Dumb things you've done in the kitchen!

[BlueMoose]

With all the cooking that everyone on this BB does, I know that many of us have done some dumb and embarrassing things in the kitchen. I've done lots of absent-minded things, like forgetting to add sugar to muffins, and forgetting to put spices in pumpkin pie. The dumbest thing I've done lately is this...I bought a rotissere (sp?) chicken for my DH a couple months ago. I rarely buy these and I never make an entire chicken. He wanted it warmed up after it had been in the refrigerator all afternoon, and I guess I'm used to some of these frozen meals that you just put into the oven, tray and all. The chicken was in some kind of plastic container and I just stuck the whole thing in the oven....I don't know what I was thinking. When I went to check it after about 15 minutes all the plastic was melting down around the chicken...oops. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/eek.gif

So, have any of the rest of you done anything stupid in the kitchen?

Please forgive any spelling errors in this post...it is, after all, 3am! I'm going back to bed now. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[HUNGRY!]

I can't think of anything really dumb that I've done lately (although, it has happened a lot!!) but my oven was really dumb the other day.

I was cooking bread and as I shut the oven door the handle fell off! I couldn't believe it! It took me forever to get the dumb door open becuase as you could imagine, the oven was pretty hot! By the time I got it open and the handle back on, the bread was ruined. All that work, for a char broiled loaf of bread! I wanted to cry!

[cchhbb]

I've done plenty of dumb things in the kitchen over the last few years. I once forgot to ***** the potatoes before microwaving. What a mess. I have also forgotted the bananas in banana nut bread.

[Zinnia]

I have done so many, lol! Here's only two of them-
When my kids were little I put what I baked (cookies, cakes, muffins), in the cold oven to hide so they wouldn't eat it all in 1 sitting, or while I was at work and then I'd put it away later. It worked for awhile, but after preheating my oven several times over the years w/ Tupperware cont. full of baked things in it I thought I learned my lesson...Doh!! Just did it again last week with a batch of brownies!
And, about 6 mo. ago I made a ham, broccoli, & cauliflower casserole for dinner, baked it, and while it was cooling I got a phone call & had to leave right away. I couldn't find my keys, didn't have a lid for it, the oven was still hot & I saw the cat on the counter on my way out the door, so I shoved it in the microwave. I came home hours later, went to bed and to work the next day. I came home that night and it smelled stinky in the house so I emptied the garbage, cat box, etc. and went out to dinner w/ friends. Went to bed & could not figure out what that nasty smell was! The next morning I opened the microwave to heat water for tea and got blasted out of the room from the smell of the casserole that was STILL in there!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/eek.gif! It took 2 days to get the smell out of my house! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif Zinnia

[AltoAtHart]

Doesn't really classify as a dumb thing I did... but a funny story from my child hood. When I was younger my family had a cmaper we kept on a lake nearby. We would spent many weekends there on the lake, and we had some dry goods stored there (in plastic tupperware to keep nature out of course). In the winter we would close it up and take all the goods home. Well one winter morning my mother made me french toast for breakfast, which I happen to love eating with cinnamon sugar. My mother brought the cinnamon sugar over to me (she had previously mixed them in a seperate container).

"Mom," I say" this isn't very sweet, I think it doesn't have any sugar"

"That's silly," she says, but goes and puts more sugar in, thinking there just must not be enough...

"Mom, it still deosn't taste right"

she puts more sugar in.

"Mom, this is disgusting, it's....salty ?"

My mother had not labeled the containers she brought back from the camper, and had mistaken the salt for sugar. Lesson learned, label your containers!

We still laugh about it to this day, any time me have french toast, or cinnamon sugar!

Hope this made you smile
Eleonore

[gertdog]

More than once in my adult life, my SO has wandered into the kitchen in the evening to find a carton of milk in the cupboard and a box of cereal in the fridge. Apparently I am not particularly alert in the mornings. Please tell me others have done something like this! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[KLynn]

I once made the mistake of thinking ground mustard and dry mustard are interchangable...let me tell you - they are not. My sauce tasted awful!

