Silly But Funny Little Mistakes That Didn't Hurt Anything

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just a little while ago, I decided to bake a cake. For Christmas, my mom gave me a cake cookbook (called “The Cake Doctor”) and all the fixin’s to make a chocolate cola cake, including a can of Pam cooking spray, to spray the cake pan with.

So, I start making the cake. I get everything all mixed together, grab the Pam, shake it up, and start to spray. Next thing I smell is garlic. I look at the can of Pam, and notice that it’s garlic-flavored.

Now, garlic-flavored Pam is really an excellent idea. I’ll use the crap out of it. But not with chocolate cake. Something tells me that that just wouldn’t work, you know?

I laughed, cleaned out the pan, and re-sprayed it with my own regular cooking spray. Then I called my mom. Here’s the conversation:

Me: Hi Mom! Happy New Year! Hey, I’m making that chocolate-cola cake today!

Mom: Oh really? Great! You’ll like it. It’s really good.

Me: The batter is excellent, I already know that. But hey, I’ve got a question for you. Did you know that Pam makes flavored cooking sprays now?

(minor interruption to explain something to the Dopers–yes, I was setting up my own mother.)

Mom: Yes, I did know that. Didn’t I get you some?

Me: Oh, okay! Then the garlic-flavored stuff you got was bought on purpose?

Mom: Well, of course! I thought it looked really good!

Me: Oh yeah, it smells absolutely wonderful! But…I don’t think it will taste very good with chocolate cake.

Mom: (silence, then…) Oh s***.

Me: BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHA!

We had a good chuckle.

Anything silly happen to you recently? :smiley:

2

Mom made some cornbread with cream of tartar instead of baking soda once.

–Tim

3

ROFL, Persephone! That sounds like the kind of conversation I would have with my Mom!

4

Yeah, no one in my family ever passes up the opportunity to set up another family member. We live for it. As long as it’s funny, anyway! :smiley:

5

I have a great recipe for garlic and chocolate chip cookies- really! But it takes so darn long to peel all the garlic that I seldom bother.

6

Speaking of cooking mishaps…
I was in the middle of one of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books, and I couldn’t put the thing down. Eventually, I got hungry, so I went into the kitchen, boiled some water and chucked some spaghetti in. All the while, still reading the book. After a few minutes I decide the spaghetti is ready and dump it out onto a plate. Chuck the plate at the table. Walk over the the cupboard, still reading my book, and grab the green cylindrical can of Kraft grated parmesian cheese. Shake shake shake. The Foundation has been defeated! Good God! Shake shake shake…

And, about a microsecond before the first forkful of luscious spaghetti went into my mouth, I happened to notice the label on that cylindrical can.

AJAX.
Whew.

7

Here’s a cooking mishap. The baker for the children’s home where I used to work is blind. An absolutely fantastic person who lost his sight in a violent encounter with a bad guy, but this thread is supposed to be funny so I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, blind baker. Does a fantastic job, except that he did make pea cookies once. Seems the peas were near the chocolate chips in the freezer. It was made even funnier by the fact that no one had the heart to tell him. The cookies weren’t very good, though.

8

I am absolutely perfect in every way and would never make such a mistake.

My mother is another story. She likes to make guacamole with chili powder. In my family tacos were a favorite meal because they are the perfect avocado delivery system. We all sit down, my dad puts a big scoop of guac on his taco, takes a big bite, and makes the strangest face. It took a while to narrow it down to a specific ingredient, but mom had put a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon in with the avocado.

A recent one was at a Vietnamese restaurant we went to for lunch. They (usually) have fabulous lemonade. Everyone orders it. It comes out and is completely undrinkable. Turns out the guy the night before had put in 4 cups of salt instead of sugar.

9

My dad was making a taco and a hotdog in the commercial break of a game. He had the mustard squeezer in his hand and absentmindedly put mustard on both. When they came out of the microwave he threw a fit, and didn’t have time to redo it, so he ate it that way. Well, he didn’t eat much of it.

10

Back when my entire family was living together, my older sister decided to make a few hard boiled eggs. Threw the eggs into the pan of water, turned on the heat, and promptly forgot about them.

Normally, when this happens, the egg will crack open a bit and release the pressure inside. This one was apparently made of sterner stuff than this. About ten minutes later we’re all sitting in the living room when we hear :

KA-BOOOM!

The egg had exploded. We spent the next afternoon trying to clean heat-tempered hard-boiled egg off the kitchen ceiling.

11

Thanks Euty…I just started my new job at the same company (long story, some already know) & a huge stone flew up & hit my windscreen on the way to work…but I fell so much better now!
:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

12

or feel…your choice…no, really, I insist!

13

A bunch of us went to a friend’s home for a Superbowl party one year. Some of the females had brought the fixings for 7-layer dip but didn’t have time to make it beforehand. So they decided to just whip it up in the kitchen during the first quarter. They were having a grand old time with their nice little hen party in there (I was out with the menfolk) and something big happened in the game. Lots of hollering at the TV. My friend Bev, the biggest football fan, rushes out of the kitchen with a stainless-steel bowl in her hands to see what happened. Our host looks up. “Bev, what the hell are you doing with the dog dish?”

