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#1
11-24-2005, 09:12 PM
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Your Thanksgiving DISASTERS
I know there is going to be a thread where people talk about their juicy turkeys, and apple pies that made the blind see and the deaf hear.
This is not that thread. No, this is about what you threw away to hide any evidence that you tried to make it in the first place. For me, it was the roasted garlic. I tried to roast some garlic for my mashed potatoes. Didn't work out to well. I was supposed to end up with a paste like spread after using my brand new stick blender. What I got was, well, you know those clove cigarettes? Imagine if they had garlic cigarettes. Now imagine an ashtray full of garlic cigarettes butts and then blend that with some olive oil. Nasty. So instead I used some gouda cheese added to the potatoes. That worked. So what did you scew up this year? It doesn't have to be a food thing. If you walked around you in-laws with you fly open or something like that you can share that too. 
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#2
11-24-2005, 09:17 PM
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Well, not a culinary failure, exactly, but an act of clumsiness. The Highwayman made a positively delicious cranberry punch. We all decided it needed vodka. So I measured out a jigger of Absolut in my cocktail glass and went to the fridge for the half-gallon container of punch.
Well, the bad news is, a pair of pants and a pitcher are both ruined (how I broke a plastic pitcher I will never know). The good news is, we had spare ingredients for another batch (and I didn't spill the vodka).
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#3
11-24-2005, 09:22 PM
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The reason my turkey always turns out well is because I cook it in a roasting bag. A bout three or four years ago my mom decided to try cooking the turkey that way. Only somehow she put the bird in the bag upside-down! No nice crispy breast skin on that bird! On the upside, I've never had juicier breast meat.
__________________
'Never say "no" to adventure. Always say "yes". Otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.' -- Commander Caractacus Pott, R.N. (Retired) 'Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man.' -- Lu-Tze
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#4
11-24-2005, 09:41 PM
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I didn't scew up anything this year thankyouverymuch
 However my pear tart (involving pears poached in red wine) came out looking like...like...sushi pie. Or some kind of pink worm. It was kind of disturbing. Fortunately people got over that and ate it anyway. It tasted good.
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#5
11-24-2005, 09:43 PM
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#6
11-24-2005, 09:44 PM
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I tried my hand at helping out this thanksgiving. Well, I guess I was given an ultimatum anyways: Help, or you dont eat.
So, I tried to make some mashed sweet potatoes. The recipe called for oranges, sweet potatoes, milk, butter, and salt. I somehow put in way too many oranges, because the potatoes tasted more like you were eating a smooth, creamy orange than a potatoe. THEY all said it was tasty. I just want my sweet potatoes back.
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#7
11-25-2005, 12:33 AM
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Everything was going very nicely, until I caught the cord of the electric mixer (just finished making perfect whipped potatoes) on the handle of a 2-cup pitcher containing turkey broth set aside for making gravy. All but few tablespoons went all over the counter and the floor.
Taking the cranberry ginger relish out of the refrigerator I slopped about a half cup of it -- onto the floor. Fortunately, I had more turkey broth, but when pouring the gravy from the pan into the gravy pitcher, you guessed it, about a cup or so onto the stove and -- of course -- the floor. And then my hollandaise sauce curdled. At least the dining room looked perfect. Until I spilled some more of the cranberry relish onto the clean white tablecloth. On the good side, people wondered if I had bought the pies -- one pumpkin maple pecan and one apple -- because they looked so perfect. They were better than perfect; they had a nice flakey homemade crust. I do love cooking for holiday dinners. Too bad I'm such a klutz.
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#8
11-25-2005, 01:37 AM
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Well, there was the year I didn't know they had TWO bags in the turkey. I had pulled out one before roasting it, and well...let's just say while I was alone in the kitchen carving the turkey, I had a little surprise waiting for me.
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#9
11-25-2005, 02:55 AM
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My favorite was my horrendous yuppie cousin who threw a Thanksgiving bash designed to give Martha Stewart hives.
No lie, all the 'guests' (i.e. hapless family) were informed of the dress code expected for The Bash. Most of us are pretty couth overall, but this one involved dictatorial e-mails about ties for men, women in dresses--preferably 3/4 length--as it was an early-evening Bash, etc. We were allowed to drift into admire her designer kitchen and her checklists--down the half-hour, stretching back a week to purchase exotic ingredients, just in case we missed the point of her 'hospitality', though The Dining Room was off limits until the stately Edwardian procession to table. Right on schedule, she warmed the imported Italian platter and bore it off, then ruthlessly herded the extras, er, guests, onto their marks. She threw open the doors of her exquisitely decorated dining room... ...to find her Persian cat rolling and purring in demented bliss, slam in the middle of the warmed Italian platter. Good times.
