NationStates Jolt Archive

Today I tried to make adzuki porridge by following this recipe: http://www.knowingfood.com/red/japanese_adzuki_porridge.html

Now, if you'll notice, it says to boil the beans in 330 mL of water for half an hour. I started to do this and thought that it probably wouldn't work and that I should check on it after a bit, but then I went away and forgot about it... until my fire alarm started going off. All the water had boiled off and the entire downstairs of my house was full of smoke.

I'm trying it again, this time with a lot more water and supervision and I'll have to see how it turns out...

anyone else have cooking disaster stories so I don't feel so bad about mine?

I just had a flashback to Cheney Hall at Southeast Missouri State University. The kitchen was in the basement, just off one of the common rooms. I was living on the first floor at the time. At about seven o'clock one night, the most horrible smell ever begins wafting up from the basement. After twenty minutes of this, the RA goes around and informs everyone that some fuckwit tried to make ramen. Without water. I will never, never, never forget that smell.

I tried to make turkey chili with a recepie I found online. Ground turkey /= groudn hamburger apparently.

It was watery and tasted like ass.

I just had a flashback to Cheney Hall at Southeast Missouri State University. The kitchen was in the basement, just off one of the common rooms. I was living on the first floor at the time. At about seven o'clock one night, the most horrible smell ever begins wafting up from the basement. After twenty minutes of this, the RA goes around and informs everyone that some fuckwit tried to make ramen. Without water. I will never, never, never forget that smell.
I demand to know how you could make ramen without water. All it is is dried noodles. If you try to make it without water, it's already made.

I demand to know how you could make ramen without water. All it is is dried noodles. If you try to make it without water, it's already made.

Sorry, me no speak engrish good. What I meant was that she stuck the noodle block in the pan and turned on the heat. Without adding the water required to actually cook the damn noodles. Yuck.

my brother once put popcorn in the microwave for 30 minutes...It was supposed to be only 3...

my brother once put popcorn in the microwave for 30 minutes...It was supposed to be only 3...
haha. I guess he misplaced the decimal?

A friend of mine once told me about when she'd put a Hot Pocket in he microwave for 5 minutes.

Making orange glazed carrots, I burned the glaze to a CRISP. Had to start over.

Then the grease from the goose I was roasting hit the bottom of the oven -- can we say "smoked out the house"? I thought we could. ;)

my brother once put popcorn in the microwave for 30 minutes...It was supposed to be only 3...

Microwave popcorn has a wonderful smell. I once worked in a call center that banned it, because the smell kept distracting people. Burt microwave popcorn, on the other hand, smells nasty.

Microwave popcorn has a wonderful smell. I once worked in a call center that banned it, because the smell kept distracting people. Burt microwave popcorn, on the other hand, smells nasty.

Not when the bag and the inside of the microwave are black

I've burnt chocolate before (attempted to melt it, did not know that it was one of those foods that you use a double-boiler for...), but that's pretty much it for me.

However, from my college:
Cookie (chocolate chip, probably) in the microwave, set for some ridiculous amount of time. After half an hour, it caught fire.
Many people have been putting bread in the toaster - with jelly already on it! Can you say fire hazard? Can you say sticky mess? Howsabout both?

But really. I don't think you can beat the cookie story, Dakini.

haha. I guess he misplaced the decimal?

he wasn't paying attention and pressed 3-0-0-0 instead of 3-0-0...then he forgot about while watching T.V.

my brother once put popcorn in the microwave for 30 minutes...It was supposed to be only 3...
How the fuck did he manage that? Did he microwave it in a house down the block? By 3 minutes it is probably starting to burn and shortly thereafter anyone downwind for a mile would know you burnt popcorn. Or does he not have a sense of smell, and if that is the case, why eat popcorn? It isn't particularly pleasing to the palette.

he wasn't paying attention and pressed 3-0-0-0 instead of 3-0-0...then he forgot about while watching T.V.
You know, I suspect that television and the internet are the two leading causes of screwing up a good meal.

I had a disaster simply reheating canned corned beef on a pan. I overcooked the corned beef, it burned, and it stuck to the pan. I had to scrub the pan with steel wool to get the charred corned beef out.

I had a disaster simply reheating canned corned beef on a pan. I overcooked the corned beef, it burned, and it stuck to the pan. I had to scrub the pan with steel wool to get the charred corned beef out.

