Your Worst Kitchen Disaster [Giveaway]
This giveaway is now closed.
UPDATE: Thank you guys so much for supporting me in this! I am so excited to announce that I won the Pampered Chef Blogger Blunder Kitchen Disaster contest – $3,5000 of Pampered Chef product and a gift card to Spa Finder. I couldn’t have done that without all of YOU.
Even though the giveaway is over now, feel free to leave a comment still if you’d like and don’t forget to read through some of the other disaster stories. There are some GREAT comments in here.
Congratulations to Jeneen for winning the Easy Brie-zy Pizza Set!
Disasters Happen Here Every Day
I say (jokingly, of course) that itβs a good thing that I was asked to share my worst βkitchen disastersβ because we all know that Iβm too good (Iβm totally not) to have a “cooking disaster.”
Eric looks up and says βcooking disasters happen in here every day!β I am baffled, at a loss for words. WHAT? But he quickly recovers saying that by cooking disasters he means big messes.
And he is definitely right about that one, only I donβt view those as true βdisasters,β just my genius creativity at work. But I will admit that Iβve never been a very tidy cook and have always felt that the only thing I hated about cooking is the cleaning up part.
My Worst Kitchen Disaster
Iβm home from vacation with one day to unload the car, unpack, do laundry, settle the kids and pack myself up again before I leave for another trip, this time work related.
I come downstairs from laundry, quickly rushing to the kitchen. My mind is obviously somewhere else because I’m completely perplexed as to why the floor feels so…disgusting…and crunchy.
It takes a moment for the horrifying scene before my eyes registers with my brain. I realize that what I’m stepping on are tiny multi-colored sprinkles. And there aren’t just a few. There are a lot more than a few. A whole heckuva lot more.
Upon further inspection I find that not only has Madeline emptied several once full bottles of sprinkles onto the kitchen floor, but that sheβs sitting on the counter rubbing her sweet little hands together like sheβs putting on lotionβ¦only sheβs used an entire bottle of green food coloring for the job.
She must be pretty satisfied with herself because she stops rubbing those hands to flash a toothy, chubby cheek smile my way before continuing on her merry way.
The next task at hand — dumping curry powder into some concoction sheβs got brewing nearby. Unfortunately, more curry makes it onto the counter than into her bowl. Which then ends up all over the seat of her pants.
At the time Iβm feeling all sorts of things: annoyed, concerned, furiousβ¦ that my 2 year old has figured out how to push a chair from the kitchen table over to the counter so she can get into the spice cabinet.
Iβm so beside myself that I call Eric and tell him that I donβt care how tired he is, that there will be child locks on all the kitchen cabinets when Iβm home from my trip.
I have too much to do still, and so I leave the mess as evidence but not before I take the chair and the bottle of curry powder away.
The only thing I can think to do is send Madeline out back in her diaper with the sprinklers on and popsicle in hand so she can wash off while I pout about my circumstances.
Payback Time
Only now months later do I realize that this is just payback for the occasion that I, as my 3 year old self, found it quite prudent to create my very first cake on the kitchen floor. Like mother, like daughter.
I think my parents must have known back then that the kitchen would be always be my most favorite room in the house, because after that disaster I certainly made many, many more.
I can only hope that Madeline will one day find the same joy in the kitchen that I do. And that maybe sheβll get a little payback of her own too.
P.S. We now have child locks on every single cabinet in the house, in or out of the reach of little hands.
P.P.S. Every word of this is the absolutely truth.
Now it’s your turn – SPILL IT – what is your worst kitchen disaster?
Were you the cause or someone else? Did it involve a recipe failure, a gigantic mess, or something else crazy? Was it a major holiday recipe disaster or more every day run of the mill disaster? DO TELL! I am so curious!
Even if you don’t have anything to share, I’d love your comment. Comments on this post count as votes on my entry in the contest.
Giveaway Prize (1 winner):
Easy Brie-zy Pizza Set (valued @ $115)
Giveaway Requirements:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me about your worst kitchen disaster.
- You may NOT enter using multiple email addresses. Automatic disqualification.
- Additional entries must leave a separate comment.
- Contest ends April 15, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. CT.
- Contest open to US States only.
- Winner will be chosen via random.org and will have 3 days to respond before disqualified and a new winner chosen.
Extra Entries:
Additional entries can be earned by doing any of the following, giving you a total of 3 entries. Leave a separate comment for each of your entries.
1. ReTweet the following message: Win a @pampered_chef Pizza Set (val. $115) and help @goodlifeeats win the Kitchen Disaster contest http://su.pr/1Kft6v #giveaway
2. Become a fan of GoodLife Eats on Facebook.
Contest Info
The Pampered Chef has asked me to share my very worst kitchen disaster with my readers in a little blogger contest. I own several Pampered Chef products and have always been happy with them so I agreed to participate. Plus, this is a good disaster story and something I’ve never shared here before.
I was not compensated for sharing my worst kitchen disaster in any way, but the winner — you need to comment on my post to help me win — winner gets $3,500 The Pampered Chef kitchen tool makeover and $125 towards SpaFinder.
To follow along with The Pampered Chef SPILL IT! Contest, “Like” their Facebook Page and share your worst story there, too (by Wednesday at noon CT) for a chance to enter this same contest.
Alysa De Felice says
We were having a Hannukah Party in December 2010 and my fabulous chef husband borrowed our vacationing neighbors oven to roast the chicken as we did not have enough room in our own. His chicken recipe calls for 450 degrees upfront and then a lowering to 350 after 20 minutes for the final roast. As the door to their apartment closed behind him, he realized the keys were left on their counter. We were locked out and our chicken was cooking “ON HIGH”. 12 guests in our living room were waiting for the “best” roast chicken ever and the clock was ticking. I rushed to drive 10 minutes and hopefully get a key from a friend. However, that key did not work. In the interim we had called a locksmith who was on the way and arrived at about 35 minutes into the cooking time. Thank goodness he successfully pried the door open and only charged $175 for the service. The apartment was filled with the smoke from the high cooking chicken but crazily enough, it was still edible. Our guests were very gracious and surprisingly excited to be part of such an adventurous evening. Your story and all the others are truly the fabric of life.
Karen Grinyer says
Though I now consider myself quite adequate in the kitchen, I was once a disaster. Literally. My mom wok up one day to fix Saturday morning pancakes only to arrive in a kitchen filled with 3 children, one giant bowl and basically every seasoning, spice and available ingredient at reachable height overflowing from the sides. My siblings and I had been trying to recreate the baking soda and vinegar volcano effect without knowing the exact ingredients. In out experiments we used baking powder, salt, cornstarch, pretty much anything available. To our mother’s dismay, we also emptied an entire bottle of Dancy’s vanilla (the one used in our parents wedding cake). The kitchen was a rainbow of differently colored spills, and that bowl was just disgusting. Needless to say we were in serious timeout for awhile. However, we did purchase them a new bottle around the time we all hit high school π
vesta44 says
I had my best cooking disaster tonight. I baked boneless skinless chicken breasts in the oven for supper. After hubby and I served ourselves, he put the pyrex baking dish on the stove top so the cat wouldn’t get in the pan (she won’t stay off the kitchen table). I had made mashed potatoes to go with the chicken, and thought I’d turned off the burner. Wrong. I turned it the wrong way, to low. So there’s this very small flame heating up the pyrex baking dish, we’re watching tv, and the carbon monoxide alarm starts going off. Evidently, flame and pyrex don’t mix, and carbon monoxide detectors don’t like the fumes. Husband had to open up the back door and the front door to air out the house while I took the battery out of the detector and unplugged it until the air cleared. I’ll be double-checking burners from now on.
Leann says
I was cooking for my younger sister one day and we decided to make some sort of pasta. Well…we put the water in the pot, turned it on to boil, and got distracted. We were in another room when I heard my smoke alarm going off. I ran into the kitchen to find my pan on fire on the stove. It had burned to the point where it was completely engulfed in red and it had burned through the entire bottom of the pot. Oops…that smell stayed for weeks!
MA Ross says
I was invited to test a new “professional grade” non-stick spray before it hit the markets. I was so proud of myself, since this was my first big product review for any company, that I decided I’d leave the can of spray on the counter as a reminder to use it the next morning when making breakfast.
I woke up early, trotted in to the kitchen in my nightgown, and WHOOSH! I felt my feet go sliding out from under me. I skidded the first five feet upright, but somewhere after that the world began to tilt and by the time I came to an abrupt stall against the cabinets on the far side of the room, my nightgown was over my head, my feet in the air, and I couldn’t get any traction to right myself. I’m sitting there squealing like a pig and I hear my husband ask from the door, “Are you ok? Why does it look like you poured oil on the floor?” From behind him peeks my son, a mere four year old at the time.
After much struggling, I manage to roll on to my side and I notice a spray can- the one I was planning on reviewing- hidden slightly under the edge of the cabinet in front of me. The lid was missing. I picked it up and, sure enough, it was empty.
I hold up the can to my Husband and without even turning, he picks up the kiddo and feels his oily, oily hands before nodding at me.
It took WEEKS to get the nonstick spray up. I even had to call the company to ask if they use a specific solvent. Imagine my surprise when they told me laughingly that the situation had never come up before. (Okay, so I wasn’t THAT surprised- there’s a reason we’ve nicknamed our son Chaos…)
However, the product did get a glowing review for being truly “non-stick”!
Kristin says
My worst disaster involved baking a pizza on a pizza stone. It stuck to the stone and I attempted to pry it off with a knife. My hand slipped and I cut my finger. Blood went everywhere. I had to go to the emergency room for stitches. Turns out I also cut a tendon in my finger. My 2 yr-old still talks about it. Everytime we have pizza she tells me to be careful not to cut myself. Everytime we pass the hospital she tells me about when I went there.
Karen says
http://twitter.com/#!/SCMOMOF2BOYS/status/59335458022367233
Rita says
Congratulations on your win Katie!
Nina says
I had my MIL in the kitchen breathing down my neck and generally making me NERVOUS. I stuck something in my brand new VITAMIXER and actually broke the paddle! I was so upset and she was not nice about it. I also spilled my “calming” glass of red wine all over the chair cushion that night!
Elyse says
When I was a young teen, I took it upon myself to make my first pie. I was so proud of myself! I took out my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook and slaved over the careful creation of flaky, made-from-scratch crusts. I then substituted cherry pie filling for the cherries the recipe required—but still added the sugar! The pie looked beautiful, but it turned into a sugary rock.
My dad tried to make me feel better by picking off the crust and eating it over the next few days…
Kerstin says
I hope you win!!
I unknowingly had a leaky cheesecake pan once, ugh, what a mess!
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship says
I have so many little ones…worst kitchen disaster is probably over-rising bread in the oven – burnt all over the bottom. Yuck.
naomi says
Had to share one more kitchen disaster. . .
I had placed some homemade pomegrante molasses syrup in a plastic container for storage in the refrigerator. Easy enough, right?
Well the next morning, after seeing a very sticky red pool all over and dripping down my refrigerator shelves-I realized the plastic container had a small crack. Everything in the container, the very thick and syrupy molasses sauce was now everywhere and in everything.
Needless to say, I only use glass containers now.
naomi says
One of my worst kitchen disasters-I was busy tweeting, yeah tweeting, and making caramel sauce. Uh, bad idea. Not only did I burn it, but I knocked over the saucepan onto the floor.
Hot, messy and hardening fast from the cool air temperature. I was at a complete lost how to clean up.
I ended up scraping it up with a dustpan and using a warm sponge on the remainder. Ten secoonds of tweeting cost 1 1/2 hours in cleaning.
Karen says
Like you on FB: Karen Bridges
Karen says
http://twitter.com/#!/SCMOMOF2BOYS/status/58994789869293568
Karen says
My worst kitchen disaster was making homemade fried potatoes. I nearly burned my kitchen down, trying to make the perfect homemade fries.
Sherezada says
I once tried to make Sweet Bean Pudding, which were these tamale-like bundles made with fresh banana leaves. It’s was one disaster after another: I used brown rice instead of white, so the rice didn’t cook; the leaves were brittle and broke, spilling the filling all over the pot. The worst was that I didn’t realize you had to refill water in the pot when steaming, so I ended up burning the whole batch anyway! It was a mess, scorched banana leaves and uncooked rice…the whole apartment smelled for days!
Sumin Kim says
Right after I got married I wanted to make a nice dinner of steak and roasted asparagus with balsamic glaze. To this day I don’t know what happened but when I took the asparagus out of the oven the balsamic glaze splattered all over my white cabinets and appliances and even the walls and ceiling. I still found spots of balsamic glaze hiding in the crevices of the kitchen. It took me years to overcome my fear of roasted asparagus with balsamic glaze which I now make regularly.
SnoWhite @ Finding Joy in My Kitchen says
I’ve had many, but recently — forgetting the sugar in cream cheese brownies. Gross.
Kristina says
I once was tring to bake cookies for thanksgiving for my whole family! I went to grab the sheet out burned my whole arm dropped the cookies! They were my first batch and after that I didn’t bake a single thing for a week cause my arm was so bad!! Our only thanksgiving without bake goods as I didn’t make pies either
Kristina says
I am a fan on FB
Katie says
I am a fan on Facebook.
Katie says
I was making a soup and had to blend it in my blender to puree when done. I didn’t have the bottom screwed in tight enough and as I was pouring boiling hot soup into the blender, it was coming out at the bottom and was extremely hot. My hands got burned and there was a green zucchini soup mess everywhere.
Janet says
The first time I made risotto was a complete disaster. It was sour. The rice wasn’t cooked through.
Reynaul D. says
Mine was burnt microwave food. Not popcorn, but fish, I had come home for lunch one day and popped some salmon in the microwave to heat up for lunch. While it was running, I took the dog outside and forgot that i had the salmon going, needless to say when I came back inβ¦β¦β¦..NOT A GREAT SMELL!
Carrie from Denver Bargains says
Oh dear… I can’t think of any MAJOR disasters, but I seem to have a propensity for trying to blend too much frozen fruit in a blender and burning out the motor!
I have a “spare” blender jar in my pantry thanks to having to buy a new one just for the motor, LOL! I’ve also stripped the gears on my immersion blender, but that was fixed with liquid nails (!).
Becca@Baking Monster says
I was 12 years old and was making brownies. My sister came into the kitchen angry at me about something and I was sassy back to her so she scooped up some brownie batter and chucked it at me. That started the brownie war. none of the actual batter made it in the oven to be baked. The good thing was we ended up laughing and not being angry but the kitchen was a mess.
Weeda says
like good life eats on facebook
Katie says
When I was first married I had no clue how to cook. One night my husband said he felt like rice and cream of mushroom soup. I had never had it before and it sounded so bland to me so I thought I would add some sugar, then it was too sweet so I added some parmesean cheese. I didn’t tell him until after he ate it what I had done. He was wondering why I didn’t feel like eating that night. It tasted awful.
Cara says
I invited my in-laws over for what was supposed to be a nice quite dinner, one of the first times I cooked for them. I ended up burning the meat (completely charred on one side). The smoke alarm when off when the oil that was in the oven pan for the roasted carrots decided to spill over. Smoke EVERYWHERE. We opened the windows but it was sweltering outside which made dinner muggy. I forgot to put the rolls in the oven, so we had them after dinner was over. And for dessert, I forgot to put the sugar in the pop overs. They were gracious, but I was so embarrassed.
janelle says
Mine happened yesterday in baking class! we were making black bread, and all of a sudden my baking partner says ” oh no” this is not what you want to hear in cooking class! we had been adding more water to our bread, and it was coming out like cement. He realized he had mixed in a pound of starter instead of 8 ozs. Our cement bread all of a sudden made sense. We started over and it came out ok, but next time we will make sure we are on the right page with the right measurements!
liz m says
Wow!!! Two things come to mind…one, I had left the carton of ice cream out after grocery shopping. Needless to say puddles of ice cream all over the counters and floors. Second, for some reason when I cook pasta I end up forgetting that I’m boiling it and the pasta turns into mush. Yup we don’t eat much spaghetti and meatballs in this household. Lol!!!!!
saniel says
i had chocolate cupcakes for my son’s first birthday party. I made them ahead of time so they would have plenty of time to cool before adding the frosting. 10 minutes before cake time I whipped the frosting together but couldn’t get the frosting press together to dispense the frosting. It took another 10 minutes and additional people to help put it together. Nothing. I gave up and we ate it without the frosting. Party is over I go to put every thing away and press the lever to get the frosting out and it goes everywhere. My walls, floor, husband, son, ceiling, carpet, nooks and cranknys I didn’t know you could get messy. I got it all over my hair and new outfit everywhere except the cupcakes. What a mess!
heather says
Already a fan of GLE on FB!
heather says
Tweeted the giveaway.
Rebekah says
Friend on Facebook.
Rebekah says
Made a pudding cake and did not realize it was bubbling over in the oven and made a huge mess and had a kitchen filled with smoke.
heather says
The plan was rosemary-chilli roasted mixed nuts as a gift for my cousin. Batch one into the oven and I go upstairs to take a shower, assuming my sister who’s been watching over my shoulder the entire time, will take them out of the oven when the timer goes off — come downstairs to a horrible smell from the oven and scorched nuts. Batch two into the oven and I watch like a hawk — out of the oven, turn with the pan to set it on the island and WHOOOOSH, the pan falls and nuts fly. Decided at this point just to gift him the cocoa-dusted cashews I already successfully made and packaged; rosemary-chilli nuts would have to wait until later.
Lindsay says
I like you on Facebook (Lindsay Lee)
Lindsay says
Tweeted http://twitter.com/#!/middymorsel/status/58915717873020928
Lindsay says
Just a few months ago I was decorating a little mermaid cake for my daughters birthday. It was 3 a.m. in the morning and my 1 year old son was up with me. (If momma is up, then he is up) Anyway I had to go to he bathroom so I went real quick came back and my son had smeared food coloring all over my new installed laminate floors, new kitchen table, the fabric on the chairs were ruined and he has smashed the cake with his hands. Needless to say I started crying and the next day made a new cake for my daughter. It was not fun at the time but I look back now and laugh about it! =)
Jon says
Stephanie-
I would have to vote for the time you nearly burned our apt down. I think you were browning meat for lasagna and went over to the neighbors for a good 15 minutes… Meanwhile, Trey is sitting on the couch glued to his new iphone, completely oblivious (I still to this day cannot imagine how one does not notice a smoke that thick), and I am asleep. It finally got so bad that the smoke woke me up, upstairs! I think the house stunk for a good week, and all the cabinets had nasty film on them. pretttty prettttty bad.
Katie says
You’re never going to let her live that one down, are you?
Mika says
I’m a fan of goodlife eats on facebook!
Kristy Legg says
I am a fan on facebook
Kristy Legg says
I tweeted about this contest
Erika Seever says
I am a fan of goodlife eats on facebook
Erika Seever says
My worst kitchen disaster… Hmmmm.. Probably would be right after I moved in with my boyfriend at the time, and I was cooking dinner for us. I put enchiladas on flat cookie sheet and didn’t think about the grease dripping off onto the heating element. Well, they were in for about 10 minutes when I looked over and happened to see flames in the oven π YIKES! As I open the door my boyfriend walks in and starts freaking out. He thinks I’m going to burn the house down. I threw some baking soda on it and all was good. Except the enchiladas π
Kristy Legg says
I was making lasagna and forgot to put the sauce in the dish. Had to take apart 3 layers which included a layer of cottage cheese. It ended up being really messy but in the end it came out well and tasted so good. π
Mika says
My worst cooking disaster happened a few years ago when trying a recipe for chow mein. Instead of using a fresh or rotisserie chicken I used deli turkey cut into chunks. Oh my gosh! It was so gross and we threw the entire meal in the trash. It was like spam chow mein or something. ick!!
Jon says
So all I could really think of is a grilling incident, but that’s an extension of the kitchen, so I say it counts. Lets just say bacon wrapped anything on the grill is a bad idea… especially unattended. I have since started baking for about 75% of the time to cook down most of the bacon, and then finish it off on the grill.
Valerie says
I’m a fan of GoodLife Eats on Facebook! π
Jenniffer at Cup a Dee Cakes says
My worst kitchen disaster…? once I had my blender filled with pumpkin puree and it threw my GFC breaker. I took off the lid and then realized the GFC flipped. When I flipped it back, pumpkin wet ALL over the kitchen! Walls, ceiling, floor… everywhere!
Valerie says
The first time I cooked a Thanksgiving turkey, it was a total flop. I thought I had done everything correctly, but halfway into cooking the bird, a strange smell started emanating from the oven. I had forgotten to remove the plastic bag from inside the bird that had the giblets & liver! We had to throw it out and had pizza for Thanksgiving instead. I never forget to remove it now! π
Ronda says
Baking with my grand daughter, she loves to cook and bake with me. Well the phone rang we were making cookies and I was not watching her, she poured the left over sugar from the canister into the mixing bowl and switched it on. That sound made me look and it was half full and struggling to run.
Elaine says
I was trying a new recipe for “Apple Pie in a Paper Bag” for company that was coming over for dinner. Unfortunately I placed the rack on the bottom shelf of the oven and well into the cooking process the bag caught on fire. It took a minute or two before I noticed, the pie was completely ruined, the house smelled like it had caught on fire. Almost had to call the fire department.
Jenny says
I was making a cake to take to a party – followed the recipe to a tee but it didn’t bake up properly – sunk in the middle and was very dense. Then, in the middle of the night somewhere in my sleep, I must have been going thru the steps because when I woke up the next day, I remembered I had forgotten to add the eggs!!
sara says
I’m a fan on facebook as well
sara says
Leaving the butter out of a cake, and then deciding I could try to stir it in partway through baking when I realized the error! Nope, not so much. π
Linda Nelsen says
My kids used salt instead of sugar to roll cookie dough in…. A big surprise to the taste buds when we bit into them π
Debra says
Okay, so here’s a third post because I just realized you wanted us to mention our worst kitchen disaster! Well, I’d have to say the worst was when my 13 month old got into our pantry and pulled down my containers (they have since been moved up) of flower AND sugar….both were completely covering the floor in a matter of seconds. Boy, those babies can MOVE!!!
Mary says
Right now I’m having issues with hard boiled eggs. These are the worst eggs to peel ever, and each one looks like a loofah by the time you scrape the shell off. There is no way I can serve these as deviled eggs, and I’m forced to go purchase another dozen and start all over.
Debra says
Just read I could leave more than one comment soooooo, here is #2! YAY for pampered chef!
Debra says
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my stones. Can always use more of course! Pampered chef is the best. THe two things I use most are my chopper & garlic press….oh and I use my stone a LOT too!!!
Tali says
I have been cooking since I was 4, starting with fruit salads and fresh pizza while chaperoned by my older sister. Besides the cuts, burns, and messes I can’t say I’ve had a real disaster. When I was 8 though a friend and I were making mashed potatoes for lunch. As we were salting the potatoes we dumped in a little too much. Once they were cooked and ready we decided to fix this by adding sugar because an 8 year old’s logic states that sugar is the opposite of salt and therefore should cancel it out. Needless to say they were the most disgusting mashed potatoes-too sweet and too salty. Gross.
Weeda says
I have been trying to cook healthy for my family. One day I cooked vegetable quiche with soy milk. I didn’t know this but this was the last straw. When my family tested it, my husband threw down his fork and told every not to eat it . I felt so bad…
Katie says
You guys are awesome! I love reading all of these disasters. Some of them I’m cringing right along with you, while others have me literally laughing out loud. Thanks so much for sharing them!
EA Stewart says
Well, we have had a lot of messes in the kitchen thanks to my loving children :-), but the one I will share occur when I was a little girl and my aunt and uncle still talk about it today. I decided to make ice cream for my family. Sounds good, right? Only thing is that I put the salt mixture in the ice cream mix instead of around the outside to freeze it. Needless to say, the ice cream tasted pretty, mmm… Salty!
Stephanie says
And I am a fan on FB!
Stephanie says
I tweeted!
Polly says
I have a cockatoo who lives in my kitchen. I came home the other day to his 5 pound food box thrown across the kitchen. I cannot tell you how many sunflower seeds I’ve found in random places. Poor guy LOL
Stephanie says
My second year of college, my friend and I decided to make our first Chicken Parmesan. We pan fried the chicken successfully and we were getting it ready to go in the oven. I went to open the bottle of Tomato Sauce and it slipped out of my hand. I juggled it for as long as I could trying to get a grip until it finally fell into the glass window on the front of the stove, shattering it into a million glass peices that were covered in tomato sauce. We had to pick up everything and go to her house to finish our meal… My landlord wasnt happy and I had to pay to have a new peice of glass put in!
Katie says
I hate that! You can see it falling in slow-motion before your eyes and you keep trying to catch it but it keeps slipping.
Jocelyn says
I know there have been more disasters, and maybe even a worse one, but the one that sticks out to me right now is the time my husband and I made potato salad. We had boiled the potatoes, drained them, and put them in our Pyrex bowl on the kitchen counter, when it suddenly exploded! We guessed the heat of the potatoes and the cold of the tile counter were the culprit. My husband was sorely disappointed to not have potato salad!
Laura F. says
Most early morning cooking attempts are a disaster for me. I made French toast a couple years ago, but in typical am form, I cranked the heat too high-burnt the outside and left the inside gooey.
When our friends stay with us now they frequently bring breakfast with them for the next morning!
Jill R. says
Once I was making a pan of pecan pie bars. I peeked in the oven window to see how they were doing, and there was a FIRE in the oven! The syrup had dripped over the edge of the pan and formed a puddle on the bottom of the oven, which then ignited. I didn’t know what to do — I thought if I opened the over door, the fire might go whoosh! and spread even further. So I just turned the oven off and waited to see if the fire would die out. It did…and I was even able to salvage my pecan pie bars! Kitchen disaster averted!
Donna says
I don’t remember the year, but I do remember it was right before Easter. My aunt and uncle had just bought a new microwave (this was before everybody had one). We were reading the instructions and it said you could boil eggs in a bowl if you covered them with water. So, I put about 3 dozen eggs into a big glass bowl, covered them with water, and into the microwave they went for about 10 minutes. This was so exciting! I got to be the first to cook something in the new microwave! Well, before the 10 minutes were up, there was a really loud BOOM! The bowl had cracked; the eggs exploded; and the floor of the microwave had shattered! Needless to say, I never cooked eggs in the microwave again! They were able to return it for a new one, but no one really knew if it was operator error (probably) or a defect in the construction.
Donna says
“Liked” goodLife {eats}
FB Donna Braamse
Donna says
Tweeted @TuttleDB
Patrick Sadil says
Just came back from a massively long run, my father was away, we were low on groceries for the week, I was in a highly experimental phase in baking. I was hungry. I saw potatoes. Awesome. I saw freshly made yogurt. It’s a bit like sour cream…Then I remembered the recently purchased anis extract. I do love licorice…Mix it all together, and you get one of the few things I actually couldn’t swallow. Nevermore, nevermore.
kolpin says
my cat knocked over our two steaming hot plates dinner right onto my date’s lap. can anyone say 2nd degree burns?
kolpin4680 at gmail dot com
Jessie says
As a teenager, I was making mini cherry cheesecakes to bring to my family’s Thanksgiving festivities. As luck would have it, I wasn’t feeling well and was taking my temperature (with an old school mercury thermometer) as I put the final touches on the cheesecakes. The thermometer fell out of my moutn and broke all over the kitchen counter. I was able to clean up the mess and believed the cheesecakes to have been spared until (thankfully) my mom came down to help and realized that the tiny beads of mercury had in fact made their was into the cheesecakes!! We tossed them and spared the family from mercury tainted desserts!
Shaina says
I forgot to add baking soda to my birthday cake this year. The texture was pretty off-putting. I ended up mushing the entire mess together and making cake balls, which turned out surprisingly decent!
Tricia says
I forgot to add yeast to the bread I was baking. Talk about ROCK HARD! I still cringe thinking about it.
Ashley says
My worst disaster was when I tried to cook a single serving of red beans and rice in the microwave but I followed the directions for the whole bag. I melted the plastic container and nearly set my apartment on fire! I smelled burnt plastic for weeks!
demureprincess7(at)gmail(dot)com
Rebekah says
Well, my LATEST kitchen disaster happened this past Friday morning. At 4:30am. You see, my husband goes to work then, and he was scrounging in our makeshift “pantry” (we live in an apartment with no pantry. Ahem) for some Nutter Butters (YUM!). Well, the gargantuan bottle of Vanilla Extract from Costco, was in the way of the cookies, and SPLAT! Down fell the bottle in slow motion, first dousing my husband’s face and entire being, and then all over the wall, white board, refrigerator, and floor. He, of course, was only half awake, and I was not even half awake. My husband was late to work that day.
Note to everyone who encounters vanilla disasters: it can and WILL stain your beautiful, spotless (ha!) surfaces if you let it.
Hope I win! =)
Jessie says
When I was a kid, I made some cornbread for a family dinner. I mixed up the baking soda and baking powder. The result was horrifyingly bad! The family never let me make cornbread again.
Amy | She Wears Many Hats says
Mention only one kitchen disaster?
Hmmm… I literally burned water one time. Had a pot on the stove to simmer for making tea and forgot about it. All the water of course evaporated and the pot popped. It was a favorite pot too.
Katie says
You can leave more than one if you want to π
Thanks, Amy!
Erin says
I have butter hands and am always dropping things. I’ve broken so many cups, plates and bowls. It’s a real pain to clean up and a drag that they get broken.
Ariana says
I got my 1c stainless steel kitchen aid measuring cup stuck in my sink drain!!! It suctioned itself in there! I tried pouring boiling water over it only to find that that made it WORSE! I tried pulling up on the handle and the handle completely bent and then the rubber handle cover came off…EVENTUALLY, thanks to facebook comments and hours of attempting to get it out-I found out only COLD water and a plunger would pull that baby out. This of course, AFTER I cut up my hands pulling on the stainless steel handle…ugh. What a day.
Katie says
Oh no! Something similar happened here – a juice glass got stuck down our drain. my husband’s hand couldn’t fit and I shudder at the thought of putting my hand down the disposal. I had to get over it and act like a big girl though.
Cassidy says
My son once dumped a container of steel cut oats all over the floor, so I feel your pain with those sprinkles! That was a hard mess to clean up.
Keith says
The first time I cracked an egg I was about 6, and all the shells went into the bowl of batter, and the egg landed on the counter. Not exactly my finest moment.
Amy @ A Little Nosh says
I made my first cheesecake for Thanksgiving this year. Pumpkin with a graham cracker crust. As I was moving it from the counter to the fridge, the springform pan fell apart and my beautiful cheesecake went crashing to the floor. My husband brought two spoons over, sat down next to me, and we ate cheesecake off the floor. Well, the top part of it that didn’t actually TOUCH the floor.
Kid Mankato says
I tried to make soup with catfish once. It was the grossest thing ever. It was just slime in the pot.
Diane L. says
My worst kitchen disaster was when I sprayed the oven with oven cleaner before I left for work in the morning. I didn’t tell my kids I had done this, and my son turned on the oven to heat up a frozen pizza when he got home from school. He called me in a panic after foul-smelling smoke started to pour out of the oven!
Becca H. says
I am a fan of Good Life Eats on Facebook!
Jackie says
I was making carrots (babyfood) my steamer pot ran out of water… it was a giant burt carrot mess π I for got all about it till I seen all the nasty smoke..
Becca H. says
My worst kitchen disaster had to be when a glass baking dish shattered in the oven, leaving me with a shard-infested pan of lasagna. I cried for an hour just trying to figure out where to begin the cleanup efforts!
Marlis says
Still finding sprinkles, Katie???? Too funny. I must say you are way more understanding than I would have been. BTW, thanks for being on FB, that’s how I keep track of the goings on at your site.
Katie says
Luckily, we aren’t finding sprinkles anymore. Glad to have you as a fan on Facebook!
Elaine says
Once I used baking soda instead of baking powder in my cookies. The texture was totally off!
Sadie Samuels says
Every year for most of my life (until recently when I moved out of state for graduate school) my mom and I would get together to bake piles of goodies for Christmas presents. We were frequently joined by my younger sister, or other female friends and relatives, but at the very least it was a mother and daughter activity. One year we invited my then boyfriend’s mother to join us. She wasn’t a big baker, and we skeptical to say the least. Things started out great, with everyone having a great time and things tasting delicious. Then came time to bake one of our staples, pumpkin bread. While the other ladies were chatting away I picked up a can of pumpkin and proceeded to open is as I walked toward the mixer. About halfway across the kitchen, as I lifted the sharp metal top off the can, I slipped on some invisible substance and sliced my thumb on the open can. I dropped the pumpkin and ran to the sink, clutching my thumb and rinsing the blood away. The other women in the kitchen quickly realized what had happened and were swirling around me in no time. Thankfully, all I needed was a tight bandage and time to breathe, no stitches. I don’t know if my ex boyfriend’s mom ever got the urge to bake again, and I still have the scar to remind me that can openers should be taken more seriously.
Rachel says
And following on Facebook.
Rachel says
Just tweeted
Brenda @ a farmgirl's dabbles says
One of MANY disasters…I must have measured hot curry paste in tablespoons rather than the specified teaspoons, as the tried and true curry beef dish that I made for my mom was, in my mind, inedible. But my mom couldn’t stop herself, even though she was somewhat in pain eating it. Bless her heart.
Rachel says
My german shepherd-sharpei mix attacking a bag of flour. Disaster.
Elizabeth Laposata says
I was at my ex’s parent’s house for thanksgiving and we were cooking the entire dinner. The family really wanted cranberry sauce from the can, which I had never used before. I opened one side of the can not knowing that there is basically a vacuum seal and there was no way that gelled substance was coming out without releasing the vacuum on the other side of the can. I was shaking the can, hitting the closed end with my hand, sliding a knife around the sides… at some point, the open edge of the can sliced across my entire palm and I started bleeding profusely. The whole cooking process at their house had been very stressful and this sent me over the edge. I ended up in the bathroom crying while everyone else set the table. Fun times.
Jamie | My Baking Addiction says
I tweeted!
Jamie | My Baking Addiction says
I definitely follow GLE on Facebook.
Cynthia says
I follow you on FB.
Chellee says
My sister Amber will tell you that my worst kitchen disasters happen pretty much every day. The other day I had to call her to ask how to cook chicken drumsticks. I don’t know how we grew up in the same house.. she’s a food blogger cooking all the things our grandmother and mother taught us, and I just didn’t absorb any of it!
ali says
I am following on facebook!
Becca Lee says
My biggest disaster was when I was younger, just learning to bake. Because I was showing so much promise as a young baker, my dad asked me to make cookies for a boy scout activity he had to go to right after work. He told me to make three dozen because there would be a lot of people there.
I pulled out a sugar cookie recipe and got started, careful to time everything so that the cookies were still warm right as he got home. I mixed up the dough, rolled out the cookies, and watched them bake up into little golden discs in the oven. When Dad got home he thought they looked so delicious that he picked one up off the pan and popped the whole thing in his mouth.
Then he asked, “How much salt did you use?”
Yes. I made three dozen salt cookies.
See, Mom bought salt and sugar in bulk and kept them in two huge plastic tubs.
That’s when I learned I should always taste my concoctions before serving.
Bless his heart, Dad didn’t even spit it out!
Meagan says
I follow you on facebook π
Meagan says
I was making pumpkin whoopie pies and forgot to lock down my stand mixer, I turned it on and then went to the sink…in a matter of seconds I had pie batter everywhere, including my dog who was standing the middle of my kitchen π Big Mistake, very funny!
Cynthia says
Losing an entire refrigerator worth of food (due to a power outage) 2 days before a HUGE family party.
ali says
It wasn’t really a kitchen disaster, but once I left ice cream in the car by mistake after grocery shopping. It was summer and it melted everywhere. I had to get the car shampooed to clean it up and that wasn’t cheap!
shelly says
Oh gosh, how can I decide? There are so many! I like to experiment in the kitchen and that tends to lend itself to disaster. I guess the worst would be when a bag of chicken thawing in marinade leaked all over the fridge. I had to toss a ton of stuff that got ruined.
Natalie says
My housekeeper accidentally put dish soap instead of dishwasher detergent in the dishwasher. I came home and the kitchen was covered in suds! It was a huge mess to clean up, but at least it wasn’t a sticky mess like your’s. Sorry about that!
LeAnne says
Oh Wow, there have been so many! The one that stands out is when I spent hours decorating a cake for my father and just as I was moving it to the refrigerator, I tripped over the dog and the cake landed directly onto the floor. π
Lew says
Our worst disaster was when butter from a dish overflowed in the oven and got all over the bottom. It caught on fire – pretty crazy! The whole house was a smoky mess, but we were safe.
Kathy says
Love your story! My worst was when my daughter smeared Nutella all over the kitchen floor.
Gwen~healthymamma says
Oh man, which one to choose from???
Plenty of disasters like you described in my home with 4 wild kids.
How about the time I dropped a Glass, Costco size bottle of green olives and tried to catch it with my bare foot…… fast forward 7 hours, $250 E.R. co-pay and plenty of stiches later=no more Costco size glass jars in my fridge.
OR, The time I thought Almond butter ment mixing Almond Extract into Real Butter. I ended up with the most disgusting, fatty cookies you’ve ever tasted in you life. The worst part is, a friend had tried them while stopping by my house before I’d tried them but didn’t mention anything. My husband later gently informed me they were horrible. Oops.
Corvus says
My boyfriend and I decided we were going to grill shish-ka-bobs. We decided we were going to invite his parents over. We decided we were going to combine two recipes -one which contained fresh pineapple juice, and marinated for thirty minutes, and one which contained no pineapple, and marinated for 24 hours. We decided we were going to double the pineapple juice, because we liked pineapple.
We decided we were going to go with the 24 hour marinade time.
Know what happens to meat when you marinate it in fresh pineapple juice (which, apparently, is FULL of meat tenderizing/digesting enzymes) for 24 hours? It still looks like meat- maintains the same shape and all. But when you bite into it? It smears. Like a spread, and not a good spread. A grainy, clingy, choking meat spread.
His parents, to their credit, kept very straight faces until I finally gave up and said “This is utterly disgusting.”
Michelle Thomas says
I am a fan of Good Life Eats on Facebook. (:
Michelle Thomas says
I retweeted the message.
Michelle Thomas says
My worst kitchen disaster happened in my first apartment. I invited my vegetarian boyfriend over because I’d found a recipe for vegetarian shepherd’s pie: his favorite dish before he stopped eating meat. It really only used ground beef substitute instead, but I was excited. I cooked up a ton of carrots, mushrooms, and corn for the filling, and piled everything into a 9×13 pan, then filled it to the brim with beautiful fluffy mashed potatoes and cheese. I went to move the pan into the oven, but little did I know that there was water on the floor from earlier when I spilled. I slipped and dropped the dish on the floor, sending glass shards, fake meat, vegetables, and potatoes everywhere. It took FOREVER to clean up and I lost my only 9×13 pan. After we finally got it all cleaned up (at least an hour later because of the glass), we went and got take out. I haven’t tried that recipe again because of the terrible memories.
Jeneen says
I generally stick to baking as all of my cooking results in disasters π The best kitchen disaster of recent memory was a Pampered Chef party I attended. The rep cooking up some chicken in olive oil when we arrived and demonstrated making the chicken pastry pockets. While we were eating she went to do the dishes and discovered that the pretty oil bottle she’d used to get oil to cook the chicken, was actually where the host kept her dish soap. That’s right, she sautΓ©ed the chicken in dish soap. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my life.
D. Roberts says
In a college apartment..horiffically sick with the flu. Decide to make myself my 1st ever pot of homemade chicken soup. It can’t be that hard..I don’t need a recipe- I’ve watched my mom make it a 1000 times. I drag my fevered self out to store to buy all the fixings to make chicken soup. Takes all my effort to peel & chop veggies….finally I get the meat and veggies simmering….I suffer through the delicious smell, desperately waiting for the broth to cook down. Finally, 2 hours later, I place the colander in the sink and pour in the veggies and meat to drain off the broth. And realize I just poured th broth down the sink. My brain screams, “THIS IS BROTH I AM DRAINING, NOT PASTA WATER.” . I just stood looking at the steaming heap of bones, speechless. I was too sick to cry. Duh.
Laura Y. says
When I was about 12, I was a fairly competent baker and cook, but I rarely made candy. One day I decided to make a chocolate something-or-other that I’d run across the recipe for in one of our cookbooks. The recipe called for corn syrup, but I’d never used corn syrup before and didn’t know if we had any, or what it would look like, or where it would be if we did. My mom worked fulltime, so I called her office to ask. She happened to be in a meeting, but her secretary passed my question to her, and she replied (via the secretary) that it was the regular old Canola that we always used.
I proceeded to make two batches of the stuff — I even called back between the first and second batches to confirm that I was using the right ingredient and was assured (via secretary — my mom was still in the meeting) that I was. I knew that this oil soaked loaf pan of chocolate couldn’t possible be right…there must’ve been about 1/2″ of oil just sitting on top of the chocolate stuff.
When my mom got home she looked at the disaster, then looked ingredient list and got a funny look on her face. She went to the pantry and brought out the corn syrup and showed me what it was. To this day we don’t know if she was just so distracted that she mistook the question, or if the secretary asked the wrong thing.
kelley wood says
http://twitter.com/mysweetcarolina/status/58623909217574912
kelley wood says
My worst disaster was when I first got married. I accidentally put a Pyrex bowl on top of the stove. I thought someone SLAMMED a baseball through the window or had shot me! There were potatoes, cheese and broken glass everywhere!!!
Kim says
When I was in middle school my grandmother asked me to keep an eye on the sausage she was cooking while she went to the yard sale down the street. I promptly forgot that she had even mentioned sausage on the stove until I got up to go to the bathroom and the house was filled with smoke. I saw the smoke seconds before the smoke alarm went off. The smoke alarm was connected to the security system and called the fire department. So my grandmother came home to a fire truck outside.
S.Lynn says
I was cooking spaghetti sauce. There was a raised bar in front of the stove. Hubby was letting our hampster run around on the raised bar. Before I knew it he (the hampster) had jumped into the bubbling sauce. When I retrieved him with a spoon his little toes had disintegrated. He lived a couple more days but eventually succumbed to his burns. And, yes, I tossed the sauce after that.
Steph says
I tweeted your contest
http://twitter.com/#!/kksliderclub/status/58597846412312576
Steph says
Once, my mother and I had baked an ‘easy day cake,’ which was easy as expected. We went out to the store for something, though I don’t remember what. We left the cake on top of the stove to cool, and with nobody in the house, it should have been safe. Yes, I said should have. We had a dog and a cat at this time. The cat was never able to jump onto the counter, and we were reasonably sure the smell of cake wouldn’t attract him, and we had set the cake far enough back to be out of reach of the dog. Both statements turned out to be right. The dog, however, was evidently more determined than the cat. She jumped up onto the stove hard enough to turn the knob for the burner on. The very burner that we had rested the cake on in its ceramic pan. When my family returned home, our cat was in the window. He wasn’t a loud cat back then, and rarely talked to us. There he was in the window, meowing up a storm. Like any crazy cat owners, we stood outside the window meowing back at him for fun for about two minutes. When we finally went into the house, we realized why he was so vocal– the house was full of smoke. My mother ran to the source of the smoke, turning off the burner and putting out the cake fire. Thankfully, nothing else caught. Even the un-burnt parts of the cake tasted like smoke, though, and once the house was aired out we had to make another ‘easy day cake.’
claudia leduc says
My worst kitchen disaster was not in the making but rather in the storing. I had made a Valentines Day cheesecake for my husband with my young daughter observing the process. We spent over an hour creating this yummy treat for her Daddy, with the family dog laying at our feet watching in unfold. When I turned to place the cake into the fridge the whole thing slipped off the cake plate and onto the kitchen floor. Guess who was only to happy to clean it up off the kitchen floor for me!! After my first expression of horror all we could do was sit down on the floor and laugh. We still laugh about this to this day and she is now 22!! Thanks for reminding me of this story.
Cathy says
Don’t really have anything to spill but I love all the stories!
Natalie says
I think my worst kitchen disaster was the first time I made meringue!
Jen @ Happy Little Homemaker says
tweeted – @happylhomemaker
Jen @ Happy Little Homemaker says
I let my daughter play with the frosting gel tint before I opened them. She got all the lids mixed up and it took me weeks to figure out why I didn’t think any of the colors were right.
MC says
Too cute!
My oldest son when he was around 2 also got a hold of the food coloring, and carried on to cover himself in multi colors, head to toe. That stuff doesn’t wash off of skin very easy I learnt, we had to take a multi-colored two year old to a family reunion that weekend. It was priceless seeing the response to my multi-colored child that day. I have threatened him that the photos will be available on his wedding day.
Valerie says
MY worst kitchen disaster came when I was making blackberry jam with my mom. While blending the berries, I evidently failed to put the lid on the blender on tight. Next thing I knew, I had a mess of berry puree on myself, the countertops, the wall, and yes, the ceiling. Yikes!
