My mother isn’t a great cook, but she was patient about me experimenting with food growing up. I remember making a lot of jello salads, because we all liked jello with fruit in it. But, as a teenager, fruit was so last week, that I remember one time putting the Valentine candy hearts in red jello. They melted and turned into unspeakable nastiness. But I remember my mother eating it and saying, “It’s not too bad!” It was.
Actually, there are types of chicken that you really shouldn’t fry. . . that’s why you have terms like “fryers”, “broilers”, "roasters"and “stewing” for different ages and sizes of chicken. You probably had a “stewing” chicken.
http://eatstayfarm.com/2011/10/chickens-what-is-the-difference-between-fryers-broilers-and-stewers/
Four years ago we tried deep frying a turkey. The oil is supposed to be 375 and a thermometer is hitched to the side of the pot to read the temperature so the flame can be adjusted as needed. Turns out the thermometer was not attached securely and wasn’t submerged in the oil and only read around 250. So we kept the flame on high.
The other issue is that a deep frying a turkey takes about 30-40 minutes, not an hour and a half. The high temp of the oil and cooking it way too long turned the poor bird into a charred black carcass that looked like it was in a blast furnace.
The first time we had people over for Thanksgiving, I forgot to pull out the giblet pack. We were young, our guests were young, so we got over it pretty quickly. Glad that didn’t happen for a larger and/or more formal occasion.
My wife (then fiancee) once cooked me grilled-cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately, she put on about a 1/4-inch of butter on the bread and then placed the butter side on the inside of the sandwich. I found out about this when she called me in, wondering why the sandwich wasn’t browning like it does when I make them.
The worst though is my brother - he once cooked hamburgers for the entire family. His method of cooking? He microwaved them. :vomit:
The only thing my mother ever cooked that my dad (and us kids) wouldn’t eat was a new recipe she decided to try.
The main ingredient was green olives, which we all loved, BUT NOT IN A CASSEROLE.
Someone on another website has told the story about her mother’s incredible lack of culinary skills, and how she went a little nuts when she got a blender. Her “specialty” was blenderized bologna, heated and served as a sauce over Minute Rice. :smack: (vomit smiley) I wouldn’t eat that either!
Yep, cooking a thawed frozen turkey having forgotten to take out the still-mostly-frozen bag o’ giblets is a recipe for some bad eatin’.
Done it.
Back in college, for a while I rented the ground floor of a small house. One day I decided to make some chicken soup, mostly a cut-up whole chicken in a little water, with seasoning. While it cooked (on HIGH), I decided to lie down for a while, and fell asleep. The next thing I remember, firemen were breaking down the back door, and the whole place was filled with heavy black smoke.
I ate out that night.
I LOL’d on the tie dyed beef, plastic jelly roll and (multiple) giblet pack turkeys.
In an old apartment, I once had some nice Italian beef and a deli container of juice, the perfect snack for late night after the bar. I’ll just reheat it here on the range and get this yawn bread sliced …zzz-zzzzzzz…
Some six hours later I awoke on the couch to the most unholy stench of soupy flesh boiled down beyond charcoal. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the smoke detectors, the ones that previously went off on any moderate+ saute or broil operation, weren’t screaming their faces off, the smoke was so thick. Between the thickness and the smell, I was choking and gagging. I opened all the windows and ran the fans but I’m sure the hallways reeked and I can’t imagine what the neighbors thought. The pot was a loss, triple bagged and special delivered to the alley. The place stank really bad for a couple days but then lingered in the background for weeks. I’d catch a whiff of it at my desk at work from my clothes and get queasy. Truly awful.
An ex-boyfriend generously offered to make me a grilled cheese sandwich while I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning. He put mayonnaise on the outside. The sandwich burned so badly that I had to throw the pan away. I’m not sure what he was thinking.
I once tried to make a lemon meringue pie (my favorite) from scratch to take to the family dinner one Thanksgiving. Did not realize that there was a difference between CONDENSED milk and EVAPORATED milk (I thought they were synonyms). I used the wrong one and the result was something that was almost but not quite completely unlike lemon meringue pie.
I also once burned my dinner (Hamburger Helper) so bad that I set off the smoke alarms. Reason? I was on the computer trying to make sure that my virtual meals in CafeWorld didn’t spoil…:rolleyes:
I think I have a lot of them.
