The earliest kitchen “disasters” that I can remember were in our first year of marriage. I’ve always been a corner cutter when it comes to cooking; I like to find ways to eliminate extra work or to change recipes to suit what I have on hand, but had an inflated sense of my own abilities in that regard. I had a recipe for cornbread and didn’t have all the ingredients so I did some ill-considered substitutions and put it in the oven. After a bit, we both noticed we were hearing the sounds of sizzling in the background. I looked in the oven and my substitutions had been so off-balance that the stuff hadn’t risen at all and was literally frying in its own excessive oils.
Another time I decided to make pizza instead of buying it, thinking to save money. I forgot to put salt in the dough for the crust and had bought an awful fat-free mozzarella-substitute pizza cheese. I didn’t have pizza sauce either, so I tried to make one without a recipe (how hard can it be?). The resulting pizza was well-nigh inedible.
The first turkey I baked for a Thanksgiving meal turned out fine, but I baked it upside down, never having had up close and personal contact with a turkey.
My cooking generally improved over the years with lots of practice, but my propensity for choosing strange recipes was a continual trial to the family. We’d been to a church function once where someone had brought an eggplant parmigiana that was superb. This impressed me because up until this point I hated eggplant with a holy passion. It’s like someone took the essence of dirty socks and poured it into a vegetable. Filled with new zeal about eggplant possibilities, I found a recipe for eggplant parmigiana and made a YUGE casserole. Oh my gosh, was that horrible! I apologized to the family and gave permission for people not to eat it. Kris famously “tripped” over by the kitchen sink and dumped the remainder in the garbage disposal with a loud, “Oops!”
Another time I found a recipe for carrot ice cream. How fun! It wasn’t. I have a vague memory of a carrot soup that I made that tasted like dirt. I realized then that perhaps there was a good reason to peel carrots before cooking them (corner cutting as usual – why do I have to waste time peeling carrots?). And of course, most of my family remembers the time I forgot to turn the crockpot on and didn’t discover it until quite late in the day. Good times.
I decided once to conduct my own experiment with baked potatoes. Instructions always said to pierce the skin before baking them and I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I didn’t do that? God was merciful to me the day I made that incredibly stupid decision. After it was done baking, I reached in wearing an oven mitt to pick up the potato and it exploded boiling hot potato mess all over, but fortunately most of it in the oven and not on me. Not long after that I read a story from pioneer times about a girl who was severely burned and ended up dying when that very same thing happened to her. Yes, mistakes in the kitchen can kill you.
And speaking of explosions, I recall the night we were sitting in the dining room eating supper when we all heard a loud noise. I had been attempting to make root beer and had stored the bottles in the craft room while they were “brewing.” In a typically careless move on my part, I hadn’t measured the yeast with any sort of exactitude, which turned out to be important. The bottles had all exploded, the first bottle close enough to the others to set them off as well. It was pretty spectacular – a brown, sticky mess all over the carpet and walls and even the ceiling. We never did get it out of the carpet and had to replace it.
But let me leave you with a better picture of my kitchen experiences. Here I am just a couple years ago making bread dough with our granddaughter. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Too many substitutions in this post – it’s going to sizzle in the oven in the morning.
Lynniebeemuseoday 
“It’s like someone took the essence of dirty socks and poured it into a vegetable.”
Nicely said!
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Thank you, sir!
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well, that was an entertaining piece of writing! I never would have guessed an excellent cook like you could do that much damage. Ha ha! Guess we have all gone through some cooking disaster. Live and learn I say. You did come up with some colorful descriptions of your disasters. Thanks for sharing and for teaching Lucy how to do it right 😊
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Perhaps you’d like to share some of your kitchen mishaps? Unless you never had any…which I would believe.
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my most famous one was making a cherry pie when I was high school age. The recipe called for 3 tablespoons of corn starch to thicken the cherries. I grabbed baking soda by mistake……the pie looked like a volcano and was not edible. What a waste of good cherries! And a lot of cleanup. I haven’t done that again
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Oh dear – that’s a good one! Reminds me of the time my mom asked me to make custard and I put flour in instead of the sugar.
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Lynn, you were so brave to confess to all those stories! I have a hard time believing you as you are an excellent cook! I also commend you for even attempting to create those recipes! Brave you were and are! Lucy looks so big for her age- was she sitting on a stool or a chair?
I am glad I am not the only person who has made mistakes in the kitchen! The cooking snafu that I will confess to is this: We were newlyweds, probably only a month or two in our marriage. My mother was always entertaining and for her to put on a big spread seemed normal to me. We lived just two doors down from my in-laws and I invited them along with Dave’s sister and brother-in-law for dinner. I planned on Prime Rib with Yorkshire Pudding, spinach salad and probably baked potatoes. I don’t remember what else I served. I didn’t realize that meat continues to cook after it comes out of the oven. I put the meat in the oven and ran errands (a friend from nursing school was visiting me for the afternoon which added to the distraction). I came home to a roast that was not rare but well done. It wasn’t burnt, but my dad would have been very disappointed (I certainly was!). I also had some sort of Norwegian dish (I can’t remember what), but I do remember the look on the faces of Dave’s sister and brother-in-law. They looked nervous! The worst part was when my father-in-law (so much for trying to impress them) got up from the table and spit the salad into the sink! I didn’t know to rinse the fresh spinach before putting it into the salad! It was full of grit and dirt! I don’t remember if the Yorkshire Pudding turned out or not.
I didn’t know at the time, that this family doesn’t eat food like this. They have been over to our house to eat perhaps only four or five times in the last 41 years of marriage! I hope the family forgot about these mishaps!
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A very impressive menu for you to attempt! It’s funny now to read about it how it went, but it must have been agonizing to live though. The only good thing you can say after these things happen is that they make for good stories! 😜. Thanks for sharing that one.
Lucy was standing on a chair. 😉
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This post has been an eye-opener. I can’t remember experiencing any such failures. I’ve always had a very positive view of your cooking abilities! I had imagined many cozy Norman Rockwell scenes with and your mother, cooking and learning in the family kitchen.
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I should have been paying closer attention to my mom, but had no real interest in the whole thing when I was growing up. After I moved out for the first time I had to call her to ask about simple things like how to make a hard boiled egg, how to roast a chicken, and how long to bake a baked potato. I’m glad you never had to experience the worst of my kitchen foibles. 😊.
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Back in my college days I decided to cut a corner while making a casserole. I attempted to fry hamburger in a Pyrex dish. It shattered and scared the wits out of myself and my roommates.
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Oh no! The things we do to cut corners! 😂😂. Thanks for sharing – somehow it’s nice to know I’m not the only one.
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