Confessions Of A Cook

[imsohungry]

Welcome contestants

All you need to play this game is a story... an embarrassing kitchen or meal confession that you reveal for the first time in front of hundreds of readers.

Me first: I once made deviled eggs for the family Christmas party with eggs that I knew expired two months before.

My family: My grandmother once oven-baked a frozen pizza still in its box. ...We didn't realize it until the smoke. Hence, the little labels on the box that now state: take out of box before baking.

Anybody else? (this thread belongs in this forum because it gives preventitive damage baking tips).

[Lisa]

Got one!

We were hosting the WHOLE neighborhood for dinner, about twenty people. I wanted to do a "Shrimp Boil". I found a recipe in our church cook book and I have have enjoyed this several times at friends homes.

The recipe called for kielbasa, shrimp, corn on the cob, 1 1/2 cups of salt (yes, believe it or not) and a particular brand of shrimp boil. Well, I couldn't find THAT particular shrimp boil, so I substituted Old Bay.

Everyone was served and I finally dished up my plate. I took one bite and spit it out across the table. The entire pot as so saturated in salt that it was totally inedible. AND NO ONE SAID A WORD!!!! Once, I reacted to the dinner, everyone else started to laugh. I had always had a fairly good reputation of cooking well and that's why they all found this to be sooo funny.

Apparently, my substitution of the shrimp boil was the wrong thing to do and I haven't made it sincel This was years ago and all my dear friends STILL refer to this as "The Great American Salt Lick", with great amusement.

[kenlove]

I suspect this is going to be a fun thread

After 32 years of marriage I can tell lots of wife stories but suffice to say that we have his and hers cookware and knives.

If she keeps leaving the stove on we may get his and hers propane bills too!

I can remember making a casserole for a small group of friends once that turned out so bad I took one taste when it came out of the oven, threw it out and took everyone out for dinner.

I can guarantee there are a number of mystery packages in the back of the fridge that we are both afraid to open!

ken

Welcome contestants

All you need to play this game is a story... an embarrassing kitchen or meal confession that you reveal for the first time in front of hundreds of readers.

Me first: I once made deviled eggs for the family Christmas party with eggs that I knew expired two months before.

My family: My grandmother once oven-baked a frozen pizza still in its box. ...We didn't realize it until the smoke. Hence, the little labels on the box that now state: take out of box before baking.

Anybody else? (this thread belongs in this forum because it gives preventitive damage baking tips).

[Lisa16]

I have one that is from a foreign eating experience (my own) and one from a good friend of mine.

The first time I went to Spain many years ago, I was eating at a sidewalk restaurant in Madrid with my classmates. My Spanish was not very good at this point. I was thinking about what was on the menu that I could eat and my eye fell upon "pollo frito" ("fried chicken" in my pre-gluten-free days). But I started to worry that maybe, because the word was masculine, that I would be getting the rooster instead. I looked around and I saw people eating intestines and bull's testicles and all manner of odd foods. I panicked. The thought was unbearable. I knew I had to take measures to make sure I got some chicken. So I told the waiter, in my very best highschool Spanish, "Quiero la polla frita. Es importante que sea una polla porque el pollo ver a ser muy duro para m

[Morrisun]

Well I have one, but I was the only person that was going to eat it, so I don't know if it counts, I'll tell it anyway.

Just last Thanksgiving I was going to make a gluten-free pecan pie (my favorite!) Anyway, I tried a new recipe and the crust was made out of gluten-free cereal. I used gluten-free frosted flakes type and I'm thinking maybe I should've used a different type. Anyhoo, during cooking for whatever reason the cereal "crust" basically fused into an inedible very hard lump. It looked like glass, lol.

The filling was good though!!!!

[kenlove]

Thats a stitch! reminded me of one of the first times in Japan when I asked for extra mawashi in my ramen instead of moyashi.

The waiter then said in English they didnt have Sumo underware to put in noodles!

I have one that is from a foreign eating experience (my own) and one from a good friend of mine.