Hannah says
I burned some caramel sauce once. It really wasn’t that bad, especially considering it was the first time I’d ever attempted caramel. It was still edible! And when I was little I was making the sauce for Kraft mac n cheese and misread the instructions and added something like 1 cup of milk instead of one quarter :/ We had mac n cheese soup.
Carolyn says
I have oh so many stories to choose from, but one that had a particular impact was once when we had two women from Japan visiting and staying in our home. I was in high school and wanted to do something nice for them for breakfast, so I decided to make plain biscuits with jam. I don’t know how it happened, but I definitely used far too much baking soda instead of baking powder. I did not eat them when they came out of the oven, and didn’t know I was feeding these women a horrifying, chemical tasting mess. Only that evening when my Dad tried one and spit it out that I realized what had happen. I was too embarrassed to apologize to the women, and now they have an interesting perspective on American breakfast!
Jessica Wilson says
I’ve had many ‘issues’ in the kitchen. My most fond memory is when I was baking a cake (to be delivered that night) and I not only overfilled the pans but when they were finished baking, I was stacking them, and they COMPLETELY fell apart! Then I decided it would be funny to post a picture on FB. Tell me why I didn’t think that the neighbor who ordered the cake wouldn’t see it. Of course, she did and immediately text me to asked if that was her cake that had ‘exploded’ all over my counter. Thankfully I had enough time to remake the cakes before her twin daughters birthday party.
Note to self – No posting pictures on FB until totally done with cake π
StealthandAces says
My boyfriend and I had been together just under a month when his birthday came up. I decided, since had told me his favorite cake was carrot cake, that I would make one for him from scratch, icing and all.
So, I spent a good three hours on these cupcakes the night before his birthday and they came out spelling delicious. I decided to put the cupcakes in a “air-tight” container and we would add the icing together before we ate them the next day.
The problem was that the container wasn’t air-tight. In fact, it wasn’t even ant-tight. I was living in a crumby apartment and ants were a problem. I thought I had avoided this potential problem by putting them in an inexpensive plastic cake plate and cover. So, I deliver the cupcakes to my boyfriend the next day, pull off the cover, and shriek with horror as my beautiful cupcakes are SWARMING with ants.
It wasn’t an entire disaster, though. The boyfriend (now husband) was touched by the effort and thought I’d put into it, and at least we were still able to enjoy the icing.
Lynda says
Reading all the comments makes me feel SO much better. I’m not the only one who has made inedible meals, spilled any number of hard to clean items, and set off the smoke detectors. I, too have had candy sprinkles all over my kitchen (and dining room), but I have no one to blame but myself for that. I managed to drop an industrial sized container of candy sprinkles which went everywhere! Though, frankly, those are easier to clean up (and far less painful) than seed beads, which I have also dropped all over the kitchen and dining room. My most memorable dropping stuff story was the time I came home from grocery shopping and was putting things away. I had gone to collect ingredients for my braised short ribs in nectarine sauce, and one of the ingredients purchased was apple cider vinegar. Well, the bottle slipped and fell to the floor, striking one of the few uncarpeted areas in the kitchen. The bottle exploded and covered the kitchen in vinegar. I had to throw out two of the three carpets in the kitchen as there’s just no recovery from vinegar. My boyfriend at the time, who hates vinegar, promptly left the house and returned a little while later with apple cider vinegar in a plastic bottle.
Denise says
Early one morning I came down stairs into the kitchen to discover that my three year old had thrown a toy tractor in the fish tank and scribbled all over the kitchen floor with a sharpie. He was standing on a chair at the sink, filling my purse with water.
Kendall Leahy says
My new hubby decided to impress me by making his favorite food – Irish “chips” from scratch. He bought 50lbs of spuds, 3 gallons of oil and proceeded to use every pot, bowl and utensil in the house. About three hours later, we had our chips plus enough to feed the neighborhood. The clean up took me about three hours. Three loads in the dishwasher, hand washing a dozen or more pots and bowls, two rolls of paper towels used to mop up the spilled oil, special soap to get the spattered oil off of the cabinets and walls, and two floor washings. I couldn’t get the stench of chips and oil out of the house or my nose for days! Yes, we are still married but he is no longer allowed to cook.
Cindy Dodea says
My worst disaster occurred when my pre-teen daughter decided to bake cookies. She set the cookie sheet on the counter to open the oven door. Unknowingly, she set it on a plastic butter dish. The softened butter stuck to the bottom of the cookie sheet, which she then set in the oven. Of course everything melted and burned. She then tried to clean everything up, and set the oven to clean. I cam home to black smoke billowing out of the oven, and smoke alarms going off. She didn’t know how to turn the oven off of clean. We got it all cleaned up, but the smell lingered for days.
Barbara says
First, you have to know that my husband is a police officer. 30 years ago, when he first started, I was extremely nervous about his new job. So here is what happened: I put some eggs on the stove to boil. I then heard the buzzer on my dryer, so I went downstairs to pull the clothes out before they wrinkled. I got involved down there and forgot about the eggs. Suddenly, I heard two loud pops like gunshots. Then two more. Again, the nervous police wife, I sneaked up the stairs TOWARD the gunshots (idiot). About halfway up the stairs, the smell hit me. The eggs!! There was egg splattered on every surface of the kitchen— including the ceiling. Lesson learned: eggs explode when they boil dry.
Shannon says
one disgusting- used waay to much baking powder in a batch of fresh cherry muffins. ended up picking out the cherries as i didn’t want to waste them!!
one dirty- making a roasted red pepper sauce with a stick blender. I left it unattended as it seemed to be standing up… i’m guessing you can figure out what happened π
Candy says
When making cookies one day, the lever to turn my mixer on was stuck. Having a bad night and not thinking clearly, instead of removing the bowl of ingredients from underneath the mixer, I pryed that lever so hard, it turned on at full speed sending the flour and various other substances all over the kitchen! The lever was still bent, so it took quite awhile for me to get the mixer back in the off position. The dog was even covered in ingredients!
Julie Jones says
I like you on Facebook
Julie Jones
Julie Jones says
Tweeted this giveaway
http://goo.gl/AoYKA
Julie Jones says
LOL. Your disaster is priceless. I’ve had something similar happen to me but worse than sugar is flour. It gets everywhere. My daughter likes to pretend cook and spilled flour all over the floor and stove.
Thanks for a giveaway!
Barb says
I just moved into my own apartment and my boyfriend was coming over. I really wanted to make chicken cordon bleu since it has always been delicious when made by my mom. Well, I made then according to the directions and even tried to pound out the chicken. Once done, they were really chewy and dry….terrible! I told my boyfriend to be honest because I didn’t think it was good and he said the same. We threw it out in the dumpster for the ‘raccoons to gnaw on’ as my boyfriend put it! We then ordered pizza! We have been together 4 years and I haven’t made it again!
arb says
Hmmm, well seeing as how my kitchen is so small two people feel cramped when co-habitating at the same time, being in the kitchen in general is always a disaster when attempting to multi-task….although this may be an oragnizational error on my part also!
Patsy says
The worst kitchen disaster I have been a part of involves my two siblings, french fries and the fire department.
My mom was my softball coach growing up. We had to quickly finish dinner and leave for a game, My siblings were old enough to be home alone and finish deep frying the chicken strips and fries.
They both thought that the other had turned off the fryer. Of course they did not. The fire tore through the whole top floor of the house. 911, many fire trucks, it was bad. The Fire Marshall had to come find my mom at my softball game to tell her what had happened.
The top floor was gutted and had to be completely rebuilt. We spend a month in a hotel and three months of living in the basement and a trailer the insurance company provided.
Needless to say they have NEVER lived it down.
Cyan says
It was my very first time to make the Thanksgiving turkey. I was doing so well. I was very proud of myself. (The turkey actually turned out great, btw). Then it was time to make the giblet gravy. I mixed and stirred and soon realized something didn’t look right. I called my mother. Mom, I can’t figure it out. Why is my gravy full of tons of timy little grainy lumps? We went through the recipe, everything seemed right. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure it out. It was then that I realized….I had used corn meal rather than corn starch… FAIL!!!
Lana says
I am sometimes absent-minded, and sometimes I really don’t think:)
The worst disaster was when I was rendering lard in my apartment kitchen. Overwhelmed by the quantity of pork fat my friend brought over after he butchered the pig, and probably a bit high from the bacon smell, I poured hot fat into plastic containers.
Soon, I had liquid bacon spilling from the holes all over the counters and onto the floor.
It took forever to clean the lard, and the kitchen smelled like bacon for a long time!
Brenda says
Feeling lucky that this is the biggest disaster so far…dear hubby helped with dinner & forgot to pierce the potatoes before baking. Imagine our wide-eyed realization when we heard a huge “PHOOMP” in the oven, lol. No laughing about the cleanup π
Kelli says
I’m a facebook fan.
Rachelle says
I am known for making messes in the kitchen but the end result is something good! Needless to say, there have been many disasters in my kitchen. All from starting the mixer to fast and getting flour everywhere to forgetting about items in the oven for way too long. I guess you could say I am somewhat of a klutz but usually make some great goodies that all enjoy π
Kelli says
As a new wife, I wanted to impress hubby with a home made roast beef meal with all the trimmings. When it came time to make the gravy, I thought I was adding corn starch as a thickener. I couldn’t figure out why it was bubbling all over and getting very foamy. Upon closer inspection of the box of “corn starch”, I discovered I added baking soda. Yuck
Nicole says
Here it is….I was cooking at my Mom’s house for my Mom and my boyfriend. I decided I was going to make Buffalo Chicken Chili. All went well until I decided to broil tortilla chips with Blue Cheese. I put the chips on a cookie sheet then sprinkled the cheese on top. Turned the broiler on and put the tray in the oven. Well, the cheese was bubbling so much that the chips ignited and started a fire. Well, my Mom didn’t have a fire extinguisher and it was a gas oven. I was standing there watching the flames come out of the oven and I was screaming. Not to mention that my boyfriend is a contractor and didn’t think to turn the gas off. I was freaking out. I ran to my mom’s neighbor and she didn’t have an extinguisher either. As I’m running home, I call 911. The entire fire department showed up and they were able to get the fire out. My Mom’s white cabinets were now black and the inside of the oven was burnt to a crisp. Here’s the best part. My Mom turns to me and says well atleast we can still eat the chili…..what a disaster!!!
Laura says
When you cook a lot you are bound to have some disasters, right? I don’t have one particular disaster that comes to mind, but I tend to have a lot going on in the kitchen at one time. I’ll have a time go off for something, look at it in the oven thinking I need to give it just a minute or two more, but don’t set a timer. then I get doing something else and completely forget about what I was waiting just a minute or two for. So some things end up getting over cooked.
Jennica says
My worst kitchen disaster was when I tried making french fries. The grease became very very hot and when I dropped the fries in a huge boom happened and a fire puff (if that is such a thing) went all the way to the ceiling and put a black ring up there.
Jo says
Worst kitchen disaster – kitchen the size of a matchbox, you could not open the refrigerator without touching the stove. Deep frying on the stove, the pan caught fire! My husband the real fireman poured water on the pan, which exploded all over. We were using towels trying to put the fire out. Alarms are buzzing, screaming and running were involved. Finally, we remember use SALT for a GREASE fire!!! Then the disaster was contained. (By the way, my husband still has his job as a fireman – go figure)
Amy says
We keep most of our ingredients in glass jars to deter meal moths. Our flour is in a giant 1 gallon sun-tea jar. A few days ago, my 20 month old pushed a chair over to the counter, and pulled the entire jar (it was completely FULL) off, and sent it crashing to the floor. Flour and glass everywhere.
Stephanie Phelps says
My worst kitchen disaster would have to be when we were making smoothies in the blender and my son for got to put the lid on before he started it up and slung strawberries and all the juice all over my cabinets,walls and floors.
Tanya says
I tweeted @mommytanya
Tanya says
I once knocked over a glass bottle of fish sauce, it went behind the stove and refrigerator. It was practically full. The whole apartment stunk for weeks!
Monica says
Growing up, it was always “fend for yourself” and “figure it out.” My mom had these great ceramic-like pots that I could use in the oven or–my favorite–on the stovetop, making no-bake cookies. Fast forward to a few years back, I had moved in with my boyfriend (now husband) and wanted to make soup–but our big pot was dirty! Looking through the cupboards full of leftovers from when the house belonged to his Nana, I found pots that looked JUST like the ones I used to use to make no-bake cookies. Perfect! I filled the largest one with ingredients–cheesy soup, milk, extra cheese b/c I hate my arteries–and turned on the stove. A few minutes later, I learned the difference between what I have and what my mom has–with a big BANG!, the dish cracked, spreading cheesy soup everywhere and dousing the flames. This was also the day I learned that the stovetop is removable, as underneath it was full of soup!
Brandy says
I believe my worst to date was making a dish for my husband (then very new in dating) and it was pasta…. I added cinnamon instead of cayenne. Let’s just say it was disgusting.
Jo says
My worst disaster happened two weeks ago after I spent hours preparing homemade pizza (dough and all) and as I was putting it into the oven my boyfriend bumped into me and the pizza landed upside down on the floor.
amy says
Wanted to make homemade Dr. Pepper bbq sauce. Put the chunky HOT tomato mixture that I had been cooking on the stove into the blender. Put the top on and set to mix. Everything was so hot and steamy, it blew the top off and hot homemade bbq sauce sprayed all over me and everything within a 4 foot radius of the blender.
Alyssa says
I’m just starting to cook (I’m only 16), but one day I planned to make dinner for my family and put a roast in the crock pot, but never turned it on. We came home to a ruined roast and no dinner so we ordered pizza.
Carly says
My worst kitchen disaster is when I decided to put eggs on the stove to boil them for egg salad and forgot about them. All the water evaporated and the eggs were stinky and burnt. Really disgusting!
MsBrownBird says
My favorite disaster so far was when I was six and helping my mother bake. She left me to tend the mixer, telling me to turn it off when everything had combined. Only I didn’t know how to turn it off, hadn’t paid attention to her directions, and didn’t want to ask again. So I just raised the mixer, spraying batter all over the kitchen.
As I recall, some of it was on the ceiling for a week, but I was too afraid to point it out….
Rachel says
I had made some marshmallows as christmas gifts, and left the extras on the stove in a sealed pyrex pan so that the cat would leave them alone while we were out of town for several days. My husband had to work, so he drove in a separate car and came home a few days earlier than me.
My husband turned the stove on to heat a meal up, without checking to see which heating element he turned on. The glass pan exploded, shooting bits of glass and burning marshmallow all over the kitchen.
Lee Hemming says
My worst kitchen disaster was in an attempt to recreate my mother-in-law’s donuts. She was one of those cooks who never measures anything, so she gave me guesstimates of ingredients. She was also a 1-bowl cook and made everything look easy and taste good. For me? Not so much. I mixed the ingredients, rolled the dough, and cut the donuts. The cutter kept coming apart in the dough. Dig out the hole. Reassemble the cutter, try again. Same result. Flour all over the kitchen. Okay, frying. I didn’t fry back then and I don’t now either. You heat the oil, drop in the donut. It sinks to the bottom, pops to the top, you pull it out when it’s golden brown. Mine sank to the bottom and stayed there. Needless to say, they were odd looking hockey pucks. Even the dog wouldn’t eat them. When my husband asked when I was going to try making donuts again, I told him to visit his mother! She was one in a million. I miss her every day.
Lee
ellen says
Kitchen disasters – I’ve had many but taking flaming pork chops out of the broiler and getting soot all over the ceiling stands out.
Melanie says
Last year my husband and I (newlyweds) somehow ended up hosting Easter dinner. Relatives came from out of town and stayed the whole weekend.
I planned a fairly simple menu, but when we woke up on Easter morning I realized that there was just no way we were going to be able to execute it in a timely fashion.
My non-cooking husband actually saved the day. At Easter breakfast he put on his “teacher voice” and told each guest which dish they would be in charge of preparing. “Dinner will be at 1pm,” he said. “Just ask Melanie where to find the ingredients.”
The result was that we had a delicious dinner that everyone had a hand in making and he saved us from being teased for years to come!
Sarah says
The barrel of my parent’s ice cream maker once inexplicably exploded mid-cycle and sprayed the entire kitchen with strawberry cream (yet to be iced!). Meanwhile, we were sat in the garden, soaking up the sunshine and blissfully unaware of the chaos in the kitchen. When we eventually discovered it, we were shocked by the coverage – walls, floors, cabinets – all coated!
PS: I’m not in the US so don’t qualify for your competition but felt like sharing anyway. Hope that’s okay :Β¬)
Jill says
Definitely the “Angel Food Cake Incident.” 4 of us were sharing a tiny, poorly equipped college apartment. One roommate was having a birthday, and the rest of us decided to surprise her with her favorite cake- angel food cake served with fresh berries. We did not have the tall bundt pan called for in the recipe, but hey, other cake recipes always gave options (a 13×9 inch pan or 2 round pans or 24 cupcakes…), so we just looked around and used the biggest rectangular baking dish we had. It was only about 2 inches deep. That angel food cake rose, and rose, and rose… with the edges continually crumbling off and falling to the bottom of the oven where they oozed and bubbled like lava and charred onto the electric heating elements, and filled the apartment with smoke. Once everything was cooled, it took us hours to chisel the petrified cake-lava out of the oven. The white baking pan was permanently smoke-stained. Amazingly, the cake that remained in the pan was still good to eat!
Joyce says
One of my nephews dropped a can of soda and it exploded. We thought we cleaned up the entire mess, until we discovered a few months later splatter spots on the ceiling, up the walls, and on all the kitchen furniture. It was a can of 7-up and we couldn’t see all the places it originally went. Until the brown spots showed up, who knew that sticky spots attract grease.
Rachel says
The worst kitchen disaster was not mine, but my Aunt’s. My uncle had just picked up a watermelon from a roadside stand and left it on the kitchen counter. A while later, my cousin ran up to my Aunt saying the watermelon was making a funny noise. Just as my Aunt made it to the kitchen, the whole watermelon EXPLODED. Watermelon in every crack and crevice in the kitchen. It smelled for weeks.
Jasmine says
My fiance and I have had many kitchen disasters. They most often occur when we have no recipe. A recent messup happened when we tried to create ice cream without an actual recipe. The entire batch froze into the ice cream container. We ended up chipping it away like ice!
conversegirl_4life@hotmail.com
TheGourmetCoffeeGuy says
A family member visited us last week. Accidentally, this person placed a pyrex dish that had some oil on it on top of a stove burner that was turned on….Not a good idea for pyrex.
The result was an explosion that sounded like a bomb, 1000’s of pyrex glass everywhere. Thankfully, two people present in the kitchen at the time, through a miracle, were not hurt despite the flying glass everywhere. The cleanup was troublesome but it was a lesson in “what not to do” that made an impression on everyone to last a lifetime!
Kris says
I accidentally baked a cake on broil. Here’s the full story: http://munchinwithmunchkin.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/valentines-day-stained-glass-jello/
Sharon says
I am a current fan of goodlife eats on facebook. (rust hawk)
Sharon says
While cutting up a whole chicken for dinner with my very first boyfriend, I ran a knife through my hand. Yep, emergency room and stitches.
Lisa B says
When I was a kid we had a monkey for a pet. Awww..some say, but think again. He had an inside cage where he stayed when the Central Florida weather was too cold. One day we came home from school and work to find out that “George” had escaped from his cage and hung-out in the kitchen for a while. Every cabinet door was open and everything empty-able was, pretty much, emptied on the counters and floor! A bag of flour, canister of sugar, boxes of jello, boxes of cereal, boxes of crackers, you get the picture. It looked like a bad joke gone worse! Needless to say, George, spent the night outside and the clean-up crew (all 5 of us) spent the next hours putting the kitchen back together.
Crafty Jennifer says
Every holiday, I made my grandma’s pie crust recipe with my dad. I remember making it every Thanksgiving while the Macy’s parade was on. My first year of grad school, I was determined to make Grandma’s recipe to share with my boyfriend’s (now husband’s) family. My dad/mom emailed me the recipe and all of it sounded familiar. I bought all the kitchen tools and supplies I needed and set out to make Grandma’s recipe. Only I couldn’t get it to come together right. I was pretty new to baking on my own (and cooking in general) and the stress of trying to make it on my own, combined with my first term of grad school, caused a meltdown similar to that of a 2-year old. My boyfriend dilligently fought the pre-Thanksgiving crowds to get frozen pie crusts for me while I attempted it again. For the next 5-6 years, every time I attempted the recipe, it never came out like it did with my dad. I even attempted to make it in front of my mother-in-law but without any success. Finally, as I was making pies with my dad, I recited the recipe to him. He responded “No, it’s 5 tablespoons of cold water, not 5 teaspoons” and pulled out the recipe to show me. I pulled up my email and found the now 6-7 year old email to show him that MY recipe said 5tsp not 5tbsp. My parents then proceeded to blame each for the mix-up that caused so much angst for me over all these years. The email came from my mom’s email but they both use that email as the “home” email so it could have been either of them. One little typo caused so much trouble!
(But I do have to admit, even with the correct recipe, the crusts still come out best when made with my dad.)
Star says
i just ‘liked’ you on facebook so this is my second entry.
one of my most recent kitchen disasters happened when i needed a quick shower.. so i put the tv on and left my 2 and 4 year old for a few minutes. when i came out, my 2 year old had pushed a stool up to the kitchen counter and dumped a canister of carnation instant breakfast onto the counter and was eating it by spoonfuls! cute!
Aunt Rachael says
My worst kitchen disaster is one that my husband is still sworn to secrecy on and if he breaks it…well we won’t go there.
When we were first married and subleasing an apartment full of other people’s stuff plus their storage unit he invited some people from church to have (specifically) homemade pizza and ice cream. It was a Sunday and the one day I will not go out and get groceries unless it is that or starve. Well we didn’t have 1/2 the stuff for pizza but faked it, but the ice cream, nothing. I mashed together a recipe and because I didn’t have cream I did my usual substitution-butter melted into milk. My overally stressed mind didn’t put two and two together but neither did my ice cream maker when it came out (after running out of ice cubes and resorting to using a bag of frozen peas and some lobster shaped ice cube things) it had butter chunks in it. It looked like normal ice cream until you started eating it and licked a glob and felt a funny texture. Sadly enough it was already served so everyone got a good laugh in at me. I felt dumb and well my husband has now learned not tell them what we are having until they are actually there and it is in the oven.
suz says
Boiling eggs and forgot about them. They exploded all over the kitchen and my pot was ruined too!
