Your Biggest Kitchen Disaster?

Question

Ok, so tonight I decided to try a new recipe for Chili. It consisted of beef, beans, tomato soup, two cans of tomatoes and corn....

I burned it. Stuck to the bottom of the pot burned it. Tried to salvage some of it, but that "smokehouse" flavor just didn't work for me. What a disaster!!!

So now it's tater tots and gravy....

Just curious, what's your biggest cooking disaster??

Answer 1

I'm a good cook but you wouldn't tell it from these disasters. I've actually had plenty and am sometimes afraid to cook!
- I made popcorn in the microwave at work (once) and the popcorn started on fire with black smoke gushing out of the back of the microwave.
- I had a grease fire in my house from broiling a steak - had the phone in one hand to call fire and with the other hand took the pan out and threw it outside into the winter snow on fire and all. There was soot everywhere. But maybe not so disasterous because I went out and got the pan with the steak and ate it med rare - a little crusty on the outside but it was a pricy steak and wasn't going to waste it.
- I have put a can of corn in a pan to heat up on the stove then forgot about it. It burned to the pan - I mean most of it. There were a few kernels on the top that were movable but most of it was black and stuck in the pan. It took quite a while to chisel corn out of the bottom and two more weeks of soaking and scrubbing to get it all off the bottom of the pan (I was determined I guess).
- oh my worst I just remembered. Microwaved some spaghetti at work and the microwave was a little high. I went to take the spaghetti out and ended up being too hot to handle so I was going to leave it a little while longer to cool. Instead of going back onto the microwave plate, it hit the side and the spaghetti and cheese slid down my sleeve. Ouch. I ended up with 3rd degree burns and still have scars. Always let food sit a few minutes in the microwave.
- Another time I made a beautiful pan of lasagna. Took it out of the oven and put it on the top of the oven to cool. Then went to move it to the cupboard when it was ready to cut and being the graceful person I am, the pan slid out of my hands and dumped upside down on the floor. It sure smelled good though.
- My mom always reminds me of this to this day. One of my first cooking experiences was making bread pudding. I called my mom from school a couple times wondering how long it was supposed to bake - it was still runny. The second time I called her she asked how long I had baked it so far. 3 hours, maybe more.

Answer 2

Oh! Sorry about the chili :( Tomato stews are the worst for that - I've definitely done the same, plenty of times!

I think my worst was this one multi-baking project night, when I kept setting everything on fire! Pot holders on the elements, drips into the oven... and then, worst, a big pot of honey. I've boiled honey plenty of times (big in Swiss baking, and my family does lots of that) - I REALLY should have known better than to leave it even for a second, because it boils up so quickly. Anyway, I did leave it, and honey spilled all over the stove and well, caught fire! After that it was a mad rush to open all the doors and windows, and shut down the fire alarm, because everyone else in the house was asleep.... Ahh!

Answer 3

I've had lots of cooking disasters - but the latest one from my house is...

A few weeks ago my husband was cooking and he heated up some olive oil in a big saute pan that we have - left it to the point of smoking. Then he added some nice cold white wine, straight from the frig, to the extremely hot oil. I could hear the low boom it made from the other room - after the second boom I went in to see what was wrong.

He was covered with little spots of hot oil - which I helped w/ first aid - then I looked around the kitchen - instead of putting the lid on the pan after the first oil volcano, he started carrying it around the kitchen looking for a place to put it, off the stovetop.

The second oil explosion absolutely covered the rest of the kitchen with oil - it was dripping from the ceiling, windows, cabinet, appliances, curtains, plants - Everything! and the floor was so slick with oil it was like a skating rink. I almost started crying...and I'm still finding little pockets of oil slicks around the kitchen after taking two days to clean up all the oil I could find.

I can laugh about it now - almost!

Answer 4

Not so much a disaster but kind of funny...

