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inniepie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 09:03:29
I just put 2 cups of salt instead of sugar into my chocolate banana bread batter, so I'm throwing in the tea towel. Good thing I taste while I cook. Anyone else have any cooking calamities they care to share?
pickNgrin - Posted - 01/19/2011: 09:16:22
That reminds me of the scene in Coal Miner's Daughter where she made a pie with salt instead of sugar. We'll forgive ya inniepie, but now ya gotta sing us a song!
-matt
pandjlocke - Posted - 01/19/2011: 09:43:59
Reminds me of a time long ago when I was somewhere around 7 years old. I spent the night at Grandma's and wanted to surprise her in the morning by making her pancakes for breakfast. I mad pancakes at home a lot and wanted my Grandma to be proud of me. So I wen to mixing the ingredients and when it came time to add the salt, there on the counter was a box that said "Salt" on it. It also said "Epsom" on it, but I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was that it said "Salt". So, yep, I made pancakes with "Epsom Salts" as one of the ingredients. Now my Grandma was always the first to encourage me in just about any endeavor, but even she could not get past that first bite of my pancakes. She had to find out how something so simple could taste so bad. We got to the source of the problem and she explained the purpose of Epsom Salts to me and took me out to breakfast.
frail42 - Posted - 01/19/2011: 09:47:35
Can't you negate the salt by adding 4 cups of sugar?
Dagnabbit - Posted - 01/19/2011: 09:55:44
My wife once made Pumpkin Pie unknowingly omitting sugar. Yuck. Salt would have been a step up.
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:11:56
No stranger to kitchen calamities here. 
Probably the most catastrophic was when I ruined the ham on Christmas Day a few years ago.
The inlaws were over for a party and I was planning to serve a spiral sliced ham - but buffet style. I figured I'd lay all the ham slices in a big casserole, cover it with aluminum foil and heat it up that way and just set it out in the casserole for people to help themselves.
I was cutting up a fresh pineapple for the fruit course and I had lots of juice leftover so I decided to pour it over the slices of ham before it went in the oven. Hey - everyone knows how well pineapple goes with ham...right?
BIG MISTAKE!!! Apparently, fresh pineapple juice has a powerful enzyme in it that breaks down the fibers in the meat. Canned pineapple juice has been heated up in the canning process so the enzyme has been weakened...but in fresh pineapple it's a different story altogether. The ham came out - each slice covered with a slimey, pastey, foul-tasting coating that was probably 1/16" thick....I couldn't eat it!
Luckily - I also made a honking big lasagne - it saved the day!
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:13:17
quote:
Originally posted by pandjlocke
Reminds me of a time long ago when I was somewhere around 7 years old. I spent the night at Grandma's and wanted to surprise her in the morning by making her pancakes for breakfast. I mad pancakes at home a lot and wanted my Grandma to be proud of me. So I wen to mixing the ingredients and when it came time to add the salt, there on the counter was a box that said "Salt" on it. It also said "Epsom" on it, but I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was that it said "Salt". So, yep, I made pancakes with "Epsom Salts" as one of the ingredients. Now my Grandma was always the first to encourage me in just about any endeavor, but even she could not get past that first bite of my pancakes. She had to find out how something so simple could taste so bad. We got to the source of the problem and she explained the purpose of Epsom Salts to me and took me out to breakfast.
can't eat 'em maybe...but you could warm them up and wrap them around your feet
dflowers - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:13:19
I made some potato and onion soup when I had a cabin up in Anacortes, Wa. I was in the Navy. I had a hearty meal and left the pot on the stove. A couple of days later, some buddies came over and mentioned that they were a little hungry. I offered to heat up the soup which consisted of potatoes, salt, pepper onions and of course milk. I will never forget the look on the face of a guy named John when he exclaimed. "Am I supposed to be polite and say this tastes good"?. I was so embarrassed.
Ronnie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:16:13
Ever microwave something in an aluminum pie pan??
eagleisland - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:24:10
I have been known to reduce carefully made stocks to the point of carbon.
pandjlocke - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:24:39
quote:
Originally posted by Ronnie
Ever microwave something in an aluminum pie pan??