The first time I went to Spain many years ago, I was eating at a sidewalk restaurant in Madrid with my classmates. My Spanish was not very good at this point. I was thinking about what was on the menu that I could eat and my eye fell upon "pollo frito" ("fried chicken" in my pre-gluten-free days). But I started to worry that maybe, because the word was masculine, that I would be getting the rooster instead. I looked around and I saw people eating intestines and bull's testicles and all manner of odd foods. I panicked. The thought was unbearable. I knew I had to take measures to make sure I got some chicken. So I told the waiter, in my very best highschool Spanish, "Quiero la polla frita. Es importante que sea una polla porque el pollo ver a ser muy duro para m

[missy'smom]

Me first: I once made deviled eggs for the family Christmas party with eggs that I knew expired two months before.

Never use cracked eggs. I did this once, even though I knew better, my frugal nature, kicked in and I said "it'll be OK". I got sick and I'm sure my guests all did too. I also recently went to the trouble of making mini fudge cakes the day before for my support group. The recipie said to refrigerate the cakes overnight but I forgot to and didn't realize it. The day of the meeting I thought, I'd better try one and make sure they're good . I didn't feel good immediately and realized what I had done. So I didn't take them. They're in my garage. I haven't had the heart to throw them out yet.

[Nancym]

I was making a Christmas Stollen, a pretty wreath-like cake (pre-gluten free days) and I forgot to add the eggs. I ended up adding the eggs after the dough was all formed. It came out ok anyways, if I recall correctly.

My first dinner I made for family, right after graduating from college, I put the salads in the freezer to just get a nice chill quickly. I left them in for too long and they came out all black and frozen.

[HAK1031]

Oh dear, I have a few of these:

-My mother grew popping corn in the garden one year, and we dried it out to use. I had been putting the corn in small grocery bags and putting them in the microwave like normal popcorn. Once in a while the bag got a little scorched, but never anything bad. This one time though, I put it in and went into another room for a minute...when I came back the kitchen was filled with black smoke!! The microwave still smells like a forest fire.

-This weekend, my stepmother wanted me to make gluten-free banana bread, although the only gluten-free flour we had was soy flour, and we didn't have any xanthan gum. I was skeptical, but I figured I migh as well try it- what difference does it make if the bananas are thrown away in a baked state or not? So I rummaged through cubbards, found cornmeal and cornstarch to offset the beany flavor a little, and I made up a recipe. But it actually came out good! A rogue baking experiment...gone right! lol

-My first encounter with gluten-free baking involved making cookies for a party. I tried to substitute a gluten-free flour blend cup for cup with wheat flour, plus I used canola oil for margarine. Needless to say, the dough was a tad bit runny. I ended up with flat, mostly-burned cookies. But I took the few salvagable ones and called them wafers, and they actually tasted pretty good. I would even make that recipe again...just with a LITTLE more flour!

[jerseyangel]

This thread is a hoot!

Years ago, my brother in law's then-girlfriend wanted to contribute to a family dinner, so she offered to make a blueberry pie.

It looked delicious as she was serving it, but as everyone began to take a bite, you could look around the table and see the odd looks on the faces. Obviously something was up and no one wanted to say anything.

Turns out, instead of blueberries, she used concord grapes--and the pie was full of seeds. It had a darn good flavor, but it was like biting down into gravel.

[Franceen]

I have two from when I was a kid - one for my mother and one for me. One fairly recent.

My mother was a big entertainer and very good fancy-food cook. We lived in a large town in NJ in the middle of downtown and an "in-town" hotel was next door. One year when I was about 12 we were having about 25 people over for Thanksgiving dinner. My mother told her butcher to send her the biggest turkey he had. He sent a 35 lb bird! Well, it didn't fit in the oven. She didn't figure this out until about 9AM on Tgiving day. So my father called the hotel and asked them if they could cook it for us. They said they would, but we would have to come do it ourselves in their kitchen. So my mother and father went to the hotel (ran out the back door so no one would see them) with the turkey in a suitcase (wrapped in foil) and stayed there for 4 hours while it cooked. I was told to tell the guests that my parents had gone to pick up my grandparents and would be back "anytime now". They sneaked the cooked bird back in the back door (on a platter this time) and no one knew any different. But later, when my aunt was helping my mother clean up in the kitchen she asked my mother how she kept such a clean oven!!!!!!!!!

