Cooking Fail

[Deleted User] · May 2015

My fiance offered to help with dinner so while I was at meditation he got our pork chops breaded.

I cook 'em up when I get home; while they are resting, I pull a bit of the breading off and try it (it was a little dark so I wanted to see if it was burnt or just dark).

It tasted AWFUL. I mean tasted like what I would imagine poison to taste like. I mention this to my fiance and he asks if it's salty. I told him that yes, I suppose it did taste very salty and I asked how much salt he put in the flour.

He said, "which canister had the flour in it?" LOL! He used baking soda I'm pretty sure instead of flour.

We couldn't choke it down. So we had green beans and peanut butter sandwiches.

Got a good cooking fail to share?

ETF typos and and words for clarity.

loveislouder · May 2015

Practically caught my kitchen on fire trying to make pancakes. House smells like burnt for a week. I'm an awful cook so I'm sure I'll come up with more.

esstee33 · May 2015

For the first time in my entire life, my chicken breasts turned out super rubbery tonight. The texture was so gag-inducing I couldn't even finish it. Thankfully, FI will eat basically anything and is taking it all to work tomorrow haha.

falsara · May 2015

A few weeks ago I tried to make creamy potato soup in my crockpot. Tasted awful, too salty, but peppery at the same time, and it wasn't creamy. I have't tried to make soup from scratch since then.

louxnoelle · May 2015

At the onset of teaching myself how to bake, I put a crustless cheesecake on a wire rack to cool ...

afox007 · May 2015

Not my own story but I love this fail and my dad will never live this down. One night in high school I refused to cook dinner since I was studying. My mom was asleep so that left my dad to do the cooking. He asked what he should make and I let him know there were chicken breast in the fridge.

He came back a few minute later asking how to cook it so I pointed him to the cook book. He flipped through it and got really excited over chicken marsala. We didn't have any marsala wine, but he grabbed a random bottle of red and decided it was the same thing.

I went back to studying and left him alone in the kitchen. He eventually came back asking if we had chicken broth. We didn't we had bullion and I made the mistake of telling him it was basically the same thing.

It was the saltiest most inedible piece of chicken that has ever existed. I asked him about the salt and couldn't figure out what he did wrong. Turns out he used a quarter cup of straight chicken bullion in place of chicken broth. Not once did it occur to him that it needed to be mixed with water to turn into broth.

jacques27 · May 2015

This isn't so much a cooking fail from a food perspective as a life fail. My mom had purchased for me a really nice pan (I still have it actually) that is also oven-proof. And when she gave it to me, she made sure to point out that it had stay-cool handles.

Yes, they stay cool. When you're using it on the stove top. In the oven, they get hot, just like the rest of the pan. I don't know where my head was, because I KNEW better! I mean really - DUH! But I totally spaced out one day while using it in the oven. I remembered her telling me about the stay-cool handles and purposely picked up the pan without using oven mitts. I'm lucky I still have fingerprints.

4forluck · May 2015

Once many years ago, I was making peanut brittle and made the mistake of stirring the mixture with a rubber spatula. It has to get super hot while being stirred constantly. So I'm stirring and stirring and it's finally hot enough. I pull out the spatula, only now it's just a stick, because the rest of it melted off in the extreme heat.

jenna8984 · May 2015

I hate when that happens and you have to waste/ throw out good meat!
God I have too many to even tell. In high school there was all those commercials about how easy Mac was so easy and anyone could do it. Yup I fucking burnt it. Put it in the microwave with no water.

We tried a crock pot recipe that was pork cops and red wine. The wine didn't cook off so it was like eating straight wine soup with onion dip mix stirred in- so nasty!

That time I tried to fry shrimp. Didn't know oil was flammable (I know I'm an idiot) so I put it on high with a lid trying to get a boil going. Second I removed the lid a fireball erupted. Almost burnt my apartment down and had a heart attack simultaneously.

[Deleted User] · May 2015

esstee33 said:
For the first time in my entire life, my chicken breasts turned out super rubbery tonight. The texture was so gag-inducing I couldn't even finish it. Thankfully, FI will eat basically anything and is taking it all to work tomorrow haha.

We started by scraping off the breading and trying to eat the meat but that was still awful. It was kinda sad because I'd cooked that chop perfectly... oh well.

My fiance kept eating when I told him I was going to make a sandwich but he didn't look happy about it. I told him to stop torturing himself. He rummaged up some of the filling I had left from stuffed peppers earlier this week and ate that...

