Have done exactly this, as admitted to here!
TreacherousCretin my wife did the opposite once on Thanksgiving… she was making the gravy and grabbed the cinnamon instead of the black pepper. In fact, there’s a thread I started a few years back specifically about Thanksgiving cooking disasters, because it seems like we’d have one just about every year.
I was making a cake and the recipe called for 2/3 cups of sugar (or something). I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for the 2/3 measuring cup. It wasn’t until I had my keys in hand walking out the door to go to the store before I realized how dumb I was.
Back in the 60s when the add-pudding-to-cake-mix was a new thing, that was a favorite in our house. My sister decided she wanted to bake a cake, and she got the recipe from Mom (box of cake mix, box of instant pudding, cup of milk, 1/2 cup of oil, 4 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, beat for 5 minutes by the clock) and for whatever reason, she also thought she had to follow the recipe on the cake mix box, so she ended up with a mess that had 7 eggs, a cup of milk, a cup of water, a cup of oil… :eek: We didn’t have cake that night.
My worst disaster was the time I made a meatloaf in college. I didn’t have bread crumbs, but I figured crushed cornflakes would be a good substitute. Yeah, not so much. Don’t try this at home… EVER!!!
The other day I made a nice big bowl of fruit and yogurt for myself, drizzled on a spoonful of honey, threw in some walnuts, and then sprinkled a generous portion of cinnamon on top. Except that I grabbed a bottle of Creole spice by mistake. Decidedly unyummy.
Well, one from me: I wanted to make “Baby Ruth Bars”, which you make by heating up sugar and corn syrup, melting in some peanut butter, mixing in some Special K cereal, spreading into a pan and cooling, then topping with chocolate and butterscotch chips. I checked for the ingredients first, but had no Special K, and didn’t want to go to the store. I did have some Frosted Flakes, though, so I gave it a whirl. Apparently, you just can’t do it with frosted flakes, though; the sugar coating on the flakes doesn’t allow the peanut butter mixture to stick to it, so it just runs to the bottom of the pan.
And, one from my wife: she called me at work to ask for my stir-fry sauce recipe. The recipe ends with “1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, but you can go as far as 1/2 teaspoon if you want it hotter.” Somehow, half a teaspoon was misunderstood, and she put in two tablespoons of cayenne pepper, or for you math-minded folks, twelve times the recommended maximum. It was crazy-hot. No one ate more than a couple of bites.
And one non-disaster: I made a fantastic turkey for Thanksgiving one year. At one point, one of my nieces came back for more, and while taking it off the plate of carved stuff next to the carved-up turkey, looked at something on it, pulled it off, and asked, “Oh god, is this a feather??!?” No, we told her, it was a sprig of rosemary I’d put in the cavity before cooking. Had a good laugh at her expense.
LOL.
I’m at my GF’s house. Before I leave, my GF fills an empty water bottle with laundry detergent. I put it in my bag, which also had an actual bottle of water.
On the way home, I get thirsty. So I blindly fumble around in the bag as I’m keeping my eyes on the road. I opened up the bottle and take a huge swig, only to discover I now have a mouthful of soap. So I quickly pulled over in an attempt to spit it out. Only except, I was having difficulty spitting it out because the soap has the consistency of pancake syrup. So I grabbed my bottle of water, took a swig, swished it around in my mouth, and when I spit it out, I’m spewing suds all over the place. I went through that entire bottle of water trying to get that soap out of my mouth. By the time I was done, there was a pool of suds the size of a lake on the pavement.
Cornflakes work fine in meatloaf, just soak them thoroughly. Google “corn flake meat loaf.” So your idea was perfectly fine.
ETA: the recipes I see don’t call for soaking, but that’s what I’ve always done, no matter what stretcher I’m using: stale bread, fresh bread, oats, croutons, corn flakes, etc. Well, potato flakes I’ll add right in.
**Help me feel better: embarrassing/disgusting kitchen brain farts…
**
For some reason, I missed the word ‘brain’ the first time I read that.
And I thought, I don’t want to eat dinner at Leaper’s house…
It would be fine as long as Grrrr! was there. His farts smell Mountain Sunshine Breezy Fresh (if you don’t mind the bubbles.)
I once tried to boil water in a Pyrex measuring cup placed directly on the burner of a gas range.
Don’t.
Mango muffins! I’d love to have that recipe!
I remember, as a kid, sitting down at the table with the family. Eating our oatmeal breakfast. Everyone agreed it was bad oatmeal! They returned the oatmeal to the store.
It was later discovered that someone put salt in the sugar jar. They never got caught.
I once marinated a chicken breast with the intention of grilling it and making some wraps for lunch. I marinated it during the day at work, cut it up what evening, made the wraps, and fixed my lunch for the next day. Notice steps missing? I didn’t realize until I bit into at work that somehow forgot to actually cook the chicken. :smack:
I’d made this banana bread probably five times before so I was pretty familiar with it but still followed the recipe. I give a few loaves as gifts at Christmas. Last Christmas I was a little late in making them and only got to them the night before I needed them. No sweat, they’re easy, I have a brand-spanking-new KitchenAid mixer and I have tunes cranked. Well, apparently I was having too good a time. Thank goodness I’d made a loaf for my SO that he got into as soon as it was cool enough. “It tastes a little bland”. With “bland” being diplomatic for “like shit”.
I’d forgotten the sugar.
I got up at 5am to do them again (minus the tunes which were what distracted me) and the squirrels and birds liked the weird little chunks I threw out instead of (unsalted) peanuts. I was annoyed but very grateful I hadn’t given the doorstops masquerading as banana bread as gifts!!
When I was a wee little thing, I somehow got it stuck in my head that sugar and salt were opposites and would cancel each other out. For some reason, I thought my cereal was too sweet, and went to the cupboard to rectify the situation. Follow that mess to its logical conclusion.
Also, used salt instead of sugar when making cookies in Home Ec. Never understood why my teacher was so happy when that semester was over.
Now I just use garlic salt. It’s a slightly different color, plus garlic > everything. Too bad my girlfriend doesn’t agree.
Oh boy…I should mention the time I baked a pumpkin pie without adding any sugar. Or the time I baked banana bread without adding baking soda and I get a hard, solid, heavy brick that I could have used to hit something with.
But what takes the cake is probably the time I put a pot on the stove and turned the flame on. Hmm, the flame has been on for a long time, why isn’t anything cooking…? Then to my horror I realized that I’d turned on the wrong burner. On top of another stove burner was a large porcelain plate. BAM! The plate, which had been directly being burned by the stove burner flame underneath, shattered with a large crack. I’m very fortunate that I didn’t get a shrapnel explosion with fragments going into my face and eyes and my needing surgery.
I had the BBQ a little too close to the plastic siding on my house . . .
This made me laugh until I was boneless because my mom pulled a switcheroo on me purposefully . . .
Back in the day (early '80s) Tab was one of her very few personal indulgences – she actually kept it under lock and key in her bedroom cupboard and would drink one or two a day. I lusted after her Tab and would take furtive gulps whenever she stepped away.
One day she left a long, tall glass of Tab with lovely cool ice cubes floating in it on the kitchen counter. I lurked in, gulped down as much as possible, then realized it. wasn’t. Tab.
Yup, it was a skillfully set trap: Worcestershire sauce garnished with ice cubes.
Not a kitchen disaster but definitely a brain fart… my wife and I were out for dinner one night at a local bar and grill that has a Friday night fish and chips special. My wife grabbed the bottle of what she thought was the malt vinegar and poured half of her Bud Light on her fish and chips!