“The dog dish?” Bev falters, “Mashing avacado to make guacamole… I thought this was a mixing bowl…”

Bert told her no worries, he always washes the dog bowls after every feeding, go ahead. But NO ONE touched the dip.

14

Ack! I’ve done this before, but with potatoes. Very peculiar tasting, indeed!

15

This exchange between my Dad and my sister occurred about 20 years ago:

Dad: I sure could go for some coffee. (He was, and still is, an instant coffee drinker)
Sis (who overheard from the kitchen): I’ll fix it for you! How much coffee do I put in the cup?
Dad: Thanks, dear. I use a level teaspoon of coffee per cup.
later
Sis: Here, Dad. Enjoy!
Dad: Thanks, honey! ::sip:: GAAAACCCKKK! HOW MUCH COFFEE DID YOU PUT IN HERE???
Sis(pouting): Just like you said - eleven teaspoons.

16

Two weeks ago, it was time for our annual holiday pot-luck feast at work. It was held in our work/break room, which has counterspace along two walls and a multitude of electrical outlets - quite handy for setting out portable hot plates. I was sitting in a corner, concentrating on the exams I was grading, while a colleauge was setting up for the party. She asked if there was enough room for another burner near me, and when I replied that there was, she set one up with a nice-looking rice casserole, in what I thought was a Pyrex dish.

About five minutes later, Colleauge discovers that we are missing a few essential items - knives, a pie server, et cetera. Since I live only five minutes from work, I offered to go home and get the necessary items. When I returned, about ten minutes later, as I was approaching the workroom door I heard a BAMF! and a female squealing. I rushed into the room, and discovered that the dish had exploded - it was ordinary glass, not Pyrex. Thank God, nobody was hurt - but I had been sitting less than a foot from it before my trip home. The glass fragments were so hot that they melted into the carpet.

The rest of the holiday feast was quite tasty, and much safer.

17

I once made this cake for a Latin-class luncheon. Per the instructions of my Latin teacher, I dumped a bunch of honey into the cake batter. She took a look at the cake when I brought it in, and explained that she meant 1/4 cup, not the 2 cups I dumped in. Sheesh.

Robin

18

Once when I was a fledgling cook (desserts only), I decided to try a nice old-fashioned recipe for ice-box roll cookies. The recipe must have called for lard or shortening, which we didn’t have. So I decided to use the nice white fat that my mother had in a can in the fridge. Yes, that’s right, it was bacon grease.

The cookies stayed in the jar for the longest time. The dog used to beg for them.

19

One time I made Toll House cookies, and forgot the flour. I checked on them and had a cookie sheet full of melted chocolate and butter. So I dumped the chocolate back into the bowl and added the flour, mixed it up, and we had chocolate cookies. Nice save!

Another time when I was sick, I asked my (9 or 10 yr old) son to bring me a bowl of Raisin Bran, with 2 “things” of sugar. A “thing” to me was a teaspoon, a “thing” to him was the 1/4 cup measure I kept in the sugar canister. Ack!

20

The Better Half’s job is to come up with Sunday lunch every week (“Daddy’s Turn to Cook”). It’s usually not bad, never boring (he’s famous in my family as The Boyfriend Who Brought Red and Green Bread Rolls to a family Sunday lunch. They tasted fine, if you closed your eyes.)

Anyway, two weeks ago, he wanted to make a marinated-in-Italian-salad-dressing boneless chicken breast thing, so he got it all ready, soaking in the fridge overnight, and with great fanfare broiled it (the actual broiler, not the microwave!) and brought it to the table, and it tasted like he’d marinated it in straight vinegar.

I said, “What did you use to marinate this?” because I’d seen an empty bottle of Italian dressing in the trash. He said, “Well, I didn’t have enough to do the whole bag of frozen chicken breasts, and I know with your fat-free diet you’re not supposed to eat regular Italian dressing anyway, so I made my own Italian dressing.”

I said, “Um–did you use a recipe?” knowing from past experience that it was probably a futile question. (Meanwhile the kids were kind of aimlessly pushing their chicken around on their plates…) He said cheerfully, “No, I improvised. It’s just vinegar with some oil in it, right? And I added some salt and pepper and garlic powder…”

Well, I gathered up everybody’s chicken and took it out into the kitchen and boiled it for a little while, but it was no use. It was still the sourest chicken I’d ever tasted. Straight white vinegar, which I keep around to pour through the Mr. Coffee, not to cook with. I had to throw the whole thing away, tactfully, while I was cleaning up the kitchen later.

And then the next afternoon, while I was rummaging through the refrigerator, looking for something to cook for supper, lo and behold, there were five more chicken breasts, marinating quietly in what had remained of the bottled Italian dressing. Now why in the world hadn’t he mentioned this? I could have pan-broiled them for lunch in about 3 minutes, and Dadday’s Sunday Lunch would have been saved.

Anyway, I cooked them for supper that night. Thank you so much, B.H., for fixing Monday supper, too. :smiley: