Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I was newly married and wanted to impress my husband with a nice romantic fall dinner that was completely homemade. I went to the store and bought everything I needed to prepare my meal from scratch. My appetizer was broccoli cheese soup. I began to prepare the soup on the stove. I sauteed the broccoli and seasoned it until it tasted great. I added the cheese and cream. The recipe instructed me to "puree" the broccoli concoction using a "hand blender." I did not have a hand blender so figured a regular blender would do the job. I poured the hot mixture in the blender. There was a small amount left so I tried to get as much in the blender as possible forgetting to leave room for the mixture to move through the blending process. I hit puree on the highest speed possible and HOLY EXPLOSION! The cover flew across the room and broccoli cheese soup was EVERYWHERE! My husband came home to me covered in soup (literally dripping off my eye lashes) and scrubbing soup off the ceiling. Months later and I was still finding dried up soup specks in the most random places (and I did an extremely thorough cleaning). I purchased a hand blender later that week!

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I once tried making a "one dish" meal. Cheesy chicken was the name. I had all the ingredients to make it, including the noodles/pasta. when i read the directions - it said 2 cups pasta (3 cups cooked). I went with the 2 cups uncooked.

well, after baking it, my DH and I sat down for a yummy meal but the noodles were not cooked - super crunchy - horrible. (I thought they would cook in the liquid while it baked, guess not).

DH still brings this cooking disaster up all the time.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I have so many, but the worst has to be from before DH and I were married. I decided to make meatloaf, sauce on the top and all.

When I tried to take it out of the loaf pan so I could put it on a plate and slice it nicely, it fell on the floor. DH saw it too, so I couldn't cover it up.

Well since it landed "sauce" side down, he told me to scrape it off and make some new sauce - and I did

We still talk about the "floor loaf" incident

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

It was my first Thanksgiving dinner I was hosting in my then new house and I wanted to impress my brother, who was classically trained at the Culinary Institute of America. I pulled a perfectly roasted, golden skinned turkey out of the oven and asked my brother to carve it. He said it needed to rest a little while, so off we went into the livingroom with the other guests. I walk into the kitchen a little while later and see my cat on the counter eating the turkey. I was so mortified, but was somehow able to cut the piece where he bit into and covered it over with the skin. Then I tell my brother how I am going to make fresh hollandaise sauce for the asparagus. I had my double boiler all set up, start whisking away but the eggs are scrambling instead of making a smooth sauce! My brother walks into the kitchen and sees what's happening, graps the scrambled mess tosses it in the trash and gently pushes me out of the way to make it for me. He finally brings the turkey into the dining room. He's starting at the turkey with this look on his face and points to the opening of the cavity of the turkey and sloooowly pulls out the bag of giblets which I forgot to remove. So much for impressing my brother .

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I was newly married and never really cooked so I was still in the learning process.

Whenever I cooked steak I would always use the broiler because it was faster and I was all about getting a quick meal on the table. So I put it in and went to go and watch TV.

Next thing I know my fire alarm is going off and my entire kitchen is filled with smoke, turns out I had put the steak way too close to the flame and the steak and the inside of the stove was on fire.

Luckily I had a fire extinguisher so here I am standing with one hand on the extinguisher and one hand on the oven door, I fling it open and put out the fire. I called Don and said that we were going out for dinner that night. LOL

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

Someone at work told me a recipe for Mexican Lasagna: quick, easy, tasty, one-pan meal. My type of cooking! I took the list of ingredients and put my own spin on them, to make it more healthy. So I bought the healthier ingredients such as low carb tortillas, fat free refried beans, brown rice, corn, tomatoes, etc. I rushed home, put all my ingredients together, and sat down to dinner when dh got home. It was quite tasty until our stomachs started doing the "painic rumble". Minutes later, we were both racing toward the door of our only bathroom. Everything was cooked fully so we didn't understand why we were both sick until we realized each piece had 84 grams of DIETARY FIBER!!!! Poor dh had two pieces Needless to say, the following day, we were both significantly lighter.

Message edited 9/29/2010 12:37:55 PM.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

My biggest kitchen disaster happened way back in 1990. Here I am - my own apartment - my first Thanksgiving dinner - my mom in Texas (not here in NY), but available by phone to walk me through how to make her sausage/walnut stuffing - and 6 people invited for dinner.

After following mom's instructions for the stuffing, I followed the instructions on the bird to remove giblits, wash bird, season bird, stuff bird, set temp on oven. Everything is on schedule. I make the side dishes - all seems to be A-OK. I bake an apple pie. I continually open oven and baste turkey.

Things seem to be great. Little red pop-up thing on turkey pops. I take turkey out of oven to let it rest before carving (and it's @ 1/2 before dinner time anyway). I'm thinking, great, fabulous I've done a great job. Until I start to carve said turkey - and it's RAW!!

