Kitchen Failures...and how to avoid them next time.

[boilermaker]

I thought we might get some humor out of the mistakes we make in the kitchen...and some helpful hints for how not to do it again.

I'll start :D

I cannot for the life of me make hard boiled eggs. It sounds like it should be easy. Put the eggs in some water, boil, sit, cool, peel. NOT. I tried to make some this weekend for a cook-out (well, I was really trying to make deviled eggs but you gotta start with hard boiling them right?). In my attempt to do it correctly, since I have had many problems with these in the past, I actually got out the cookbook and used the recipe and the timer. I followed the recipe to a tee! I cooked them on Thursday and on Friday when I peeled the first one and sliced it in half, I quickly realized that they weren't done. The yolk hadn't completely been cooked.
2 dozen eggs in the trash. Lovely.

Anyone else?

[bookworm]

Mine is from many, many years ago... I messed up macaroni and cheese.

From a box.

How does one do this?

I missed step 3.

Drain.

[ssstephanie]

I cannot....make a decent chocolate chip cookie. No one seems to ever believe me because I love to cook and my stuff always comes out tasty and wonderful. The this is though, I try over and over again and it's really just a sad attempt everytime. I've tried the recipe on the back of the Tollhouse bag, Betty Crocker cookbook, foodtv.com recipe....and something always goes wrong. I can never make them the same size, they either come out raw or too crisy, and they are so flat! All I want is to make a good, medium-sized, perfectly cooked cookie with the right amount of softness and crunch.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my worst experience:

Somehow, all the cookie rounds came together while baking and not only created a large mass, but it stuck to the pan! Since it was just my cousin and I, we used a spatula to scrape it all off and eat the cookie mush from bowls. Is that sad or what!??

[boilermaker]

bookworm, that is great! Believe me, I have forgotten steps more than once while cooking.

sstephanie, cookie mush out of a bowl sounds good to me. I can't help with the recipe part of it, but I love my cookie scoop! It is so worth the $3 to make perfectly round same sized cookies.

[Sarah051504]

I love to cook and I think I'm pretty good at it but for the life of me I can not make rice. Regular or instant. I can follow the directions, use a rice cooker and every time I mess it up.

I cannot for the life of me make hard boiled eggs.

I never could do it either untill I watched Ms Ray on the food network do it and now I make perfect hard boiled eggs every time. Put the eggs in the pan and fill with enough cold water to cover. Place over med heat. Whenthe water just comes to a boil cover the pan and turn off the stove. Let the eggs sit for about 10 mins. Cool the eggs under cold running water. When they are cold drain the water out of the pan, cover and shake the living daylights out of the pan. (It's actually really fun.) This will crack the shells. Refill the pan with water and start peeling. The water will seap into the cracks in the shells and makes it super easy to peel and you end up with perfect eggs.

[boilermaker]

Thanks Sarah. I will try that next time.

Have you tried buying those 90 sec rice in a microwave pouches :) I can make instant and can make regular in a rice cooker only, but whenever I try to use raw rice in a recipe, it still stays hard. For the instant, I tend to use a little more rice than typically called for (instant, I'll use 1c plus about 1/8 c for every c of water) and let it sit just a little longer.

[emmjay]

Boilermaker - you did better with the mac and cheese than my sister. She was making some when we were teenagers and just left the water boiling on the stove and forgot about it - an hour later the water was gone and the pot had melted all over the burner and down into the stove, and my parents had to get the whole stove repaired!

[houseblend]

When grilling chicken or cooking it on the stove top - always pound it flat first. So many times I forget to do this and the ends get overcooked while waiting for the center to finish cooking. As my favorite cooking hero would say..."Not good eats!" :D

[magrat]

I screwed up mac and cheese from a box when I was a kid! I put the pasta in right away rather than waiting for the water to boil. Who'd have thought it would make a difference?? ;)

Funniest thing ever was when my mom and I made gingerbread men. We didn't have red hots, so we broke up a candy cane and used the pieces as eyes. Before baking. Whoops! The candy melted and the result was that they had huge gaping red eye sockets, which I thought was very cool :) Definitely a learning experience - someday I plan on making them for Halloween!