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#10
11-25-2005, 08:15 AM
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Our turkey (our first ever attempt, it came out great) leaked all over the floor while we were carving it, which was embarrassing. It'd been given a lot of rest time too. Will have to carve it in a pan or something next year instead of on a cutting board.
I was making home-made vanilla icecream but sort of had a chemistry mishap, what with totally blanking on the concept that the more yummy white chocolate liqueur I added, the less easily the whole thing would freeze. Ended up with "Vanilla and White Chocolate Semifreddo." which went down OK, but wasn't what I'd been shooting for. Oh and I had a small kitchen melt-down over the cheese straws because the pastry just wouldn't come together. Fortunately I got that sorted and there was enough left over to make mini-quiches when I realized that as usual we'd forgotten to defrost the filo I was going to use for other appetizers. It's a wonder we can feed ourselves.
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#11
11-25-2005, 08:22 AM
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Not much of a disaster, but a bit alarming.
Last year I was following Alton Brown's Good Eats recipe for brining a turkey. When you first put the turkey in the oven, you set the oven for 500o for 30 minutes. This is to sear the skin to the nice golden brown, then you cover the breast with tin foil, lower the temperature, and finish cooking. Well, 500o is about as hot as you can get without setting the oven to "Clean" and instead of roasting turkey, the horrid smell of burning bits and pieces of food that dripped to the bottom of the oven wafted through the house. No harm done, the turkey turned out delicious, but I did frighten my guests when I had to open all the windows and turn on all the fans to get the smoke out of the house.
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#12
11-25-2005, 08:36 AM
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So, being the adventurous type, I decided to fry ducks, turkeys being overkill for 2 people, for the first time.
Got everything set up and lit off the burner to start heating the oil. Three hours and 15 minues later, the wind was howling so bad that I could not get the oil hot enough to cook in. Only made it to 290 and we needed 350. By this time we are starved, so we had leftover lamb and the side dishes my wife had prepared. We got full, but not on what we wanted. Going to try the ducks again tomorrow, when the forecast is for calmer weather.
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#13
11-25-2005, 08:49 AM
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Not this year but many, many years ago when I was young we had a mouse problem in our house. We'd had the exterminator out and he'd laid traps and poison to kill the little critters.
Unbeknownst to us a mouse had taken its final breath beneath the oven. On Thanksgiving morning we popped the turkey in the oven. It was a big one and needed to cook for a long, long time. You could smell the delicious turkey cooking but there was that other smell, what was that? Throughout the day the smell of turkey roasting got stronger but so did that other smell, the smell of decomposing mouse. By the time the turkey was done the stench was overpowering. We pulled the out the oven and found the poor dead little mousy. The turkey might have been good. I don't remember. None of us really had any appetite by then.
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#14
11-25-2005, 09:04 AM
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The Dougs had precious little chance to screw up this TG, as we were guests of our dear friends the Winsors. They said, "Bring wine." This is where we screwed up:We did. For eight people. Four bottles. None were even opened. Only some room-temperature Italian white was passed (and brother, it tasted passed!) before dinner. In fact, since Uncle Arnie is a reformed stoner and another guest is in AA, there wasn't any wine at all during dinner.
OTOH, Papa Doug's Savory Cauliflower Bake was a big hit and we all basically had a swell time. Except the cat, who hates being petted by strangers, because Mr. Winsor has developed the well-meaning but uncouth habit of crushing the li'l kitty head in the palm of his large hand. Last edited by Gaudere; 11-25-2005 at 06:55 PM.
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#15
11-25-2005, 09:07 AM
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Dear Mod: Please change that first [ i ] tag to a [ b ], would you please? Thanks. I'll save some Cauliflower Bake for ya.
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#16
11-25-2005, 09:30 AM
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Two incidents to report:
Last year, we also followed Alton Brown's turkey brining recipe, but we had trouble on the grill--we couldn't get the breast temperature to rise above 110 degrees. We had it on the grill for a long time--then, we realized my industrious four year-old budding engineer had switched the electronic temperature probe to Celsius from Fahrenheit. The drumsticks were so burnt, they just crumbled when they were touched. However, because of the brining, we still had edible bird, even thought it was cooked at the ridiculously high temperature. This year, Alton's guidance gave us a fabulous bird. The other incident occurred about 10 years ago. It is referred to in my household (primarily by me) as "The Yam Incident", and I am not allowed to speak of it publicly.