Another entertaining day - I was only about 5 years old. My mother ordered live lobster from the fish market. They delivered them that morning and put them in the bathtub for later cooking. I was so excited to help my mother "make them turn red" in the boiling water (she didn't want to explain to me that I was killing them). So I thought that it would be good if all the guests could see them in their "real color" - so I set them all free in the living room to run around and snap at peoples' feet and told them all that they should come watch while I go dye them red. It was a little awkward in the living room while all these guests stood up on chairs and couches to get away from the snapping and running loose lobsters (12 of them) (the lobsters did not have "pegs" or "bands" back then).

And finally: a recent one from my "newbie gluten-free days of baking". I decided to try Authentic foods 4-flour blend with Bette Hagman's bread recipe - in my bread machine. The machine did a fair job with Pamela's and Anna's bread mixes. I put it in and left the house. When I came back burned bread was ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. I guess it rose too much and I put too much in the machine and puffs of bread became toys for my cats. That was the last time I used that recipe, that flour and the bread machine. All that burned bread is probably molding in there now! (I bake bread the oven method now). My husband keeps asking why I don't use the expensive bread machine anymore!!! It's my secret.

[imsohungry]

O.k. since I am the host of the show...let me recap:

1. Lisa- Have you ever fed your entire neighborhood SALT as the main entree?

2. Ken- Have you ever thrown out an entire dinner because it was inedible? The people want to know: Are you growing pennicillin in the back of your refridgerator?

3. Missy's Mom- Do you have multiple spoiled cakes still in your garage for sentimental reasons?

4. Nancy- Have you ever fed your family a black frozen salad?

5. Morris- Are you willing to acknowledge you made a pecan lump?

6. Lisa- Did you once ask for a fried penis in Spain?

7. Ken- Is it true that you once traveled to Japan to ask for Sumo underwear for lunch?

8. HAK- Have you ever baked poor quality cookies and passed them off as "wafers?"

9. Patti- Have you ever eaten gravel for a friend?

10. Franceen- Did you once set twelve lobsters loose in your parents' living room? And did your parents once smuggle a 35 pound turkey out of the house in a suitcase?

11. Julie- Have you ever thrown dirt on the oven to put out a grease fire?

Next contestant: ?

[lcbannon]

I'll play..

A long time ago when first married to first husband he wanted a homemade cherry pie. Well I got the recipe from his mom and she showed me how to make pie crusts. I must have concentrated hard on that.

I made my pie and was so proud of myself- hubby takes a bite and makes a funny face and asks me if I had added extra sugar for some reason. The problem was I used CHERRY PIE FILLING not cherries, yet I still added the sugar etc you would to a regular pie.

[dbmamaz]

Ok, I'll bite:

I used to make a quick tomato soup with quesidillas all the time. The soup is just 2 cans stewed tomatoes (low salt) pureed in the blender, then I throw in a pinch of baking soda to neutralize the acid, then thyme, pepper, bullion, honey, sugar and about 2 c milk. After its cooked about 10-15 min, to blend flavors, I mix some corn starch with milk or water and stir in to thicken the soup, check spices and serve.

Ok, this time .. . i spooned the corn starch in to the cup of milk, and it seemed not as thick as it usually feels when I stir it, but I was really tired and the kids were all talking at once and I got distracted. So a few minutes later I stirred the mix in to the soup . .. only to have a tomato volcano errupting all over my kitchen! I'd used the baking soda again, instead of the corn starch! It was just like the messes my son used to make in the sink with vinegar and baking soda, except thicker and red . .

I told this story to another cooking mom I knew, and she said her kids were jelous that she never made anything as exciting as exploding tomato volcano soup!

[loco-ladi]

Ok, once the tears stop rolling I will give you a couple more things to laugh at!

Once upon a time my mother was "teaching" me to bake we went to the store and got a "boston creme pie" mix (yes this is how my mother bakes, lol). She is reading me the recipe and says "water" instead of "milk" oh yes indeed there is a difference! Needless to say the "filling" was a tad on that runny side!