[thedoorchick]

When you're making tiramisu:

- Do NOT substitute cream cheese for the marscapone
- Do NOT substitute some other cookie for the ladyfingers
- Do NOT use instant espresso powder.

Because believe me, the results are disgusting!

[boilermaker]

thedoorchick, you just reminded me of another one ( I actually have MANY).

I have learned to pay attention when reaching into the spice cabinet. Despite coming in a same sized bottle, chili powder is not the same as cinnamon and does not taste good in oatmeal cookies.

To this day, I still keep my cooking spices seperate from my baking ones just for that reason.

[greenbunny]

The story:

My wonderful DH loves to cook, to my relief. When my parents went away on a cruise, he decided to propose that week (he was secretly staying over with me). While I was at work he spent ALL DAY cooking a fancy meal. He made mini seasoned chicken salads, shrimp and crab legs, and cherry flambe.

He also spent several hours making real lemonade from scratch. He didn't find out until right before I came home that that big tupperware of white stuff was in fact salt. He dumped all the lemonade down the drain, screaming profanity.

The lesson:

Label your containers. If they aren't labeled, taste-test before dumping in 2 cups of anything.

[Aimee]

My one and only cooking disaster was from a few weeks back. And I took pictures.

MIL got us a set of "French White" corningware for a shower gift. It says "no cooktop or broiler" on the bottom, but feh, to them, I said. Mom's corningware from the 70s works fine on the stovetop...anyway, don't they use the same material on the space shuttle? I figured it had to do more with marking the stove than the durability of the dishes. Wrong.

DH had made red beans and rice for dinner on a Sunday, and we'd planned on having leftovers on Monday. I took it out of the fridge and put it on the stovetop to heat it up for dinner. Went in the back, called my grandmother...and then I heard something make a horrible pop.

My dinner had exploded. I was glad there wasn't a fire or anything. Just broken corningware. Dammit. This is what I saw:

http://www.4geeks.net/gallery/albums/album02/DSC02165.sized.jpg

DH came home about 10 minutes later. I greeted him at hte door with "Honey, we've got a problem with dinner..." in my best "wifey" voice. He, of course, found this to be totally hilarious.

Thank God for flat top stoves. Cleanup took all of 5 minutes.

[hockeybrat]

I tried to make a dish once salt and pepper shrimp (Chinese dish) and misread the ingredients. I thought it had said tablespoons of salt (I don't remember how much) but it was teaspoons.

Needless to say, it was very, VERY salty and we couldn't eat it. I felt like such a dork :p

[emmjay]

One morning I went to wash the sink full of dirty dishes from the night before (I had made a gigantic pot of mussels with a butter, garlic and white wine sauce). I turned on the hot water, and while I was waiting for it to heat up I got a phone call from my sister.

Well, fast forward about 15 minutes and I had forgotten about the water. I went into the kitchen and it was FLOODED with greasy, garlicky water! The pot was placed so perfectly in the center of the sink that it prevented any of the water from draining so it all just spilled out. It went all over the counters and into the partially open silverware drawer. From there it went into the other drawers and cabinets - all over the pots and pans, dishtowels, the cleaning products under the sink, and then onto the floor, under the stove and refrigerator, and partway into the dining area.

Best part was that I was home because I had thrown my back out - I could barely move, so it took me about 3 hours to get it all cleaned up.

Lessons learned:
1. Don't leave the kitchen when the water is on.
2. Don't put your dishes directly on top of the drain.

[EmilyBronte]

I cannot....make a decent chocolate chip cookie. No one seems to ever believe me because I love to cook and my stuff always comes out tasty and wonderful. The this is though, I try over and over again and it's really just a sad attempt everytime. I've tried the recipe on the back of the Tollhouse bag, Betty Crocker cookbook, foodtv.com recipe....and something always goes wrong. I can never make them the same size, they either come out raw or too crisy, and they are so flat! All I want is to make a good, medium-sized, perfectly cooked cookie with the right amount of softness and crunch.

Here are some hints... maybe they will help.