__________________
I am the proud recipient of the prestigious 2004 "Homebrew's 'Not A Jerk' Rating"
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#17
11-25-2005, 09:54 AM
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#20
11-25-2005, 12:09 PM
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#21
11-25-2005, 01:43 PM
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Just a small mishap this year. I saw a Good Eats where Alton warmed the dairy (cream and buttermilk) and garlic for his mashed potatoes on the stove while the potatoes were cooking. Seemed like a good idea, so I tried it out. Before the mixture had even gotten warm, it separated out into small lumps and water (curds and whey?), and smelled kind of funny. Luckily I had more dairy stuff, so I just used that and didn't heat it up and we had some fine mashed potatoes.
I'm still not sure why that first batch turned out so poorly. That was the only mishap because we decided to grill up some steaks, shrimp, and veggie kabobs instead of a turkey. Last year's turkey was ... unfortunate.
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#22
11-25-2005, 01:56 PM
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#23
11-25-2005, 04:26 PM
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Pour 1/2 acup milk into a pan, heat the milk and add vinegar. Watch it curdle. Wee. Oooo. Ahhhh.
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#24
11-25-2005, 04:29 PM
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So, I read it. Became so engrossed that I forgot it was last year's thread and posted to it  .Sheesh. Was a scary thread, though- 12 hours of cooking? egads.
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#25
11-26-2005, 10:10 PM
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I was making chocolate mousse for the dessert. Melt the chocolate with water: okay. Beat the egg yolks and add to chocolate: done. Whip the egg whites with sugar and add to mixture in saucepan: okeley dokely. Then, abruptly, I had a total brain fart and poured more than half the unwhipped cream into the saucepan before I realized what I was doing.
It still tasted great, but was runnier than it should have been. Chocolate mousse is supposed to be so dense that you carve it, and this was only slightly thicker than pudding. Still, nobody complained!Everything else turned out great, though. Well, the mashed potatoes were a bit lumpy, and in fact, I missed most of one potato. But I didn't discover this until said potato was on my own plate. I think I'll get one of those potato ricers. We sell them where I work, and I used to think they were the ultimate in unnecessary gadgets, until I saw one demonstrated (and had a spoonful of the results).
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#26
11-27-2005, 03:33 AM
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Everything about the food was great, the two turkey breasts I cooked were fine. I was allowed to make the dressing this year, it was great.
It was only after the gala affair ( first time this house had holiday guests in my Hubby's remembrance) that I noticed we left the portable air compressor out. In th living room. Oh well. Fiddle-dee-dee, tomorrow's another day. At least, I think we moved up from "heathens" to "ignoramuses" in the family's book.
__________________
This message brought to you by NinetyWt, the Queen of Lubricants™. Be Flood Alert.
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#27
11-27-2005, 09:38 AM
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About 12 years ago had a power outage at 10 in the morning. By the time power was restored at 4 pm, the turkey was ruined. I made a big pot of spaghetti for dinner, we had our turkey dinner on Friday.
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#28
11-27-2005, 10:10 AM
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Due to family obligations, we had our family Thanksgiving at my MIL's house on Friday.
We drove up, and there's my MIL, rather tight-lipped, saying she has to run out for a bit with my SIL. She wouldn't say anything. We figured my SIL had had a fight with her husband and needed to calm down, so we park the car and head into the house through the garage. I notice a godawful stench in the garage, so bad I start gagging. I'd heard my SIL was planning to cook a duck along with the turkey and ham, and I thought with dismay that this was the smell of cooking duck. I go into the house, drop off my purse, and had to immediately exit the house because the stench was overpowering. I stood gagging and coughing in the garage, wondering with dismay if I was going to have to pretend to enjoy whatever they were going to feed us, or if I would have to spend the entire Thanksgiving out in the garage. Shortly after that, my son comes out bearing the turkey, which he dumps into a garbage bag held by my other BIL, also gagging and coughing. It immediately goes into the garbage can. Much Febreze and open windows and fans later, we got the smell out of the house. We still do not know what happened to the turkey. It was thawed in the fridge and put directly into the roasting pan. My SIL had turned the turkey over, to let the juices flow down into the breast meat, and that's when it started stenching. Her husband, bless his heart, was not very tactful. She's crying in the kitchen, trying to call Publix to get a fully smoked turkey to serve everyone, and he tries to cheer her up by saying, "What are you crying for? It's just a turkey!" To his credit, he did realize his faux pas and apologize later.
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#29
11-27-2005, 10:31 AM
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#30
11-27-2005, 11:32 AM
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Well, we didn't have any food catastrophies thankfully (except the marchmallows on the sweet potatoes burned a little - must learn to use broiler). In fact, this being my first Holiday dinner I hosted, I got rave reviews.