One summer afternoon my mother decides she is going once again to "bake" I dont recall what it was she was making as I dont believe we ever actually got to eat it, but everything was going right as she is standing in the kitchen preparing the mix to go into the oven.... she stops sniffs and goes back to mixing.... soon she looks around her and starts screaming "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!" I went running next door to my grandmothers and got my grampa (mommys dad, lol) who happened to be the local fire chief at the time and he calls for the trucks and the rest of the firemen and heads running up to the house... opens the back door to the kitchen and smoke comes rolling out in great billowing waves.... here come the trucks sirens blaring out the firemen jump just in time to see my grandfather exit the kitchen....... holding a couple throw pillows smoldering in his hands.... he throws them on the ground and the firemen look and grampa says.... Nevermind boys, seems my daughter was going to serve pillows for supper! The pillows came from a coupld days before when my father and my sister and I were having a pillow fight and my mother "hid" the pillows from us... apparently she hid them in the oven and didnt check to see if it was empty when she started preheating!

[JNBunnie1]

Here's my entry.

I screwed up the first time I tried baking gluten-free without a recipe. I made muffins. They turned out very bad. They looked like hockey pucks. My boyfriend's coworkers (who are actually Mexican and will eat anything) told him, and I quote, "Those don't look like muffins man, I ain't eating those....."

My boyfriend ate one. Sort of. He brought them to work without my blessing. At least he doesn't work there anymore.........

[Franceen]

And the winner is!!!!

I'm not the host, but this one had me laughing hysterically: THE FRIED PENIS IN SPAIN!!!

REALLY FUNNY AND EMBARASSING I BET!!

[kenlove]

2. Ken- Have you ever thrown out an entire dinner because it was inedible? The people want to know: Are you growing pennicillin in the back of your refridgerator?

It's gluten free protein in the back of the fridge -- make's Peg Bundy;s seem clean!<G>

7. Ken- Is it true that you once traveled to Japan to ask for Sumo underwear for lunch?

Sure is, I have a lot of stories from learning Japanese the hard way but thats the only food one I can remember now.

great thread!

[Lisa16]

Erm... yes, it was embaraassing. Still kind of is. Oh, the shame! And now I teach Spanish, of course. But that was many many years ago on a distant planet far far away.

I do have a Paul Prudhomme pie story to add to the mix.

I got his cookbook called "light cooking with paul Prudhomme" which I knew was a mistake right off the bat because the poor man must have weighed over 400 lbs. at that point in his life. I mean, what could he possibly know about light cooking?? But it was in the bargain bin so here goes....

I made his "light cheesecake." It was a complicated recipe that involved boiling down white grapejuice concentrate to make a syrup which you were supposed to use to sweeten the pie. I followed the directions exactly and the pie, no lie, weighed over 14 pounds!

To make matters worse, I was so surprised that it weighed that much that I dropped it. The dog rushed over and ate as much of it as possible before I wrestled away the pan and the poor thing was sick for days...

[Darn210]

To make matters worse, I was so surprised that it weighed that much that I dropped it. The dog rushed over and ate as much of it as possible before I wrestled away the pan and the poor thing was sick for days...

So the dog was sick as a . . . dog?

[HAK1031]

yeah, the penis one was pretty good...I've made stupid mistakes in spanish before (ask my host family from Costa Rica ) , but...wow

you learn new spanish slang every day..i'll never be able to order pollo without laughing. or gallo for that matter!

[loco-ladi]

I really gotta stay away from this subject, your all gonna make me pee my pants!

[Lisa16]

A little pee is no big deal.... but the poor dog turned out to be lactose intolerant!

[missy'smom]

O.k. since I am the host of the show...let me recap:

3. Missy's Mom- Do you have multiple spoiled cakes still in your garage for sentimental reasons?

Next contestant: ?

LMAO with tears running down my face.

Yes. I have gingerbread cookies in my garage too that didn't work out at Xmas. They took quite a bit of work and aren' t even iced. Look beautiful but turn to dust when you take a bite.

I think I need counseling. I have issues and need help.

[Juliebove]

When I was in high school, we had a foreign language lounge that was used only by my friends and I, even though I wasn't taking a foreign language. There was a table and chairs, some couches and best of all, a complete kitchen! We'd take turns bringing lunch for everybody. When it was my turn, I decided to make macaroni, beef and tomatoes. My mom had this huge bag of macaroni and I thought I needed to put it all in the pot. I was astounded when it began expanding and popping out of the pot. Yikes! My mom came into the kitchen and saw it. She had to scoop out some of the macaroni and put it in another pot to cook. What a mess!