Star says
i made my mom a huge mother’s day salad once and left it in the fridge for when she got home from work late. she ate almost the entire thing before she noticed a big slug. i didn’t know that i needed to wash the lettuce first! now i double wash!
Cheryl Burchett says
We once ran out of dish washing detergent. I realized the dish washer was running and asked my husband what he used for soap. He motioned to the liquid soap at the same time that the kitchen began to flood with bubbles.
Stacey says
Once my mother baked a fresh loaf of bread and set it on a wire rack to cool overnight. Ants infested out kitchen with a huge (few inch wide) trail across the kitchen and up the counter to the bread by morning.
Ashley J. Ward says
When I found the recipe online for Butternut Squash Bechamel lasagna I was instantly enamored. Itβs such a healthy hearty winter recipe and all the ingredients are easily found. So seeing that the prep was kind of involved, I enlisted the help of my two favorite men. We easily zipped through until it was time to blend the bΓ©chamel. My roommate, David, had inherited a blender from his friend who moved out of the country for a job. I decided we should use that instead of my immersion blender. I gave David that task. I didnβt realize that he had no idea how to use a blender. The blending came out really well. The creamy texture was just perfect. So I asked him to bring the top over to the stove so we could assemble the layers. When he took the pitcher off the base, the bottom of the pitcher stayed on the base and the beautiful butternut sauce poured out all over my counter. I was horrified at the mess and the loss. But (because I am me and insane about cleaning) we salvaged what we could from the counter and tried to assemble. I was so upset at the huge mess and huge fail that I forgot to add an entire layer of noodles. This meal was fraught with fail. But we stuck it in the oven anyway and started the cleanup. Thank God we did. When it came out, it was the MOST amazing taste to come out of my kitchen in recent history.
Eve Love says
my worst kitchen disaster is definitely my entry there: http://eveetjohnnylove.blogspot.com/2010/11/iron-chef-challenge-patates-pilees.html
Mary says
I’ve a few little disasters, but the biggest one happened outside. It’s still related to cooking, so I hope it counts!
It was almost dinnertime so my younger brother and I were doing some prep work. He went out back and started heating up the grill for the steak while I helped my mom with the veggies. When it came time to cook the steak, I took it outside. I lifted the lid of the grill and didn’t see any flames. The gas was on, but there weren’t any flames going. No biggie, I clicked the grill to get the flames going. Of course, since the gas was on, there was a mini explosion. The grill jumped, I shrieked and drop the steak, and scooted away. The grill was fine, as was the steak. The hair on my right arm was burnt off and my eyelashes and eyebrows were singed. The next few times I showered I could smell burning hair. ;P
Queen Crabby-Panties says
I can’t remember any total disaster…I guess that is what happens when you are either a very good cook or you get old! I did break a stone jelly pan (Pampered Chef) by sitting it on a hot burner after taking it from the oven. The whole corner just fell off. Then I couldn’t find the receipt to get a replacement so I bought another. Love the jelly roll stone, Pampered Chef!
Cate says
I was grilling chicken for dinner. I put the chicken on and shut the lid. Later when I went out back to check on it and flip it I noticed it wasn’t cooked at all. Turns out the gas tank had just enough gas to light, but quickly went out and was empty. We had to have something else for dinner that night.
Sue says
Once when my kids were little I put some chocolate chip cookies in the oven for dessert. I forgot they were there and we went out to dinner. We came home and they were black and burnt to a crisp! Thank goodness that was all that happened.
rick says
Once I forgot to put sugar in the pancakes for breakast. They didn’t taste very good!
Rachel - A Southern Fairytale says
Look at you go, Katie! <3
I love it — I walked in one day and my now 4 yo had dumped all the spaghetti noodles — parmesan — and poppy seeds all over the floor. He was making his dinner π
<3 it! Good luck, darlin'!
paola says
I was cooking a steak one night for my boyfriend in my college dorm. I managed to set off the dorm’s smoke alarm which resulted in the evacuation of an entire tower of our dorm. As the couple hundred of us stood outside in the cold in our jammies, people could smell the unmistakeable steaky-smoky smell on me as I tried to stand there nonchalantly. Words cannot describe the (couple hundred of pairs) of stinkeye I got!
Lindsay says
My worst moment in the kitchen is when I had a delicious pizza baking in the oven that I made from scratch and was so looking forward to, and when I took it out of the oven I didn’t have a pizza paddle or anything so I tried to use a spatula and the pizza went SPLAT! right onto my front side. Luckily I didn’t end up burned or anything, just extremely messy and pizza-less. Now I always make my boyfriend take the pizzas out of the oven because I’m too clumsy to do it myself!
Kristina says
I can relate with your daughter. As a two year old I dumped an entire gallon of olive oil (extra virgin) onto the dinning room carpet and jumped in it! Or there was the time we tried to make blackened catfish only to have our neighbor call the fire department as smoke poured out the front window. That was sort of exciting, but also a little disconcerting to show a ruined dinner to a fireman in full gear.
michelle stiennon says
Im making homemade bread and the receipe suggests tossing an icecube into an empty bread pan to create enough steam – unfortunately I used an empty Pyrex loaf pan. BOOM! It IMPLODED! An 400 degree chunk of Pyrex whoosed out of the oven and burned the old linoleum floor.
I was unharmed. The worst? I DID IT AGAIN a year later. Never used that receipe again.
Polly says
I woke up one morning trying to extra ambitious and make biscuits from scratch. See I come from a long line of bakers/cooks/housewifes who know how to cook everything from biscuits to pickles.
So now that I’m married and have a kitchen stacked to the ceiling with cooking pans, pots, utensils, baking helpers….I need to use them right? Now, back to baking biscuits….I now know there is a difference between all-purpose flour and self-rising flour. Uh my biscuits were like hockey pucks. In fact my dogs wouldnt even eat them. They looked at me like I’d thrown them bricks. Well they were like bricks pretty much. Moral of the story….the line of cooks/bakers/housewifes stopped right here in these here boots in this here non-biscuit making kitchen. Sorry folks, if we dont have canned biscuits, we simply dont have breakfast. π
Katie says
I am a fan on Facebook!
Amanda says
I was a few months pregnant with our first child, and we lived in a dinky little apartment. At that time, I had just started dabbling in cooking (not very well, I might add). My husband was at his second job that evening, so for my dinner, I stuck a chicken pot pie in the oven and then went to take a shower. Upon getting out of the shower, I began to smell smoke. I threw on some clothes and hurried into the kitchen. I opened the oven door and saw that the bottom of the oven was on fire! I had made baked macaroni and cheese earlier and had neglected to notice the spilled cheese that was now on fire. I grabbed the nearby fire extinguisher and attacked the oven with it, coating about 3/4 of our tiny kitchen with the white stuff. I had to lock the cat in a ventilated room so I could open the doors and air out the apartment, trying to avoid breathing in too much smoke. Needless to say, it was very painstaking cleaning up all that white stuff, and the house stunk for quite a while after that.
Tammy says
Allowing my 7 year old son fill and start the dishwasher. All was fine until we realized he used a ton of Dawn. Huge bubbly mess!
Brittani says
Making a strawberry-banana smoothie and hitting the button BEFORE putting the lid on. AND it was my last banana!
ELG says
When a glass bottle of olive oil broke all over the freshly mopped kitchen tile.
Denise says
Accidentally spraying a 2 liter of root beer all over our freshly painted dining room walls. π
Nivedita says
I was planning on making an Indian appetizer …it needed to be deep fried , and a couple of mins in the oil the food started bursting and my whole kitchen was full of oil :(. It was a nightmare and cleaning it took me a whole day π
Teresa says
I think it’s gotta go to the time I substituted Tablespoons of salt for teaspoons of salt in a polenta recipe I took on a backpacking trip. It was inedible and we were all so hungry that night.
Of course my smoke alarms say there’s a disaster most nights – they’re very judgmental!
Debbie says
I dropped an entire pan of meatballs on the floor while I had my entire family waiting to eat! Love your story! Hope you win.
Kimberly M says
My parents used to keep all the oil from the fry daddy under the skin. They had 2 large coffee cans with old oil. My sister and I took them, poured them over our heads and played slip n slide. My dad was at work, mom was in the bathroom. When she came out, she didn’t say a word. She put one of us in the bath tub and the other in the laundry tub, and LEFT the house and went to the neighbor.
Who cleaned us and the kitchen up.
D. Roberts says
You have THE BEST MOM EVER. No, really. You are lucky to be alive..LOL.
donna says
i made my mother in law a beautiful strawberry shortcake for her birthday. i thought that i f i drove slowly, i could transport it in the back of my car while in the glass covered cake stand. yup. but at least it was contained and delicious if not still beautiful! =)
Melissa J says
Dropped a full pot of spaghetti, sauce and noodles were on the ceiling and well everywhere else
Linda says
When my son was about 4, he spilled an entire gallon of milk on our carpet while attempting to make chocolate milk. Ick!
Cindy says
It would definitely be when I put a batch of cookies into the oven and dozed off while they were baking. Woke up to the smoke alarm–giant disaster and NOT a good way to wake up!
DBCrow says
Probably when I spilled an entire bag of sugar on the floor.
Elisabeth Cline says
I also liked you on FB
Elisabeth Cline says
Several months ago my 2 year old dumped a 5lb bag of flour out all over the kitchen floor. He was covered, and had done it to make a sand-castle. Figured that he had already made the mess, and he may as well enjoy it, so he played in it for 2 hrs and had a blast!
Claire says
When my little brother was very small (maybe a couple of years old) he managed to create a whole winter wonderland in the kitchen. Entirely. Out. Of. Sugar. It was CRAZY. And in the midst of it, there he was, with sugar all over him! lol
LisaAnn says
I like good eats on facebook
LisaAnn says
Hmmm, that is a hard one- there have been so many **sigh**. I have nine children so opportunities for mess abound. I think one of my most memorable was when the twins were two. Every single day for a week they got into the fridge and cracked/smashed/tossed/threw every single egg on the floor while I was making a powder room visit. No idea why this was so cool to them, but I bought 14 dozen eggs that week and they broke every one of them on the floor. They are 20 now and this story still circulates around the family π
Rebecca says
I made dinner the first time I met my future in-laws. I made green salsa enchiladas with rice and beans. When they arrived I found out they follow the Atkins Diet which is no carbs. I didn’t think to ask if they had any special dietary requests. We ended up grilling chicken & asparagus.
Amanda J says
My worst kitchen disaster happened when I caught my bread in the breadmaker on fire. The dough had overflowed and gotten too hot. I came in to see that my bread was on fire. The breadmaker was fine, but my bread was not!
Kristi Adelsberger says
I was roasting a turkey in a pan that was obviously not deep enough. My pan completely filled up with liquid and grease which spilled into my gas oven. This of course started a fire in the oven. My 6 year old son freaked out and started yelling that we all needed to get out of the house. While I was trying to get the battery out of the smoke detector, he gets my 4 year old and 2 year old out of the house (it’s also raining) to the picnic table. My husband comes home from work to see smoke pouring out the windows and crying kids outside in the rain. Later my son draws a picture of flames coming out the windows of the house and him standing outside yelling “call 911”. (The oven was fine and the fire went out soon after I turned off the stove. )
Christine Dayton says
I have many stories of kitchen disaters because i have a wonderful curious 3 year old son. I sitting on the computer typing a friend and realized my Brody had become quiet…I asked him what he was doing and he said nothing….so i asked again…he said he was being green…confused, i told him to come see me and he was right…he had turned himself green…hands, face, teeth all green. So, i got up walked out to the kitchen and realized he wasn’t the only thing green…he had my cubbard, walls, counter, everything he could touch was green…its been months and i am still finding things green π
Karen says
My worst kitchen disaster occurred during a baking venture with my cousin when we were seven. We were baking cookies and I came up with the brilliant idea of stuffing giant marshmallows into them! So we happily covered the cookies with marshmallows and stuck them into the oven. It didn’t take long for the explosion to occur, and when it did, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Gooey, burnt black and white marshmallows covered the oven. Needless to say, that was the last time I tried to bake giant marshmallows into cookies.
Jennifer says
I was using a quiche dish that was unglazed on the bottom to make a cherry clafouti. The dish caught on the oven rack as I was sliding it in the oven and the dish flipped and the entire clafouti spilled into the bottom of the hot oven! Huge burnt mess and I had company at the time.
Jodi says
I was filling cupcakes with a cream cheese filling that was colored red for the holidays. My frosting injector got jammed and like a moron I pointed it straight up while I forced the end. When the clog released it sent red cream cheese frosting shooting towards the ceiling. It was everywhere! All over the ceiling and dripping onto the floor. My husband and I had to get ladders and scrub the white ceiling 3 times to get the frosting and the dye off.
Tessa says
Sadly, I’ve had my fair share of disasters without any help from my hubby or any children (we don’t have any kids yet). The worst mess was probably the day I dropped a bowl of unset strawberry jello. As you can imagine, there were red spots everywhere! However, the worst in my opinion was the day that I dropped a hot glass bowl of recently made chex mix. Not only did I shatter my favorite bowl, but we lost all the chex mix!
Jan says
I am about 4 years old and the first one awake on a Saturday morning. I decide to make breakfast for my mom and dad. Get out the blue plastic bowl and eggs. I love scrambled eggs. Crack open the eggs and mix them up with a fork. I remember being so proud that there were no shells in the eggs. Take the blue plastic bowl and place on the stove and turn on the gas flames. Plastic starts to melt and catches on fire. Flames scare me big time. I start screaming. Dad comes running from bedroom and puts out the fire. When we moved from that house a year later there was still melted blue plastic on the stove.
Martha says
I always have such a habit of spilling stuff all over the counters. no matter how hard I try my kitchen always looks like a disaster after cooking! I guess one of my worst disasters was for the first time I was using parchment paper on my cookie sheet (that doesn’t have sides. I guess I didn’t realize that the parchment would slip and slide, because as I was putting the cookie sheet into the hot oven, (not holding onto the paper too), the paper with cookie dough slid off the pan and fell all over the oven! Somehow some of the cookie dough even fell through the door crack and into the drawer below my oven. It was horrible to clean up! And smelled even worse.
Megan says
A couple of years ago my boyfriend and I decided at midnight on Christmas Eve to make cake balls a la Bakerella to take to family on Christmas day. Our cake didn’t rise properly. We forged ahead anyway. We were melting some nice baker’s chocolate in a double broiler, but didn’t realize that the chocolate could get too hot. At about 2 am when the chocolate started thickening and we were only half-way through coating our cake balls we decided it would be a good idea to add milk. At 2:05am we learned about seizing chocolate the hard way.
Luckily, I had some back-up semi-sweet chips to use for the rest, and the cake balls ended up being a hit with the family. But I now know much more about chocolate than i did at the beginning of that night!
Jamie says
I like Good Eats on Facebook π
Jamie says
I tweeted…http://twitter.com/#!/JamieG63/status/58033926081478656
Leigh Vandewalker says
My best kitchen disaster involved my twins, Erin and Eric. I fell asleep while they were napping- bad idea! I awoke hearing giggles- the quiet kind, like someone’s trying really hard not to laugh out loud. It was those two little gremlins “ice skating” in the kitchen. That’s what they called it anyway. What it really was amounted to two three year olds running and sliding through an entire gallon of laundry detergent that they poured out onto the kitchen floor for just this purpose. Do any of you know how hard it is to mop up that much soap?! The suds are just never-ending! One good thing, my floor had never been cleaner!
Martha Artyomenko says
Mine were probably the time I messed up a cake mix and forgot the eggs…..or when I put baking soda instead of baking powder in pancakes…..I am usually pretty careful in the kitchen, so trying to remember if there are any funny ones. One of the worst ones my mom did was when she put onions somehow in our pudding. We hated onions and when we told her they were in there, she thought we were imagining things and being picky. We ate part of it before finally showing her the onions.
Brooke says
liked on facebook.
Traci says
When am I not having a kitchen disaster? Just a few of my kitchen disasters are listed on my blog, Burnt Apple. I’ve taken a knife to the bum, had a disasterous feta cheese experience, and my most recent one? A disagreement between the fettucine sauce I was making and myself. It never seems to end, but I am determined to not give up! http://burntapple.wordpress.com/burnt/
Carrie Wolford says
After reading some of these disasters it seems as though experiences of my own I thought were horrible weren’t really so bad….my cousin; however, now she’s got a story. Her husband had been wanting some pinto beans and corn bread so she bought a bag of beans and corn bread mix to fix for him. She called her mom to get directions on how to make the beans because she’d never made dry beans before. My aunt tells her “you have to pick through the beans because there may be rocks in them and then you have to wash them because they’re dirty, then soak them….”. So Christie follows my aunt’s instructions very well. Her husband came home and they both commented on how “pretty” that pot of beans was, they ate their dinner and shortly after her husband ran to the bathroom where he sat for quite awhile. Christie calls her mom and tells her what happened “mom I just don’t understand what happened I did exactly what you said to do…” my aunt asked her to tell her what she had done…Christie said “well I picked out the rocks, I washed the beans…” My aunt says “you didn’t” Christie said “well mom you said they were dirty when things are dirty you USE SOAP” That’s right she WASHED those pinto beans with DISH SOAP!! She still says “IT WAS THE PRETTIEST POT OF BEANS I’VE EVER SEEN!!” LOL
Alexa G. says
I’m already a fan of goodlife {eats} on FB
Alexa G. says
My worst kitchen disaster so far was when I was in middle school. My sister and I used to freeze peaches and then blend them in the blender and eat them like you would apple sauce. One day during our summer vacation we put some peaches in the blender and I have no idea why but we stuck a spoon in the blender while it was on to loosen up the peaches. The flew everywhere. The kitchen was full of peaches from the ceiling fan to floor. It was a huge mess. Luckily we cleaned up the mess before my mom got home.
Amy Spicer says
I can’t think of one specific incident. Holidays always leave a messy kitchen especially when my mom and my two sisters are involved. Half the fun is getting to make the mess together!
Amy says
I am not so sure the latest misadventure in the kitchen wasnβt the worst I have ever had but the circumstances couldnβt have been worse! I had entered a Holiday Recipe Contest sponsored by our local paper. There was 6 categories so I entered 1 in each as the contest allowed. I am well known as a baker & I consider myself a fairly good cook too. I was very confident that one of my baking or sweets recipes would be choose for the contest. I was pleasantly surprised & also a little shocked when I got a call saying that the only recipe I submitted that was choose for the contest was one for a Chicken/Bacon Appetizer that has an awesome dipping sauce. I was told the date & time of the contest. I was to bring my fully prepared dish for judging. This recipe was one that I had adapted from a similar recipe I had read somewhere years before. I had made it numerous times over the years with rave reviews. A few years ago after a divorce and my long battle with MS left me unable to care for my own house I moved in with my widowed father. Living with him for the past few years I had not done the entertaining that I had done in the past. So it had been awhile since I had made this recipe.
I had purchased all of the ingredients for the recipe & did all of the prep work the night before. Because I have to conserve my energy to be able to do physical things the only thing I had left to do the morning of the contest besides getting myself ready was to broil the bacon wrapped chicken βbitesβ & re-warm the sauce to take to the contest. Having my own home for years & working I had the kitchen of my dreams in my own home complete with an electric oven. My fatherβs stove & oven worked perfectly fine but it was gas. I was so happy that I was so well organized I had myself ready to go with the exception of finish the hair βdoβ when I put the first tray into broil. The bites only took about 5 minutes because all you really needed to do is crisp the bacon, the chicken is already cooked. I went into the bathroom to finish up. Just as I was spraying my hair I heard an ungodly noise from the kitchen/pantry area. I rush (as fast as I can rush) towards the kitchen to be met with a wall of smoke! The noise was all of the smoke alarms in the part of the house going off. My Dad & I both made a beeline for the oven. When I opened the door the βbitesβ were burned black, the toothpicks that held them together were in ashes & the foil on the cookie sheet was on fire from the grease! I managed to get it out of the oven & into the sink to get the fire out but my βbitesβ were ruined & the house & I smelled like burnt bacon! My poor father was running franticly from smoke detector to smoke detector fanning them with a dish towel trying to get them to stop squealing!
The thought that a gas broiler might be different than my electric broiler never crossed my mind! A broiler is a broiler right? Thank Goodness that I had prepared an almost quadruple batch because I was worried that there wouldnβt be enough because I wasnβt sure how many judges there would be. After readjusting the rack in the oven a little further away from the broiler & watching them very closely I was able to broil up the rest of them perfectly but the house, me & my beautiful Christmas blouse that I really didnβt have time to change all smelled to high heaven! Needless to say my recipe won the appetizer portion of the contest & a $50 Gift Card! Another fantastic Ruben Casserole won the grand prize that day. Everyone was coming up to me to tell my how wonderful my bites were & raving about the sauce. One of the male judges came up to me & said β This was all great food here today but I have to tell you that the only one of them that I can smell is your Chicken/Bacon Bites!β I wanted to burst out laughing & tell him that it wasnβt the bites he smelled, it was me! When the recipes & story was published in the paper I did burst out laughing. The judge wrote that he wanted to pour the dipping sauce on everything he ate that day & that he still couldnβt get the smell of the bites out of this mind! I have to say that I ended up making that recipe repeatedly over the holidays after it was announced in the paper that it had won. You can be sure that I didnβt have a repeat of the contest entry that almost wasnβt! Who knew that a semi-disaster almost missed me having a prize winning recipe! I wondered if anyone that had them over the holidays ever wondered why they didnβt experience the smell that they couldnβt get out of their heads. If they only knew!
Paradai says
A friend’s birthday was coming up and I knew he loved Pineapple Upside Down Cake. So, a coworker of mine loaned me a cute indented pineapple upside down cake pan. I had researched recipes and chose one with the best reviews and decided to try it out. I made the batter and filled with pan with the brown sugar and pineapples and poured in the batter. I had an inkling the pan was kind of too small for all the batter, but talked myself out of that. Baked my cake, and it took longer then expected, but toothpick came out clean. I had forgotten to place the cherries in the pineapples, so I pushed them in after the cake was cooked. The next day when I brought it for my friend, we cut into it and there was batter that just ooozed out! My cake didn’t cook all the way and so it ended up being inedible, but what a laugh we had with the batter just coming out and seeing the cake flatten.
Beth says
I love this, and probably shouldn’t have laughed so hard. I have a a 2 year old and I just know he got ideas from your story. Good luck. Love your recipes! Haven’t tried a bad one yet.