From experience: most messes you'd use steel wool for can and SHOULD be dealt with with hot soapy water soak first. Steel wool can scratch the pan and make it more likely for things to stick and burn.

Oh, I just remembered the grossest meal I ever made! At some point all I had left in the cupboard was rice and cans of stuff. So I decided to try rice and creamed corn...


yes, it does taste about as good as it sounds.

Oh, I just remembered the grossest meal I ever made! At some point all I had left in the cupboard was rice and cans of stuff. So I decided to try rice and creamed corn...


yes, it does taste about as good as it sounds.


As long as you have more corn then rice i think that that could be okay.

Not really cooking, but I think this counts...

A few years ago (fine, last year), we had a ton of extra hot dog rolls left over from something, so we froze them. Then, it came time to unfreeze them, so my mom suggested that I microwave them to heat it up. I threw them in the microwave for about 30 seconds, walked away, walked back when I heard the beep, and noticed a flickering in the microwave. Not knowing much about science, I assumed the door of the microwave was broken so the light was flickering, and I was being bombarded with microwaves/cancer. I slowly approached it, opened the door, and realized that the light was actually the hot dog bun package, on fire, me having forgotten to remove the buns from the plastic. In a little bit of panic, I threw it in the sink and turned on the water. I ruined those hot dog buns.

Cooking isn't my strong suit.

Not the worst meal I've ever made, techincally it isnt a meal but a shake.. anyway it was by far the worst looking... by miles.

It was the 4th qtr Spanish 4 prjct and we had to make food in groups and bring it in for fiesta. Long story short it was the night before and I found a recipie for mango-banana smoothie. Ok thats good. Problem: someone in my house at one of the mangos and there was only 1 left... I had to improvise...

..and boy did I :D

Kamikaze Mango Shake:

few cups of yogurt..

3 or 4 bananas.. maybe 5..

few table spoons of syrup..

few table spoons of honey..

few tablespoons of choclate syrup..

large wad of peanut butter..

small peice of prune butter..

enough cinnamon to cover the top..

cup or more of sugar.. (really I think that's what saved it.. that and the cinamon)

several cups of milk..

pea size drop of mustard..

1.. or 2 small peaches

and... oh yes 1 frozen mango chopped to bits.

Throw all that into a blender and before your about to blend it looks like the inside of that old camp toilet everyone's afraid to go near. After blending it takes a very pale pinkish color. Tastes awesome though.. really.. it tastes like everything. Lol seriously it had every taste in there and that's what people kept telling me.

Yumm... :D

From experience: most messes you'd use steel wool for can and SHOULD be dealt with with hot soapy water soak first. Steel wool can scratch the pan and make it more likely for things to stick and burn.
Oh. I didn't know that... Thanks.

But nowadays I use that non-stick pan, so those charred food would go to my tummy rather than the pan.

Um:

About a month ago, I was helping my mom marinade and bake 2 salmons. After the first one was finished, she had to get something, so she told me to take the fish out after 10 minutes. Well, I went to sleep for an hour and when I came out, my dad was sitting at the table eating the charred fish, telling me that it was my fault the dinner was ruined. Of course there was the other perfectly good salmon sitting in the refrigerator, but anyway...

Today I tried to make adzuki porridge by following this recipe: http://www.knowingfood.com/red/japanese_adzuki_porridge.html

Now, if you'll notice, it says to boil the beans in 330 mL of water for half an hour. I started to do this and thought that it probably wouldn't work and that I should check on it after a bit, but then I went away and forgot about it... until my fire alarm started going off. All the water had boiled off and the entire downstairs of my house was full of smoke.

I'm trying it again, this time with a lot more water and supervision and I'll have to see how it turns out...

anyone else have cooking disaster stories so I don't feel so bad about mine?

I shoved my hand into a blender once...

If anyone wants to know how my second attempt at cooking that recipe went... I had to boil the rice for 20 mins and cook it at medium high for a while since it didn't do a damn thing after 50 mins of cooking at low temperature.

Early one morning I arose and toodled down to the kitchen. Deciding that scrambled eggs would be quite the very thing I set about preparing the ingredients, whisking the mixture and pouring into the pan. Slowly I stirred on low heat until I reached the zenith of fluffy yet creamy consistency.

I then opened my mother's handbag and poured in the entire pan of scrambled eggs inside.

I still have no idea what was going through my mind and it was hard to tell who was the more upset, myself for having wasted a good meal or my mother for having scrambled eggs all over the entire contents of her handbag.

It wasn't the best of days.