PamBeesly524 · May 2015

I tried a new ice cream recipe this week that turned out awful.. FI and I tried it last night after it had hardened for a day in the freezer and it just wasn't good. I have no idea what the issue was but I won't be trying that recipe again!

dolewhipper · May 2015

One time I tried making H "engagement chicken" before we were married. I learned I cannot cook a whole chicken evenly in the oven. In an attempt to have edible chicken breast, it was still undercooked in certain areas of the thighs. Why I thought it would still be okay is beyond me.

I was sick for 3 days.

[Deleted User] · May 2015

jenna8984 said:
I hate when that happens and you have to waste/ throw out good meat!
God I have too many to even tell. In high school there was all those commercials about how easy Mac was so easy and anyone could do it. Yup I fucking burnt it. Put it in the microwave with no water.

We tried a crock pot recipe that was pork cops and red wine. The wine didn't cook off so it was like eating straight wine soup with onion dip mix stirred in- so nasty!

That time I tried to fry shrimp. Didn't know oil was flammable (I know I'm an idiot) so I put it on high with a lid trying to get a boil going. Second I removed the lid a fireball erupted. Almost burnt my apartment down and had a heart attack simultaneously.

I know someone who screwed up mac n cheese too. Cooked the noodles but didn't drain the water before adding the cheese from the squeeze pouch.

jenna8984 · May 2015

dolewhipper said:
One time I tried making H "engagement chicken" before we were married. I learned I cannot cook a whole chicken evenly in the oven. In an attempt to have edible chicken breast, it was still undercooked in certain areas of the thighs. Why I thought it would still be okay is beyond me.

I was sick for 3 days.

How much time did you cook it? Season the skin, put 1 cup of water in the bottom of the casserole dish with it, bake uncovered at 350 for two hours (or sometimes when impatient I do 425 for an hour and fifteen minutes).

emmaaa · May 2015

jenna8984 said:
I hate when that happens and you have to waste/ throw out good meat!
God I have too many to even tell. In high school there was all those commercials about how easy Mac was so easy and anyone could do it. Yup I fucking burnt it. Put it in the microwave with no water.

We tried a crock pot recipe that was pork cops and red wine. The wine didn't cook off so it was like eating straight wine soup with onion dip mix stirred in- so nasty!

That time I tried to fry shrimp. Didn't know oil was flammable (I know I'm an idiot) so I put it on high with a lid trying to get a boil going. Second I removed the lid a fireball erupted. Almost burnt my apartment down and had a heart attack simultaneously.

We had too many fire alarms go off in my dorm freshman year because someone forgot to add water to their Easy Ma, you are not alone!

cupcait927 · May 2015

H had a cooking fail just last night. We had planned on doing a pasta bake last night but used spaghetti squash instead of pasta, to make it a little healthier. It was H's turn to cook but I helped him prep everything. Once the squash was shredded and the ground beef was browned, I left him in the kitchen to put everything together in the casserole dish. Popped in right before it went in the oven, looked at it quickly and said it looked delicious. 30 minutes later, casserole comes out. Looks great, except - there's no sauce. The whole recipe has four ingredients - squash, ground beef, sauce and cheese. So now we have a giant pan of baked spaghetti squash and ground beef with no sauce. We just added the sauce on top and it tastes fine but still. I just shook my head and had to laugh because this is not the first time he's forgotten ingredients for this recipe. The last two times we made it, he forgot to put the ground beef in there.

charcoalandblush · May 2015

DF has burned easy mac before (by not putting water in).

I don't have any major cooking fails that I can remember. I've had stuff turn out crappy sometimes, but never completely inedible.

This is my favorite cooking story fail of all time. When my BFF was a kid, her dad cooked breakfast every Sunday morning for the family. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, the whole 9 yards. He got a promotion and had to travel for work every other week. BFF was like 15 or 16 at the time, so he decided that she was old enough to take over Sunday breakfast the weeks he wasn't home. So the first Sunday he was gone, BFF started to cook. She pulls the bacon out of the fridge and thinks "Hmm, when Dad cooks it, there's grease in the pan, so I guess I'm supposed to put grease in the pan first and then cook the bacon." So she pours some bacon grease into the pan, heats it up. When she adds the bacon, it catches on fire. Luckily her brother (12 or 13 at the time) had learned in science class that you use flour to put out a grease fire. Otherwise I am sure she would have burned her entire house down.

cupcait927 · May 2015

The easy mac stories reminded me of a couple others that involve friends -

My college roommate used to burn easy mac on the regular. No idea how she managed it but she did. She also ate a raw potato one time because she had zero clue how long you were supposed to microwave them. She put it in for like, 5 minutes, decided it was done and ate it. Luckily she got MUCH better at cooking during our senior year of college when she finally bought a cookbook and taught herself the right way to do things.