Jackie F. says
I don’t know how much of a full-blown disaster this is, but it was incredibly frustrating at the time. I will preface this with I definitely started making my problematic soup far too late in the day, so I was setting myself up for disaster. It had finished cooking but still needed to be pureed in the blender. I’m currently using my Gramma’s actual vintage blender, with no speed control other than “on” and “off” which is kind of touchy at times. Ideally you don’t want to fill up the blender more than halfway, and hot liquids aren’t the best for it either. So of course, at 11pm I just want to get this done and go to bed, so I decided that “hot” was a relative term and dumped some in. Needless to say, cream of broccoli ended up all over my counter, microwave, and multiple cooking utensils and their holders. At 11:15pm.
Cleaned it up and then went to dig out MY blender that is newer and has a brand new rubber seal on it. Started again with high hopes. This time, the soup leaked like crazy out the bottom of the blender all over the counter!!
This is getting long, so I’ll just leave it at, I didn’t get to bed until 12:30/1:00 that night. Ugh.
lisa h says
worst kitchen disaster: mine have been fairly minor like singeing the Thanksgiving turkey when my potholder caught on fire (I have a gas oven).
However, the one that upset me the most was when I decided to make a lemon meringue cake for my husband’s birthday. The day before I made the sponge cake layers and the lemon curd from scratch. Just before dinner I put the cake together, whipped up the meringue and preheated the broiler. The whites weren’t super stiff but more beating did not make them any better so I carefully covered the 2-layer cake and everything looked perfect!! I put the cake on a baking sheet and popped it into the oven for the required 8 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I opened the oven door and saw the upper cake layer sliding down the lower one and the meringue sliding along the baking sheet and just about to drop into the oven. So with one hand I’m pulling out the pan with a potholder and with the other I’m trying to shove everything back into place with a spatula!!. How could that have happened so quickly?? The cake looked like a kindergartener’s handiwork but at least it still tasted pretty good.Never got a photograph though. Lisa Hamilton
Chicago Cuisine Critique says
My senior year of college I started dating a guy who was as into cooking and the Food Network as much as me. I had found this great recipe from Giada for a pasta bake that I couldn’t wait to try. It was the first meal I ever cooked for him, and I realized after I took my first bite that something didn’t taste right. There was a whole lot of pepper. Came to find out I mixed a tbsp up with a cup. Yikes! Thankfully he laughed it off and ate it anyway. What a good sport! π
crobinkc says
I was cooking a chicken in a pressure cooker. I don’t know how I did it, but I wound up blowing the chicken up….through the hole in the top. I found chicken in the strangest places for a long, long time! Have never used a pressure cooker again π
Karen M says
My Mom helped with my kitchen disaster! My parents were coming to babysit our kids while my husband and I went out for our anniversary dinner, so I insisted on preparing dinner for my parents to have with the kids. I was trying a new soup recipe that involved blending some freshly roasted veggies, but for some reason the veggies took too long to roast and my Mom had to help finish the preparation. As I walked out the door I said, “remember not to put the blender lid on tightly when blending the hot stuff”. For some reason my Mom, who’s mother was a Home Economics teacher and taught her well, COMPLETELY forgot to put the lid on the blender! My kids thought the mess was hilarious and I was cleaning soup off of cabinets for days!!
Bethany says
I’m a facebook fan!
Bethany says
I tweeted the giveaway message!
Bethany says
Wow… so many disasters to choose from! The one that sticks out the most in my mind is when I was working as a cook at a camp back in highschool. I was up extremely early to start making oatmeal for a 7am breakfast and hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.
I was supposed to put 12 cups of oats into a giant pot of boiling water as well as a much smaller amount of brown sugar. My foggy, sleepy mind must have read it wrong (despite having done it several times before) and I put 11 cups of brown sugar into the water before my supervisor noticed that I’d made an extra trip to the brown sugar bin… It was tremendously embarrassing, and I obviously knew better, but no alarms went off in my head at ALL. Needless to say, breakfast was late, since we had to bring another HUGE pot to boil. Now I can make oatmeal almost in my sleep. But I don’t try.
Bette O says
I have so many that it is ridiculous……….actually there should be a sign at my kitchen door with my face on it circled in red with a diagonal line across the center. It is better if I “do not enter”!
The worst mess (caused by my hubby), I can not tell, because it makes me ill just thinking about it but one of the worst messes I had in the kitchen was from my son.
He was learning to walk and since our house was small, there were no areas he was not allowed to explore. Also this was over 40 yrs ago, long before we were smart enough to NOT store certain items under the sink.
One day, I was in our living room cleaning and he was toddling around. We had a half wall that separated our living room from our kitchen and I glanced up to see nothing but puffs of smoke coming up from below the wall on the kitchen side.
When I went to investigate, there sat my son, on the floor with a Comet can in hand, shaking it up and down as hard as he could, and laughing at the shower of powder falling all around him. It was practically impossible to get all that powder up and off the floor. There was Comet everywhere; on the floor, in the cupboards, in the mop boards, that fine powder went EVERYWHERE . . . . . . . and to get it off of him, I took him out in the back yard and blew it off with the shop vac.
Julie says
After making wonderful stew on a chilly night our family got into an intense wii battle. An hour later we smelled smoke and I realized the stove had been left on and burned the bottom of one of my favorite pans. It smelled for days.
Sarah says
Sorry – hit enter before I was finished. I tripped over my own two feet and the cakes went flying – each of them landing SPLAT upside down and I fell and ripped a whole in my pants! Yeh… I work in an office now! π
Teresa says
We were having a dinner for the Bass Club and I offered to make pecan pies. I baked them and home and took them 12 miles out to the meeting. When I got there I found they were not done so I cooked them longer. When it got time for supper they were still syrupy and never set. Worst pecan pies I ever made. I learned never to take pecan pies to a dinner again. I will stick to cakes.
Joanie H says
ok so i tried to make cake pops last week for a friends baby shower — harder than it looks! they were too big and falling off the stick, not solid enough, crumbs in the melted chocolate … no good. other time, i put waaaaaay to much cornstarch in my stir fry and my sauce ended up being a jelly (made up of only water, chicken flavoring,and corn starch) so it was a lite green color (from the veggies) and it was nasty
Sarah says
In the bakery I worked on several years ago I had just decorated 4 cakes and had them on a sheet pan to put on the cart across the room. I tripped Over my
Krista says
My kitchen is SMALL. So small that I have absolutely no counter space available, so I have to use my stovetop as my workspace. A few weeks ago I decided that I would be all mega-chef and quarter my own chicken. So I whipped out the bird, placed it on a cutting board, and set everything on the largest of my electric burners for stability. Little did I know that a certain somebody had left that burner on (grrr electric stoves!). So a waft of toxic plastic fumes fills the air, and I frantically lift the cutting board up only to dump raw chicken juice everywhere. In addition to this, I had a burner completely covered in plastic. It took me until a few days ago to get around to cleaning it, and it served as a constant reminder of my giant kitchen fail up until then.
Coco and Isa says
I made a birthday cake with triple the amount of salt for my whole family. Yuck!
Rachel Hsu says
I had two strikes against me–I was frustrated while being on hold forever with the phone company and I was experiencing the “pregnancy brain” forgetfulness. I was steaming some broccoli in a pot with a steamer basket. After several minutes, I started wondering why the pot wasn’t boiling. I realized that I had forgotten to put water in the bottom of the pot! By the time I realized this, there was liquid metal starting to leak out of the bottom of the pot. What a mess!!
dana d says
Ha! I think your daughter sounds adorable, lol! π
My disaster was kind of done purposely. I have a tub of flour that I was letting my daughter play with by pouring from that container to another bowl. She’s 2. Her brother, 5 decided to join her. I left the room. Later my “ghostly” children came and said hi. π I ran in and took pictures.
And encouraged two of their older sisters to join in.
Oh, that was a clean up!
But the memory is priceless! π
I just found your site the other day, btw. I”ve been loving it–thanks!
Holly says
I’m excited to “like” you on facebook.
Holly says
My worst kitchen disaster (thus far, I’m sure there will be more) was in middle school. My beset friend and I were attempting to make home made frosting. The recipe called for confectioner’s sugar and we had no idea what that was. We thought maybe it was flour. Boy were we wrong. After seeing our disaster we attempted to bake it to see what would happen. That made things worse and we had a huge mess to clean up before mom got home.
Sarah @ a drop of golden sun says
When my oldest was just 2, he decided it would be fun to color the entire kitchen floor with a bright orange marker. Of course, this has nothing to do with cooking, it just happened to be in the kitchen! Luckily, we quickly learned that a little elbow grease & damp paper towels got most of it out, quicker than we had thought!
Jen W. says
I “Liked” you on Facebook.
Jen W. says
A few months ago, I decided to make some simple syrup. Actually, this must have been last summer since it was for iced tea. Anyway, I put the water and sugar on the stove and then my husband comes home and decide to head to the computer room to play Champions Online.
I totally forgot about the pot on the stove until I started smelling burnt sugar. Even then I didn’t really think about what I was smelling and just kept on playing until it finally dawned on me _what_ I was smelling. I ran out to the kitchen and found black sludge in the bottom of my sauce pot. My husband followed me out and he grabbed the pot and started pouring the burnt sugar down the drain. This was a disgusting mess the thankfully melted away under a lot of hot water. I also got really lucky in that my cookware is rated for high temperatures and is non-stick. Since then, I’m a lot more careful about wandering away from my cooking… *sigh*
Courtney says
Once, when making homemade brownies from scratch, I completely forgot to add sugar to them. The brownie batter just turned into this big sticky chunk of eggy chocolate. Realizing that something was wrong, I rechecked my recipe, noticed I had left the sugar out, and added it at the end. The brownies turned out really grainy with crunchy bits of burned sugar in them. It was absolutely AWFUL.
Amber Hinckley says
I’m already a fan!
Jenny Paredes says
My first but definitely not last kitchen disaster happened about week ago (being a new baker and all lol) I decided to try to make marshmallow fondant ( powdered sugar and marshmallows) when attempting to mix the sugar to the marshmallow goo I went straight to setting number 5…now every appliance/counter is covered in powder sugar. I’m still trying to get it all -.-
Amber Hinckley says
I tweeted!
Tyburn Blossom says
Sometimes, when I’m mixing random things together in the kitchen, I come out looking like a genius. But sometimes…
I decided to make a pasta salad with tuna in it, and thought it would be tasty if I added a can of tomatoes. I threw in all the other ingredients I thought it needed and took a taste…
Some things should not be mixed. Apparently tuna and canned tomatoes is one of those.
It was so awful, but money was tight and I’d thrown a lot of food in the bowl, so I decided I was capable enough to fix it. Unfortunately, the more I ‘fixed’ it, the more it grew, and the worst it got. Worn out and discouraged, I tossed the whole mess into the fridge and figured I’d choke it down later.
That evening, my little brother got home and went scrounging through the fridge for something to eat. He came out carrying the bowl of pasta and informed us, “I don’t know how long this stuff has been in the fridge, but I think it’s gone bad.”
Amber Hinckley says
One time me and my roommates were making smoothies. We had them just about finished when we decided to add just a little more honey. One of the girls turned on the blender to get the last of the honey mixed in but she forgot to put the lid back on! Basically… the entire contents of the blender were splattered all over our entire kitchen… and our faces.
Angela says
I wanted to defrost a frozen Kudos bar in the microwave, wrapper and all. The wrappers are a metallic material. Boom! Didn’t kill the microwave, but was a great explosive show to watch.
More recently, we had an upstairs toilet overflow and the water damage ruined the kitchen. That’s about the worst disaster I can think of and we weren’t even home at the time. Have a beautiful new kitchen now though.
JulieD says
I already like you on fb. Thanks!
JulieD says
Worst kitchen disaster was technically a recipe disaster, I was in college and wanted to make banana bread for my classmates and co-workers. I made like 6 batches of banana bread (tons of ripe bananas) before realizing I had forgotten baking powder. It was a huge disaster. I even cried because I had wasted so many ingredients and nothing to show for it.
Rebecca Semmens says
My worst kitchen disaster ever was when I was younger and I tried to make macaroni and cheese…Well I was scared of removing the lid so I used a towel to take it off. In that process the towel slid under the pot and caught on fire. Me being braindead at the time, instead of putting out the fire or putting the towel in the sink I laid it on the counter and walked into the living room to tell my mom I caught a towel on fire. She went running back into the kitchen and put the pot lid on top of the towel to put the fire out.
LOL says
My worst kitchen disaster was when I was all alone in the house and very hungry. There’s no food in the kitchen only a frozen fried chicken in the fridge, So I decide to put it in the microwave oven. That is my first time to use it.
I put the fried chicken in the oven with plastic on it. The chicken burn out and smells like burn plastic π
Jackie says
My worst was when I was hosting a basket party in my new house for all of my friends and new neighbors and had emergency at work having to work late and did not have time to get all of my food prepared and was trying a new recipe(molten lava cakes) and did not quite understand how my new oven worked – DISASTER!!!!!!!!!
Tameka Downing says
I tweeted Win a @pampered_chef Pizza Set (val. $115) and help @goodlifeeats win the Kitchen Disaster contest http://su.pr/1Kft6v #giveaway on twitter
Tameka Downing says
Fan of your Facebook page
Tameka Downing says
There have been many, but the worst would have to be when I was trying to make homemade french fries. I was doing the first fry and had too much oil in the pot. So when I dropped the fries oil came bubbling over on to my flat electric cook top. Good thing I had salt and extinguisher near by.
Btrflywmn says
fan of GoodLife Eats on Facebook – Charlene G
Btrflywmn says
tweeted – http://twitter.com/#!/Btrflywmn/status/57945288488394753
Btrflywmn says
I was trying to make a nice dinner for my hubby and ended up burning the chicken and bread, the rice was mushy to. I think I only get rice perfect once a year.
Sharon says
I like goodLife{eats} on facebook.
(Sharon Olivier)
Sharon says
Tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/sharonjo2/status/57938750566694912
Sharon says
My worst kitchen disaster was probably the time I tried to thicken the gravy with powdered sugar instead of the flour–got the cannisters mixed up! Then there was the time our oldest son got into the flour container…That was no doubt the biggest kitchen mess I’ve ever had.
Celeste says
Sorry you had that experience Katie but what a great story it makes!! Hopefully that one will be your worst!
Emily S. says
I have to say I LOVE your story of the sprinkles and food coloring incident/disaster. I have friends who have kids, so I hear stories similar in that they get into things that they don’t belong in, all the time.
One time my friend told me about a time when her son got into the cream on the changing table and the baby powder. She came into the room to find him COVERED in cream and baby powder. He was smiling from ear to ear, having NO idea that he had created such a big mess! Haha
Yvonne Thielle says
When I was about 10 years old my mom made a cake for my grandparents anniversary. She had it all done and it was sitting on the kitchen table. Our Chow Chow decided that he wanted some cake too, so he took a big bit out of one of the sides. Mom was so mad because she didnt’ have time to make a new one so she “FIXED” the one she had by putting paper towels in the side where the dog had taken his bite. She then re-iced and re-decorated the cake. We took it to my grandparents house and when it was time to cut the cake mom says just don’t eat off of this side!!!
Emily S. says
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a klutz when it comes to life. I’m always finding ways to burn myself on a hot pan of cookies, or the boiling water will splash on me somehow. But that’s not my disaster.
About two years ago I decided to make my mom a White Chocolate Truffle Cake. The process was a disaster from the word ‘go’, but at least the end result was amazing. I had never made a cake entirely from scratch at that point, and used a recipe off of the internet. I figured my mom could do it, so maybe I’d be lucky and it was in my genes.
There were problems left and right. First it took much longer than I anticipate and the element of surprise was destroyed when my parents walked into the kitchen before it was done. When I made the frosting, I was scooping in the powdered sugar and the bag slipped, making the sugar go EVERYWHERE. I was covered, the counters were covered, even the cat who was walking by at the time was covered. It’s something I can laugh at now but wanted to cry at then!
Shannon Hull says
Because I am mostly a sandwich and salad kind of girl I couldn’t think of my own kitchen disaster, but mom told me a few of hers. She told me of a time she was making coffee cake (a sunday tradition in our family). The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of sugar but she mistakenly put 2 cups (more like the amount of flour needed). When she opened the oven she was surprised to see a “bubbly monster” looking back at her. π
Samantha says
I am a facebook fan π
Samantha says
This is the story of a girl who wanted to make dutch babies (you know those AMAZING puffy oven pancakes) for her sweet, breakfast loving boyfriend. The girl had good intentions and an old recipe, but that wasn’t enough. There were no eggs in the house. Not one. So this girl thought she could substitute a little extra milk to replace the eggs. What she lacked in ingredients she thought she could make up in creativity. As this story is posted on kitchen disasters, you know the ending wasn’t a great egg-less dutch baby. Or a happy, well fed bf. Sadly it was a flat, cardboardy, mess. And so they shared a bowl of cereal with fresh strawberries. The End!
Mary Mac says
It was about 11 years ago and I was trying to impress my new stepson by making his favorite – no bake cheese cake. He was 13 at the time. I was at my mother in laws home, she was not there at the time. for the crust you mix graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and sugar. Turns out what I thought was her sugar canister was actually her canning salt! My stepson was a good sport about it all and didn’t hold it against me!
Leslie says
Decided to just go with the most recent (and different – who constantly burns the cardboard in the oven with a frozen pizza!) the dishwasher had backed up full of dirty water, it wouldn’t drain & was spilling out the bottom. The whole family was coming for dinner shortly so when I couldn’t find the source I got out the shop vac & sucked up all the water. Not paying attention to how full the tank was getting, it starting spraying the dirty water out of the exhaust(?) hole. It was horrifying. But after cleaning that up in record time, it was probably the cleanest my kitchen had ever been to eat in. :/
Kathy Farnham says
Last Easter I was in the kitchen boiling eggs to dye for Easter. My then 2 year old came into the kitchen and promptly threw up from the smell of the eggs(she is sensative to smells). After taking care of that mess we started to color the eggs. My 3 year old was doing a great job using a wisk to hold the egg and dip it in the color. Once again disaster struck when Natalie (the 2 year old) got soo excited about the pretty eggs she jumped onto the (pedistal) table tipping it, the eggs, the dye and her all over on to the floor. Both girls just sat on the floor and cried, what a mess! I just hope this year goes better.
Emily S. says
I just clicked ‘like’ for Good Life Eats on Facebook
Ally (oatsandspice) says
I tweeted!
Ally (oatsandspice) says
I don’t know if this is considered a kitchen disaster, but one time (when I first started cooking around age 12) I put a cup of salt into a batch of cookies instead of a teaspoon – WHOOPS π
Elyssia says
1. The first time I ever made sugar cookies, for my son’s 4th birthday party at school, I iced the cookies BEFORE I baked them. They wound up looking like pastel stained glass! They were edible, but I had to make a whole new batch for him to take to school the next day.
2. I was making matzo ball soup, using different matzo meal than I usually use, with a slightly different recipe. I altered the recipe on my own and they wound up like hard dough rocks! Horrible! I thought maybe if they sat for a while in the soup they’d get softer… No way, Jose. My 4 year old agreed: “They were awful, Mommy.”
Haley says
I had baked a Red Velvet Cake for friends. When I went upstairs to find candles to place on the Cake, my dog had jumped on the counter and devoured the whole thing! Everything she licked after that was pink from the Red Velvet dye!
Brooke says
I wanted a pie when I was about 13 and my mother wasn’t home but my dad was and he was busy.So I took it upon myself to make the pie (my mother doesn’t bake so it was frozen) I put it in the oven with no sheet pan or anything just the pie when I went to go pull it out of the oven the pie buckled and the hot blueberry filling went on my bare naked foot and I screamed in pain and my brother told me to get it off my feet I yelled and said I’m not going to burn my hands too.So he got a glass of water and poured it over my foot and got the filling off but of course it was to late 2nd degree burns had already left there mark.
Rachel says
I tried to make tres leches cake… didn’t work out too well at all… and I ended up throwing the whole thing away. Better luck next time haha π
Cerys says
So many to choose from… the worst was probably when I put olive oil on a pizza stone…after washing it with soap and water… in an attempt to make it so the pizza would not stick to the stone.
I’m sure you can imagine.. the whole house filled with smoke, it was horrible. Every window had to be opened, and the pizza stone turned black. Since then I have learned the proper care for one, but that was a bad day for my kitchen.
Michelle says
I follow you on Facebook!
Michelle says
We live in a small split-level house and my family LOVES to eat hard boiled eggs. Apparently, one day I didn’t have any boiled eggs in the fridge so my husband decided to cook some. Usually, that’s a disaster in itself… He BURNS water!!
I was downstairs on the computer, (the stairs connect to the dining room which connects to the kitchen in a big straight line) happily typing away when I hear an incredibly loud KABOOM. When you hear a boom like that you hit the floor first and ask questions second.
So, after peeling myself off the floor, I cautiously peeked up the stairs to see what had happened. Different members of my family were crawling out of their respective hiding places as well. We finally converged where the stairs/dining room meet and look in the kitchen at my husband who had a sheepish look on his face.
He thought he’d save time by boiling the eggs in the microwave. Yes. BOIL EGGS IN THE MICROWAVE!! I’m not lying.
Those eggs BLEW the door of my microwave completely open and we found egg bits not only completely covering the kitchen/dining room area but all the way down the stairway.
I let HIM clean up the mess! I was too busy laughing!
Sarah says
I have two disasters.
1) In high school I decided to make Rice Krispy Treats and they turned out rock hard and completely inedible! WHO messes up Rice Krispy Treats??? ME
2) I wanted to make pecan bars after making them once successfully I figured I knew what I was doing. Anyway I mixed everything. Pat the crust into the bottom of my baking sheet and poured the gooey topping on top and put it in the oven. After doing the dishes I went to the oven to take a peak and discovered that I had used the wrong pan: a cookie sheet not a jelly roll pan and the entire oven was covered in pecans and carmel. It took forever for me to clean the oven. Sometimes I still smell carmel four years later.
Jill @ Dulce Dough says
I “like” Good Life Eats on Facebook.
Jill @ Dulce Dough says
I tweeted: http://twitter.com/#!/DulceDough/status/57915813906235392
Christine says
I don’t have a funny story to share but I liked your story the best! It gets my vote!
vikki m says
I was cooking dinner for my hubby and one of his friends. I was making mashed potatoes with the meal they were not there yet so I just let the potatoes sit in the water and I was going to whip them up when they got there.WELL you can’t do that they ended up being like glue I was so embaressed that I couldn’t even make mashed potatoes.