[KValley]

..setting the oven on fire while toasting coconut with the broiler, THEN throwing flour into the oven in an attempt to put it out. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif

The very next day I purchased a fire extinguisher for the kitchen.

[Alisa]

Hmmmm where to start.....how about the first time I made applesauce. I poured it HOT into the blender, turned it on high, spent the next week cleaning applesauce off the walls, ceiling etc and THEN had to repaint the whole kitchen because of the stains on the walls. I haven't made applesauce since.

[emilycat]

You're not supposed to put Pyrex bowls on the stove top to cook spaghetti sauce...

[SandyM]

You can't make guacamole with green avocados.

[lindrusso]

Bluemoose - I used to like to ask embarassing questions on this board, so check out this thread for more blunders! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif
http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/Archives/Archive-000002/HTML/20010301-1-000595.html

[valchemist]

you're not supposed to put plastic mixing bowls on burners that have recently been on!!

[This message has been edited by valchemist (edited 05-23-2001).]

[ebobbitt]

A long time ago (years!) I wanted to run my dishwasher but I had run out of detergent. My boyfriend at the time said, "Oh, just use regular dishwashing liquid". Imagine my surprise when the bubbles started running out on the kitchen floor!
Elizabeth

[emilycat]

Oh, Elizabeth, I've been there, too!
Um, and Valerie, I've definitely ruined too many plastic things to count by leaving them too near a burner that's still on. The last thing was the top to the blender -- I've also lost part of a spatula in the fondue...


[This message has been edited by emilycat (edited 05-23-2001).]

[HUNGRY!]

Elizabeth, I've done that too, the night before moving! It was horrible, but at least it got the floor clean!

[DmOrtega]

How does one loose a sponge while one is using it? That was my question several years ago. While I was washing dishes by hand, the sponge I was useing just disappeared. After looking around for quite awhile, I just gave up, found something else and finished the dishes. A few days later I found it in the fridge. Talk about absentmindeness. Any time I loose something, I now look in the fridge. You just never know.

[funnybone]

The worst thing is to turn the garborator on and realize that the kids have let a teaspoon drop into it. I have ruined about 3 Mikasa teaspoons, along with some measuring spoons this way. I guess it is my fault as I don't keep that stopper in there, but the kids have been told not to put things in the sink.

[Beth]

Most recent good one was putting the gingerbread scones in the convection micro since I had a coffeecake baking in the oven at a much lower temp. Somehow it got switched from convection in the preheat to microwaving on high. Went about 14 minutes before DS found DH who called me. They smelled funny, but looked normal until I opened the door. All of the sudden, you could watch the oxidizing as the center ring turn black. The whole house smelled of burned gingerbread for days!

[tobykitty]

I have no idea what I was thinking but here goes...

I was making a recipe that called for some crumbled bacon and to reserve 2T of the drippings. Well, I knew that I couldn't simply dip my pampered chef measuring spoon into the drippings. It would be to hot and melt my spoon. But now if I poured the grease into the spoon it would be fine. Duh!!

[DSH]

I hate to admit that I once (many years ago) tried to hardboil an egg in the shell in the microwave. It blew the door off the microwave and the apartment stunk for days! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif

[AndreaU]

Just last night, as a matter of fact... I had a pyrex measuring cup on the stove top as I was cooking and the oven was set to broil (i.e. very hot!). I needed to add water to my recipe so I grabbed the measuring cup, which after 15-20 minutes was volcanically hot!! The dumbest part, though, was that I KNEW it was hot (after I picked it up) but I didn't put it down right away, it only took about 3 seconds. Luckily I didn't get burned nor did I drop it and shatter it into a million pieces!

My husband is notorious for doing dumb things in the kitchen. His most recent was dumping canned dog food in his cereal bowl- with the cereal in it. He has also poured orange juice on his cereal. He's really not a morning person!

[Mbart]

I've shared this before, but here goes: I sprayed mustard all over the kitchen floors, walls and ceiling by grabbing the bottle and whirling my arm around and around to force the last bit to the top, not realizing the top was unplugged.

