confirmands and who ever else is in the building. This particular night we heard there would be 100 people! I was making a chicken recipe over rice and stuck all the chicken breasts in a large pan in the oven while I made the rest of the menu.

Everything was done until I pulled the pan out of the oven as the first people came through the doors. The chicken wasn't done because there had been too many layers.

We had to cook each piece on the big skillet and reassemble the dish. Dinner was late!

Nancy

http://teachingsundayschool.blogspot.com
http://www.abridescookbook.com/blog
http://www.givitup.com
http://onlinestoregivitup.blogspot.com
http://thenestempties.blogspot.com

I really had to think about this. Even though I am a pretty decent cook, I have had some horrifying moments in the kitchen. Here's the best...

Thanksgiving a few years ago was warm and balmy. I put the turkey into the oven and was regularly basting, coming in from the garage where I was lampworking (makeing beads with a torch and glass rods). I decided that I could place a whole stick of butter on the turkey and it would just melt down over it, providing a method of self-basting.

I was in the garage, happily working, when my husband came in and asked why I wanted the turkey to be on fire.

"Huh?!" was my reponse.

He said he went into the kitchen, saw the oven was on fire, and my oldest son told him I wanted it to do that. He had seen me basting the turkey just moments before and, for once, gave me the benefit of the doubt that I do know more than he!

I ran inside and, sure enough, the oven was on fire. The butter didn't exactly slide gracefully over the turkey, basting it, as much as it toppled from on top of it, abd over the side of the pan, directly into the flames of the gas oven.

Something told me that throwing water onto the flames would make it worse, so I threw handfuls of flour onto them. The result: black snow filling the kitchen as the flour burnt as it put out the fire.

The good news: the turket was quite delicious and we ended up with a great holiday story.