Kitchen Disasters

[gacountry]

Here you can put your horror stories. We all have them the guest coming over and the oven not turned on for the turkey etc, etc, etc.

I guess the all time disaster for me was a wonderful recipe for Squash Croquetts a Southern Living Recipe. I did all the fixin and this was in 1989 so of course they were fried in Crisco. Now remember Crisco turns back to a solid after it is cooled. I was having some pain from a fender bender and my Doc gave me Flexeril for the pain. I decided to take a nap before cleaning up the kitchen or so I thought. I lay down and went to sleep when I woke up it sounded like farmers burning off wheat fields that swooosh sound. I suddenly realized it was my KITCHEN when I walked in the door the wall behind the stove was blazing and the ceiling was beginning to burn. I live in RURAL south GA. I knew how long it would take anyone to get here. I grabbed the pan and made a dash for the door to the back porch, someone had hooked the screen door. I splashed the hot burning Crisco down my left leg and foot then slid down and burned the entire back of my right leg and both hands. I knew I had to get up and get the fire under control I ran out the front down with my left foot literally burning and got the water hose. I returned and put the worst flames out and called a neighbor to get the EMTs and rural fire dept. When I went back out the door is when I realized the extreme pain I was in. within minutes help came but I stayed in the hospital for 34 days and had many skin grafts. The good part of this story is my grafts did well and now you can hardly see the many scars BUT in damp weather they still hurt.

My family teases me about How I burned my kitchen and myself to keep from cleaning that pan!

[Maybaby59]

Originally Posted by gacountry

Here you can put your horror stories. We all have them the guest coming over and the oven not turned on for the turkey etc, etc, etc.

I guess the all time disaster for me was a wonderful recipe for Squash Croquetts a Southern Living Recipe. I did all the fixin and this was in 1989 so of course they were fried in Crisco. Now remember Crisco turns back to a solid after it is cooled. I was having some pain from a fender bender and my Doc gave me Flexeril for the pain. I decided to take a nap before cleaning up the kitchen or so I thought. I lay down and went to sleep when I woke up it sounded like farmers burning off wheat fields that swooosh sound. I suddenly realized it was my KITCHEN when I walked in the door the wall behind the stove was blazing and the ceiling was beginning to burn. I live in RURAL south GA. I knew how long it would take anyone to get here. I grabbed the pan and made a dash for the door to the back porch, someone had hooked the screen door. I splashed the hot burning Crisco down my left leg and foot then slid down and burned the entire back of my right leg and both hands. I knew I had to get up and get the fire under control I ran out the front down with my left foot literally burning and got the water hose. I returned and put the worst flames out and called a neighbor to get the EMTs and rural fire dept. When I went back out the door is when I realized the extreme pain I was in. within minutes help came but I stayed in the hospital for 34 days and had many skin grafts. The good part of this story is my grafts did well and now you can hardly see the many scars BUT in damp weather they still hurt.

My family teases me about How I burned my kitchen and myself to keep from cleaning that pan!

Some people will do anything to get out of cleaning up the kitchen, but this takes the cake! Seriously, I'm soooo glad you are ok! 34 days is a long time to have to eat hospital food!

For you, Gacountry...

[Chocoholic]

Gacountry I didn't know that this thread would lead to actual disasters. I'm so glad you're ok. How'd you manage on that hospital food for well over a month? Did they give you a description to show what was what? I'll never forget that I'd get a menu with my food. Three identical looking squares and a bucket of non-identifiable jello. Apparently one was mashed taters, one was salmon loaf and I have forgotten what the other one was. They pretty much tasted the same.

My kitchen disaster was a recipe gone bad.

I used to live way out where there was no road access (boat only) no hydro, no telephone. We used to go to town once a week for the essentials. However we used to get many drop-in visitors and I used to bake many loaves of bread a day.

A recipe that was handed down to me was from the Tassajara Bread Book (I acquired the book many years after I learned how to make the bread.

Since I had no electrical appliances this recipe was easy.

Dissolve the yeast in a bit of warm water with sugar and let it become active.

