Two times come to mind, actually.
1. Too much vinegar
Several years ago, I tried a recipe from the ATK Quick Family Cookbook for fish in foil packets with rice, and I think there was a typo when it came to the vinegar measurements.
It called for something like a cup of vinegar, and unfortunately, I followed the recipe instead of my gut.
That amount of vinegar turned the meal completely inedible; we had to throw it all out.
And since then, I have seen that recipe published by ATK in other places with a much, much smaller vinegar measurement. 😉
2. Dead pizza dough
Another time, long ago, before we even had kids, I’d frozen some homemade pizza dough.
It seemed a little dense when I thawed it, but I went ahead and shaped and baked it.
It did not rise AT ALL. It was dense, gummy dough, covered in sauce and cheese.
I think I’d kept it in the freezer a little too long, and the yeast was dead as a doornail.
The pizza was so terrible, we could not finish eating it; into the trash it went.
The pizza I made back then wasn’t nearly as good as what I make now. But most of my pizzas were at least edible; this one was a glaring exception.
When my parents were newlyweds, my mom had never made chili before and my dad told her to just threw everything in the pot. So she did. Without coming the ground beef first. I was not about to make that mistake, so when my husband and I were engaged and I tried to make meatloaf, I cooked the ground beef first. After it was done cooking, I mixed it with everything else, put it in the loaf pan, and baked it. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I asked him how I would know when it was done.
Fast forward 11 years and my meatloaf is now one of my best and most requested-by-friends dishes.
Oh, that is so funny! That must have been some very, very dry meatloaf.
Once I was inspired by Laurie Colwin’s books to roast a whole chicken. Oh gosh. Never again. I was horrible at cooking meat, after being vegetarian/vegan for over two decades…I tried to follow her directions, but maybe our oven wasn’t right, or hers wasn’t. By the time everyone was starving hungry for dinner, the chicken was still raw and undercooked inside. It was horrible! I’m still scarred by that. We do roast a turkey at Thanksgiving, but my husband is in charge of that. I *still* am leery about cooking meat, but I’m getting better at it.
Oh, there’s a “worst”? I have problems cooking at least two or three times a year. Just keep those expectations low and celebrate when things go right. lol.
My worst meal causes me pain just to think of it. I was a newlywed & my in-laws came to visit. My mother-in-law kept following me around the kitchen telling me what to do. I had practiced the meal a few times I was so nervous about it…a baked chicken recipe…& my husband loved it when I made for him. But when we cut into it…the meat was raw & the skin was burnt. Oh the pain of that memory. My mother-in-law just kept saying..’It’s raw! We can’t eat that!’ My father-in-law kindly took us out to dinner.
That dinner was a foreshadowing of the next 25 yrs with my mil.
Oooh, that was very ungracious of her. Geez.
When I still lived with my mom, I frequently cooked dinner and had it ready when she came home. One of our favorites was Salisbury Steak. It was easy to make, just put chopped steaks in a frying pan and add one of those seasoning packets. Well, one night the steaks were really tender and I guess I stirred it too much and by the time she came home, it was a skillet of brown mush. She was not happy, took one look at it, picked up the skillet and dumped it into the trash can. She said it looked like dog food and we weren’t eating it. I can’t remember what we ate instead but to this day when I make Salisbury steak we call it dog food and laugh hysterically. Even though it was decidedly not funny back in the day. 😉
I think that’s terrible! Your Mom must have had a really bad day, but…
As far as frugality, I would have put this over noodles, rice, or mashed potatoes.
It was just last fall. I hosted a “friend’s thanksgiving”. My friend and her family came from AZ and her son is gluten free. I researched flours to use to make some special gravy and even made homemade turkey stock ahead of time. Oh it turned out so disgusting! I was also sad to see all that good homemade stock wasted.
Oh, that is frustrating! Allergy-friendly stuff does require a lot of trial and error; just with Sonia’s dairy sensitivity, we’ve tried a number of things that have been failures.
Good old cornstarch works great and is gluten-free. Directions on the box. If it conceals you can just heat and whisk. We did that for years for my grandma- used half of stock, S & P and stuff with flour like normal old-fashioned gravy, and half went into Mimi’s. Some of us gluten-eaters even chose Mimi’s gravy on purpose, liking it better.
Of course these things happen when company is there, mothers-in-law are watching, etc.
Congeals! You know, thickens/solidifies like pudding. Spell-check does not know the word congeals!?