Brooke says
This has got to be my favorite story and my best friend and I still laugh about it! I wanted to make a chocolate cake for my boyfriend for his birthday. Well, I had to borrow a 9×13 pan from her and she let me borrow her nice Anchor blue, thick glass pan. I made the cake and threw it in the oven. It just so happened that I had some eggs that were going to be outdated so I made hard boiled eggs. Obviously at the time, I really didn’t know how to make these! I took the eggs off the burner and moved them to the back burner to let them cool. The timer rang and it was time to take out the delicious cake! I set the cake on top of the stove and turned around to start washing dishes. I started to smell something burning and as I turned around, I saw the cake smoking and looked at the stove top. I still had the stove top on! In a panic, I took the cake off and put it on top of my counter and turned back to the oven to turn off the burner when BOOM!!!! The counter was so cold that the pan shattered and went everywhere! I called my friend down, who at the time lived two doors down, and felt horrible! She helped me clean up the mess, I bought her a new pan, and I had to make a new cake for my boyfriend. When I moved out, I was still finding blue glass pieces everywhere! It has been a disaster that I will never live down and everyone laughs at!
Heidi Clements says
My worst kitchen disaster was when I was attempting to make french fries from scratch. I had the grease WAY too hot – tossed in about a half potatoes worth of fries – and started a fire! Luckily my husband quickly put out the flames with out fire extinguisher, but it was certainly a disaster!
Mandy says
I follow GLE on Facebook
Mandy says
I had RAVED about my Dad’s coffee cake to my husband for a few years before actually making it myself. I was so excited to make it for him so he could know just HOW GOOD it is. Well…little did I know, Crisco expires. It was the worst thing I have ever eaten. Do not…I repeat DO NOT use expired Crisco.
Mary Beth says
I follow GLE on facebook.
Mary Beth says
Most of my kitchen disasters are pretty minor and are the result of me just being plain messy. One particular incident of mine was when I attempted to make a cake when my husband graduated from police academy. It took me three attempts to get the cake right and I ended up spending four hours in the kitchen straight. The results were worth it, but the experience was just too much. I didn’t bake another cake for a while!
Jenny says
My worst disaster was when I was probably 7 or 8. My mom and I were making instant pudding in a Tupperware shaker thingy. I didn’t get the lid on tight and I ended up shaking pistachio pudding all over the kitchen. It was quite a mess!
Shane R. says
I’ve also retweeted the message. Twitter name shangel24
Shane R. says
I’m now a fan of GoodLife eats on facebook
Shane R. says
My worst kitchen disaster happened a long time ago. My family made tacos one night for dinner. After we were done eating we put the oil that we used to make the shells back on the burner to heat it up and pour it in a can to dispose of.
I went to watch some T.V., Mom went to do the laundry, and Dad walked upstairs. We all forgot about the oil and in a short while later the oil burst into flames. My mom fortunately walked into the kitchen just as this was happening and started screaming. Dad flew downstairs and tried to help her put the fire out but in his rushing spilled a lot of the boiling flaming grease all over the counter top.
Luckily the kitchen didn’t burn down and they were able to pour a bunch of flour on the fire and grease to get it to extinguish. It was definitely the worst thing to ever happen in my kitchen.
SandyN says
I follow GLE on facebook.
SandyN says
My worst disaster would have to be when the pan of bacon started on fire and I had to use the fire extinguisher on it. Couldn’t believe how messy that powdery stuff is!!! And it was EVERYWHERE!!!! I’m very careful when I cook bacon now!!
Nancy L says
Also a fan on Facebook!
Nancy L says
I wanted to make the most delicious apple pie ever, so I really piled the apples in – but when I baked the pie, the juices started boiling over and by the time I caught it, I had smoke pouring from the oven!! And then the smoke detectors had to go off too! Man, what a mess!
Phong says
I am a fan of GoodLifeEats on Facebook.
Phong says
I tweeted about the giveaway!
Corissa Davidson says
My favorite kitchen disaster was when my boys were 3 and 5 they were playing trains on the dining table while I was baking. I had finished my project and went to check on the baby, then I was going to straighten up the kitchen, but when I came back it had snowed on the island of sodor and Thomas needed a snowplow to push my just opened 5lb bag of flour around the island. π It was a huge mess but one I did right I sat and played with them and then we all cleaned it up. It made a wonderful memory for all of us, I laugh when they say Mom remember when it snowed in sodor.
Phong says
The worst one I’ve ever had has got to be baking chocolate chip cookies without a recipe. They turned out to super hard and tasted like flour. YUM!
Kelly @ The Nourishing Home says
I have two kitchen disasters to share – one was the cliche “leaving the top off of the blender” incident. I thought I had secured the top and I had not and you can guess the rest – the soup I was trying to puree went EVERY WHERE!!! Ugh! What a mess to clean up! The second disaster was I tripped while walking with a big bowl full of milk and the bowl dumped right on my cabinetry. I had to pull out all the drawers and hand wipe everything from top to bottom (having to take everything out of drawers and wash it all. Oh my goodness, I was almost in tears, but my sweet family helped me and we got it all back in order in under 30 minutes. YIKES! So glad these things don’t happen often. Thanks for the fun of reading through all these kitchen disasters. Some of these are really funny! Blessings, kel
Gigi Cuccaro says
When I was in high school my mom asked me to chop up onions for enchiladas. I placed the onion in the food processor. Started to pulse. Phone rang and I hit the on button. When I got back to my onions, I had water and onion membrane in the bowl. My mom just laughed at me, mom handed me a knife and cutting board. Start chopping! I cried! Not really! Learned my lesson one should never cook and talk on the phone.
kate@ahealthypassion says
tweeted
kate@ahealthypassion says
I’m a fan on facebook!
Angelica says
im also a facebook fan!
Angelica says
when I first had a kitchenaid mixer, I was so excited that i offered to bake a huge birthday cake. they wanted black icing, and making it was a disaster! plus, the cake wouldnt fit in the box at the end and eventually cracked. i was so upset!
Miranda says
Tweeted:
https://twitter.com/randi094/status/57871881843380224
Caroline K says
I am a facebook fan π
Caroline K says
My most recent kitchen fail….I was trying to multi-task, and fix several things at once. Learned it was not such a good idea – at least on this day. Made granola stuck it in the oven…forgot the timer. Meanwhile, I am trying to make hummus – blender stops working, have to use the small cuisinart – not the easiest thing to do. Then I start to smell the granola – BURNT to crisp. So, granola went in the trash, and the hummus did not turn out very smooth. Oh, well….always next time!
Rachel says
I’m a fan on facebook! π
Rachel says
I have kitchen disasters all the time, but rather than mischievous kid disasters, they are more of the recipe fail type. I’m actually trying a new recipe tonight and I told my husband at dinner last night that the back-up plan is going out for pizza!
Miranda says
Ive had few kitchen mishaps because I’m hardly ever in the kitchen :::blush::: ;)!
Katie R says
I am a facebook fan!
jeannette says
I was in charge of thanksgiving day dessert. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone, but when you’re going to your new boyfriends’ family dinner meeting the extendefamily… Its a high pressure situation. I scoured the internet for recipes and finally decided to go with a ‘better than starbucks’ lemon pound cake (because the now mother in law LOVES lemin, not that I was trying to suck up or anything π ) once I found the recipe and had the ingredients it was about 11pm the day before turkey day and I was tired and apparently not in my right mind. But I churned along paying as best attention to the recipe I could, begged the baking gods for a miracle, and popped the cake in the oven while I took a much deserved rest on the couch (very involved recipe). I woke with a start because of the smoke alarms going off. I RAN to the oven to find something resembling the BLOB coming out of my oven. The cake managed to explode in my oven and ooze alllll over the oven floor. It looked like a science experiment gone wrong. I panicked, ripped the cake out (ruined oven mitts in the process) and tossed it in the sink. There was no time left to try anything else (or clean the oven) so I did wh any respectable baker would do: opened the kitchen door to air it out, put a baking sheet on the lower rack and put the cake back in the oven. It eventually stopped oozing and started cooking and it only took 2 hours longer than the recipe stated. *sigh* after the shrunken cake was baked (finished cake was only 3 inches high) I had the oven to clean. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night. But on the bright side, what was left of the cake was delicious and my mother in law ate almost half of it by herself π
Katie R says
I tweeted! (@carrotrunr)
Katie R says
I had a huge disaster in the kitchen when my boyfriend was mixing a bowl of cookie dough. He the handheld mixer was off,a dn he was trying to remove the beaters. Instead of pressing the eject button, he hit the ‘beat at full speed’ button, causing cookie dough to go flying everywhere. That was fun to clean up….cookie dough was on the walls, ceiling, floor, behind appliances…
Tricia b says
I was making burnt sugar almonds and took that literally. There was no saving the pan, the spoon, the smell was awful and it turned into a rock. The pan was half of the steamer pot and it tools months to find a replacement. I can still remember the smell. Yuck
Heather says
I was hosting my first Pampered Chef show when my friend/pampered chef consultant asked me to boil water. I turned on what I thought was the back burner, but really it was the front burner that had her pizza stone resting on it. Needless to say the direct heat caused the stone to pretty much combust and cause flames. As the guests were entering the house, they kept commenting on the smoke. Oops. Now I always make sure to put my stone on the counter when I need it out of the way and not on the stove.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
Facebook fan, of course.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
Tweeted it.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
That totally looks like something my kids would do. I could name several, but one that stands out is when I woke up at 5am to this loud crunching sound. I came downstairs to find my then 2yo had torn open six brand new boxes of cereal, proceeded to dump them all over the floor, and was running around on the flakes crunching them up. What a mess!
Julie says
I’ve been known the leave the stove on…all day…while I went to work. I amazed I haven’t burned down my house yet!
Patricia says
Was on the phone with my 18 month old son’s doctor, when he managed to get a gallon can of Crisco oil out, open it and pour it all over the kitchen!
Also, once my husband was melting lead in a small cast iron skillet on the stove. (He was using it to make bullets for his Kentucky long rifle.) Unfortunately, there were some impurities in it and it exploded. Lead splatters are really hard to get off your walls!
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
http://twitter.com/#!/chamoqueen/status/57859587528863744
Followed on Twitter @chamoqueen and became a fan on FB.
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1384327146
Shared on FB.
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
My worst kitchen disaster; almost leading to 5 funerals… was: One late winter night, my hubby decides to go boil water and went back into the room and dozed of… Well, I heard a very faint smoke alarm and woke up; I nudged my hubby to go check. He jumped off the bed like it was on fire…I got alarmed and went to check it out. The pot had evaporated the water, and when hubby lifted it; metal was actually drippings everywhere on the floor because the bottom of the pot melted. I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SLEEP well after that night.
Candice Eley says
Sadly, as someone who claims to be a decent cook, I have many. There were the couple early on in my learning to cook/bake in college, like when I got a tiny tabletop grill for my deck, tried to grill scallops for my then-boyfriend (now husband), and they turned out black on the outside and cold in the middle. Or the first Christmas I spent with his family where I made a peppermint chocolate layer cake and someone asked “What’s that crunch? Does it have a cookie crumb layer on the bottom?” No, it was just burnt around the edges.
But the worst for me was the one that never got served – worst, because I should have known better after years of baking. I was entering a pie contest and rather than going with my trusty and much loved Dutch apple, I decided to try a new one. I can’t even remember exactly what the pie was (I think it was maple-ginger pumpkin, because I wanted something more “exotic”) and I was using a pie crust recipe I had never tried. I didn’t want to use shortening as the recipe stated (because of the artificiality), so I used butter instead. When I baked the crust, it didn’t so much bake as it did melt into a giant, runny blob in the the center of the pan. Totally unusable.
I managed to salvage the pie by making a quick gingersnap pressed crust on the spot, but for all the effort, the pie was mediocre, and I totally didn’t win. Not even close!
Rachael says
I have long been the official mashed potatoes maker in my family, a position passed to me from my grandma. Christmas ten years ago, my mom made the potatoes instead of me. We still do not understand what happened to those potatoes but something happened; something bad happened. They turned into glue! We still joke about the mortar mashed potatoes to this day!
Kayla says
When my son was about 18 months old he loved playing with pots and pans and pretending to cook. One day he went in the cupboard and got out a pot, went into the pantry and dumped a newly opened box of baking soda and proceeded to “cook”. It wasn’t nearly as bad as yours sounds, and when he looked up at me with his big blue eyes and a look of pure joy when I found him, all I could do was laugh and take pictures!
When my hubby was about 3 years old he dumped a canister of flour all over my mother-in-law’s freshly waxed, not yet dry floor. When she found him, she naturally was rather upset, til he looked up at her with his big blue eyes and said “but I love you mommy”.
I heat up my oven just a little then turn it off to make a proofing box for my yeast doughs. I forgot the turn it off part the other day till I heard the oven beep to tell me it was heated all the way up to 350. The dough had risen nearly to the top of the bowl and the plastic wrap had completely disappeared.
Aimee @ Simple Bites says
I tweeted too!
Aimee @ Simple Bites says
I’m a huge fan on FB!!
Lara says
My most recent worst moment – I was making my hubby homemade green tea ice cream for his birthday. After carefully steeping, tempering, and preparing the ice cream base, I proceeded to pour half of it down my legs and into my shoes as I tried to pour it into the ice cream maker.
Shaina says
I’m a fan!
Shaina says
I tweeted!
Amber | Bluebonnets & Brownies says
I’m a fan of GoodLife Eats on facebook!
Amber | Bluebonnets & Brownies says
I tweeted the contest!
Christopher Sorel says
like goodLife {eats} on facebook
Christopher Sorel says
tweeted http://twitter.com/#!/cjsorel/status/57855498527059969
Christopher Sorel says
was making a cake for my son and the buttercream frosting was whipping away, My daught went to try but it just started and was hot egg white with sugar. burned her finger and tongue..knocked over the cake…hit the mixer to the floor…everything all over the place…mixer broken. Never leave the room now
Elizabeth says
Hey Katie! That’s a pretty funny story. I’ve had plenty of kitchen disasters involving my children. One of my most memorable was when Austin was 2 years old. He climbed on the counter, got the cinnamon, and sprinkled it throughout the house – all over the kitchen counters and floors and then into the living room and all over the carpet. It cleaned up pretty easily, though. Thank goodness.
Wendy Bussell says
I was about 23, just moved in to a home with a friend and wanted to celebrate my growing up. So I decided that a cake was in order. Not just any cake, but a bundt cake with pudding in the middle. (This was about 20 years ago now.) The cake came out of the oven, and not reading the directions correctly, I turned it over on to a plate to release from the pan. It was a very good thing that I was near the sink! As I lifted the pan off of the cake, the whole cake collapased into a steaming hot, blobby mess! I instantly wiped it all into the sink and turned on the disposer! It was horrible. I never even let on that I had tried to do this and no one was the wiser!
Heather Bandura says
My worst kitchen disaster was the morning of a 40-person sit-down holiday dinner party. We have this beautiful stone backsplash and I was always paranoid that spaghetti sauce or something else would splash up while cooking. And because it was stone, it would soak in. My brilliant husband thought it would be great to keep a large piece of plexiglass behind the range when doing heavy cooking like I was for this dinner party. It actually did the trick and didn’t look bad at all…but we never thought about safety!
So I was up very early that monring and first task at hand was boiling my potatoes for smoked gouda mashed potatos. As I’m sure many of you can relate I was the ultimate multi-tasker that morning – boiling the potatoes, setting up the rented tables, decorating for the party, making my coffee etc. I stepped out of the room to handle the many other items on my to-do list. When I came back, the potato water had overboiled and the flame had caught the plexiglass, causing it to go up in flames as well. I screamed for my hubby who was still sleeping (as were the kids). He quickly got the fire out but the bigger mess was the melted plexiglass combined with potato starch all over our stainless steel Kitchen Aid range. Although we never did get it all off, and I never have replaced the range trim and grates where most of the damage was, the “scars” actually don’t bother me as much anymore as it reminds me that I am a real home cook who actually uses her appliances. It’s not just a showcase kitchen (which is what i always remind myself when I go in the gorgeous kitchens of my non-cooking friends).
mary says
disaster #2
my exhusband did not cook , he grilled
grilled like there was no tomorrow and was good at it.
i liked to par boil chicken wings and legs before grilling so i put a bunch on the stove to do just that and i had to leave for work…reminding him to take them off the stove in ten minutes then they were ready to grill.
he forgot.
he told me when he went down into the boat for something all he saw was a pan with little water and bones sticking up all over.
fast forward to when i get home….
there is a beautiful chicken and rice casserole waiting for me…it looked GOOD!
so he told me the tale of forgetting about the chicken and decided to make the casserole instead.
i was starving and took a bite….first bite was boiled skin and fat…NOT chicken meat.
gross.
i said to him ..what the heck did you do?
he told me “i just removed the bones and put everything else in there”
i made him eat the whole thing.
mary says
i used to live on a 42 foot sailboat, and i had a small but very busy 3 burner stove and 3/4 size oven. my exhusband was very impulsive when it came to taking the boat out for a sail.
keep in mind living aboard means putting lots of things away and securing them before you go out sailing about.
i decided that day (BEFORE he planned on a sail) that i was going to make stuffed shells…so yummy right?
well out we go, the stove is gimballed so no biggie it will move as the boat does so no spills or any mishaps, or so you would think.
at the sixth beer in him he started stearing the rather large sailboat as if it were a nascar race, and did a massive turn JUST as i was locking the gimbal and opening the oven to take the shells (the HOT shells) out of the oven~of course without warning.
the entire 13×9 lucious bubbling goodness slide from the pan onto the brand new rug right in front of my feet!
after a few explatives(very loudly i might add) i calmly picked up the new rug with it’s dinner ontop of it, rolled up like a taco…tossed it overboard and told him to get me to the dock RIGHT NOW.
yep we didn’t have that particular meal for a long long time.
i have another one about the time he attempted to cook…haha
Tickled Red says
Oh we could go waaaaay back to the very first meal of Lemon Chicken that I made for my surfer that nearly turned his face inside out it was so sour or we could drum up my recent fail with my strawberry cheesecake goo. Yep it was supposed to be a cheesecake but it ended up being parfait instead π
Katie says
I had to dump brownies recently. It was a new recipe and they never set. I hate wasting ingredients!
Kelly G says
I burn everything. I don’t know why I insist on cooking everything on super high heat….but unfortunately I do. The other night I was making a marinade (for Houston’s Hawaiian Rib Eyes). I boiled over the marinade FIVE times and my boyfriend and I cleaned the entire stove between each time. He eventually got so pissed that he got a HUGE spaghetti pot for me to finish boiling the small amount of marinade in so I wouldn’t boil it over again. Oops!
Felice - All That's Left Are The Crumbs says
Not necessarily cooking, but we were making shave ice. The gallon size bottle of flavoring fell off the counter, bounced once, and then split open spilling the contents all over the floor. I don’t know how many times we mopped the floor before we could no longer feel our feet sticking to the tiles.
Katie says
That is how I felt with the sprinkles. I kept finding them no matter how many times i swept or vacuumed. It took a while to get rid of all of them.
Jeanne in Toledo says
I was 14. I was giving a speech in the County 4-H competition, and was going over my words while I prepped dinner. My sister got out of the shower and, since it was my turn, I ran upstairs. Midway thru said shower, shampoo in my hair and all, the shower curtain was ripped open by a total stranger who screamed “Get outta here – your house is on fire!” I grabbed a towel and joined my family on the front lawn, mortified, as it became apparent that I didn’t turn off the burner under the pot of oil for french fries after all!
I did $8000 in damage to the kitchen.
My dad’s comment? It’s the only thing you didn’t do half-assed this month!
My mom’s comment? I hated those countertops for 15 years – thanks!
The ultimate embarrassment? The topic of my speech was “Safety in the Home”. (I took 2nd)
Jamie says
Hi Katie….in college I was baking some oven fries….I couldn’t find a pot holder so I grabbed a dish rag with some fringes on the end. The rag caught fire and the flames burnt my hand and sent the dorm’s fire alarm off. So there was a fire evacuation because of me and that stupid fringy rag.
Katie says
I have done that before! Not fire-alarm kind of fire, but where the towel got a little charred.
Katie says
One of my favorite and most memorable Valentine’s Day dinners was the first year my husband and I were married. I was working from home in our very first apartment together and had spent the day working on what I thought would be a really exciting and yummy dessert: s’more brownies. I’m a die-hard s’more fan, so I thought this sounded like the perfect dessert. Everything was going great. My graham cracker crust was golden, the brownies were looking gooey and delicious. All I needed to do was pop them back in the oven to roast the marshmallows. Easy peasy! I should have remembered how flammable marshmallows were from my camping experience but didn’t think much of it. A couple of minutes later with flames shooting out of the oven, that little detail came roaring back. Thankfully I was able to quickly extinguish the flames, but the brownies were ruined. We still laugh about it to this day and, even though we didn’t have dessert, my husband turned it into a positive by complimenting me for how calm I was in a crisis. It made me love him more.
Maria Malaveci says
My worst kitchen disaster happened many, many years ago. I had just finished up with dishes and turned on the garbage disposal. It didn’t sound right. Turned it off and on a couple times and looked inside, but didn’t see anything. I was young, I looked in it of course, and right when the glass exploded (a small one that had fallen inside) I turned my head! Glass everywhere. Boy oh boy was I sure lucky!
Maria
Katie says
Yes you were! I hate putting my hand down the garbage disposal to check for things. It makes me shudder.
Erin at $5 Dinners says
I charred a pot of beans as I was boiling them. Got a little distracted with a conversation on Skype and completely forgot they were on the stove.
The house reeked for days!
Erin
One Dish Dinners says
I recently burned my oven mitt by putting it on the stovetop…that was off, but still burning hot.
Thankfully we haven’t had too many “kid aided” disasters!
Good luck!
Katie says
So scary! Thank goodness you were home and caught it!
Nila reese says
My worst kitchen disaster was probably when the turkey brine bag broke and liquid and turkey went all over the floor. Not a fun cleanup.
Katie says
Ewwww! Big mess!
Sylvie @ Gourmande in the Kitchen says
Kitchen disasters happen for me all the time, mainly when I’m tired and trying to move too quickly in the kitchen. I end up dropping everything and forgetting what I’m supposed to be doing. Those are the days I just want to say “I give up” and go back to bed!
Ani says
Hmmm… My biggest kitchen disaster.. There really are so many to choose from.
I will probably go with my Valentine Cake. I enjoy cooking, but I love to bake, so much that some of my husband’s friends refer to me as “master baker.” Well, around Valentine’s day, I decided to try a white chocolate peppermint cake. I dyed the cake batter pink with my food coloring and baked it in my heart-shaped pans. It was a new recipe, and I thought it baked a little weird, because it was cooked on the sides but the middle was still quite uncooked. I left it in until it was solid in the middle.