Also, within the last year, my DH poured cold water into a 9X13 glass pan that had just come out of the oven. Glass shards flew everywhere!

Lastly, have just heard this story, but it didn't actually happen to me. A couple had guests over for dinner, and were using their new china. After dinner, the husband was clearing away all of the dishes, and proudly exclaimed as he walked into the kitchen with a tall stack, "Well, isn't that great, we didn't break anything!" The next thing they heard was a loud CRASH...

[ChrisF]

ohmy, these are sooo funny! It is embarassing to add my contribution--but it *is* the dumbest thing I've ever done in the kitchen:
Many moons ago,(my 23 yo son was a preschooler,) I was rushing to get him to pre-school and me to work and I noticed that his socks from the pile of unfolded laundry were damp. Because the dryer was outside in the detached garage, I put his little socks in the oven on low to dry, and continued getting us dressed. Well, you know----about 10:30 AM, I'm in the middle of a phone call at work "AACCKK! I've got socks in the oven!" I don't think my boss really believed me, but I had to leave work and drive 28 miles (one way) to get out the nice cozy warm-baked socks, and then turn around and drive back to work.
I loved the story about the missing sponge--I've probably done that too, I just don't remember it!!
Chris

[GayeC]

If you forget to add the melted butter to a recipe and all of the other ingredients are already mixed, I do not recommend adding the melted butter while the Kitchenaid mixer is running. That is, unless you enjoy watching melted butter fly around your kitchen!

[DmOrtega]

Originally posted by AndreaU:
I needed to add water to my recipe so I grabbed the measuring cup, which after 15-20 minutes was volcanically hot!! The dumbest part, though, was that I KNEW it was hot (after I picked it up) but I didn't put it down right away, it only took about 3 seconds. Luckily I didn't get burned nor did I drop it and shatter it into a million pieces!

I can't count how many times I've done similar things. It all seems like it happens in slow motion. You know you shouldn't be doing it, but you do it anyway.

[Trish K]

I never did decide whether or not this was as bad as I thought it was at the time. My SIL and I were making MANY spritz cookies for Christmas one year and we decide to be efficient and double the recipe. We got to talking and it wasn't until the first batch came out of the oven that we realized we had doubled everything but the flour. They were really flat and fragile little guys, BUT rich and delicious. Who knows, perhaps this is the way great discoveries are made.

[Beth]

There is also the time I tried to take a label off a 2 liter soda bottle (still full) and it exploded in my hands. Cola, of course, splattered nearly the full 13 ft up to the ceiling and in places you wouldn't imagine - or find for weeks.

And the time I took a box of ice cream bars out of the freezer to get to something else. After dinner and whatever activity we had been to that evening, found the entire box of ice cream bars in a sog on top of the freezer. At least the freezer door was closed.

[This message has been edited by Beth (edited 05-23-2001).]

[Jacque O]

Not entirely a kitchen mishap but I think it works. Once I took a bag of cherries out of the freezer to thaw and forgot them on top of the microwave that night. The Ziplock had a leak and the juice ran down into the microwave, apparently causing an electrical short. So, we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the microwave beeping. When I started to follow my SO down the stairs to see what was going on in the kitchen, he didn't want me to because he thought someone was in the house. My response was, "There's a burglar and he's microwaving?!?!?"

[LaraW]

This thread is too funny!

We have an electric stove, and you would think that after 2 1/2 years of living here that I would learn to operate it. I can never seem to turn on the correct burner, despite the little diagram telling me which burner the knob operates. I even had to make a label that says "Tea" with an arrow. You would think that would help too! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/frown.gif

I ruined a tea kettle by turning on the wrong burner last summer. I had tried to cook dinner and came back to find my empty tea kettle stuck to the burner. I picked it up and was yelling "WHAT DO I DO???"

I have put stuff into the oven and forgotten to turn it on. I have heard of people who have forgotten to put soap in the dishwasher. I have forgotten to put the dishes in. Or have added dirty dishes to clean ones, or have put dirty dishes in the cupboard.....My list seems to go on and on!

