Funny Failures

[millicent]

How about a section on recipes that have failed but you can laugh about it.
For example, i was heating a couple of pizzas whilst getting my 2girls ready for school.
It was for harvest festival and i intended to slice it and pack it up to take to school.
Well the pizzas burned, a really dark brown,borderline black.
They couldnt be cut and were so crispy they just broke into jagged pieces.

In a flash of inspiration i told my children to tell the school they were WHOLEMEAL pizza pieces.
After school the three of us were in stitches as the girls told me everybody loved the pizza bits and ate them with gusto.

is that funny or what?

 

[Jeekinz]

I have two:

The first one was a recipie on Americas Test Kitchen CRAB TOWERS WITH AVOCADO AND GAZPACHO SA
It looked good on TV, so I went out and bought all the ingredients....2 hrs and over $100 later, it came out horrible . My DW and I were looking at each other while preparing it and taking little tastes "It's pretty good, right?....You like it?....Ummmmm" and it went in the trash.

The second was my first attempt at a Gorgonzola sauce for a cauliflower gratin....yeah, I cooked it too long and the cheese broke. I learned my lesson on that one.

Those are the two major mistakes. My biggest problem is Timing. Trying to orchestrate 3-4 dishes at a time is difficult. But I'm getting the hang of it.

 

[millicent]

yes some mistakes can be quite expensive. And i understand about the timing. sometimes my roast dinners fail because the spuds are still rock hard.

I once tried to make lemon meringue pie and some simple jam tarts.
They came out of the oven looking like the slime from outer space and an erupting volcano, what a mess.

 

[urmaniac13]

This was, as it turned out, not entirely a failure, however once when I was making a meatloaf in a pressure cooker, I forgot to turn down the flame while I walked away from the kitchen, and burnt the crap out of it.
End result was actually surprisingly pleasant, with a perfect smoked, charbroiled flavour, which I could never recreate inside the house, and the meatloaf was delicious.
Pity I can't burn the crap out of my pressure cooker on purpose, it would kill my cooker if I did that!!

 

[millicent]

ha ha that is funny ( im too terrified to use my pressure cooker, its never been used, you could have it if you lived nearer) and a shame that you cant reproduce the flavour.

 

[urmaniac13]

ha ha that is funny ( im too terrified to use my pressure cooker, its never been used, you could have it if you lived nearer) and a shame that you cant reproduce the flavour.

Well, that very experience I had (and the fact that our kitchen remained intact) is a proof that modern pressure cookers are made with thorough safety precaution. When the inside gets over heated, it has triple device to release the pressure that comes from heat. Mine burned simply because all the liquid evaporated in the process and kept on cooking!
So have no fear, there will be no explosion even if you mess up!!

 

[Jeekinz]

I just remembered one that's a little embarrasing...but funny.

I had the family over for dinner one night, afterwards I decided to make lemon cupcakes (I made the same recipie about 50 times). So I get everything out and start going to town. When it came time to pour in the batter to the cupcake pan, I said "I thought this made like 20 cupcakes." I was using the 1/2 cup instead of 1 cup.

Lesson: Don't try baking after a few cocktails and wine.

 

[millicent]

tee hee, ive mixed up metric and ounces before, and i wasnt sozzled.(urmaniac, hmm, maybe ill get the courage to use it, one day.)

 

[Yakuta]

Funny stories. I have a lot of failures because I am big into experimenting. I even experiment when I have guests over - bad move because I don't know if it would be a hit or a miss.

I remember one episode where I wasted this huge amounts of rice. I mean huge (like 6 large cups or so). I was making fried rice to feed about 50 people. I wanted to cook the rice just slightly so that I could then fry it up in batches with the veggies and chicken and then put them in a foil pan and they go in the oven.

I cooked the rice and it was in a huge pot and it was for a lot longer than I should have. The rice were mushy and starchy and messed up. I had to throw the mess out and start from scratch. I was very scared at that point because my guests were due in two hours or so and this disaster had struck. In the end everything worked out.

I have made so many disasters when I was learning to cook it's not even funny. Too much salt, Too much red chili, Too much sugar in desserts - I almost made it inedible and it went into trash.

On the positive side if you don't make mistakes you don't learn. Now I make fewer mistakes but no one will take away the spirit of experimentation from me .

 

[millicent]

thats why they make erasers and tippex. treat it as learning curve (says me)

 

[expatgirl]

When I was first married I was cooking a spicy dish and measured out about a teaspoon of red hot pepper powder into the simmering pot and began to stir and stir and stir--then I noticed that instead of completely mixing in there were specks floating on top which turned out upon closer inspection to be tiny flour beetles. Sure enough they were Living in the can of hot red pepper!!! Talk about mad!!!

 

[Alix]

Since this has morphed into a thread about sharing stories I've moved it here to Off Topic.

 

[Renee Attili]

One time when I was a kid, my family came on hard times, so we were making the best out of what we had on hand. One night my mom made what she called "Salmon Cassorole Suprise" with canned salmon, maccaroni and I don't know what else. It might not have been so awful but she burnt it a little. It was Horrible! but thats all we had for dinner so we ate as much as we could stomach. It was bad, bad, bad. I've never had canned salmon as an adult because of that dish.

 

[expatgirl]

I hear you, Renee. To this day the mere mention of Spam turns my stomach inside out as well as salmon patties. Had too many servings of them as a tyke and in the immortal words of Poe's raven, "Nevermore".

 

[tdejarnette]

When DH and I were dating, I wanted to impress him by making a coffeecake one summer morning at his house while his mom was at work. Not being familiar with her oven, I set the temperature way too low. It was a dial and I was using the wrong mark to line up the temp. It just kept rising and oozed out of the pan and all over the oven. I doubt if I even knew how to clean it up properly either, his poor mom when she came home!

 

[millicent]

mmmm yum lentil soup mmmm
Hi Expatgirl, i cooked some porridge and ate a whole bowl before i noticed flecks. I looked in the box and it was writhing with tiny crawlys (like little maggots) It didnt make me ill and years later i made flapjack, the same bugs were in it but i still cooked it (i was a single parent and couldnt afford to replace the oats)and we all (me and my 2 daughters)ate it. I never mentioned the bugs and nobody was ill. Nowadays i thoroughly check the oatmeal beforehand. Im a lot older now and dont think i could stomach the nasties.

Ill keep a watch on my flour as well now ive read your post.

 

[Barbara L]

Many years ago I decided to make Seafoam Candy. I had never made it before. I think maybe I was using too small a pan, but I can't remember. All I know is that suddenly this foam started oozing very quickly all over the stove--kind of like a volcano. It was a mess!

Barbara

 

[Mirandgl]

We got married when fondue pots were popular so we got a few as wedding gifts. My DW got a recipe from a friend that she just had to try. It was a cheese and white wine fondue for dipping large toasted bread cubes. My DW and her sister heated and stirred this mixture for a long time before they told me it was a failure. The wine and the cheese wouldn’t combine. I looked at the recipe and told them to read the bottom line: “The wine and cheese will not combine”. The idea was to let the bread cube soak briefly in the wine that floated near the top and then drag it thru the melted cheese. No wonder fondue has not remained high on the charts.

My latest blunder has been forgetting the yeast in the bread machine. I set the timer to make sure we would have fresh bread for dinner the next day. Our machine has a yeast dispenser on the lid so the dough doesn’t begin to work too early. I arrived home from work and opened the lid to the bread machine finding a brick I could have used as a patio paver.