I frosted it with delicious white chocolate peppermint frosting, and spent a lot of time making it look pretty for our company the next day. I was even behaved enough not to sneak a piece before they arrived. However, when we cut into the cake the color looked gray around the edges. I tried the cake and it was bitter and horrible. Yuck! I think I messed up with the baking soda/baking powder or something, it was completely inedible. So much for being a “master baker.” π
Allison C says
I wasn’t thinking this fall and I placed an apple tart I was making on a cookie sheet (with no edges). About 5 minutes in to baking the kitchen starts getting super smokey. Then ALL of the smoke detectors go off in my apartment. At this point I was freaking out because there is SOOO much smoke and I didn’t know how to stop it. I had all of the windows open and the fans going, but it was not helping. I finally give up and called my mom for help before the hallway alarm went off and the fire department was alerted. Of course, my mom came to the rescue and told me to poor salt over the burning sugar on the bottom of the oven. My tart was ruined and the next day I spent the entire morning scrapping and cleaning our oven, but at least I did not have to evacuate the entire building. Now every time I set the smoke detector off or one is going off on the TV my poor dog panics and hides in the bathroom because I freaked him out so much that night. Oops! Lesson learned!
Katie says
I spent a couple hours baking a beautiful banana bread. I like to try variations, so I tried different ingredients and I was so excited for my family to try it. I was letting it finish cooling on the counter, and ran downstairs for a minute. I heard the dog tag rattling, but I thought he was just chewing on a bone. When I walked upstairs and looked at the counter, I saw a horrible sight, my dog at the entire top half off of my bread…so sad, I never got to try it!
Katie says
Yikes! We don’t have any pets, but I have a certain 3 year old who might do that same thing on occasion.
Sheilah Miller says
When I was first married I was making a stew in the crock pot and it just wasn’t cooking, so to hurry things up I put in on the stove. Yep, crack went the bottom and stew flowed on the stove, floor and sink.
Katie says
Uh oh!
colleen says
When I was 17 I took on the feat of cooking a turkey. I was used to roasting chickens so I figured it couldn’t be any different. I was not aware that a turkey has 2 compartments for the organ meats to hide in (they seem to fit all of that stuff inside 1 cavity in the chicken). After about an hour into the cooking I smelled plastic I checked the stove but didn’t see anything. Well needless to say I took the perfectly browned bird out and discovered the oozing mess. grrrrrrr
Katie says
Oh no! Congratulations on tackling a turkey at 17. That’s a big job!
Ruth says
My daughter was actually the culprit, at about age 12. She decided to make “silly putty” while I was at work, and didn’t realize there was a difference between mineral OIL and mineral SPIRITS. Fortunately, no fire, but the smell was awful!
Amanda says
I was once making Mexican wedding cookies. I was on my fourth and final batch from the oven. All of the finished cookies were all rolled in powdered sugar and cooling nearby on the countertop. Upon rolling my very last cookie, I went to move the glass bowl filled with the powdered sugar and in the process, slammed it against my countertop. The glass bowl shattered and sent powdered sugar and glass everywhere – all over the counters, all over the floor, and most likely all over my beautiful cookies! It all went into the trash. I actually cried from the absolutely anticlimactic disappointment of it all.
AnnMarie J says
Good luck winning. I am so glad my 6 year old never did this! Yet…..
Katie says
Thank you!
Michelle says
When I was probably about 12 or so, I decided to cook some hamburger helper, so dinner would be ready when my parents got home (I was with my two older sisters). I didn’t know what “browning” the hamburger meant, so I just left it raw, and went on with the recipe. Needless to say, the hamburger didn’t cook, and it was a hot mess. My mom tried to save it by finishing it in the oven when she got home, but it was definitely a lost cause.
Mark Scarbrough says
Absolutely . . . horrifying! Wow. I don’t know what I’d say. But I do know we had a terrible disaster once when a bottle of cranberry juice shattered in a 5 x 5 pantry that held a fridge and a wine cellar. Seems we were cleaning sticky stuff off the flour under things for weeks. But that somehow pales in comparison to this.
Jennifer says
My worst disaster was the first and only time I have made a pecan pie. It was right after we had gotten married and we had moved away to California. I used my mom in laws recipe and was so proud since it was my hubby’s favorite pie. Unfortunately, it exploded in the oven. Literally exploded. There were pieces all over that oven. To this day, 17 years later, I still don’t know why it did that and I have yet to attempt pecan pie again. I have made tons of other dishes, many of them more difficult and I am a pretty good cook, but I am intimidated by pecan pie. π
Laurie says
I’ve always enjoyed having big gatherings at Thanksgiving. I consider it “MY” holiday and friends & family know that it will be at my house.
One year we were down to the final steps and I was making the turkey gravy. I had one of the kids get my large container of cornstarch out of the pantry. I kept adding more and more and it wasn’t thickening up as it should have. I was getting lots of comments to hurry up so we could get dinner on the table and more than a few folks dipping fingers to taste test. The comment in general was it was really sweet. Come to find out, they had brought out the container of powdered sugar which was the same as the cornstarch. We enjoyed our thin sweetened gravy that year and I learned to mark my containers since I always buy in bulk.
Beth Richards says
So many meals, so many disasters:
I forgot to add sugar to a blueberry pie, special birthday dinner for my dad.
I left the bread rise too long and had to bake it off the sides of the oven.
Steaks on Indoor grill caused smoke alarm to go off, waking up sleeping baby while toddler was stinking up kitchen with his own proud moment: showing guests his poo-poo in his potty chair.
Toddler added his own ingredients to large simmering pot of homemade applesauce: garlic powder.
Nicole says
My mother is a typical italian being an amazing cook. So the first time we decided to make homemade tiramisu for a very sick family friend I completely trusted her expertise. We used a handwritten recipe from her mother, my grandmother, and attempted to follow it to the letter. We even went as far as going to the very expensive gormet market down the road to buy the best ingredients possible, this was going to be the best, albet the most expensive tiramisu ever. At one point it said 1cup ground coffee. I followed my mothers lead and we continued to make the recipe. At the point when it was to go into the oven, my mother took a cooks taste of what was left in the bowl and made a funny face. I asked ‘whats wrong we followed the recipe to the letter’. She said ‘I am guessing when your grandmother said 1cup ground coffee she ment brewed not grounds.’ Needless to say we both learned the lesson tiramisu is not supposed to be ‘crunchy’.
Jen at The Three Little Piglets says
My husband got me some of those cute collapsible measuring cups for Mother’s Day (which I asked for). A few weeks later I was making biscotti, popped it into the oven and went to sit down and relax while it baked. This horrible smell starts wafting out of the kitchen, and upon entering the kitchen realize the biscotti how dripped down over the edge of the pan and was on fire at the bottom of the oven. Turns out I hadn’t popped the measuring cups all the way open and I only added about half of the flour the recipe called for! Don’t think I’ll be making that mistake anytime again soon! The oven was an absolute nightmare to clean.
Breann says
I burn the French/garlic/sourdough/rye bread, not to mention the white/wheat/cinnamon rolls… every single time. Sometimes to the point of flames. It is not an uncommon sight for my kids to see me rushing out the back door with a flaming broiler pan. So common in fact my Husband no longer rushes to my aid, he just calmly asks from the barka-lounger “again?”
Kaella Wilson says
What a great story! According to my mom, we all get payback for what we did to our parents with we have children of our own. No children for me yet, but I know I’m in for it π
bridget {bake at 350} says
Hmm….probably a pie that bubbled over on the over floor and FILLED the house with smoke…and set off the alarms….all right before hubby got home from work!
Marlis says
I guess the worst disasters happened at the same Thanksgiving party. The evening before I placed a gargantuan, free-range, organic turkey in a large plastic bag. Then I poured wonderfully seasoned buttermilk brine in there and closed the zipper closure, just like the instructions said. As I was placing the 24 lb bird in the bottom of my fridge the zipper oppened spilling easily a half gallon of buttermilk and seasonings all over my kitchen floor. Fortunately I reacted quicly and was able to save much of the brine which hadn’t spilled. I learned… don’t follow manufacturer instructions but use abundant amounts of sturdy rubber bands and rope to close a bag holding a large bird along with copious amounts of liquid. I had to move appliances etc to clean the buttermilk away and it took forever. The next day, while whipping cream with my immersion blender and chatting with our company, I lifted the blender out of the cream forgetting that it was still running. We haven’t laughed this hard since. Whipped cream was everywhere! My clothes, hair, face, every cabinet door, wall, counter and even the ceiling. I continued to find cream splatters in unexpected places for weeks.
Jill @ Dulce Dough says
Oh what a mess Katie!
I have had lots of kitchen disasters, but the one I remember most was one my mom made. She was making chocolate sheet cake while talking on the phone. She really messed up the ingredients and the cake came out of the oven looking like brownies. They tasted awful! Grosser than gross! I remember my dad coming home from work and being very excited to see my mom had made brownies. I think he took about three bites before he realized that something was very wrong with my mom’s “brownies”. I will never forget the look on his face!
Jennifer says
The kitchen disaster I hate remembering is when I struggled for fifteen minutes to open the sewn top of my 10 lb. bag of jasmine rice, then turned my back to put the rice on the stove, only to turn back around and find the entire bag of rice spilled out all over the floor!
Marlis says
Ohh that is funny. I bet you found rice for months.
Dianne says
I loved this post. Not only did I love to laugh at the mess your little made, I loved your sharing your feelings of sharing with her your love of cooking.
Jamie Cuerrier says
When does this contest end?
Saleta says
The worst was just this past fall, when I hosted my first party ever. I had made a huge Mexican inspired meal for about 20 people. While everyone is carving pumpkins and playing games, I started to prepare the rice. I had to stir it a few times, so after I did (and had run out of space everywhere else) I just set the rubber spatula on the back of the oven/stove. BAD IDEA. A few minutes later I smelled a weird smell and jumped up to see what it was. The rubber spatula had fallen onto the stove, onto the hot burner, and had melted all over the pot and the burner. I still don’t know how, but I was able to submerge what was left of the spatula in water and take care of the mess without anyone being the wiser. Sad thing is that earlier that evening a guest commented on how pretty that particular spatula was and how she wanted one. Sigh. I want one now too. hahaha
Susie D. says
The turkey that leaked through its packaging as it thawed in the fridge, seeping into every crevice it could find, pooling in my veggie bins. UGH!
Jane says
I cant imagine the green food coloring everywhere, what a mess! The disaster that comes to mind first actually happened while I was in the shower. My twins were two at the time (and I dared to take a shower after a 3 mile run, I know – I should have just stayed sweaty) and they decided to heat up a snack in the microwave. They managed to start the microwave on fire, destroyed it and covered the whole house with stinky, black smoke. My house smelled like we are chain smokers for a long time. The same day they decided to break a carton of eggs . . . on the carpet.
Katie says
Oh no! I can’t imagine having 2 of Madeline. She is always into something. One time she got into Vaseline…not fun to clean up.
Addie says
I was cooking for myself, my husband and a friend and decided to experiment with making up my own recipe. i thought of this chicken i like at chili’s and thought i would try to do something similar & call it margarita chicken. i added spices, lime juice and TEQUILA to the chicken in the cooking dish and popped it in the oven. about 25 minutes later i went to check on dinner. when i leaned down and opened the oven door a burst of flame shot out of the oven and hit me in the face. can you say backdraft? i proceeded to scream bloody murder and run into the living room, where my hubby & our friend were watching TV, hitting my head and screeching “is my hair on fire?! is my hair on fire?!?!??!” i had, in fact, singed quite a bit of hair right in front and it hasn’t grown quite the same since. i consider myself lucky that’s all that happened! needless to say we ate out that night and i have never used liquor to experiment in the kitchen again!
Rhiannon says
I hate sprinkles for that very reason. And that I don’t like crunchy things.
I can’t imagine how bad that was to clean up, and reminds me of the few times that I’ve spilled sugar on the floor and wanted to just scream.
Katie says
I put shoes on for the rest of the day so I wouldn’t have to feel the crunchy sugar on my feet. I can’t stand the feeling of a dirty floor which is what made this especially annoying for me.
Maureen says
Let’s begin by saying that I am a WANNA BE. In just about everything, but especially cooking and baking. I will always be on the outside looking in, wishing that was me, creating those beautiful edibles. It’s never going to be me, I know this, and my worst kitchen disaster involved one of those times that I had a lapse in judgement, and saw someone else do something nifty and I said “Hey, I CAN DO THAT.”
I wanted to make my own chocolate Easter baskets. Really simple- buy balloons, buy super expensive chocolate, blow up the balloons, melt the chocolate and get artsy! I was supposed to be able to make these pretty, delicate chocolate baskets by gently rolling the balloon into the chocolate, or drizziling the chocolate to make a nest like pattern, but instead, the balloons burst and chocolate went EVERYWHERE. Melted dark chocolate was on the walls, on the celiing, on the light fixtures, on the top of the fridge, on the curtains, on the ceiling fan and on the cat. I don’t give up easy, I tried again, with chocolate I felt was less hot, but the same thing happened. The balloon burst, the chocolate sprayed as far as it could and I spent 3 hours cleaning it up. There is still a chocolate stain in a corner of the ceiling that I think only I notice and its there to remind me that I am not allowed to experiment on my own. Or in my own kitchen.
Nicole Anderson says
It was my husband’s birthday and he was at work so I took the opportunity to make a cake for him. It was perfect, rich chocolate mousse in between layers of chocolate cake and iced with beautiful chocolate frosting. My husband won’t eat cake unless it’s all chocolate so I spent hours on this cake, I even decorated it! He called to say he was on his way home from work so I ran into the bedroom to change real quick and grab my camera to take a photo of the cake. My mistake…I left the cake on the counter. Guess what I found out? Cats like cake. I walked out to find my cat, face and paws covered in chocolate, enjoying my husband’s cake. Needless to say, the husband got a good laugh and I will never get back those 5 hours of my life hahaha!
Kelly says
In my most expensive cooking disaster, I had heated something in a ceramic bowl in the microwave. The bowl was extremely hot, but I didn’t realize this as I grabbed it with both hands and pulled it out of the microwave. In the two seconds that it took for my hands to just clear the microwave door, the pain set in and I dropped the bowl–onto my ceramic cooktop stove. The bowl shattered, and so did the ceramic cooktop. It would have cost as much to replace the cooktop as to get a whole new range, so I had to throw away a perfectly good oven and buy a new range.
LisaS says
Probably my worst kitchen disaster came on an afternoon when I was rushing to put away groceries. I had the refrigerator open, putting away the milk, and suddenly the cardboard carton of the 12 pack of cokes I was hold tore. The first 3 or 4 burst on impact, spraying diet soda all the way up to the 10′-0″ ceiling, into the fridge, soaking everything on every shelf, filling the cat food bowls, and splattering the cans, bags, and boxes on our adjacent open pantry shelves. I was so surprised I dropped the gallon of milk, which also broke open, flooding the entire eastern half of our kitchen with white-and-brown mixed liquids. I’m not even going to say how long it took to remove everything from every shelf and clean it … and I had to wait for my husband to come home and move the refrigerator so I could clean up the soaked dust bunnies. ugh.
elfchique says
Sadly, my biggest kitchen disaster was with a pampered chef recipe. Pampered chef has a recipe for Spinach and Salmon bundled in phyllo. It’s one of our favorites. But after my experience it’s not one to take shortcuts on. Kitchen messes are a regularity at our house as I have a two year old cooking companion. He had been helping wilt the spinach so there was spinach on the counter. And the floor. And probably behind the oven. But let’s not think about what’s behind the oven, shall we? But there was still some spinach wilting in the pan. I didn’t have the proper herb butter to slather on the salmon so I was already improvising (aka making a bigger mess) trying to make a garlic herb butter. It wasn’t going well either. I was trying to mix cream cheese and butter and the herbs, but the butter was rock hard and putting it in the microwave would have melted it beyond all recognition and it’s already 5:15pm and panic is setting in. The salmon is the only ingredient not causing me to hyperventilate at this point. Of course, all I’ve done is cut it to the proper size and it’s sitting undisturbed on the counter. Now you may not think this is a miracle. But you’d be wrong. When you’re cooking with a two year old, anything that sits undisturbed for any length of time is considered a blessing. It didn’t sit undisturbed for long. He started poking it. I started yelling. Poke. Yell. Poke. Yell. Cry. Comfort. Poke. Yell. Kick out of kitchen. Cry. Comfort. Try and get back in kitchen. I finally make the herb butter work. But not without breaking out in a sweat. It’s now close to 5:45 and I want to cry. The kid is hungry. The kitchen is a disaster. I’m hungry. And the husband is going to be home any minute. Dinner is not ready. I pull the phyllo out of the fridge. It’s still frozen. I consult the side of the box for thawing time. It says thawing time is 2 hours on the counter. I am near tears. I make attempts to thaw quickly. All fail. I know this because as I am attempting to work with the phyllo, it shreds. Rendering it totally unusable. The outside of the phyllo roll was thawed but somewhat dried out and the inside was still frozen and dried out and any attempts to pull it apart left me in tears. Now, the most embarrassing part of this cooking disaster was my reaction. I threw it. Across the kitchen onto a counter at which the phyllo did sort of a phyllo explosion. Or maybe it shattered. Either way. It wasn’t pretty. The husband came home and I promptly came unglued. First the yelling. Not at anyone in particular. But yelling, nonetheless. Then tears. Then I sent myself to my room. And he got pizza for him and the kid. He cleaned the kitchen. So, my kitchen disaster is either a lesson in not taking shortcuts or a story of the world’s nicest most patient non judgmental husband ever. You pick.
Katie says
Phyllo and I are not friends. Not even good acquaintances.
The Happy Housewife says
My worst disaster happened the first year I was married. I cooked a Thanksgiving turkey for 14 hours! When we cut into it and started eating we realized it was still raw.
My oven only heated to 150 degrees and I had no idea until that day!
Toni
Jamie Cuerrier says
The first time I tried to make homemade bread without a breadmaker was a complete disaster. I figured the recipe seemed simple enough, some water, some yeast, flour and honey. Alright, mix water with yeast, add honey, add flour…right? Not so much. Apparently I either killed my yeast from too hot water, or the water wasn’t warm enough and they never activated. I set out the dough to rise for a couple hours, and when I came back I was surprised the dough was the same size as when I left. So I baked it anyway and… instead of two beautiful loaves of bread I got two dark brown nasty bricks! I have definitely learned my lesson!`
Katie's Dad says
Yep….it’s true.
And you know, parents can’t share all of their disasters with their kids. We have to keep some semblence of an image of the near perfect people we beleive ourselves to be.
Tracy says
When I was first learning to cook in college, I had a kitchen disaster with spaghetti. Having always watched my mom throw it into the pot whole, I did the same, not realizing at the time that her pot was a lot bigger than mine. A bunch of spaghetti spilled out into the burner and caught on fire! Fortunately, my roommate was there, and she helped me put it out. Still, it was really embarrassing. And our kitchen smelled like burnt pasta for a week. π
Katie's Dad says
OK….let’s travel back to my sophomore year in high school.
It wasn’t uncommon for our refrigerator to have a pot of used oil in it, which was periodically used to make French fries. The cold temperature of the refrigerator would cause the oil to solidify, so it would need to be warmed before its next use.
So, here was my plan for the day….put the oil on the stove to bring it back to the liquid stage, head to the bathroom for a quick morning shower, and then return and cook whatever it is I was going to cook..can’t remember any longer what wonderful delight I was planning to make that “fateful” morning.
For those of you that have teenagers, is there ever such a thing as a “quick” shower? Yea, I didn’t think so.
Much to my utter shock and dismay, when I got out of the shower that morning I found the kitchen on fire. The nice knotty pine cabinets were now charred black cabinets.
Fortunately, my older brother had come home before I finished my shower, and had the sense to put a lid on the pot of burning oil, and squelch the blazing fire before it could spread to the entire house. While it was a serious accident, it could have been much worse.
Insurance covered the damages, I lost some privileges for a while, and has become one of those stories that you laugh about at family get together….and now has become “my worst cooking experience”.
Katie says
Is this true??? How come you never told me this story?!?
Jamie | My Baking Addiction says
Dear Katie’s Dad-
I told Katie this afternoon that you should have your very own blog. You have a way with words that makes me take in and digest every single syllable! Which is quite an accomplishment because I have zero attention span! Great story!
-Katie’s Friend, Jamie
Katie's Dad says
Hmmm…..if I only had some extra time.
I do some writing for a technical magazine, and I’m always asking for permission to send in my articles after the deadline has passed.
Oh, and I’m certain that I will complete my taxes and get them submitted before Friday….hopefully.
But a blog will have to wait.
Judy (bakerwannabe) says
With two toddlers underfoot, I decided to make vegetable soup from scratch. Feeling very pleased with myself for chopping endless veggies and ending up with a huge, heavy pot of really good soup to surprise my husband and ill mother-in-law (who was a fabulous cook). Then picking it up to move from stove to counter, I proceeded to drop the entire pot and contents all over the kitchen, walls, ceiling, toddlers and everything! I sat down in the middle of the mess and cried!!!!
Mandi @ Life Your Way says
Oh, man…I bet you were finding those sprinkles for WEEKS!
brooke says
I have 2 kitchen disasters that come to mind.
1. We went to pick up Indian food for dinner, bring it home and as Im taking my container out of the bag I somehow drop it sending green spinach curry flying EVERYWHERE. On the carpet, on the tile, on the walls, on the ceiling on the windows. I don’t know if I was more pissed about losing my dinner or having to clean up the mess afterward. For weeks after I was still finding curry splatters in random places.
2. We had a valentines “top chef” cook off for our office. I found a recipe for chocolate cake in chocolate bowls and thought it looked easy enough. As I was making the bowls I got impatient and didnt let me melted chocolate cool off long enough. I dipped balloons in the chocolate, set them on a baking sheet and put them in the fridge. More than one balloon popped from the heat of the chocolate sending chocolate EVERYWHERE. In the fridge, outside the fridge, on the walls, on the floors. etc. The few that did survive turned out pretty well, but it will be awhile before I try making that again.