[Jewel]

Come on, everybody, fess up...am I the only one who has forgotten to remove the little plastic bag from inside the chicken or turkey before roasting? http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/tongue.gif That delectible scent of 'melting chemicals' just seems to add to the delicate hint of rosemary and thyme, doesn't it? http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[Laura]

You mean other than putting in 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of cumin in everyone's favorite garlic and lime chicken thighs instead of 1 and 1/2 teaspoons http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif! No wonder it wasn't my favorite dish! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif

[This message has been edited by Laura (edited 05-23-2001).]

[mandarin2j]

Failing to check the oven before pre-heating seems to be a theme here. Just last week, I was preheating the oven to 425 and after about 15 minutes, I smelled something funny. One of our cast iron pans was sitting in there with a plastic handled spatula welded to it. Oops! Fortunately, when the pan cooled, all the plastic popped off.

DH has a doozie-Last year on Easter, we were hosting dinner at our new house. Our first house, that we had just moved into two weeks prior to Easter. DH was trying to start the barbeque grill so we could do my marinated grilled mushrooms as an appetizer, but it was windy and we were having no luck at all. So, since we had a nice roaring fire going inside, he brought a few coals in and stuck them in the fire so they could get the other coals going when he returned them to the 'que. He came into the kitchen looking for something to carry them out in and settled on a cleaned out tuna can. And tongs. I was busy and not really paying attention to this brilliant combo.

Next thing I know, he's walking through the kitchen with a tuna can holding hot coals. The can wobbled in his grip, and then he lost his grip on it and the contents spilled all over the floor, leaving nice little melt marks where the surface had once been shiny and nice. The kitchen linoleum had just been re-done by the previous owners before we moved in. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/mad.gif Oh, and then people started showing up. Early. Grrrrrr. Not most auspicious debut of entertaining in our new home.

-Amanda

[crazycook]

Never use a sharp Henckel chef's knife to pry apart frozen hamburgers! Now that was extremely dumb! I nearly sliced off my left pinky finger. I cut through to the bone, ended up with 8 stitches and the feeling along the outside of my pinky has not returned. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/frown.gif

On a funnier note: Never remove beaters from whipped cream while still on. I had sweet, white, vanilla flavoured polka-dots all over me and my kitchen. (The result of too many Spanish coffees--I was working on another batch--I probably shouldn't have been "drinking and mixing") http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/wink.gif

I've loved reading these stories--I was LOL through this entire thread. The missing sponge and "baked socks" stories were too much! Who doesn't love their socks, toasty! LOL!

[eks]

Oh this post makes me feel so much better about the mistake I made last night. I still have been thinking about it today. After looking forward to the Spinach, Rice, and Feta Pie all week, I made it last night. Instead of preparing the two cups of cooked rice,I measured out 2 cups of uncooked rice and ended up with 4 cups of rice and dumped it all into the egg mixture. What I ended up with was a pie plate full of rice!! I was so mad.

[Kelli Kerrigan]

When I'm really into cooking, I often forget that I am not 'one' with the oven. Potholders were made for a reason..........

Going to bed without taking the bread out of the breadmachine. (Can everyone say 'brick'?)

Putting a plastic honey bottle on top of the stove, forgetting that plastic honey bottles do not like 350 degree surfaces.

Cookie dough sliding off of the cookie sheet and into the cat's food. And then getting a terrible look from the cat!

[ebobbitt]

Now I've thought of two more! The first time I had to separate eggs for meringue I used almost an entire dozen (only needed 3) because always on the third egg I would get the yellow in with the whites. After I finally succeeded in getting 3 egg whites in a bowl I managed to sling them all over the counters and cabinets when I was trying to beat them. Second: a couple of weeks ago I opened a new container of buttermilk (you know, removed that little pull thingy that's around the cap) and started to shake it. Either I didn't realize I'd also unscrewed the lid or it was not screwed on but I managed to sling that stuff everywhere also.
Elizabeth

[This message has been edited by ebobbitt (edited 05-23-2001).]

[This message has been edited by ebobbitt (edited 05-23-2001).]