We had not been dating long when I invited the guy over for a home cooked Thanksgiving meal. I had never cooked a turkey before, especially with rice stuffing, which the guy told me he really missed because that was what his mom made. I stuffed that puppy as full as I could…too bad I didn’t realize you used cooked rice, not raw rice. The rice cooked, alright, and expanded so much the turkey basically exploded. Turns out this guy did not have a sense of humor, which is pretty much essential if you are going to be with me, and got huffy. I told him he could leave, so he stomped out…right into the closet that was next to the exit door of the apartment. He was still saying obnoxious things to me so was not looking where he was going and by the time he turned his head forward, he was halfway into the closet. He asked me out again, apologizing for his behavior, but I remembered my father’s words about staying away from men who get mean when they get upset and said no. If he could call me names and call my intelligence into question over a turkey, imagine what he would do if something really serious happened. And I never made rice stuffing again.
Oh my goodness, I can just imagine how enormous your rice stuffing became!
And yes, I think you were smart to move on to someone else; I think your current husband sounds like a vast improvement. 🙂
Other than completely incinerating some meats, I can’t think of a meal we actually wouldn’t eat. I’m pretty ruthless that way. 🙂 I do remember once cooking prime rib for some guests of my MiL’s when we lived with her that was just quiveringly raw in the middle. I took it back into the kitchen and made it into prime rib slices so I could sear those quickly, and that was fine. And I think it was at that same meal that I had made pots de creme (a kind of chocolate mousse) that definitely did not set and was essentially liquid. So everyone basically drank dessert. It still tasted good.
Luckily, they were very old friends of the MiL’s, and very kind people. And obviously I have very little shame about cooking mistakes. I have found that if people are coming to eat your food, they’re generally happy with almost anything you serve them if it’s even just edible. And if they’re not? Eh, I don’t want to cook for them anyway. 🙂
Nothing memorably horrendous personally, but my husband made a carrot salad thingy using tablespoons rather than teaspoons of coriander and cumin seeds. Completely inedible. He has also made (bread in a machine) forgetting the yeast and water (different occasions) and once witb a tablespoon rather than teaspoon of salt.
Are you familiar with Bridget Jones’ blue soup? The author Helen Fielding admits that was based on something she actualy did.
I was newly married and wanted to make beef stew with dumplings. I thought I followed the recipe to the letter, but when I lifted the lid off of the pan my dumplings had turned into one giant ball!! It honestly looked like a soccer ball covered in meat, carrots and onions 🙂 My husband had a great sense of humor and happily ate it. It still makes me laugh to this day!
I was newly married and decided to make pesto. It was terrible. I commented a few times on how it didn’t really taste very good but my husband said that it did and took a second helping. Years later he told one of our children that it had tasted like tires! Good man I have. 🙂
Fast forward to a few years ago when I tried to make pesto again. While a vast improvement over the first attempt, it still wasn’t great. I had to add tons of grated cheese to it to make it palatable. Maybe I overprocessed the basil so it became bitter. I’m not a fan of pine nuts either so perhaps it had to do with the nuts I used. I will never make it again.
I like to cook, and my kids have told me thru the years that I should open a restaurant so it is alright that I lack a pesto making gene. My family gets fed, and if they want pesto, they can buy it. Ha!
I’ve never had luck with pesto either! And I’m a really good cook otherwise, as well! I like pine nuts and used them but it just did NOT taste very good.
Sarah, a friend of mine has successfully made it. Is elusive to me!
Well, not an entire MEAL, but…
There was the Thanksgiving our son had chicken pox, so we couldn’t go anywhere and nobody could come to our house for the turkey dinner. I made a traditional dinner just for us – turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie – the works!
We’ll, my timing was a little off, and the tools were ready a bit too early, so I put the pan on the burner of the stove ever the oven vent was located to keep them warm.
When everything was ready, I missed up our plates. I was still messing around in the kitchen when my husband said, “Three rolls are terrible! They taste burned!”
I looked at them, and they looked fine. The buttons we a little browner than normal, but they looked really good. I told him he was imagining things.
I finally st down and took a bit of a roll. It was TERRIBLE! It was soft and bready like it should have been, but it tasted burned! All the rolls were like that.
Turns or the burner where I’d placed them was actually turned on the lowest setting, and the rolls’ bottoms HAD burned but so slowly and subtly that they looked okay, but tasted like they’d suffered smoke damage!
We laugh about those rolls every Thanksgiving!