Cooking disasters. What was your worst?

Question

I'm usually pretty good in the kitchen, but have had a few failures with recipes. What is the worst thing that happened to you when you were making something? Were you able to fix the problem or just throw out the dish?

I'm having so much fun reading everyone's cooking disasters. It's going to be hard to choose a winner.

Answer 1

Heh heh, I think I'm a pretty good cook too. I've been trained and done it for years. However, accidents do happen! We were cooking 2 Cornish hens for Christmas one year and then my family calls up wanting us to come over. So of course we turned the oven down to low because they weren't quite done yet. We got back a couple hours later...tipsy. I just turned off the oven and we went to bed.

Four days later I wondered what that bizarre smell was in the kitchen. I finally looked in the oven and there were the hens crawling with MAGGOTS!!!! I screamed, called my husband at work screaming, he told me to turn the oven on and roast them. I did, while spraying air freshener and trying not to gag. When they finally stopped wriggling, I took the pan out of the oven, put a kitchen towel over my face and tossed it all out...including the pan!

I will never forget that.

Answer 2

The worst cooking disaster was actually my sister-in-law's.
When she and my brother were newlyweds, they decided to host Christmas dinner. 12 guests.
My sister-in-law was the only person there who had no experience cooking a turkey. But in her steadfast fashion, she refused help and advice.
When I arrived at their house, I noticed that there was no fabulous roast turkey smell. That should have been the first clue. After a few hours we sat down for dinner. My sister-in-law paraded the turkey to the table with much pride. It didn't look right. The skin didn't look browned and crispy. My brother carved. Yikes! It was pink!
No one said a word. My sister-in-law is very fragile. We knew she would burst into tears or throw a fit, if we said anything about the uncooked bird.
Some of us managed to sneak out to the kitchen to pop it in the microwave. The rest of us cut it up small and tried to hide it under vegetables.
No one asked for seconds.

Answer 3

I always screw up when I'm adding foods at two different temperatures. For instance, I fried/browned some rice and then added it to a pot of boiling water to finish it off. BIG mistake! It boiled over the top and blue smoke set the fire detector off. Second time was when I had warmed some vegetable oil up on the stove and added in frozen shrimp. The oil was spattering and popping everywhere, including onto the burner where a small flame started.

Other than those two times, I'm a decent cook.

Answer 4

When I was 22 years old, I was preparing a lasagna dinner for my (then) boyfriend. The lasagna was done and I was making French Onion Soup as an appetizer. I put the cheese on top of the soup bowl and allowed it to cook longer than necessary. I was busy preparing garlic bread when the smoke alarm sounded with smoke pouring out of the oven. Meanwhile, my boyfriend is ringing the doorbell. It was a new relationship so I was very embarrassed when I finally answered the door after removing the "Char-coaled Onion Soup." He was very nice and understanding about it. We only had lasagna and garlic bread. Still, a nice dinner.

Answer 5

I was young with my first apartment. I was having friends over for dinner. Having very little experience cooking dinner, I didn't know what to prepare. When i went to the grocery store, they had a neat little package of all the ingredients required for spaghetti sauce. A few tomatoes, a small eggplant, a zucchini, an onion, a green pepper and a bulb of garlic. I naively assumed that they had packaged the correct amount of everything, so I just chopped everything, yes, everything up and put it in a pot.
One whole bulb of garlic.... I nearly killed my guests! Thankfully I was living in Paris. So I quickly ran downstairs and purchased more a some more bottles of red wine to wash it all down.

Answer 6

When I was a newlywed; I wanted to surprise my husband for his birthday with a Black Forest Cake. So, I mixed the batter and poured one box into each round cake pan and placed both in the oven. The result was an overflow of cake batter onto the bottom of the oven. It was a disaster and to make it worse my husband also fell on the floor laughing literally. He then ran into the bedroom and got the camera and took a picture of it ! Later sending it to everyone in the family. It was quite humiliating and I cried.
I now see the humor in it and have since made many many Black Forest Cakes.

Answer 7

In the 60's while each person was once into being a vegetarian...and usual meals....I made up our minds to make entire wheat bread. Had not ever made bread earlier than in my existence and had no inspiration what it was once all intended to seem like for the duration of the dough levels. I do not know wherein I went improper, however what I wound up with had been brick-watching matters that would had been used for production. The handiest more thing I ever made that I could not repair a few type of approach sufficient to no less than no longer throw it out was once a bloodless soup that had yoghurt and cucumbers in it. It was once disgusting....even the puppy did not wish it.

Answer 8

When I was a newly married woman, my husband invited 2 couples and 2 singles over for Thanksgiving dinner. I was proud of all my cooking - pies and home made bread and all the fixings - and a very large turkey. That turkey was so beautiful - cooked to perfection. Then my husband cut it to serve it - and found all the giblets and neck, heart and gizzard, still in the little bags inside the turkey.

Answer 9

I once forgot to put baking soda in my banana cake batter. It tasted & smelled good but the whole cake was about an inch tall.

The sad thing was, it was for a party. I don't think I'll ever live that one down.

Usually I'm a really good cook & baker. I just forgot the baking soda. Probably skipped right over it when I was making it. :-)

Answer 10

I am usually pretty careful with recipes and only use ones that have received good ratings (at allrecipes.com) or are handed down from friends and family.

But several times I've forgotten I've got eggs boiling on the stove and have let the water boil out until the eggs scorch. I've also done that with potatoes. The stench is awful.