One of my friends down the hall in college evacuated our entire building when a brownie she was heating up in the microwave caught on fire during freshman year. She opened the microwave, all the smoke came out and set off the alarms. So we're all trudging outside and I see her carrying the microwave down the stairs. We're all like WTF but she said she panicked and didn't want it burning down the building so she brought it outside, with the manual and all. We teased her for the next 3 years about it.

kvruns · May 2015

when I was younger I mixed up teaspoon and Tablespoon and put in way too much baking soda or baking powder into a chocolate swiss cake roll thing. It was sooooo bitter. even my brother wouldn't eat it and he would eat anything.

I've had lots of other kitchen fails but that was my first so it hold a special place in my heart

flutteringinfl · May 2015

I tried to make this thing called "cuban sandwich casserole." I somehow ended up using like 10x as much dill as was necessary. I tried to choke it down but just couldn't. It was horrible. Luckily, this was when I lived with roommates and we all cooked for ourselves, so no one else was inconvenienced due to my mistake.

ETA: I just remembered a cooking fail from my sister. I took her to Disney a few years ago and the plan was to leave right after I got home from work. She'd arrived the day before so she was hanging out at my apartment. I called her and asked if she could heat up some bacon in the microwave to expedite our departure (was going to cook it ahead of time and keep it in the hotel room fridge for convenient breakfasts). She said sure.

About halfway home from work I realized...she was (at the time) not a very independent person. She needed help basically doing anything food related. So on a hunch I called her and asked, "Hey, are you microwaving the bacon now? You are? Okay, just to make sure, you removed it from the plastic packaging first right? You didn't? Okay, stop the microwave now."

So we ended up not leaving any sooner because in addition to having to cook the salvageable bacon myself, I also had to rid the apartment of the burnt plastic smell so my roommates wouldn't have to deal with it when they got home...

She's pretty good now though.

falsara · May 2015

I just remembered my very first cooking fail. When I was 18, I still lived with my parents. They had plans to go to California for Thanksgiving. I had finals two weeks after thanksgiving so i told them I would stay home so I could study.

On the day of Thanksgiving I invited all of my friends over for dinner, main dishes were made made by me. They all brought a dessert or an appetizer. My mom always makes homemade gravy so i thought I would try and make some. No one had actually explained to me how cornstarch works. By the time I was finished it was a huge lump stuck to the spoon. Luckily I had a packet of gravy mix laying around, so we could still have gravy.

dolewhipper · May 2015

jenna8984 said:

dolewhipper said:
One time I tried making H "engagement chicken" before we were married. I learned I cannot cook a whole chicken evenly in the oven. In an attempt to have edible chicken breast, it was still undercooked in certain areas of the thighs. Why I thought it would still be okay is beyond me.

I was sick for 3 days.
How much time did you cook it? Season the skin, put 1 cup of water in the bottom of the casserole dish with it, bake uncovered at 350 for two hours (or sometimes when impatient I do 425 for an hour and fifteen minutes).

I just stick it in the slow cooker

But thanks!

beachyone15 · May 2015

My only major cooking fail so far is putting tortilla shells in the oven (on broil) to crisp up and forgetting about them. Never want to see fire coming out of an oven again...

lovemesomemonster · May 2015

None of mine are standing out right now but my roommate in college was awesome. I did all of the cooking since her specialty was cereal, we just got home from practice one night and I threw two grilled cheeses in a pan and asked her to watch them really fast so I could take a quick shower. Her response was "how do I do that?" so I handed her a spatula and told her you literally will watch them, make sure they don't burn and flip them if they start to get dark. I came down to a kitchen full of smoke and burnt grilled cheese.

After that day she spent every dinner time sitting at the breakfast bar taking notes on what I was doing in the kitchen. She is now a wonderful cook so I am pretty proud of that!

badbnagdway · May 2015

I'm a pretty ok cook now (generally very good at baking) but I've had a lot of trial and error. My most recent fail was this week. We have been trying to get into the habit of making dinner Sunday night and also making something in the crockpot that we can bring for lunches or have as a quick dinner during the week. Frequently it's veggie chili, but this week I was like, let's make a fire roasted corn and potato chowder. It was a fair amount of work, sauteed onions and garlic, FI grilled some of the corn and we cut it all off the cob. Left it cooking overnight.