Just once.
pandjlocke - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:26:18
Oh yeah. And never . . . EVER think that a can of condensed milk is the same thing as a can of evaporated milk. I won't bore you with the details; just don't do it. Suffice it to say that sweetened condensed milk does not go with tuna.
Edited by - pandjlocke on 01/19/2011 10:27:40
trapdoor2 - Posted - 01/19/2011: 10:40:01
I have been banned from making sausage balls @ Christmas. My wife put all the ingredients in a big bowl, handed me the bowl and a couple of sheet pans: "We're going shopping. Just mix it up, roll 'em into balls and bake."
So...being an engineer I mixed everything until it was completely homogenous and started rolling them into tightly compressed 1" ball-bearings. They came out looking and tasting exactly like ball bearings too. 
Nobody ate more than one...but the dogs loved 'em!
Sultans of Claw - Posted - 01/19/2011: 12:17:29
Well, there was the time my mother rolled out dough and cut biscuits on a countertop she'd just scrubbed with Comet.
Mopick - Posted - 01/19/2011: 12:25:48
Making giblet gravy for Thanksgiving a few years ago, I accidentally used powdered sugar instead of corn starch to thicken the gravy. I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't thicken up so I added more....and more.....and more powdered sugar. When it finally hit the point where it curled a thread my giblet gravy became giblet candy.
Randy
rendesvous1840 - Posted - 01/19/2011: 12:37:30
Mrs. Wanda made a pot of lentils once, when our daughter Karen was about 5 years old. I think the Mrs. had to go tend the younger daughter, and Karen decided to help cook. At dinner she said she didn't want any lentils. She always liked them, so we were surprised, until we tasted them. She had seasoned them for us. Only one season. Black pepper. A LOT of Black Pepper! I normally put some red pepper in my dish, but that night we couldn't eat it no way. I think we ended up eating leftovers.
Paul
gshall - Posted - 01/19/2011: 13:05:58
My life is a series of cooking faux pas.
If you use baking powder rather than baking soda, you chocolate chip cookies become chocolate chip columns.
When thickening stew, always stir the flour in water first. Dry flour in boiling stew just makes tasteless mini-dumplings.
Ever wonder what that little lever is on the front of the oven? Don't push it out of curiosity when you've got a house full of people and a ham in the oven. It locks the door and you can watch that ham cook down to a carbonized bone.
Also, even though they look the same, your stepdad can tell the difference between salt and sugar on his grapefruit.
(I don't know anyone who keeps 2 cups of salt in the house...)
Edited by - gshall on 01/19/2011 13:08:28
Brian T - Posted - 01/19/2011: 13:40:56
New house. First Christmas dinner. House full of company. All new appliances, of course.
Loaded the dishwasher with all the Christmas dinner mess. How cool is that!
It hums right along.
Later that night, we discovered that the drain hose had come loose from the drain and the DW
had pumped the entire load of dirty washing exhaust into the new cupboards!
Diamond Eagle - Posted - 01/19/2011: 13:48:14
I was on strike a number of years ago and while cooking beef strips in gravy with peas and rice, I opened the side of the lid meant for spoons on the industrial sized pepper jar. I probably dumped about 4 normal pepper shakers worth in by accident. I scooped a bunch out, but must have missed a lot more because it was the most peppery stuff in the world. I have to hand it to the kids though, they ate it. After the strike was over the jokes about Dad's Pepper Beef started cropping up.
I also got ahold of some salt water coffee in the Navy. On the aircraft carriers, they have salt water spigots for washing stuff and someone made a huge pot of coffee out of that water (Ocean Water really.) I spit coffee all the way across the room on that one. Nasty.
GarlicBreath - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:02:11
There used to be a cereal called ZOOM, my dad made some and put in way too much salt, it was pretty rank.
Once my older brother made biscuits and measured the baking soda/powder wrong, they were STRONG. We ate 'em anyway, hunger is the best sauce.
Once with some friends, we got together to cook a turkey in a pit, and left it too long, we ended up with a carbonized skeleton and went hungry.