We had gotten our first microwave, and of course, didn’t read the directions. Went out for Mexican takeout and a couple of beers. Got home and set the timer for I think 10 minutes, put the food in its styro container in the microwave, and went in to change clothes.
Um, yeah, styro burritos anyone?
That actually sounds like it would be delicious!
My sister was making a cake and she dropped it into the catfood. I helped her pick it up and put it back together; it was lumpy but I told her it was the anniversary of bombing Hiroshima and it was just an A-bomb cake. Then I grabbed the frosting and announced “This is the cover up!” We covered up catfood and hairs with it and gave it to my father and brother because we knew they’d eat anything. They weren’t suspicious that we wouldn’t touch it.
Nobody got sick and my sister and I concluded “Cakegate” was a success.
I still clearly remember my aunt’s (dad’s side, not mom’s) disastrous Baked Tomato and… Something… Abomination.
Awful. Did I mention it was beyond lousy? None of us could eat it. And that was 39 years ago.
Mine own contribution: beer-sauced meatballs. OMFG. As bad - or worse - than the Tomato Abomination. :eek: :eek: :eek:
With what little defense I can provide for myself, it sounded like a good recipe idea at the time… We all took a taste - and immediately formed a line at the kitchen sink to dispose of the BSM in under a nano-second. I think we went out after that.
That was 29 years ago and my BIL *still *brings it up. 
I have mentioned it here previously - one very nice lady at a previous job took great time and effort in considering the whole office birthday cake issue and my being diabetic. She made a lovely chocolate cake, and frosted it with a ganache made of maltitol sweetened chocolate ‘kisses’. It really was very tasty, and thankfully we had enough toilets available for the inevitable 'laxative effect’ of maltitol on the people in my department. 
:eek:
We went with a fruit flower arrangement the next year 
This story already exists elsewhere on the Dope, but whatever.
30 or so years ago I decided to try my hand at chili. I was a novice cook. I misunderstood the term clove as it relates to garlic.
My pot of chili had six bulbs of garlic in it.
I had to discard not just the chili, but the freakin’ pot as well.
mmm
This resonates with me.
Decades ago, about 1982, my wife and I visited kin in southern Maryland, and spent the day crab fishing. We caught over 12 dozen keepers, cooked them up with copious Old Bay spice, and ate about half of them. The rest were sent home with us.
The next day I carefully picked the best meat from the crabs, and decided to make crab cakes! Of course the picking was laborious, but it provided a ton of primo sweet fresh meat. So I got to work.
The recipe called for baking powder. This is different from baking soda. I did not know that, and used baking soda. As a result my crab cakes tasted like alka-seltzer tablets had been stuffed in each one. <sob!>
I was crushed…
Well, this exchange happened the other day when my dad tried to make a chicken recipe:
My mom: Hmm, this chicken is kinda spicy, how much cayenne pepper did you put in it?
My dad: Well, it called for a pinch, and I was doubling the recipe, so I put in a tablespoon.
Boyfriend and I: :dubious:
Mom: :eek::mad:
My mother, I should perhaps explain, does not like spicy things. My dad also does not cook with salt (for health reasons). So this chicken, while cooked fairly decently, tasted of nothing but cayenne pepper, much to my mother’s horror.
Then the next day when my mom was going over the shopping list, my dad had to get in one last jab at my mom…
Dad: We’re out of cayenne pepper.
Mom: :mad:
Had my eye on this really hunky bloke and invited him over for a dinner-date. I was a poor student at the time, but threw caution to the wind and ‘invested’ in a boned leg of lamb to make a slow-cooked Indian curry.
One of the ingredients called for coconut milk, but such exotica was not available in Australia thirty years ago. So I got some dessicated coconut and soaked it in water for a few hours…instead of straining the mix, I tipped the whole lot into my crock pot. :eek:
Instead of a night of carnal debauchery, we ended up picking fucking coconut out of our teeth for the remainder of the evening.
dinner disasters are very harmful for human life.some points which is helpful to avoid disaster are: never store household products or chemical near food, always fit to fryer, dont have big size piece from oven place always check size of piece before putting in the oven,keep your pets away from kitchen.