Deliciously Organic says
Friends were gathered at our home, weβd just finished our Thanksgiving meal and it was time to serve pie. Iβd made two pecan pies, two pumpkin pies, and a pumpkin banana tart. I sliced, served and looked over at my husband. Heβd just taken a bite of the pumpkin pie and had a sour look on his face. I quickly took a bite and made the same face. It tasted like soap! After a few minutes of speculation, I realized Iβd prepared the filling ahead of time and stored it in a mason jar that hadnβt been completely rinsed. It tasted terrible. Really. A few moments later there was a knock on the door. More friends arrived for dessert. The door opened and one of the little kids ran up and said, βHey! Come on in! But donβt eat any of the pumpkin pie. Itβs nasty.β Laughter erupted and I told them the story. The pumpkin pies went into the trash and we sliced up the tart and pecan pies and had a great time.
Debby G. says
My worst kitchen disaster happened back in college when my husband and I were dating. I was visiting him at his mother’s house and we decided to christen her brand new oven by baking a giant chocolate chip pan cookie. Unfortunately, we accidentally used powdered sugar instead of flour. It wasn’t long before the smoke alarm went off due to the bubbling concoction spilling over the sides of the pan and all over the bottom of her new oven. What a mess!
Katie says
Oh dear! my friend did that, only with a cake. Not something fun to clean up!
Ronda C. says
Mine is not nearly so dramatic but cucumbers, though delicious do not belong in tuna salad. They get weird and too much squish factor for one food.
megan @ whatmegansmaking says
When I was in junior high I was making cookies for a bake sale, but somehow I left out all the flour! They were very flat and very unedible π
Jamie | My Baking Addiction says
I have done this exact same thing! Sometimes it’s twitter or my phone that completely distracts me!
Sydney Davis says
My worst kitchen disaster happened recently. It was all my fault, the only thing I can blame it on is the drop in IQ that occurs during pregnancy! I was attempting to my yogurt from scratch for the first time. After you heat the milk and add the cultures, you need to keep the milk at 110 degrees. To do this, I put the bottle of milk (soon to be yogurt) in a styrofoam disposable cooler. To keep the cooler warm, I thought it would be a good idea to put it in the oven at 200 degrees. This turned out to be a horrible idea, melting the cooler, sending toxic fumes into the air, setting off the fire alarm and the carbon monoxide alarm and waking both of my napping kids. My oldest was crying inconsolably, convinced our house was burning down! We had to go to the neighbor’s house for two hours while we waiting for the alarms to go off and the smoke to clear out.
Maris (In Good Taste) says
Funny! I’m a pretty messy cook too and your counter did not look all that bad in the picture! Once I forgot I had bread cooking in the oven and left it in there for like 3 hours. It didn’t burn but the bread came out hard as a rock! Ha!
TidyMom says
oooh, I didn’t tell you about the time when my daughter read the directions wrong to heat up some honey bbq chicken in the microwave – she read the time for the oven and caught the microwave on fire!
TidyMom says
Oh I have many…….because I’m NOT tidy when it comes to baking or cooking.
My biggest mess though, was one time during the holidays when I was short on space and decided the oven was a good place to store some plastic containers filled with cookies and desserts………
I’m sure you know where this is going………..
out of sight, out of mind…..and a day later turned the oven on to preheat………biggest mess EVER to clean up!
Bethany O'Neill says
I was making a chocolate milkshake in a plastic blender and using a metal spoon to push the ice cream futher into the blender. Of course the blender was on (big mistake) and the spoon touched the blades, the spoon hit the side of the blender, the blender shattered, ice cream and chunks of plastic went everywhere. It’s a wonder I didn’t put my eye out!!! There was chocolate ice cream on the floor, counters, cabinet doors, and even the ceiling. What a mess!
Marlis says
My goodness you WERE lucky!
Beth says
I did almost the same thing! I was making something in the blender (maybe hummous), I had turned the blender OFF and stirred with a metal spoon… and then forgot the metal spoon in the blender and turned it back ON. The metal spoon went straight through the glass blender jug! One thing I will say for it: the heavy duty glass blender jug didn’t shatter other than the hole where the spoon handle went through…
Cate @ Liberal Simplicity says
Oh my gosh, I so feel for you re: the sprinkles! Thankfully my daughter has never gotten into anything of that caliber, but she has discovered the permanent markers and colored all over her hand-painted-by-grandpa toybox before. Grr.
When I was a kid, I dumped an entire box of Lucky Charms onto the couch so I could pick out the marshmallows. My parents were real happy about that one.
Brooke says
In the middle of a breakfast rush one morning, I asked my 4-year-old to put the bottle of Pancake Syrup into the microwave for 45-seconds.
Minutes later, we’re all sitting down to eat when the sound of gunfire erupts and we’re all hit with little pellets of….what? what was that stuff? Syrup.
Seems my little helper had put it into the microwave for 45 MINUTES, rather than 45 seconds, and about 9 minutes into the process, the whole thing exploded in the microwave.
Aside from nearly having a heart attack, we also enjoyed wiping syrup off of Church clothes, walls, the floor, and even the ceiling for months afterward.
In fact, two years later, when we went to sell that house, the house inspector asked about the brown spots on the kitchen ceiling. Sigh.
susan from food blogga says
That reminds me of the time my aunt found my cousin (3 yo at the time), sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor “making a cake.” He had cracked eggs all over the floor, dumped a bag of flour everywhere, and used just about every kitchen tool my aunt owned!
Kathy - Panini Happy says
I recently decided to make a little spur-of-the-moment snack cake with my daughter. I found a recipe on Allrecipes that I would just cut in half. I also decided to replace the flour and baking powder with White Lily self-rising flour, which I’d just determined has terrific rise. Well, turns out that if you use Allrecipes on your iPad, use the site’s tool to change the number of servings, close Safari and then reopen the window…well, the number of servings reverts to the original. I didn’t realize this, made the full recipe – with extra-rising flour – poured the batter into my 8×8 pan and set it in the oven. And watched that cake bubble over incessantly for about an hour. It was alive!! π (I could have just taken it out but I held out hope that maybe some might end up edible, which it was).
judy says
I had just finished up with a party. I think there were 35 or more people. It was supposed to be an outdoors party but it ended up raining and the whole party ended up inside my tiny 800sq ft 2 br house. Afterwards, my friend and i were cleaning up. We went to the store and came back and found out that I had forgotten to turn off the faucet in the kitchen sink.
Katie says
Rain on a party day – say it isn’t so! Those are the worst and you can never really predict when planning.
Jamie | My Baking Addiction says
Wow, I think there are far more than I care to admit; but a recent fight with a sour dough starter ranks up there as the biggest disaster in my kitchen.
Katie says
I am too scared to try sourdough!
FishMama says
How can I choose just one? I’m going to go with the jar of Kalamata olives that fell out of the fridge, broke, and spilled all over the fridge, floor, under the fridge, etc.
Katie says
EEK! I dropped a glass container of olive oil the other week. What a pain to clean up!
Lady Kay says
Well at our house we say that dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off, that’s how often we have a disaster π And before I moved out of my parents’ house, one time my dad came home from work and said, “I smell smoke…is Kay cooking?”
But I keep on trying!!
Katie says
LOL! I love it! Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off. hehehe π
Susan Denney says
Katie — As the mother of four (the youngest of whom are TWINS), I can totally relate to your kitchen disaster story! My twins are now 16 and got their drivers’ licenses a couple weeks ago. I’m thinking back on those kitchen moments with the kids with great fondness now and realize that there are disasters, and then there are DISASTERS — so the ones that involve little colored hands and crunchy colored sprinkles underfoot are truly the sweetest disasters of all. Wishing you all the best!
Carrie says
I asked my husband to puree a tomato soup for me in the blender. I forgot to tell him to remove the center stopped in the blender lid. Hot soup flew all over the kitchen. He then repeated his mistake with the next batch of soup.
Jaden says
Dropping a glass bottle of fish sauce on my kitchen floor! OOOOOH THE STINK!!!
Shaina says
Oooh. I don’t envy this mess in the least.
Adrienne says
I have two kitchen disasters to share…one was in the kitchen but had nothing to do with cooking or food and the other was a “real” kitchen disaster.
The first happened when my son was about 18 months old. I went into the backyard to turn on the sprinklers and got distracted when in the meantime, my son got the LARGE jar of Desitin (original version not the creamy kind) and decided to “paint” my kitchen hardwood floor with it. It took me hours to clean up and my house smelled like Desitin for months.
The other happened when I was taking out a 5lb bag of flour out of the grocery bag. It somehow came open and all 5 lbs ended up on the kitchen floor and all over me.
I guess I should be thankful these didn’t happen at the same time. π
Katie says
I totally feel your pain! Madeline used to sneak into toothpaste and vaseline and rub it all over her body. When she couldn’t figure out what to do with what was on her hands she’d wipe them on her hair.
Kari Fortner says
Mine is cleanup related, of which I am no fan either. I have a tendency to get sidetracked and leave the kitchen sink running. Usually to the detriment of only my water bill. However one unfortunate day I walked away and completely forgot that I was filling the sink for pans. I walked away for a half hour!!! Well there was water falling through every crack and crevice into the basement, not to mention the demise of several lengths of our laminent flooring. Not my finest hour.
Katie says
My sister did that once in our upstairs bathroom! It leaked all the way downstairs after the bathroom floor got all wet. My mom was NOT happy!
Shaina says
My son, Kjell, is a walking kitchen disaster. From age 3 to 4 he would daily find his way into the kitchen, scale the cupboards and get into anything and everything. I am still not sure how I survived it. One day he found chocolate sauce and finger painted our walls. Another it was an entire carton of eggs on the floor as he practiced cracking them so he could help me later.
Kristen says
So much fun having a kiddo around to help create kitchen disasters, isn’t it?
Kristy says
It is rare I make a flop, but when I do I go all out. I was making a bone in turkey breast and had timed it to be ready 45 minutes before I wanted to serve supper. At supper time it was STILL NOT COOKED! Even though it was completely thawed when I started. WHen the turkey did finally cook it had absolutelyNO flavor! We ended up just eating the side dishes.
It was my worst flop ever!
But not as bad as the time my mom dropped a whole batch of my spaghetti sauce – did I mention it stains terribly and it went everywhere!
Mirien says
One Sunday I got up early to bake a rhubarb pie before church. It wasn’t out of the oven yet when it was time for me to leave, so I left my 11 year old daughter home and instructed her to turn off the oven when the timer went off, and then just walk to church (we lived across the street). I didn’t want her to remove the hot pie by herself, but I figured it could stay in the cooling oven until we got home–I even took 10 minutes off the baking time to compensate.
Three hours later, I was gathering my stuff and my kids after church to walk home, when my 9-year old comes running back to church (he had headed home as soon as the service was over) to tell me that there was smoke coming from the front door and he could hear the smoke alarm.
I dashed home, fearing the worst, but there was just smoke, no fire. I headed through the thick smoke to the hot oven and pulled out a charred, completely black pie. My poor daughter thought she’d turned off the oven, but instead had turned it to BROIL! For 3 hours! Luckily there was no fire, but we lived with the horrible smell for weeks!
Aimee @ Simple Bites says
This was so funny, Katie! I would have freak out too. =)
I horribly scorched the cranberry sauce to our Thanksgiving dinner one year. Nearly ruined my favorite All-Clad pot, too.
Shaina says
That’s the worst! Cranberry sauce I can do without, but ruining my beloved cookware, sniff.
Amy says
My worst kitchen disaster happened when I had just moved into my house last fall. I made my kids some quesadillas for lunch, but I couldn’t find the baking sheet to put them on. No problem, I did know where some foil was. I cooked the quesadillas for lunch and all was well. Later for dinner, I was warming up some bread in the oven, and I smelled smoke. I opened the oven and the whole bottom was covered in flaming cheese from the quesadillas. I guess I hadn’t noticed that a ton of cheese had spilled off of the foil. I wanted to throw some salt on it to put out the flames, but I couldn’t find it, it was still packed! I ended up having to put it out with the fire extinguisher which makes a huge mess. Now I had unpacking and fire clean up to do.
Cookbook Queen says
My worst disaster? Rootbeer. Shaken up. ANd opened in the kitchen.
It was a brand new two liter.
π
Katie says
Shaking and carbonation in the same sentence – ‘Nuff said!
Stacey says
I worked at a movie theater once and was changing a 4 or 5 gallon box of root beer syrup. The one way plug came off with the cap and needless to say root beer syrup was all over me and the floor. SOOOO fun to mop up.
Barbara | VinoLuciStyle says
Evidence of how bad it was is in your mentioning kitchen disaster and it just jumps to the forefront of my mind.
My children are grown now and this happened when the oldest was probably 12 or 13. I was a single mom and everything was a juggling match; and getting two kids to two different places at the same time and getting them fed prior to leaving was a weekly endeavor (how DID I do that?).
Well, often it was easier to put dinner on the stove or in the oven and feed them when we all returned. The ‘night of the chili incident’ we were in a particular rush and someone (probably me) forgot to turn the chili down. We left the house and returned 90 minutes later to the biggest mess I’ve ever dealt with in my home. Smoke damage. I soon learned that smoke damage from cooking a protein is the worst. It took weeks before that sticky sweet smell dissipated and that involved washing EVERYTHING in the house, carpet, drapes, walls, comforters, pillows…did I mention walls?
Now I never leave the house without glancing at the stove…force of habit…even if I’m not cooking; that left a scar!
Bethany says
After getting inspired by watching the Food Network one day, several years ago, back when I didn’t know jack squat about cooking, I decided to make dinner for my now-husband. The guy on the show (I can’t even remember what show it was now) made pan-seared salmon and smashed potatoes. I thought I could easily accomplish this. So, I went over to the now-husband, Steve’s house with salmon and potatoes. Started boiling the potatoes and heating up the EVOO in the skillet. As I noticed it starting to get hot, I reached over the skillet to turn the heat down. In a matter of 15 seconds after turning down the heat, the EVOO whooshes into flames. I’m there all by myself, running in circles around the kitchen, and finally decide to call 911 (I had no idea how to put this fire out without an extinguisher). At that time, Steve’s brother pulls up (he was living with him at that point), hears my conversation with the 911 person on the phone, rushes in and manages to extinguish the fire with a big blanket, which somehow did not get scorched (still can’t figure that one out). I told the lady on the phone that we were fine and that the fire was out… evidently, they still have to send out the fire engine, which I was not aware of until I started hearing sirens coming closer and closer to the house. Turns out that Steve had actually pretty much followed them home. He told me later that he saw them pulling out from the station and gradually noticed that he was pretty much following them to his own house. Luckily there wasn’t really any damage, other than some blackness on the wall behind the stove.
To this day, I still maintain that there was no warning that EVOO will burst into flames if it gets too hot before adding the food. I had NO CLUE. As I mentioned at the beginning, this was back when I didn’t know jack-squat of how to cook, unless it came from a box or was spaghetti. Soon after the incident, Steve and I were engaged and at my bridal shower, my best friend and her husband got me a fire extinguisher. They’re not letting me live this experience down. But never again will I let EVOO get too hot on the stovetop!
Jamie says
One day I fixed beef enchilads for dinner. They were baked in the oven in a glass 13 x 9 pan. I removed the dish from the oven and placed it on one of the electric burnes of the stove top. I didn’t realize the burner was still on the low setting. As I was finishing up cleaning, I heard a cracking sound. I realized that the dish was on a hot burner and I quickly removed it from the burner. Shortly after that the dish exploded. Enchilads and shards of glass was all over the kitchen. Thankfully I was not near the dish when it exploded.
Janssen says
Oh man, I’m kind of a messy cook also, but so far no disasters like that. . .I’m guessing it’s in front of me since my daughter is about eight months old!
Samantha Angela @ Bikini Birthday says
I once made gingerbread cookies but instead of putting 1/2 tsp of baking soda I put a 1/2 cup. Imagine how THOSE tasted.
(Give me a break though, I was like 9 years old at the time)
Katie says
BLECH! My cousin and I went to borrow baking powder from a neighbor once when we were little. We asked for 1/2 cup instead of teaspoon and she eyed us very suspiciously and then proceeded to call my aunt to confirm the amount.
Julie says
I can totally relate to being messy in the kitchen. I cook with no regard to where the ingredients end up (as long as the correct amount ends up in the bowl). By the time I’m done it looks like a bomb went off!
As for my worst kitchen disaster, it actually took place out of the kitchen. This was back before I had much experience cooking (or grilling). I decided to grill some chicken for a different flavor, I had no clue how to grill beyond how to turn it on. My boyfriend had neglected to clean the grill in quite some time and about 10 minutes in both sides of the grill had lit on fire, flames coming about a foot above the grates. I immediately turned the grill off and then stood there looking at the flames for a couple minutes, my mind completely blank. (I’m sure my mouth was hanging slightly open too!)
Eventually, I was able to regain brain function and put the fire out. Needless to say the boyfriend cleans the grill once a week now!
Amanda says
Once my daughter spilled silver luster dust on my ivory carpets near the kitchen. Its still there. Two years later.
Wenderly says
That’s hilarious! A good story for years to come! I can’t think of my *worst* kitchen disaster at the moment…not enough caffeine in my veins yet. However, every time my sweet Yanni cooks, it’s fabulous & delish yes, but the kitchen is a disaster to say the least. I just smile and clean. It’s a small price to pay!
Katie says
Eric feels exactly the same! We agreed early on that it was only fair for him to help with the clean up (meaning, do it mostly himself) if I did all the fantastic cooking. π
Amanda says
Oh! And my stove blew up once. RIght in front of me! Was not so fun to clean up. π
Katie says
We had an oven fire once. I had enough sense just to keep the door closed until it died down. It was on Easter! But not too bad of a disaster once the fire was gone. We didn’t have any pound cake for dessert though.
Amanda says
OH my goodness!! I bet Madeline was having the time of her life though! π
Katie says
Oh yes. SHe is my mess maker. SHe’s also had the time of her life with Vaseline, toothpaste,hand lostion, lip gloss, and more…
Deborah Mele says
Wow, loved your story and know that in years to come it will be something you can all look back on and laugh about!
Probably my worst disaster was many years ago. I was in nursing school and working part time with two young kids. My husband was home babysitting while I was at work, and fell asleep on the couch in the living room which was right next to the kitchen. My two year old son went into my baking cupboard and emptied everything (sugar, flour) all over the living room (carpet, furniture)including on my slepping husband. I walked into the house to see a white living room and a sleeping husband covered in flour.
Susan says
There’s nothing like teaching children to cook and they end up spilling a whole bottle of vegetable oil on the floor.
Katie says
Once I broke a glass bottle of olive oil on the tile. Luckily hubby was there and swooped in to clean it up faster than lightning!
Janet Foster says
Oddly enough, my worst kitchen disaster happened while I was a Pampered Chef consultant prepping for a show. My dessert recipe for that show was going to be one of those brownie pizza’s with the fruit on top.I heated the oven in the church kitchen (which was the party location) and mixed up my brownie batter. I was a little stressed out and rushing because this was going to be a big show. I hurriedly mixed up the batter and apparently got careless and overmixed it. I poured it onto the stone and put it in the oven and moved onto the next dish. About 10 minutes later, I smelled something burning. I ran to the kitchen and there was smoke coming out of the oven. The batter had slide over the sides of the stone and was dripping onto the bottom of the oven and burning. There was smoke everywhere and the batter had started to flame up a little. My hostess and I were both horrified. I turned off the oven and took the stone out. Luckily there was an extra box of brownie mix in my car and the church had double ovens. I spent 45 minutes after the show, scraping burned brownie batter out of the church’s oven.
Katie says
I think I would run and hid in the nearest bathroom.
Amber | Bluebonnets & Brownies says
Oh wow, that is one giant disaster!
My worst kitchen disaster happened just recently. I consider myself a pretty decent cook. I’ve roasted chickens since I was a teen just learning my way around the kitchen.
A few months ago, my husband, best friend and her husband wanted to go skiing. Knowing that I’d have much more fun in the kitchen than on the slopes, I sent them on their merry way, with promises of a hot meal upon their return.
I took the chicken out of the freezer when they left at 4 a.m. for their long drive to the nearest slopes. I started cooking it at about 6 p.m. in the evening. It had been sitting in water all day, I thought, “There’s no way this chicken isn’t thawed”.
At 10:30 p.m., that stupid chicken still wasn’t cooked all the way through. Everything else had been done for hours. We’d noshed on baguette and cheese, then bits of the carrots and parsnips.. at at 11 p.m. decided to carve that chicken, microwave what we could to doneness, scarf it, and go to bed.
I felt so awful. They’d been starving when they walked in the door, and we really should have just ordered pizza!
Katie says
Awwwww! I hate those kind of kitchen mess ups. You’re trying to do something super nice and it all goes wrong. I guess it’s the thought that counts!
Ivonne Loving says
My worst itchen disaster has gone down in infamy in my family. It even included a visit from my county’s fire department!
I thought that I could grill some Kaboobs in my balcony while I made the sides in the kitchen (right next door). I didn’t foresee that as soon as I would be half way with my spectacularly smart kitchen method the wind would pick up and huge flames would rise from my small grill. Some passerby saw the flames and called the fire department!
The rest of the story, well you can imagine: my tears, my husband’s surprise walking through the door and two fire trucks and an angry landlord!
Charles says
I was whipping up a great pasta sauce one day – beautifully cut aubergine and courgette, thick tomato sauce – the pasta is boiling away, everything’s looking good. I taste the sauce and decide it lacks a certain “something”. “I know”, I think, “I’ll add a bit of booze”. Hunt around the kitchen for something suitable. Now, red-wine would be great, Vodka makes a great pasta/tomato sauce, but on this occasion, the only thing I can find is a bottle of Calvados. I sniff it – smells fine, at least, you can’t smell the apple. Slosh it in the pasta sauce and serve it up.
Well, you can say that my wife thought I was also making an apple pie too, so strongly did it smell once it had reduced down a bit. Apple and Tomato pasta sauce really isn’t recommended on my side π
(Then of course there’s the usual thing which I think a lot of us have probably done at least once) – Ready made pizza base, slide straight onto the bars in the oven – open the door 20 minutes later to find a pile of tomato/cheese goop sitting on the bottom of the oven – still tasty though!)
Jaime says
I was cooking for a guy I really liked for the first time. He loved pumpkin, so I’d been talking up my famous pumpkin bread, which took a lot of ingredients and was pretty time-consuming but very delicious. I was so nervous when he got there that as he sat blissfully unaware in the sun room adjacent to my kitchen, I set a towel on fire by leaving it too close to a burner. I tried to carry on a calm and breezy conversation as I frantically beat out the flames, with him none the wiser. Meanwhile, I was so frazzled that I set my oven to “BROIL” instead of “OVEN” and BROILED my pumpkin bread for an hour. Needless to say, it was completely flabby and inedible and that describes the tone of my date, too! Oh, well!
Katie says
I totally broiled a chocolate cake in college once! I had completely forgotten about that.