Once in the Army, in the field, someone forgot to remove the leftover coffee from the big ol' insulated coffee things, and made grape kool-ade, which was served cold. It was an interesting flavor. You couldn't say it was bad, and you couldn't say it was all that good, either. Or, whether it was grape kool-ade, or coffee. Tropic Lightning Surprise?
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:11:47
quote:
Originally posted by eagleisland
I have been known to reduce carefully made stocks to the point of carbon.
I'll see your "blackened stock" and raise you one.....I've been known to take a carefully made stock, carefully line a colander with three layers of cheesecloth, carefully set it in the sink and, forgetting to put the colander into another stock pot, pour the entire stock through the carefully lined colander and down the drain.
Klondike Waldo - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:20:27
quote:
Originally posted by GarlicBreath
There used to be a cereal called ZOOM, my dad made some and put in way too much salt, it was pretty rank.
Once my older brother made biscuits and measured the baking soda/powder wrong, they were STRONG. We ate 'em anyway, hunger is the best sauce.
Once with some friends, we got together to cook a turkey in a pit, and left it too long, we ended up with a carbonized skeleton and went hungry.
Once in the Army, in the field, someone forgot to remove the leftover coffee from the big ol' insulated coffee things, and made grape kool-ade, which was served cold. It was an interesting flavor. You couldn't say it was bad, and you couldn't say it was all that good, either. Or, whether it was grape kool-ade, or coffee. Tropic Lightning Surprise?
Not, one would hope, the Jonestown variety...
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:22:33
....and how long did it take you to realize they'd changed the lid design on the plastic spice containers? Used to be you'd screw the cap off and there was another lid with holes in it stuck on the top of the container. Now, the "improved" lid flips open and there's a part with holes in it. The first time I noticed the change I was standing at the stove making a quick marinara sauce and talking to the wife at the same time. I reached for the oregano, unscrewed the lid, as usual, and dumped 3/4 of the container into my sauce.
GarlicBreath - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:23:18
Our Army kool-ade was very non-ironic. We had the most fun .... sloggin' through mud, using condoms and those red flashlights to make "light sabers", doing KP in the snow, man, good times.
ltjgcag - Posted - 01/19/2011: 14:43:55
No comment. My local fire department did that for me.
rinemb - Posted - 01/19/2011: 15:42:08
Which one, hmmmm, I have had so many.
I ruined a choice porterhouse steak last weekend, too much wine while cooking is my excuse for that one.
A personal calamity, was...making bread, while kneading the dough on a floured counter my back finally said no more abuse. A sharp pain shot through my whole body, my legs collapsed, and down on my back to the floor I went-covered in flour and dough. after surgery, missed jobs, and months of therapy I figure that bread that was never to be cost me about 20-grand. That was a calamity.
Brad
figmo59 - Posted - 01/19/2011: 16:17:47
quote:
Originally posted by BConk
quote:
Originally posted by eagleisland
I have been known to reduce carefully made stocks to the point of carbon.
I'll see your "blackened stock" and raise you one.....I've been known to take a carefully made stock, carefully line a colander with three layers of cheesecloth, carefully set it in the sink and, forgetting to put the colander into another stock pot, pour the entire stock through the carefully lined colander and down the drain.
not quite cooking related ...but sink related.my buddy's wife lost her wedding ring down the drain.
Distrot over it,
she made him take the drain & trapp apart.
ofcourse when you do that procedure one catches the water and gunga from the pipe in a bucket or can.
while looking up the pipe, he handed his wife the can of goo and said "dump this out ....will ya?"
you know she did.
Edited by - figmo59 on 01/19/2011 16:26:04
inniepie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 17:06:36
quote:
Originally posted by BConk
....and how long did it take you to realize they'd changed the lid design on the plastic spice containers? Used to be you'd screw the cap off and there was another lid with holes in it stuck on the top of the container. Now, the "improved" lid flips open and there's a part with holes in it. The first time I noticed the change I was standing at the stove making a quick marinara sauce and talking to the wife at the same time. I reached for the oregano, unscrewed the lid, as usual, and dumped 3/4 of the container into my sauce.
