Kitchen Disasters

[CrémeBrulée]

I once tried making caramel potatoes with canned potatoes. Never again. The potatoes exploded in the pan - my guess is that there was water inside them from having been cooked without the skins - and droplets of boiling sugar went flying everywhere. I have burn scars on my face and one of my hands, and the jeans I was wearing looked like they had been sprinkled with drops of bleach - the sugar took the dye right off.

 

[Gerrycooks]

CremeBrule.
I am sorry to hear about your experience with the sugar. I know how bad those burns are. Water and boiling sugar don't mix.
Maybe stoves should come with shields like a chemistry hood to protect us.
Gerrycooks

 

[lindatooo]

One of my favorite recipes is a cranberry/raspberry mousse with cream cheese in it and cranberr and raspberry jellos - I forgot to put the lid on the blender when mixing the above.....You cannot imagine where that stuff can get! I found dropletts years later!

 

[Schadenfreude]

I was desperate to start cooking on my own as a kid and 2 stories are retold by my mom constantly:

- While making a batch of chocolate chip cookies, the directions said "mix by hand", so I plunged my hands into the cookie dough and squinched the dough around in my fingers. As they were baking, I commented to my mom that the chocolate chips were so hard to get out from under my fingernails and when I explained, she dissolved into a laughing fit.

- Baking microwave brownies. In the little plastic pan. The plastic melted through the baking rack and made long stretchy loops dangling above the oven floor.

- Microwaving a whole egg. Boom.

 

[hellschef]

Well, I don't have any one episode to talk about but I can tell you that my wife is such a bad cook she can actually burn water.

sorry man, seems we were married to the same woman! lol

 

[Gerrycooks]

The dog ate the cheesecake!! After Thanksgiving dinner my neice put the desserts out on the deck to keep them cold. The dog thought that was a great idea and ate my cheesecake. Obviously he has good taste because he left the apple pie and pumpkin pie. Oh well at least we got a piece of cheesecake before the dog ate the rest.

 

[ronjohn55]

Ah, here it is....

Yep. Got a Thanksgiving eve edition to add to this thread...

I was making the drunken apples, everything was going great. I was on the last apple. I had maybe two more minutes of slicing and......


The whole cutting board (it was small, and is no longer in use at our house) SHIFTED! Thus putting my left ring and pinkie fingers in the line of fire! (Line of knife?)

Needless to say, I have a small chunk of ring finger missing (no biggie), and five major stiches in my pinkie finger courtesy of the freindly people at the local ER. (It was a really nice slice!) Plus a tetnus shot to go with it.

At least we did manage to save the drunken apples, which were really good!

John

 

[Alix]

YIKES! I did a similar thing with my mandolin a while back. Hope you are OK ronjohn.

 

[ronjohn55]

Hi Alix,

Yep, I'm fine. I appreciate the concern. I actually wouldn't have even gone to the ER, but we didn't have any butterfly closures at the house, and Sheila wasn't real keen on working on the cut on her own...

Mom was a nurse, and she trained me well....

John

 

[Ken]

YIKES! I did a similar thing with my mandolin a while back. Hope you are OK ronjohn.

You've never played the mandolin for me.

 

[kitchenelf]

You've never played the mandolin for me.

 

[Alix]

You've never played the mandolin for me.

 

[Gerrycooks]

Ronjon,
I hope your hand is ok. Virtual flowers to you.
Gerrycooks

 

[Chef Mark]

What's your worst kitchen disaster?

mine involved my then future in-laws...crawfish bisque and allergic reation for my sweet little soon to be mother-in-law

 

[bowlingshirt]

Using the restroom shortly after cutting up some jalepano peppers and forgetting to wash my hands.

 

[jabbur]

I think my worst was when I was in junior high school. My family still talks about it! We had learned to make baked alaska. I decided I would make dinner for my brother's birthday. I made our family lasagne recipe with a salad and baked alaska for dessert. Everything went fine until dessert. Set the oven to 500 deg. while whipping the meringue and the next thing I know the oven is shooting flames and smoke out the door! The run over from the lasagne had caught fire! It took a whole container of salt to put out and lots of fans to clear the smoke. Fortunately, it didn't damage anything permanently. We ended up having the dessert as a midnight snack after cleaning the oven.

 

[Robo410]

Ive had two...a from scratch pie crust that was obviously too dry...it browned nicely and tasted great but it turned to dust rather than flakes and absorbed all the juice of the pie!

the other was actually worse...used a "natural gourmet rice" for a paella (standard recipe nothing out of the ordinary) and the rice just wouldn't soften beyond a distinct crunch...never had that problem before or since.

 

[Jeekinz]

I learned that one way to avoid kitchen disasters is to not answer the telephone.

 

[sattie]

This one is silly, but forgetting to put the lid on the blender prior to pushing the 'PUREE' button!

 

[mozart]

Something to do with an over full Fry Baby and a handful of very wet hand cut fries