1. Use room temperature ingredients
2. After you cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs 1 at a time, and beat the heck out of them. You want the mixture at this point to be thick and fluffy.
3. You can make them the same size 1 of 2 ways:
-- Roll the entire mixture into a log using wax paper. Freeze for about 30 minutes or until firm. Then slice the cookies into slices - use a ruler if you wish. I don't know how thick you want the slices to be, just eyeball it. Space them out more than you feel you need to for the first batch, then you'll have an idea of how much room you really need.

or

-- Use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon and after scooping, use your hands to roll each cookie into a ball before placing on the cookie sheet. Then before putting them into the oven you should be able to tell if each one looks about the same size.

The second method is the one I always use. I get a piece of parchment paper and roll out the entire batch and place it on the paper while the first round cooks. Also, you may want to use a lower cooking temperature for longer to help keep them from getting too crispy too fast. And remember, they continue to cook after they are out of the oven, right up until they cool, so let them be a bit soft when taking them out of the oven.

Sorry this got so long. I just love baking and thought I could help!

[mrsfromage]

My sweet husband dumped a lot of salt in his cappucino last weekend thinking it was sugar...not so good!

On that note, I have tried to blend cookies by hand before and they came out way too salty! The trick for me is that everything has to be well blended.

I also once tried to make Rachael Ray's You Won't be Single for Long Vodka Pasta Sauce with what was apparently bad cream. It was disgusting. It did not affect my "single" status--I am now happily married!--but I still shudder at how that recipe came out! (Moral is to sniff the cream first?)

[Fluffy Bunny]

I cannot....make a decent chocolate chip cookie. No one seems to ever believe me because I love to cook and my stuff always comes out tasty and wonderful. The this is though, I try over and over again and it's really just a sad attempt everytime. I've tried the recipe on the back of the Tollhouse bag, Betty Crocker cookbook, foodtv.com recipe....and something always goes wrong. I can never make them the same size, they either come out raw or too crisy, and they are so flat! All I want is to make a good, medium-sized, perfectly cooked cookie with the right amount of softness and crunch.

Alton Brown had an episode where he reviewed 3 ways to make chocolate chip cookies: the thin (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13615,00.html), the chewy (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13617,00.html), and the puffy (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13616,00.html).

I use the thin recipe which uses more baking soda and replaces an egg with milk. So for thicker cookies, use less baking soda and an egg in place of the milk. Another tip from the show was to increase the ratio of white sugar to brown sugar for a crispier cookie. I also love my cookie scoop - it's so much faster for putting the cookies on the cookie sheet.

[AusMarchBride]

My old flatmate had 5 recipes he used to make. His favourite was lasagne. He made it one evening, couldn't understand when he was serving it why it was so runny.

He'd left out the actual lasagne sheets :rolleyes:

[mimieliza]

Ugh. I just had a frustrating cooking night. I made salmon cakes, and the damn things were more like salmon mush. They just fell apart. I was cursing and yelling in the kitchen, and DH thought I had injured myself. We ate them anyway, they tasted okay, but it is totally unappetizing to eat salmon mush.

I tried to make a dressing for the salad with EVOO, lime juice, sour cream, a little cumin and red pepper. Okay, just reading that list, I understand now why it tasted like ass.

Then when I was eating the salad (with bottled dressing), I came across a dead, dressing-soaked fly. I almost puked. I had no idea if it just flew in there and died, or if it came out of the bag of spinach (the pre-washed kind) or if it came out of the bottle of dressing. Revolting. So, the whole salad, the dressing and the leftover spinach went in the trash.

And then I dropped a pan lid on my water glass, which broke on the table.

Thanks for sharing your kitchen failures - I was giggling, and really needed it after tonight's mess of a dinner. :o

[TX Sweetheart]

I'm *usually* pretty good in the kitchen... except when making fried eggs (the smoke alarm goes off EVERY time)... and once when I was making a freakin' boxed dinner!
I was making one of those Banquet Homestyle Bakes... if I recall, it was a chicken alfredo type that had an Italian bread top on it. Well, in the directions, it says to mix the bread ingredient pack with water... so I did. But apparently I did it for way too long and it came out like dough... it's supposed to be poured over the other stuff in the pan but mine had to be scooped out. DH thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen... and I was completely crushed that I couldn't make a simple boxed dinner. But now I look back on it and can laugh :D

[thedoorchick]

boilermaker, that reminds me of the time that I was making quesadillas and thought I was adding some cumin to the filling.