I did that with peppercorns Brian, I was going to grind the pepper into the stew and the whole thing opened up and I had a cup of peppercorns in the stew...
Love hearing all these stories...
Sterling grass - Posted - 01/19/2011: 19:28:02
My daughter was boiling water for something or other and melted the bottom right out of my 3 quart Farberware sauce pan.
Jeanie
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 19:31:22
quote:
Originally posted by rinemb
Which one, hmmmm, I have had so many.
I ruined a choice porterhouse steak last weekend, too much wine while cooking is my excuse for that one.
A personal calamity, was...making bread, while kneading the dough on a floured counter my back finally said no more abuse. A sharp pain shot through my whole body, my legs collapsed, and down on my back to the floor I went-covered in flour and dough. after surgery, missed jobs, and months of therapy I figure that bread that was never to be cost me about 20-grand. That was a calamity.
Brad
and all that to save the $150 it takes to buy a Kitchenaid
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 19:32:03
quote:
Originally posted by inniepie
quote:
Originally posted by BConk
....and how long did it take you to realize they'd changed the lid design on the plastic spice containers? Used to be you'd screw the cap off and there was another lid with holes in it stuck on the top of the container. Now, the "improved" lid flips open and there's a part with holes in it. The first time I noticed the change I was standing at the stove making a quick marinara sauce and talking to the wife at the same time. I reached for the oregano, unscrewed the lid, as usual, and dumped 3/4 of the container into my sauce.
I did that with peppercorns Brian, I was going to grind the pepper into the stew and the whole thing opened up and I had a cup of peppercorns in the stew...
Love hearing all these stories...
did the top of the peppermill end up in there too?
Mudpie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 20:08:44
I forgot to turn off the heat on the rice once. Ever try to get burnt rice off the bottom of a pan? I had to throw the pan away when after two days of soaking, I couln't make a dent in removing the burnt rice.
BConk - Posted - 01/19/2011: 20:26:21
quote:
Originally posted by Mudpie
I forgot to turn off the heat on the rice once. Ever try to get burnt rice off the bottom of a pan? I had to throw the pan away when after two days of soaking, I couln't make a dent in removing the burnt rice.
been there - done that - and it was my ex-mother in law's good La Creuset Dutch oven that I ruined
Mudpie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 20:29:07
quote:
Originally posted by BConk
quote:
Originally posted by Mudpie
I forgot to turn off the heat on the rice once. Ever try to get burnt rice off the bottom of a pan? I had to throw the pan away when after two days of soaking, I couln't make a dent in removing the burnt rice.
been there - done that - and it was my ex-mother in law's good La Creuset Dutch oven that I ruined
LOL LOL Is that why she's your ex-mother in law? LOL
Jim Cannon - Posted - 01/19/2011: 20:29:35
Most of my mistakes revolve around knifes and parts of body parts in the salad.
Mudpie - Posted - 01/19/2011: 20:32:30
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Cannon
Most of my mistakes revolve around knifes and parts of body parts in the salad.
Ew. But I did peal my finger with a veg pealer once--one little nice slice of skin--I've used a knife to skin tatters ever since.
Paul R - Posted - 01/20/2011: 01:13:32
This was in '66, when I was in university (and living at home). After my brother's wedding, my parents went down south and were returning on Easter Sunday. There was a turkey, but no one to cook it - except for me. Now, I'd done steaks and burgers, but I had never cooked a turkey before. So I got Mom's cook book and read up. No problem. Clean it - check. What to put it in - check. What to put on or around it - check. Dressing - problem! I was out of bread and out of money, too!
So I looked through the pantry and saw a box of graham crackers. Hmmm. Made with flour, like bread. Can be broken up - uh, like, er, stale bread. Let's be creative! So I went through the dressing recipe and substituted the graham crackers for bread. Somehow, as I attempted to knead the mixture, it didn't feel the way I figured bread would feel. There was more, well, resistance. But I persisited, and stuffed the bird.
Mom and Dad returned from Florida in time for Easter dinner. The turkey was fine. The dressing wasn't, um, too bad - but very, very, shall we say, chewy. Nobody lost a filling, but I don't recall anyone asking for seconds of dressing.