[Jewel]

Last night as a matter of fact...I put my fresh green beans in the steamer basket, put an inch of water in the pan, put the lid on the pan, turned the burner to high, and answered the phone. 25 minutes later, my Husky was whimpering at me, so I told my friend to hang on, and walked back into the kitchen. My green beans were nothing but booger-green colored earthworms, the water had boiled out of the pan, and the majority of the nonstick on my pan was also burned off and cracking. Smelled like I was making burnt rubber as a side dish for that Chicken Marsala...Oh my Gosh! The Chicken Marsala!! Lifted the lid off the marsala, cream, green onion and mushroom sauce to find a charred black sludge stuck to the bottom of my OTHER nonstick (ha!) pan.

DH got Boca Burgers for dinner, and he's told my best friend Sheila that I can't come out to play when I'm suppposed to be making dinner anymore. I think I'm grounded. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[comabri]

Two that I remember...

1) Put half-full pizza box in cold oven to keep it warm for a few minutes (why I thought a cold oven would keep pizza warmer anyway, I don't know!). Of course, next day, preheated oven to make dinner , caught the pizza box on fire.

2) Bought several of those cheap frying pans/skillets from Wal-mart to have on hand in case I was making something that needed 4 pans (yeah, right). I washed two of them right away. That night, decided to try one out, put it on the burner, walked away for a minute - came back to a big smoky smelly kitchen. I had grabbed one that I hadn't washed - and it still had the big round care/usage sticker on the bottom.

[This message has been edited by comabri (edited 05-23-2001).]

[laughsandlaughs]

My problem isn't that I've done something dumb in the kitchen, it's that I've done SO MANY of these dumb things in the kitchen...

1. When I put hot tomato-basil soup in the blender I wish it was applesauce..

2. Instead of pyrex, I poured cold water into a hot cast-iron skillet. I didn't know iron could shatter...WRONG!!

3. I've burned out a pot by putting too little water under the steamer.

4. I put 1 1/2 TABLESPOONS garlic powder in a dip instead of Teaspoons....wish it'd only been cumin...

5. I've burned more toasting pinenuts and coconut than I'd like to remember. I actually burned the coconut three times for the same meal, even with my husband watching "carefully" the 3rd time!!

6. I have no children, but one time I had a shot glass in the sink, suddenly I couldn't find it..didn't think too much about it until the garbage disposal went on the next time!!! Glass in there isn't what you want.

The last wasn't mine, it was my dad's. When we were children we gave my dad a new gas grill for Father's Day, had it installed, the whole bit. So on that day we surprised him and he was so excited he wanted to cook on it all by himself. So my mom microwaved some chicken til it was almost done and then gave it to my dad to finish off on the grill. We were really hungry!!! So we kept asking, are they done, are they done? Dad didn't believe in a meat thermometer, and he kept saying, no, no, NO!! Finally he brings these charcoal brickets of chicken back into the house...he hadn't realized the meat had been precooked, so he was cooking it for the regular time!! There was nothing left we could eat!

[ReneeV]

Here's one of mine:

When I was about 14 years old I decided to try my hand at making cream puffs. I had been baking and reading recipes since I was about 10 years old. I guess I was being overly confident because I didn't carefully read the directions. I mixed up the batter and carefully spooned it out on to a baking sheet. I had preheated the oven to the requisit 400 degrees. I put the cream puffs in the oven and low and behold they rose beautifully. Sooo.... I took them out and they promptly deflated!! Seems I forgot to read the part about turning down the temp and continuing to bake until the cream puffs are dried and baked through. I was sooo mad I almost cried.

Here's another cream puff story. My mom had made some beautiful cream puffs for a ladies luncheon she was having. She had several left over so she decided to bring them down the the fire house later that afternoon. (My dad was a fireman, and many of the wives would bring baked goods etc., to the guys.) She put the cream puffs in a shirt box, set them on the hood of the trunk, promply opened the trunk and FLING, catapulted the cream puffs into the neighbors yard. Boy did we have a good laugh over that one!

What a fun thread!

Renée