O/S disasters.... let us share...

lapis_lazuli

This is only a minor mistake, but it was when dad and I would cook supper every thursday for mum (She had ballet classes on that night), and one day I decided to do fried rice. This was my first attempt and, thinking the concept was fairly straightforward, I heated the oil in the frying pan, measured out a small amount of rice, put it in the pan, and waited...and waited...and waited. There was a bit of fizzing around the edges of the rice grains but almost nothing else, and it was with some confusion that I went upstairs and said, "Dad...." :rotfl:
He, of course, went straight for Delia's recipe. Why didn't I think of that?

GreyQueen

When I was a nipper I wanted to make candles but didn't have a candle-making kit so got some of my wax crayons, put them in one of Mum's saucepans on the electric ring, turned on the heat and waited. They turned into a chocolate-brown gloop, the smoke and fumes were horrendous and Mum came tearing in from elsewhere in the home like a Winged Fury. She snatched the pan off the stove and tipped the contents outside the back door where it formed a glossy puddle which lasted for years- just to remind me. The pan was a very heavy old-fashioned enamel one and was salvagable but cleaning it must have been a complete b*ggar. Boy, was I in the dog house........

Then there was my Neolithic Phase (old-school-with-knobs-on) during which I had many escapades with bows and arrows, attempted flint-kapping arrowheads and then firehardening arrowtips in little fires in the back garden. Shame there wasn't a bushcraft course to send me on.......:rotfl:

I foraged for wild foods in my teens and once got a lovely lot of sweet chestnuts and brought them home, shelled them and left them to dry on trays near the fire. The girl next door was already showing signs of what would be her career (pro cook) and I shared the booty with her. We discovered to our chagrin that the chestnuts were riddled with maggots. At the point she found out, she was serving the meal to her parents' guests...ouch!

Then there was the the exploding pressure cooker and quite a few culinary disasters which were made of thoroughly OS ingredients but required "doctoring" with more expensive bought stuff to make them edible (palatable being a bit too much to hope for). Money-saving...NOT!

I could go on but I've shown myself up enough already........:o

spike7451

Had one,well two actually... today...Did a chinese meal using a Uncle Bens sauce I bought reduced from the CoOp..Tasted bloody aweful THEN I thought I'd make my own Spring Rolls,so I bought the Filo Pastry & let it thaw out.Cooked the filling & allowed it to cool..
Made the Spring roll but in hindsight,the rolled Filo was too thick so even tho the outside was nice & crisp,the inside pastry was still raw! To top it all off,I went to the loo after chopping Chili & forgot..well,you can guess the rest!lol

Ida_Notion

My husband had a cooking disaster tonight without even doing anything wrong. Even though the rest of us had agreed to a snack, we all went right off the idea after Youngest Daughter told us he was downstairs cooking Salmonella. He's now sitting in the the kitchen manfully attempting to eat four portions of... Semolina.

ifonlyitwaseasier

Ida_Notion wrote: »

My husband had a cooking disaster tonight without even doing anything wrong. Even though the rest of us had agreed to a snack, we all went right off the idea after Youngest Daughter told us he was downstairs cooking Salmonella. He's now sitting in the the kitchen manfully attempting to eat four portions of... Semolina.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

VJsmum

GreyQueen wrote: »

When I was a nipper I wanted to make candles but didn't have a candle-making kit so got some of my wax crayons, put them in one of Mum's saucepans on the electric ring, turned on the heat and waited. They turned into a chocolate-brown gloop, the smoke and fumes were horrendous and Mum came tearing in from elsewhere in the home like a Winged Fury. She snatched the pan off the stove and tipped the contents outside the back door where it formed a glossy puddle which lasted for years- just to remind me. The pan was a very heavy old-fashioned enamel one and was salvagable but cleaning it must have been a complete b*ggar. Boy, was I in the dog house........

This is not MSE or particularly OS but i had my own candle disaster. A few years ago i'd cooked something pongy and to get rid of the smell lit a scented candle. I was washing up and in the window could see a very bright light - turned round and daughter's homework had been blown into the candle flame and was merrily burning away. :eek:

Luckily i managed to put it out ok, but my letter of apology to her teacher explaining why she hadn't done her homework was framed and put up in the staff room (it beats the dog ate it! - sorry miss, but i set fire to it :rotfl:)

oldtractor

We made elderflower wine some 20 years ago, not long after we got married. It was nice to look at,such a pretty colour so I brought it into the warm kitchen, thinking it a shame it was in the garden shed, and placed it in a wedding present wine rack, the wooden sort and the bottles lie down in it. All was well for the afternoon then there was a ticking sound. I hunted round the house for the clock. DH came in from work, I said "somethings ticking and I cant find it".He opened the kitchen door the bottles were merrily ticking away. Now, i'd never made wine before but he had and he took one look at the wine in the rack,grabbed a bottle and made for the back door, before he got there it exploded and so did another in the rack,it went up the wall,along the ceiling and all down the kitchen cupboards,sticky sweet elderflower wine,as well as over DH. We just couldnt get the rest out quick enough. Havent dared make any since and even gave our demi-johns away. But this year a friend has lent us hers, I am very tempted to try agin but might wait for the elderberries this time.

MaggieBaking

Just had a disaster tonight trying to follow a recipe, I used different veg than recommended and then stirred through lemon juice and mustard and even my hubby refused to eat it!!! It was absolutely foul and I hate knowing it was perfectly acceptable before I added to it!

lanavdt

I've just read this thread start to finish and I can't remember ever laughing so much! My first cooking disaster happened when I was about 10. My mum likes to sprinkle her neeps with sugar for some reason. She'd just put lots of neeps and carrots into a pot of veg soup and I thought i'd be helpful and add some sugar. Nobody tasted it until we ate it later that night. Absolutely disgusting lol.
And I once decided to cook my oh a roast chicken dinner. I knew the oven didn't work too well so I started cooking the bird at 10 in the morning. At 6 I decided it would be close enough and started carving. It was raw. Quick nuke in the micro and all was fine

ab7167

I added soya mince to one of those pasta bake sauces once when I was at uni. I'm not even vegetarian, but I was broke and it was cheaper than real mince. It was the cheese and ham pasta bake, I was trying to bulk it out to get six portions so I could freeze them. Utterly inedible. 2 days later I made curry with fish I'd picked up on the reduced shelf. To discover you should really take the bones out of mackerel before trying to make curry out of it. Again, totally inedible.

And another not food related, I live in a small village, but we are lucky to have an excellent half hourly bus service to the nearest town. Twice now I have driven in, not remembered I had the car and got the bus home. Then of course, got home to find no car on the drive and have literally crossed the road and tried to get back before I had a parking ticket for the car!