Early one morning I arose and toodled down to the kitchen. Deciding that scrambled eggs would be quite the very thing I set about preparing the ingredients, whisking the mixture and pouring into the pan. Slowly I stirred on low heat until I reached the zenith of fluffy yet creamy consistency.

I then opened my mother's handbag and poured in the entire pan of scrambled eggs inside.

I still have no idea what was going through my mind and it was hard to tell who was the more upset, myself for having wasted a good meal or my mother for having scrambled eggs all over the entire contents of her handbag.

It wasn't the best of days.
hahahahah.... don't you love mornings?

hahahahah.... don't you love mornings?

:) I'm better now but mornings used to really perplex me.

Today I tried to make adzuki porridge by following this recipe: http://www.knowingfood.com/red/japanese_adzuki_porridge.html

Now, if you'll notice, it says to boil the beans in 330 mL of water for half an hour. I started to do this and thought that it probably wouldn't work and that I should check on it after a bit, but then I went away and forgot about it... until my fire alarm started going off. All the water had boiled off and the entire downstairs of my house was full of smoke.

I'm trying it again, this time with a lot more water and supervision and I'll have to see how it turns out...

anyone else have cooking disaster stories so I don't feel so bad about mine?

I caught a teapot on fire once in much the same way. I decided I wanted a cup of tea and put some water on the stove. But then I got caught up doing something and forgot about it. All the water boiled out and the handle of the teapot started to burn. My mom woke up and was pissed and I had to go buy her a new teapot the next day.

Saw the Breakfast Club, and tried to make the sandwitch that the crazy girl made.

*shudders*

Today I tried to make adzuki porridge by following this recipe: http://www.knowingfood.com/red/japanese_adzuki_porridge.html

Now, if you'll notice, it says to boil the beans in 330 mL of water for half an hour. I started to do this and thought that it probably wouldn't work and that I should check on it after a bit, but then I went away and forgot about it... until my fire alarm started going off. All the water had boiled off and the entire downstairs of my house was full of smoke.

I'm trying it again, this time with a lot more water and supervision and I'll have to see how it turns out...

anyone else have cooking disaster stories so I don't feel so bad about mine?

My aunt is a virtual treasure trove of culinary horror.

I went to visit her on her remote island home with a cousin by another aunt. We got so bored on this (literally) one horse town that we found two tennis rackets, but no tennis ball. We found her scones to be an ideal substitute. Better than the genuine article because neither of us really played tennis, so we didn't have to worry about chasing the ball down the hill after we missed.

My parents went to visit her on a separate occasion, and my father is a very picky eater. My aunt detected a certain grouchiness after a couple of days and told my mother she would make amends with "a nice curry."

She boiled a whole chicken in a quart of vegetable oil before adding a packet of curry powder. Potatoes and vegetables (no rice) were boiled separately in water. My mother desperately tried to salvage a small amount of edible chicken, and when she wasn't looking my aunt dumped it all back into the pot. At this point the only identifiable contents of the pot were chicken bones, floating scraps of skin, and a churning viscous pot of opaque oil. Once these depths were plumbed with a sieve some shreds of meat were in evidence, but not enough to constitute an entree.

My father opted for a chocolate bar for dinner.

As bad as all of this was, the men who ate in this household were the crewmen of my aunt's husband, a local fisherman who owned his own boat. One of the stragglers showed up after my mother noticed that the last of the food had been eaten. My aunt welcomed the straggler to the table beaming, "let me get you a nice bowl of soup," and proceeded to ladle him a bowl full of steaming hot vegetable oil with chicken bones and skin floating in it. To my mother's horror, the crewman seemed to very much enjoy this "soup."

This is something of a second hand story, but I hope it makes you feel a bit better about simply forgetting to turn the stove off, which I'm pretty sure we've all done.

she told me to take the fish out after 10 minutes. Well, I went to sleep for an hour

Yup, sounds like your fault. I assume if they bought and made 2 salmons, they had plans for the second one,

If anyone wants to know how my second attempt at cooking that recipe went... I had to boil the rice for 20 mins and cook it at medium high for a while since it didn't do a damn thing after 50 mins of cooking at low temperature.

In other words, the person who wrote that recipe is PHAIL!

Yup, sounds like your fault. I assume if they bought and made 2 salmons, they had plans for the second one,

Yeah, this happens alot when I cook. I usually forget to set a timer or check the oven, so most of my food comes out burned. Not eggs though. I always cook scrambled eggs, so there's no real time for me to walk away and wait for it to cook.