For however much you wish to make, use all of your liquids (including eggs) and add as much flour as you need to make a good but not stiff sponge, then add the yeast mixture. With the flour mixture you can add whatever other dry ingredients except salt (it inhibits the dough from rising).

Once the sponge has risen you punch it down, add the oil and salt and more flour to make it a good bread dough and put it in pans.

I had done my best. Added all I needed. I believed I had added my 3/4 cup of sweetening (sugar). The freaking dough (remember a large double batch) just wouldn't rise. I had done this many times before so I re-kneaded it, lit the pilot light in the oven, making sure the dough was in a draft-free warm place. After 4 hours the darn dough still hadn't risen a bit.

I decided to taste it.

Apparently I had added 3/4 cup of salt instead of sugar. So much for that bread LOL.

[writefx]

Not a disaster on the scale I've just been reading, more like minor inconveniences. However, I could have done without these.

I've got a strange oven where it never seems to cool down properly so the next time you use it, everything heats up really fast.

Of course I forget every time, especially at Christmas. I've had a some near culinary disasters with all the family round the table. You know where you have loads of different things in the oven at once and one lot is nearly burnt and the other practically raw. And you need to dish up in 5 mins. Need a lot of creativity to deal with it. Got away with it, even after dropping the potatoes (no one noticed).

Other disasters with the cooker have been when my disabled son has fiddled with the clock (which I never use) and when it's time to get the food out I discover that it automatically turned itself off. That's happened loads of times. It used to terrify me that he'd do it Christmas.

One time I spent hours baking cookies for a fundraiser. Decided to make the really fancy ones and was standing up for hours at a time. Got so enthusiastic that I ended up doing two lots. All cooled and packed in tins.

Telephoned the person that was going to pick them up as they were for the next day and I was surprised by her reluctance to come over. I felt a bit peeved as I'd worked so hard. She did turn up and took all the tins away.

I didn't hear anything from her in ages and was hoping she'd return the tins as I needed them. Weeks later she came back. Said that I'd actually made a mistake with the date and she didn't have the heart to tell me before as I'd made so much effort. The fundraiser had been this Saturday gone not 4 weeks ago. I didn't tell her that the cookies I had made had been special ones that had to be eaten within a week!

[Maybaby59]

Writefx, I love the part about the "special cookies"! I wouldn't have told her either!

[WarmNCozy]

The first time I made this, everything was going great, dish was finished, and I ignited the brandy and poured it over the chicken while it was in the pot on the stove. Only problem was, the fan above it was on and the flames from the brandy ignited the fan which had grease on it. There was no way I was going to use the fire extinguisher on my wonderful dish. So I grabbed the pot and ran outside with it. My husband was working in the yard and wondered what "his crazy lady" was doing now. I went back in the house, turned off the electricity and put out the fire. Not a lot of damage to the stove, but my priorities were a little warped. Saving the dish, not the house!

[BeeHaven]

When I got married years ago, I knew very little about cooking. That didn't hold me back. The first big meal I prepared included rice. I had bought a large bag of rice because we had a large number of guests. I forgot to read the directions on the rice bag. Since we had six guests coming, I decided I would need a minimum of eight sups of rice. But then I thought, what if they want more than a cup each. So I measured out six more cups. To the fourteen cups of rice, I added about a gallon of water, a little salt and butter and turned the heat on. For about five minutes everything was going perfect. Then I became real busy for the next ten minutes.

[Mishell1383]

This didn't happen to me, but my daddy. I was taking my dog for a walk around the block, I was 15, when I saw fire trucks zipping by with sirens blaring, I instantly for some reason, knew it was for my house. I grab My dog and we RUN LIKE MAD! We couldn't get home fast enough! Sure enough when I reached my house there were firemen all over the place! Smoke pouring out of my house. My father decided to make chicken cutlets, and nature called. He was in the bathroom for a good five minutes and the oil in the pan caught on fire and my whole kitchen burnt down! LOLOLOL Luckily it is a laughing matter and not a tragedy.