Instead I had picked up a bottle of ground cloves! Yuck.

[thedoorchick]

One of my first experiences with cooking was when I was 9 or 10 and my mom was sick, so I made dinner.

Meat loaf - turned out OK
Mashed potatoes - forgot to drain; needless to say they were VERY watery
Green peas - forgot the salt - Big mistake.

My dad, bless him, ate it all and didn't say a word.

I'm happy to say that I can now cook mashed potatoes and green peas without incident.

[boilermaker]

Thank you all for making feel not so alone as a total kitchen clutz. Michelle, what a night you had! If that had happened to me, I'd be ordering pizza or take-out for a week while i got over it!

[ee_chick]

I love these stories. :)

Some of my bigger cooking mistakes:

*When baking a premade pizza, I set it on fire, completely filling the kitchen with smoke. I hadn't removed the cardboard support before I put it in. My parents still tease me about this.

*While babysitting for my cousins as a teenager, I decided to use their fryer to make french fries. I tossed half a bag of very icy fries into the oil. The oil ended up all over the kitchen. It took hours to get it off the cabinets, the cracks in the oven etc. Thank God I didn't hurt myself or the kids.

*Last summer I decided to grill for my visiting parents. If we eat chicken it's boneless skinless breasts, but that's not how my parents eat. I tossed their chicken pieces (with skin) on, and walked away for a few minutes like I do when I grill mine. Needless to say, when I came back they were on FIRE. Oops. :o Mom ran to the store and brough a rotissiere chicken.

I've also left something in the sink and had it overflow like emmajay

[thedoorchick]

And by the way, when you decide one morning to cook a whole package of bacon under the broiler (so you'll have it for BLT's that evening), you should not leave the room and go upstairs to check your email.

Otherwise, you may find your kitchen filled with smoke when you return. Burned-bacon-smelling smoke.

It's especially important that you not to this on a day when you are hosting a baby shower in just a few hours' time.

[paiger]

*My first baking experience: I tried to make my mom a cake for Mother's Day using this little 'My First Cookbook'. Apparently, it was just for show or something, b/c it never told me to put the water in, so I didn't. My parents smiled there way through that just continually asking for more milk!!

*I decided that to cut down on our salt intake that I was going to make all of our beans from dried beans. Well, on my way to make 'homemade hummus' from a diet recipe (yuck), I stupidly just left them boiling on the stove while I took a shower thinking my DH would check on them. I got out of the shower to find him asleep on the couch and smoke rolling out of the pan since there was NO water left. I had no idea it would suck up all the water eventhough as an educated woman you'd think that I would realize that! I still tried to use the ones on top, but when i put them in the blender (what it called for) my blender shorted out and smoke was rolling out of it! it was ridiculous!

For what it's worth, I still hate cooking dried beans, but now I just soak them over night and only use them in crockpot recipes.

*In my first apartment, I would try to cook popcorn using the 'when 3 seconds goes in between the pops' it's done method only I would forget about it. I did this twice to smoke coming out of my microwave and once there were flames!!

*I always had a problem w/ eggs, too, until now I have an egg cooker! You put some water in the bottom, then pierce the egg w/ the holder and it does it all for you. Normally, I just overcooked them, which I'd rather have undercooked (not runny or anything) than overcooked yolks.

[jarm]

After my mom passed away, I took on the motherly role at my house. My dad was at work, my older brother was upstairs studying or napping or something. I was in charge of dinner. I wanted to make Impossible Cheeseburger pie with bacon. I went to cook the bacon in the microwave, on top of paper towels and apparently a twistie tie had gotten stuck on the paper towel because there was a fire in the microwave.

Not to do with the kitchen, but about a year or two later, my dad and stepmom went away and left my brother in charge. I was trying to watch a movie, and smoke started pouring out of the VCR. My brother soon moved out after that, saying that I started too many fires!

[Sherb]

boilermaker - sounds like you could use one of these:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004UE75.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Just go to Amazon.com and type egg timer in the search box. It really works!

ETA: You just drop it into the water with the eggs and it changes color to let you know when they are the appropriate hardness.

[bookworm]

thedoorchick, I've done the bacon thing before. The smoke alarm went off--and it just would not stop!