I still remember the time where I tried to reheat a large burrito in my dorm room's microwave...

...without taking the aluminum foil wrapper off.

DUH! :headbang:

LMAO!

What cooking story of mine HASN't gone wrong.

There was the time I tried to make a black forest cake... forgot the whip cream and the cheeries at home, had to use expired whip cream from the school, used a pan that was too small so it all boiled over the edge and then I couldn't take it out and so instead of having a cake, I had squares of cake in globs of cherry pie filling and whipcream.

Then... there were the oatmeal cookies where my brain thought half a stick of butter was a good idea... those things soaked up 6 cups of whole weat flour and were still thirsty afterwards.

Then their was the pasta I decifed to make, over cooked the angel hair pasta to the point where it was gummy, over cooked the mushrooms and onions and the whole things was a pile of vomit by the end of it.

And the mochi issue where I over boiled the white chocolate and didn't have enough flour, so the dough was too sticky and instead of coming out as nice, round little puffs, there were monstorous globs of what looked like a botched science fair dissection.

*deep breath*

and then the scallop potatoes where I didn't add enough flour and forgot to put the sauce in between the layers, undercooked it so the potatoes were still hard...

I really could go on and on and on... so many cooking failures ^^;;

In other words, the person who wrote that recipe is PHAIL!
I have to admit, in reading the recipe, it doesn't sound like the real thing over here.

And the mochi issue where I over boiled the white chocolate and didn't have enough flour, so the dough was too sticky and instead of coming out as nice, round little puffs, there were monstorous globs of what looked like a botched science fair dissection.
White chocolate? In MOCHI?! What were you trying to make?

Well, so far I've learned the hard way that one does not try to replace red bell peppers with red peppers (unless you like your mouth being on fire). I also found out that, while attempting to make Christmas cookies for a party here, that if you add a wee bit too much flour without the surgar, you get Christmas biscuits, which aren't nearly as impressive.

Yeah I've seen a few of these (though managed to keep out of any blame for them :cool:)

My ex decided that it would be a good idea to heat up some honey in a microwave (plastic jug), I just recovered that before the jug went completely.

The other main story from Uni. is when one of my mates trying to cook a Chinese meal of some sort, ended up setting fire to the oil in his wok (scorch marks all up the wall and ceiling) and threw the wok - flaming oil and all - out of his 3rd floor window... on recovery of said wok there was a nice 4" hole burnt through it

i added cinnamon to a bolognese sauce, when i meant to add a splash of cumin, once. it was foul.


i also had mac&cheese with tuna one time at uni, and felt thoroughly ill...

In other words, the person who wrote that recipe is PHAIL!
Oh yes, most certainly. However, I did make it work. It just two closer to two hours to boil off/absorb most of the water instead of the predicted hour.
After 50 mins of low heat, I cranked the tempreature until it boiled, let it boil for about 10 mins, stirring it, put it back on low for a bit, went back, decided it was taking too long (althrough the rice had finally gotten soft), turned up the heat again until it boiled and then back down until it was a slow boil, stirred it every once in a while and threw in some cinnamon.

It's actually quite yummy and makes a surprising amount of food given that it started as only one cup of rice and some beans, so if you want to stretch out your food budget this is a good way to go. I'm having leftovers for breakfast as I type this. :)

I have to admit, in reading the recipe, it doesn't sound like the real thing over here.
Do you happen to have a recipe about that is better?

Also, if you would be kind enough to review their recipe for red bean buns and tell me if you think that would work it would be appreciated (a big part of why I bought the damn beans is that I want to make some of these eventually). http://www.knowingfood.com/red/redpau.html

Ummm...maybe I don't feel so bad about deep-frying a banana then. My wife and I wanted deep-fried Oreos (which turned out really well) and I wnated to experiment with deep-frying, since i had a bunch of extra pancake batter and frying oil, so I tried deep-frying a banana. It turned out to be really mushy and not good.

Another time, I tried to fry potatoes...I tried it a few different ways, and only one of them turned out to be any good. The rest were way too soggy, starchy, or whatever. Not good.

My father has tried to set the ceiling on fire in the kitchen many times. He likes to make very... Intense foods, and he loves to use high heat and a well oiled pan to stir fry. The result is columns of flame that stretch from the pan to the ceiling, and leave giant scorch marks all over the ceiling (luckily, they wash off).