I sent the temp on the oven for turkey without stuffing - not with stuffing. The turkey took 4 more hours to cook after that. We ate all the side dishes first, and didn't have turkey until 10PM.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I dont know if this counts, but its still a dinner disater.

So my Husband and I are on vacation in Florida (Key West). We rented a boat that day and skipper (About $275) dollars to go fishing and catch Sea Bass.

Yum.

The fishing was not great that day, but we were able to eek out enough fish for dinner.

So. There are places you can go where they will cook your freshly caught fish for you. We called a place to confirm this and went out.

They took our ourder, sides and how we wanted the fish prepared. My husband got his blackened. I HATE spicy food so I got mine grilled with a mango salsa. Could not WAIT for dinner.

So as the waited was coming to our table with the food he DROPPED my dinner on the floor.

SPLAT.

We were SHOCKED. The waited could not be more upset at dropping my dinner. And the worst thing was, if they had dropped MY dinner, they could have made half mine "black" for husband.

:::sigh::::

Needless to say they substituted something else for my dinner. It wasnt the same.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

well it wasn't my disaster, it was my DHs. Once in a while he likes to pull a recipe off this app he has on his phone, and surprise me with something we've never tried before.

the 'special' recipe for this night was baked chicken with leeks and garlic.

Now I wasn't home, I don't get off till 7. So he did all the shopping for it, and all the preparing. I walk in the door and it smells really good, but a reeeaaall strong garlic smell. I walk by, peek in, and he tells me it's a surprise get out of the kitchen. I go wash up and help set the table. Still thinking, wow...it really smells like garlic.

I sit down for dinner, and he brings the food to the table. I look in the dish and there is what seemed like 100 cloves of garlic! I don't wanna ruin his surprise, so I eat the dinner, wondering why so much garlic???

dinner is over, we both stink of garlic, are hands from washing the dishes stink, and finally I ask...

"loved dinner honey, but why all the garlic??"

He says" it called for 6 cloves of garlic, I only put 5 though cause my hand got tired of slicing garlic, took me 1/2 an hr to slice up 5 cloves."

I said"ant, that wasn't 5 cloves of garlic, that was more like 100"

He says " noooooo, it was 5 cloves" and proceeds to hand me a 'BUNCH' of garlic and says" the recipe called for 5 of these!"

Well, my DH found out very quickly that 1 clove of garlic is really one taken off the bunch when the house and us smelled of garlic for one whole week!! Hey, he tried....

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

My absolute worse was when I was cooking for my whole family (parents and siblings and their spouses). I had breaded and fried three family size packages of chicken cutlets. Layed them on top of a little cream of mushroom soup. I layered them with ham and swiss cheese (not a cheap dinner). I made it the day before serving so I wouldn't be bogged down the day of the dinner. I wrapped it up all nice and neat with saran wrap and aluminum foil so I could write the cooking directions right on the foil. Needless to say I forgot to take the saran wrap off before I put it in the oven. We caught a whiff of melting plastic and I knew exactly what I had done. My sister-in-law helped me scrape off all the yummy goodness of the ham and cheese. We thankfully salvaged the chicken or it would have been take out.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I got home early from work so my dh asked me to marinate the shrimp with tequila and lime - ok so i squeezed the limes and tossed the juice on the shrimp - then went looking for the tequila and cilantro - by the time i got back to the shrimp i had cooked them ceviche style and they did not marinate well

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

making lasanga - put cilantro in instead of parsley

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

:::sigh:::: here's another example that dh reminded me of as I was cooking tonight. I decided to make a weight watcher's version of eggplant parm. I prepared the recipe as written and called dh to ask him when he would be home so I could time it just right. He said he would be home in an hour to an hour and a half, and the cooking time was only 45 minutes, so I decided to leave it on the stove and cover it with plastic wrap until I was ready to put it into the oven. Dh arrived home and I presented dinner to him (keep in mind he is an eggplant snob). I cut a piece for each of us and we sit down to eat. I'm not going to lie it tasted funny....not bad exactly, just weird. He was trying to be a good husband so he kept eating it so I wouldn't feel bad. As I was doing the dishes, I realized something weird about the Pyrex I cooked it in. It looked as if the edges were broken. Upon further inspection, I relaized the issue...I cooked the eggplant in the oven and never removed the plastic wrap! Dh turned green when he found out...our should be romantic evening was filled with googling effects of eating plastic wrap.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I'm not that great at cooking, so everything I touch is usually close to a disaster.

At the end of the night at a party we threw, I was a little tipsy and decided to try to clean up a little and combined plates.