Here is another one from my misspent youth... one clove of garlic is different from one bulb of garlic.

In my defense, I had never seen fresh garlic before. And for most other things, it's easy to tell what "one" means--you know, one onion, one pepper, one garlic....

[Hello Kitty]

ardathpaige, my beans always burn too - you have to put in SO much more water than the directions call for.

Late one night, dessert was a flourless chocolate cake. I was using a double boiler (pan with glass bowl) to melt the chocolate, but it was taking forever. I figured b/c my range was electric, I could set the bowl on the coil and melt it more quickly. It was melting great until all of a sudden

BOOM!

The bowl (with about 20 oz of hot melted chocolate) explodes all over the kitchen. So there's shards of glass and chocolate all over the place. DH came in, didn't say a word and helps me clean up. Then he goes out to the grocery and gets more chocolate for a redo. :) When we moved out a year and a half later, there were still little streaks of chocolate in the kitchen.

[ssstephanie]

Here are some hints... maybe they will help.

1. Use room temperature ingredients
2. After you cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs 1 at a time, and beat the heck out of them. You want the mixture at this point to be thick and fluffy.
3. You can make them the same size 1 of 2 ways:
-- Roll the entire mixture into a log using wax paper. Freeze for about 30 minutes or until firm. Then slice the cookies into slices - use a ruler if you wish. I don't know how thick you want the slices to be, just eyeball it. Space them out more than you feel you need to for the first batch, then you'll have an idea of how much room you really need.

or

-- Use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon and after scooping, use your hands to roll each cookie into a ball before placing on the cookie sheet. Then before putting them into the oven you should be able to tell if each one looks about the same size.

The second method is the one I always use. I get a piece of parchment paper and roll out the entire batch and place it on the paper while the first round cooks. Also, you may want to use a lower cooking temperature for longer to help keep them from getting too crispy too fast. And remember, they continue to cook after they are out of the oven, right up until they cool, so let them be a bit soft when taking them out of the oven.

Sorry this got so long. I just love baking and thought I could help!

Hey thanks for that! When it comes to baking....I need lengthy instructions. I printed everything you wrote. The eggs one at a time and beating each one for a long times sounds like something I haven't tried yet! All I ever really leave at room temp is the butter. Too bad I can't make cookies quite yet since I'm only eating protein:(

[ssstephanie]

Alton Brown had an episode where he reviewed 3 ways to make chocolate chip cookies: the thin (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13615,00.html), the chewy (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13617,00.html), and the puffy (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_13616,00.html).

I use the thin recipe which uses more baking soda and replaces an egg with milk. So for thicker cookies, use less baking soda and an egg in place of the milk. Another tip from the show was to increase the ratio of white sugar to brown sugar for a crispier cookie. I also love my cookie scoop - it's so much faster for putting the cookies on the cookie sheet.

Wow, I'm gonna combine your suggestions and Emily Bronte's and see what happens. Look out Mrs. Fields, here I come. * I hope* haha

[ssstephanie]

Here are a few more:

*I broke a pampered chef round stoneware trying to melt butter on the burner for pineapple upside-down cake. I was being lazy and didn't want to wait to pre-heat the oven since I was going to bake it on location of a get-together. I left the stoneware on the burner w/ 2 tbsp. butter and next thing I know, CRACKKKK. I felt so bad because it was my mom's dish.

*This one is gross: Babysitting, I thought it would be fun to make chocolate Spongebob-shaped lollipops with the kids. -my first attempt with candy- The kids would not shut up for the candy, so I melted it as quick as possible and didn't chill it entirely once in the molds. Though the 3 kids ate about 3 lollipops each, they got totally sick in the middle of the night. The oldest puked pure chocolate from the top of his bunkbed all over the toys. I cleaned up for about an hour and finally had enough dry-heaving and vowed never again to make anything 'candy'.

*A few weeks ago I tried making cone cupcakes. I went against the instructions of not overfilling them and figured they would just protrude out nicely, like real ice cream. Bad idea....there was cupcake all over the cone, the pan. The cones couldn't stand alone because they were so lopsided from all the batter!

I swear, I really am a good cook!

[magrat]

bookworm I got confused about garlic once too! It's not my fault my mom only ever used garlic salt!