[gacountry]

Originally Posted by Mishell1383

This didn't happen to me, but my daddy. I was taking my dog for a walk around the block, I was 15, when I saw fire trucks zipping by with sirens blaring, I instantly for some reason, knew it was for my house. I grab My dog and we RUN LIKE MAD! We couldn't get home fast enough! Sure enough when I reached my house there were firemen all over the place! Smoke pouring out of my house. My father decided to make chicken cutlets, and nature called. He was in the bathroom for a good five minutes and the oil in the pan caught on fire and my whole kitchen burnt down! LOLOLOL Luckily it is a laughing matter and not a tragedy.

See, I knew you were mine, your Dad and I sound like kin since I burned my kitchen taking a nap lol.

[WarmNCozy]

The old original Julia Childs show had her huffing and puffing and disasters on air!

So I guess, we can forgive ourselves~

[Chocoholic]

Originally Posted by BeeHaven

When I got married years ago, I knew very little about cooking. That didn't hold me back. The first big meal I prepared included rice. I had bought a large bag of rice because we had a large number of guests. I forgot to read the directions on the rice bag. Since we had six guests coming, I decided I would need a minimum of eight sups of rice. But then I thought, what if they want more than a cup each. So I measured out six more cups. To the fourteen cups of rice, I added about a gallon of water, a little salt and butter and turned the heat on. For about five minutes everything was going perfect. Then I became real busy for the next ten minutes.

Inquiring minds wanna know, did you have enough rice? :lol:

[Chocoholic]

Originally Posted by Mishell1383

This didn't happen to me, but my daddy. I was taking my dog for a walk around the block, I was 15, when I saw fire trucks zipping by with sirens blaring, I instantly for some reason, knew it was for my house. I grab My dog and we RUN LIKE MAD! We couldn't get home fast enough! Sure enough when I reached my house there were firemen all over the place! Smoke pouring out of my house. My father decided to make chicken cutlets, and nature called. He was in the bathroom for a good five minutes and the oil in the pan caught on fire and my whole kitchen burnt down! LOLOLOL Luckily it is a laughing matter and not a tragedy.

My mother went on a long trip to see her family and dad had to stay home with us, he had to work, we had school/work and lived at home.

I came home late after work one night and saw that the flat porcelain stove top had cracked and was discolored brown (it used to be white). We knew better than to question my dad, probably just another little mishap that he could forgive himself for easily but my brother and I would have been in huge trouble.

He had like a good housewife peeled the taters and put them on the stove on high in a very heavy stainless steel Lagostina pot (one of mom's favs). He had then gone downstairs into his workshop for a "minute". When he re-surfaced the triple layer stainless steel pot had melted onto the porcelain stovetop plate. There was nothing to do but to turn the heat off.

Apparently if you turn on the heat under a pot of potatoes to boil them you have to add water. Go figure. We're lucky there was no other damage than the pot, the very expensive stovetop and the stench of burnt potatoes for weeks.

We're just glad we (my mother, brother or I) didn't make that expensive mistake

[Mishell1383]

Originally Posted by Chocoholic

My mother went on a long trip to see her family and dad had to stay home with us, he had to work, we had school/work and lived at home.

I came home late after work one night and saw that the flat porcelain stove top had cracked and was discolored brown (it used to be white). We knew better than to question my dad, probably just another little mishap that he could forgive himself for easily but my brother and I would have been in huge trouble.

He had like a good housewife peeled the taters and put them on the stove on high in a very heavy stainless steel Lagostina pot (one of mom's favs). He had then gone downstairs into his workshop for a "minute". When he re-surfaced the triple layer stainless steel pot had melted onto the porcelain stovetop plate. There was nothing to do but to turn the heat off.

Apparently if you turn on the heat under a pot of potatoes to boil them you have to add water. Go figure. We're lucky there was no other damage than the pot, the very expensive stovetop and the stench of burnt potatoes for weeks.

We're just glad we (my mother, brother or I) didn't make that expensive mistake

How true is that! LOL what a story, sounds just like my dad. Go down to his workshop for a "minute" LOLOL