Our mishap was thinking our garbage disposal could handle more than it could chew. A little flooding, a couple buckets of nasty water, and a trip to the store to buy a monkey wrench solved that issue. I'm glad nothng worse happened. More of our issues were the drama leading up to the day. A family divorce and a bithcy older sister made for a lot of uncomfortable moments leading up to and during the event. But my food turned out really good!
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#31
11-27-2005, 11:49 AM
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(Bolding mine.) On Wednesday, NPR had a short story on how Thanksgiving and the day after are two of the busiest days of the year for plumbers and drain cleaners, because people overestimate the power of the garbage disposal. Just throw it away, folks! Our only food-related mishap was my MIL not telling us she planned on making instant mashed potatos. I would have gladly made some at home and brought them, but she never even mentioned it! (I think she secretly likes the boxed ones better.)
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#32
11-27-2005, 12:24 PM
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I lost my grip on the turkey as I was lowering it into the brine.
SPLASH! right into the brine, all over me, all over the counter, all over the wall, all over the side of the fridge. Salty brine water into the eyes, with contacts, is not fun. My eyes still hurt.
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#33
11-27-2005, 05:09 PM
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Instant mashed potatoes at a Thanksgiving dinner, Avarie? Now, *that* will get you a "heathen" rating in my house (I'm commiserating, by the way - I understand it wasn't your choice). Why not serve turkey franks and canned gravy to go with them?
You guys are some serious cooks, here. All kinds of interesting recipe ideas in this thread.
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#34
11-28-2005, 07:35 AM
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#35
11-28-2005, 08:19 AM
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a couple of minor ones this year, unfortunately both perpetrated by my wife:
clogged the garbage disposal in the morning, after trying to shove an entire bag's worth of potato peels down the disposal. It stayed clogged all day, but mercifully opened up late that evening. Second: the mashed sweet potatoes I made the day before, and baked that morning were dropped full on the kitchen floor on their way from oven to table. My chef friend who joined us scooped up a fingerfull from the floor and pronounced them delicious. They were a total loss otherwise.
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#36
11-28-2005, 10:06 AM
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It was as bad as the thread indicated... This year, dinner was at the In-laws... they KNOW how to cook.
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#37
11-28-2005, 10:16 AM
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My Alton Brown Turkey came out nearly perfect. I say nearly, because there were two minor issues:
1.) I suspect my mother's old oven couldn't quite hit 500 degrees, so the skin on the breast never reached that delicious dark golden/reddish color as the rest of the skin. 2.) I had the same smoke issue during the 500 for 30 mins portion. We had to open windows, doors, and pull the batteries out of the smoke alarms. It was about 29 degrees F that day so it was not a comfortable exeperience! My mom blamed it on my turkey cooking method, I told her she needs to clean out the drip pan of her oven. All that smoke was NOT coming from the turkey! Alas, the turkey was still excellent. Everybody raved about the crispyness of the skin and the juicyness of the meat. A couple of people even thought that I fried it again this year (I did the fried turkey thing the previous two years). If i do it again next year, I will probably just cook the turkey in my own oven at home and then rush it over to my folks afterwards. My oven is new, clean and can reach/hold whichever temp i desire with ease
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#38
11-28-2005, 11:07 AM
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I made the mistake of following the cooking instructions that came with the turkey (450 for half hour, then 325 and 10-15 minutes per pound, and add a little water to the pan, and stick the thermometer into the meaty part of the thigh). The thermometer (and an instant-read thermometer) both confirmed the turkey was beyond done. We carved it. It bled.
We put all the meat back into a roasting pan, covered it with foil, and baked it another 45 minutes. Which meant the meat was safe to eat, but it didn't get that megayummy flavor it always has before when I've brined it  The gravy was oddly bitter, too. I've had crappy luck every time I've followed the cooking instructions printed with the turkey. Back to straight 325 and the thermometer in the turkey-breast for me! The mashed potatoes were made with a new recipe that allows for making in advance, then you bake in a casserole dish. There was plenty of room in the dish for the double-recipe even though the instructions called for that size for a *single* recipe. Well, when you whip potatoes, I guess a lot of air gets whipped in. So it expanded and overflowed, and never got nice browned peaks. Oh well, it tasted good. I got 3 or 4 burns on my hands, usually I wind up with zero burns. Oh well, the food was good and the company was great. Many years ago, when roasting bags first came out, my mother tried to use one. She wound up dropping the entire turkey on the floor. We ate it anyway
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#39
11-28-2005, 11:11 AM
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Pretty common first-timer disaster.
Bought a frozen turkey and waited until T-day to read the instuctions on the label. Thaw.
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#40
11-28-2005, 12:08 PM
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