Today instead of sharing a new recipe for my Cooking Through My Collection series I am going to keep it real and share a cooking disaster. Because yes, we all have cooking disasters once in awhile.
Let me start by saying that my disaster has nothing to do with the cookbook I got the recipe from. Well, okay it was a bad recipe, but every other recipe from this cookbook has been great.
The cookbook is called Multnomah’s Family Cookbook and it was given to me as a gift shortly after I was married. It is one of those great family church community type cookbooks.
The cookbook was put out by Multnomah School of the Bible, which is a college that many people I know have attended. One of the reasons that I loved this cookbook is because it reminded me of Oregon. And there are several recipes from this cookbook that I have made over and over again.
The recipe I tried recently from the book though will definitely not be one I make again.
I should have stopped when I realized that the title of the recipe had the Parmesan in it and yet there was no Parmesan cheese in the recipe. Definitely an editing error or missing ingredients, since it lacked the Parmesan it obviously should have had, but I thought I could figure it out and make it work.
Let’s just say that I did not figure it out and it did not work. It was edible, but certainly not great. That is it in the picture above.
It was a cheesey chicken pasta type dish and I should have stuck with my instinct when I first saw the recipe and realized that there was a mistake in it. I should have just moved on and found something else for dinner. But I didn’t and my family ended up with a less than perfect meal.
We all make meals like this once in awhile. We all burn something occasionally. We all have cakes that don’t come out of the pan. And we all occasionally make a meal our family won’t eat.
Yes, even I have times like that. Don’t we all? Disasters and messes are just part of life in the kitchen.
Now that I have shared my cooking disaster would you share yours? Let’s make each other feel better and share some cooking disasters!
I tried to make beef stroganoff one day and let me tell you I won’t do that again. I don’t think I was using a recipe to start with (my first mistake) then I kept adding things I thought would make it taste better (my second mistake) then I added the sour cream (my third mistake). We ate it even though it was NOT good. My and I laugh about it but he said he will never eat stroganoff again for any reason. LOL
Sometimes not using a recipe ends up with something great and other times not so great. But experimenting is part of the fun of cooking though isn’t it. 🙂 Thanks for sharing that!
Recently Christy from Southern Plate posted a recipe for Loose Meat Sandwiches. My family is crazy for Sloppy Joe’s, so I decided to give it a whirl. Christy’s recipes, like yours, have never failed me before, so either I did something wrong, or we’re just not loose meat people. They were a disaster! The recipe called for three pounds of ground beef, so now I’m left with over two pounds of loose meat to try and turn into something else. Fortunately, the flavor is mild, so it should blend well into other recipes, So far I’ve used some in spaghetti sauce, but the meat is so fine it sort of disappeared into the sauce. Next I’ll try substituting some for half the meat in a pot of chili. It was a worthwhile experiment though. You never know if you’re going to like something until you try it. 😀
I saw that recipe and was wondering what it would be like because I have made something like it before and the texture was definitely different cooking it that way. I think adding it to chili is a great idea! And you are right you never know until you try it!
Yes, I have had my share of disasters in the kitchen. My first is the most memorable for me and occurred when I was still in grade school. Both of my parents worked so I learned to put dinner on when I got home from school. I didn’t mind but dinner wasn’t all that exciting for a fifth grader. I loved desserts. So as a reward for helping in the kitchen I was allowed to make a dessert from time to time. The first time I tried to make gingerbread from scratch I forgot either the baking soda or baking powder. It did not rise. I got a pan of rubbery, but good flavored, flubber. But yes, I did eat most of my mistake although I could not get anyone else to join me.
I learned to cook basically the same way when my mom went to work. My sisters and I learned a lot just by trial and error and lots of disasters! We all joke that my poor dad had to live through all of use learning to cook and all our cooking disasters. We all knew how to cook when we got married though and our husbands are all glad we did because my dad suffered through most of our disasters and not them. 🙂
H Lynn! Another Oregon chick here to swap stories! I have had so many disasters I can’t remember them all. My last great adventure came when I was going to make tamales. I don’t know whether it was the recipe or me, but after working ALL DAY LONG to make them, they were completely inedible! There was so much salt! Looking back over the recipe, it didn’t seem like a lot, but I guess it was. Or maybe I doubled it somehow, not real sure. Either way I wasted a 3 pound pork loin… sad, sad day…
Oh that is a lot of meat to waste! And good job for even trying to make tamales. That is something I have never made, but need to give a try.
Hey Lynn!
Funny that you posted this today. I made some cookies yesterday and they were a FLOP, literally. They were so thin you could almost see through them. ugh!
As I took them out of the oven, I thought to myself, “I bet this kind of thing never happens to Lynn! I need to find out how to make cookies that don’t spread out to the texture of lace… ugh”
Thanks for keeping it real. I’m going to try some of YOUR cookie recipes and see if I have any luck LOL. I’ve tried making cookies with butter, margarine, shortening. I never have any luck. I can bake bread like a master, but cookies? Can’t do it!
Gina
My family loves your slow cooker carrot soup, but one time that I made it I obviously did something different with the cheese. I think I added the shredded cheese when it was still frozen and, when I stirred it into the hot soup, the cheese turned into chewy (think chewing gum texture) yellow, stretchy globs–nothing appetizing about the taste, texture, anything. Now, if I add the cheese when it’s frozen, I sprinkle it on top and let it thaw there before I stir it in. Much better!
Yes, I call them kitchen duds! It usually starts with combining a few online recipes and I twick it to make it my own, and things usually work out in my favor, occasionally not. Because I have been cooking/baking for 40+ years, I usually know what is going to work and when it’s not. So when I do make a dud, I try to laugh, get back on the horse and make a tried and true recipe that I know always comes out well. Just recently I made a batch of cookies that should have come out well, but tasted metallic. I was scratching my head over that one and came to realize that it wasn’t me but the baking powder that was to blame! I bought a different brand of baking powder and am making good cookies again!