One guest went to pop a brownie in his mouth and it was a meatball! I guess I just noticed small brown foods and put them together!





DH is worse than me. Once he tired to make my favorite eggplant parm. One eggplant and 2 jars of sauce - I really thought the indigestion was a heart attack! his other disaster was pasta primavera with canned green beans and cocktail onions.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

Mine is more of a baking disaster. Back in my early 20's (before I had a clue...... ) I had started to make brownies for DH and I and one night and of course I didn't check that I had everything I needed before starting. So when it came time to add the VEGETABLE oil I realized I was all out and since I had already starting mixing everything I just figured I would make a substitution and I'd be in business.

Soooooooo..........instead of vegetable oil I used EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. Oh good god!!!! I cannot even express how absolutely disgusting those brownies were. We took one bite and practically yetched on the kitchen floor. Needles to say I learned a very important lesson in baking............EVOO has NO place in brownies and cakes.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

My disaster was a while ago when I was a still living at home. For some reason my mom wasn't home so I was making Rice a Roni.
I was reading the directions which said combine butter and rice in a pan. So I said to my dad 'which goes in first the butter or the rice'? My dad said either, doesn't matter.
I started to panic and think if I put the butter in the pan and it melts/burns before I get the rice in or if I do the rice first and it sticks and burns before I can get the butter in. So I started to cry. (I am very emotional ) My dad laughed and said just put the butter in first.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

DH has one older sister and one younger brother. So given the natural order of things, his sister is the one who's always having the family over. I've always felt a little bad that that burden is always on her, so I told her that this one Sunday everyone could come by me. At her house, it's always sauce on Sundays. I knew my tomato sauce probably couldn't compete with hers, so I decided to make a vodka sauce. First I made the tomato sauce. I made sure to taste it. It tasted pretty good. Then I made it into the vodka sauce...Stirred in the vodka real well and let it cook for a few minutes. Stirred in the cream real well and let it cook for a few minutes. Stirred in the cheese and voila! Poured it over everyone's pasta. Everyone's look was just about the same as they took their first bite of the pasta. It tasted like a marinara cocktail! I now know that I should have let the alcohol in the vodka cook off and not mixed it in, but I didn't realize it then. I had to quickly make a new batch of pasta and our nice family dinner was now spaghetti with butter and cheese.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

I think one of my worst situation is when I tried to made for the first time Rice, bean and fried meatballs.. Please take in consideration that I am dominican and I this recipe should come in my DNA lol.. Well I dont know what was worst.. The white rice I did it in a big pot and I wanted to make sure it make some "con con" (which is the hard dry rice at the bottom of the pot).. To make the story short yes I made that but it was completely burn to the point the pot have no salvation but the top of the rice was soggy because I used way too much water! (I was suppose to use 1 1/2 cup of water for every cup of rice and I used 2 1/2 cups of water). Now to the beans, I used dry beans just like my grandmother used to. Well I put them to boil and after I thought they were "soft enough" I decide to blend half of them.. I remember my grandmother blending them to make them of a thicker consistance but they finish looking like refried beans.. The meatballs were just plain tasteless.. I dont think I need to say it but we finish ordering pizza and I havent touch dry beans ever agai

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

My husband is part polish so I wanted to do something nice and make a polish dinner. I made periogies....To make a long story short. He ended up recooking the dinner I made. Apparently your not supposed to use marinara sauce. Oh and I wanted to try and impress my Hubbies parents so I instead of actually cooking, since it's a nightmare....I went to Costco and bought a pre made roast and microwaved it. Couldn't even get that right.

Re: Enter the "From Dinner Disasters to Dream Dinners" Contest

It was our first anniversary as husband & wife. DH told me that one day he would love a homeade dinner from me. So I decided to surprise DH with a dinner. I never cooked in my life. The only thing I know how to do is to boil water and cook instant noodles
I went to Pathmark and bought a box of Goya Rice (which is DH's favorite) and I bought chicken to prepare for our dinner.
I came home read the instructions and put the rice to cook. During the time I put the rice in the pot, I went to take a shower because DH was coming home in thirty minutes. When I came out the shower, my smoke detector went off and I ran downstair, the whole first floor was filled with smoke. I was petrified. I ran to the kitchen and my pot of rice was burn (even the pot was burn) . I didn't know what to do. I call the fire department and open all the doors to my house.
The fire department came. At the same time, DH also came home. They asked if I was okay. DH asked me what happened here. I told him that I was trying to suprise him with a dinner for our first anniversary. He told me "You cooking ? Forget it ". One of the firemen said that women nowadays don't cook anymore and even if they tried, it would be a disaster. I was so embarrassed.
We never get to eat homeade dinner . We ended up going to a restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. Since that time, we always eat at my parent's house (thank God they lived across the street)