Then as a young adult, I planned to make a meatloaf dinner for my then boyfriend. While I was at work that day, my friend called, begging me to babysit for her that night. She lived with her mom, but her mom was out of town and her babysitter quit on her. I mentioned that I was making the dinner, so she told me to bring my food and boyfriend to her condo and cook for him there. So I did.

Got there and found out there were no crackers in the house. The recipe I had called for crushed crackers. So I called my mom who told me I could put in oatmeal (couldn't find that either) or some bread. I found some bread, but I think it was rye or some weird flavor. I didn't realize that you needed to put the bread into crumbs and instead tore it into large chunks, crust included. Then there was the matter of the onion. I'd never cut up an onion before. My mom always used the dried chopped kind. I couldn't find a sharp knife anywhere in that kitchen. I tried to use a dull butter knife and that wound up in huge chunks. I mixed it all up anyway and put it in the oven. It took far longer to bake than the recipe said.

My boyfriend was getting grouchy and hungry. I discovered he really didn't like babies at all. I finally pulled the meatloaf out of the oven and cut off the ends (at least those were cooked through) and served it to my boyfriend along with some mashed potatoes. He couldn't eat it because of the large chunks of bread and onions. Said it was disgusting.

To make matters worse, I found out later he had broken one of the toilet seats and hadn't bothered to tell me. Then my friend got locked into the building at work. She was a cocktail waitress. So she had to call the police and they had to track down her boss so she could get out. I didn't get out of there until 4:00 in the morning and it was a long drive back to my place and I had to be at work early in the morning. Gah!

Then there was the time I was making a Chinese chicken salad for my husband. The recipe called for Soba noodles. I had never used them before. I cooked them for the amount of time it said, but they were hard as a rock. Like sharp little spears. The recipe made a ton and I had to throw it all out because it was inedible.

I once boiled eggs for making Easter eggs and didn't discover until the next day that they were not cooked enough. Only the whites were partially cooked and the rest was runny.

Then when I was living in a house with a roommate, I made deviled eggs to take to work for a potluck. The owner of the house left some food in there and told us to help ourselves. He had a can of paprika so I sprinkled it on the eggs, but noticed some larger black specks. It didn't look right to me so I had a friend look at it. He said, I don't know what they are, but they have LEGS! When I asked the landlord about it, he said the spices had been at his cabin for years and must have gotten bugs in them. That was the last time I used any of HIS stuff!

More recently, I was trying to come up with foods we could eat, given our food allergies. I was planning to make a shepard's pie for dinner but due to a series of things beyond my control, I got dinner started late. I decided if I grated the potatoes, they would cook more quickly. So I put them in my food processor and grated them. We can't have milk, so at the time I was draining the water from the boiled potatoes, mashing them and then mixing in some broth. I decided to save even more time, I would simply boil the grated potatoes in some beef broth. Mistake!

What I wound up with was a brown goo that tasted of uncooked potatoes. They wouldn't mash properly. I foolishly assumed that baking the dish in the oven would further cook the potatoes so they'd be okay. They were not. After that, my daughter wouldn't eat shepard's pie for a very long time because she thought I would make another bad one.

Then there was the pie that wouldn't bake. I made a chocolate pecan pie that was really good. My mom said she wanted to buy one from me to give to a coworker for her birthday. So I made another pie, but when the timer went off it was still liquid. I baked it some more. The crust began to burn but the pie was still liquid. I double and triple checked the ingredients. I had done everything right. My mom couldn't understand it so she told me to bring the pie over to her house.

I didn't have a large box, so I got my dishpan and lined it with some foil and dish towels. Put the pie in it and headed for the door. I was wearing wooden clogs and I slipped on something on the floor. The pie flew up in the air and I managed to catch it with only a little of the filling spilling out.

Got to my mom's house where she tried to bake the pie. She had it in the oven for hours and it never did firm up any more. She still took it to work and they ate it with spoons.