One night - long time ago - I was staying with my folks for a few months before returning to school. I got home late from working the evening shift and I had a craving for chocolate pudding - so I decided to make a recipe for it out of my mom's new microwave cookbook. It was awful! It was all lumpy and burnt and just disgusting - but I was tired and didn't feel like cleaning up so I just stuck it in the refrigerator and went to bed.
A couple days later my dad got home from his shift at the firehouse and made himself a big plate of leftovers. He was just about finished when he asked my mom about the gravy he had poured all over his roastbeef and potatoes - said it tasted a little funny. She told him she hadn't made any gravy. That's when I realized it was the nasty burnt chocolate pudding! I told them - and my mom and I just about bust laughing! My dad, true to form, just finished his meal with a little snort.

Must be the all fire & smoke has distorted his tastebuds!!!

Answer 5

I was cooking Cornish game hens for Christmas for the two of us when my relatives called. We'd had a few drinks, so I turned the oven on low and called a cab. We had several more drinks, and when we got home we were tipsy and I turned off the oven thinking my husband was putting them in the fridge. A few days went by and there was a weird stench. I couldn't figure out what it was. It was a warm winter so I hadn't been using the oven. I finally went to put in bread, and there were maggots swarming all over the hens! I gagged, screamed, called my husband at work and he told me to turn the oven on and roast them to kill them. I did, sprayed Febreze the whole time, then when cooled down I covered my face and took the whole pan out to the trash bin. There was no way I could cook on that pan again!

Answer 6

Microwave meltdown. I was cooking rice in the microwave. They make these neat microwavable pots for cooking rice and it is so easy. I put my rice on and went to my computer to email my daughter who lived in NYC at the time. I did not worry about turning the rice off because of course it was in the microwave and it has a timer that turns it off right. Wrong my microwave timer did not turn the micro off and it continued to cook. I do not know how long it was before I started to smell something burning. I knew that I had turned all of the burners on my stove off, I could not imagine what was smelling like that. When I walked into my kitchen black smoke was billowing out of my microwave and up my white cabinets to the white ceiling. I pulled the plug on it , thankfully it had not burst into flames. My neat little rice pot was a melted, blackened blob on the bottom of my equally blackened microwave. We lived on Six Mile Creek. My two boys had to carry the dead microwave to its final resting place and they named the incident THE MELTDOWN AT SIX MILE.

Answer 7

Very embarrassing, and potentially very dangerous.

A few years back I put an ice cube tray into the freezing compartment of the refrigerator after splashing a bit of water on my hand. The freezer was VERY cold and my wet little finger froze to the floor of the freezing compartment. Luckily, my brother was home, but I had to wake him to get a cup of warm water to melt my finger free of the freezer.

I knew better. I knew to dry my hands before putting them into the freezer. I just didn't do it. Duh. I still have a scar from the frostbite I received during that incident.

Answer 8

LOL, well, it wasnt something I did, my son was cooking. He had to make a chicken and capers dish for school, I bought him all the ingredients and one of those foil-type roasting pans with a plastic lid, so he could just cook it in that, take it to school and toss the pan when the chicken was gone. I gave him some basic intructions, but obviously missed the part where you DON'T cook the chicken in the pan with the plastic lid on it!!!! OMG.......my oven caught on fire, I had to put it out with flour, but not before tiny little black burnt flakes of plastic floated ALL over my house, turning into soot as they hit my furniture, countertops, dining room table, etc etc....OMG it was a total disaster and I was cleaning up burnt plastic for months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, We had to go to the store and buy the ingredients again, and YES, I made the chicken and capers that he took to school LOL.......SHEESH

Answer 9

Well, my biggest kitchen Disaster is when I made a vanilla milkshake and I forgot to put on the top to the blender. Milkshake=EVERYWHERE! Plus, i put too many ice cubes in and they were on the floor and I slipped and fell on ont of the ice cubes.

Answer 10

I had to make mini quiches in home ec one day and it all started out ok but then my friend decided to pour half a container of pepper in them, we didn't turn our oven on properly so they didn't cook at all so we just ended up with a huge raw eggy/peppery mess. So we threw them all at brick wall during reccess, because we were responsible and mature human beings at the time.

oh, and once I blew up our fire lighter because i chucked it next to the hot plate flame.