It tastes... not great... The longer it's sat in the fridge this week the worse it's gotten too. On Monday, when I put it in a food processor and combined it with cream, I managed to eat it for dinner with some bread, but by yesterday at lunch it was yuck. Like very... almost soapy. And also mysteriously oniony given that there weren't that many onions to start with and I sauteed them for a long while. Oh well, big waste of time and food.

jenna8984 · May 2015

cupcait927 said:
The easy mac stories reminded me of a couple others that involve friends -

My college roommate used to burn easy mac on the regular. No idea how she managed it but she did. She also ate a raw potato one time because she had zero clue how long you were supposed to microwave them. She put it in for like, 5 minutes, decided it was done and ate it. Luckily she got MUCH better at cooking during our senior year of college when she finally bought a cookbook and taught herself the right way to do things.

Wait...the potato button on the microwave is only like 5 minutes. Usually if you poke holes in it (and it's a small potato) it comes out fine. I used to eat that for an afternoon snack all the time.

thisismynickname2 · May 2015

Reading these, I don't feel so alone with my fails!

Once I put a fast food cheeseburger in the microwave to reheat it. It was foil wrapped. Yup, caught on fire. I was young enough to not remember how my parents doused it quickly without damaging the microwave, to say nothing of saving the house from burning down.

I've burned soup. Turned on the heat, walked away, forgot about it. Tomato soup will crust to your pan.

I made my dad's roast potatoes in the oven but over-oiled them. The pan was cheap and warped when it got hot, so some of the excess oil dripped out to the oven bottom. In the end it was fine, but I spent the entire hour calling my dad, "Are you sure the oil dripping from the pan wouldn't catch on fire in the oven? Are you SURE?" My dad was all, "It's an OVEN. It's FINE."

Lastly.... I grew up with a gas oven with a broiler on the bottom in a drawer. So I move into my first apartment, which has an electric oven, and a drawer. We always used to broil cheese on bread in our oven, so I prepped the cheesy bread and popped in the drawer. Set the over to Broil. Could not figure out for the life of me why nothing was happening to the cheesy bread in the drawer.

Turns out drawers on electric ovens are actually for storage.....

cupcait927 · May 2015

jenna8984 said:

cupcait927 said:
The easy mac stories reminded me of a couple others that involve friends -

My college roommate used to burn easy mac on the regular. No idea how she managed it but she did. She also ate a raw potato one time because she had zero clue how long you were supposed to microwave them. She put it in for like, 5 minutes, decided it was done and ate it. Luckily she got MUCH better at cooking during our senior year of college when she finally bought a cookbook and taught herself the right way to do things.

Wait...the potato button on the microwave is only like 5 minutes. Usually if you poke holes in it (and it's a small potato) it comes out fine. I used to eat that for an afternoon snack all the time.

She didn't use the potato button - just threw it in the microwave, sans holes, hit 5 minutes and ate it pretty much raw. That's how little she knew about cooking. A few holes and the potato button would've done wonders for her.

bizzy592 · May 2015

FI has a much higher salt and heat tolerance than I do. He's a wonderful cook, but once in a while he'll just go overboard, to the point that he thinks it's salty or spicy - at which point it's completely inedible for anyone else.

He cooked for me on one of our first dates, filet mignon, bacon caramelized sprouts, and rosemary shallot mashed potatoes. Everything was amazing, and perfectly prepared - except for the outside of the steak. It was so salty it made my mouth hurt! But I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so ate the whole damn thing. Drinking about a gallon of water in the process.

OliveOilsMom · May 2015

I successfully set off the fire alarm at college each year! First year, in the dorm, I was baking a sweet potato in the microwave and not being used to such a high powered one, cooked it for 20 minutes! Alarm goes off and I know it's me, so I grabbed the sweet potato with some paper towels and bring it out with me. I throw it in the dumpster as the dorm evacuates. Whoops!

The other three times were went I was cooking in our on campus apartment. All 3 times it was when I was making hamburgers on the stove top. I just can't cook burgers on a low temp, they need to sizzle and get a little bit of a char. Each time the fire alarm went off, I had to call the police department (we had a dedicated force on campus) to tell them its no big deal, I'm just cooking! To this day, I still set off the fire alarm whenever I cook burgers inside. Thankfully, we can use our BBQ the majority of the year, so its not a regular occurance!

lovegood90 · May 2015

My first time making mac and cheese from scratch was also my first time making a roux. I had never heard that you had to wait for the raw flour to cook out a bit with the butter before adding milk. So the finished product tasted like this gross, grainy paste.

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