Utterly retarded cooking mistakes

[ThrasherCub]

Okay, so most of them wont be utterly retarded, but most of us have done some pretty weird/dumb things while learning to cook. I'll start of with my room mate's favorite: I once boiled pasta in a very short sauce pan (nearly a frying pan). My mom came home and actually yelled at me for sucking so bad.

Also, the other day I started to fry my grilled-cheese sandwich, except that I had forgotten the sandwich on the counter.

[Tempest]

Hmmm I can't recall anything that I have done, but this could just be my extremely poor memory. But I do have a story about an old friend's mistake.
It was the 5th or 6th grade, English class. We had these things called "book talks" where we read a book of a certain genre and then we talked about it in front of the class and brought in a visual aid. Well my brilliant friend decided to make cornbread for her visual.
I had never had cornbread before so I just tried a little piece of it. I have NEVER tasted so much salt in my life. It was like taking a spoonful of salt and pouring it on your tongue. The whole class, including the teacher, took a trip to the drinking fountain.
Apparently she had misread the directions as "4 cups of salt" rather than "4 teaspoons of salt". Man, we ragged on her for that for a LONG time.

[Dalmatas]

I've set the marshmallow topping on the Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole on fire. We pulled off the charred goo, re-marshmallowed, and I promptly set that on on fire too.

I set the crock pot on fire once, too. Burned the cord right off. It was sitting, unplugged, on a stove eye, and I turned on what I thought was the kettle eye.

[punxnotdead]

Okay, I made this mistake three times in the same day. Two years ago I was going to bake a special cake for my mom because it was nearing her birthday.

Anyways, the cake called for 3 1/2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup of cornstarch. I misread the instructions and put three cups of cornstarch in the batter and 1/4 cup of flour (you'd think I'd be suspicious for having to put so much corn starch in)
I popped it in the oven and when I pulled it out, it looked like clay had been set in the oven. It was hard as rock and crackled. When I lifted it upside down, the cake fell from the pan and smashed into itsy pieces.

So, I made the cake again, making the same mistake and had the same result.
My third attempt, I read the instructions over and over until I thought I had them memorized (but apparantly not) I made the same mistake and became so frustrated I gave up.
My mom never got a cake for her birthday.:o

[Kaden]

I set off the fire alarm boiling water... I'm sad and pathetic and this is why Faolan doesn't want me cooking unless he's around.

He's teaching me to cook.

[LV426]

I had put water on to boil but I got distracted by shiny things. I melted the pot on the stove. Literally melted the bottom off of it, it pooled in the burner pan in a glob of aluminum. My dad said I was never allowed to cook alone in the house again.



Mom and I were making cookies and I went to retrieve them from the oven but the towel I was using hit the burner element in the over and caught fire and I dropped the towel on the floor which happened to be carpeting (really ugly old carpeting) and set the carpet on fire. In my defense I was only like 8 yrs old.

Another time I was making snickerdoodles. Now I had learned how to make these in home ec so I was just trying it at home. Well I didn't have any cream of tartar which is what the recipe called for but corn starch looked like cream of tartar so I used that instead. The snickerdoodles came out like little rock cookies. You could have pounded a nail into concrete with those cookies. I tossed them out on the compost heap and the next spring those cookies were still there. They are probably sitting somewhere in Missouri, fossil cookies that will confound archaeologists of the future.

[ThrasherCub]

I had put water on to boil but I got distracted by shiny things. I melted the pot on the stove. Literally melted the bottom off of it, it pooled in the burner pan in a glob of aluminum. My dad said I was never allowed to cook alone in the house again.

That one reminds me, I once somehow lit an empty frying pan on fire. You know those big impressive looking flames you see on certain skillets of food on the cooking channel? It was that, except the pan was empty. That, and the cooks doing it usually look very suave whereas I was screaming and flailing about like a Sim. For all I know I shouted in Simlish too.

My room mate mocked me for like an entire hour when I told him. A full hour too. It was constant.

[Necro Mortis]

Ugh, I set a pan of fire too... It was horrible. I was cooking breakfast and just forgot about it. Of course the sausages I were cooking combusted and the pan turned into the pit of hell. I ran out into the garden screaming but still didn't know what to do apart from the natural reaction of humans everywhere which was to runa round in circles. I finally resolved to throw it into my fish pond where it created a collumn of steam like a mushoom cloud. My fish were not impressed. Neither was my Dad.

[---Arawn---]

Once I was going to boil water to make some tea. But in my ignorance, I put the water on a metal container and put it on the microwave... It started to make weird noises and electric rays came out of the container. Also the plastic used to hold it had completely melted...
I didn't know what to do, since I was afraid to turn off the microwave and receive a electric discharge.
My mother came in the kitchen and yelling at me turned off the microwave... I really felt stupid :P

[ThrasherCub]

I was once trying to re-heat some coffee and I had put it in a coffee mug with gold foil on it. It didn't feel like metal so I chose to ignore how much it obviously looked like metal. It started crackling and whatnot so I quickly turned off the microwave and stared at it for a good six minutes. When I decided it wasn't going to blow up I popped the door open and stared at it for two more minutes before removing the cup, which now had this badass lightning effect all over it. I quickly washed the cup out and hid it in the back of the cupboard and went to bed.

[BlackRosePhantom]

Well, I myself personally don't have any bad experiences with the kitchen, but my mother has... (she's the worst cook in history)

OK, well I have a story about one time she was boiling eggs (in order to make hard boiled eggs, duh) and she fell asleep will she waited [for five seconds]. Well, she woke up at the sound of an explosion. It was the eggs, and to this day we have a reminder of why she isn't allowed to cook anything by herself on our kitchen ceiling, no joke. She also burn any pasta dish she makes 9 times out of 10. You know, it's sad when your eight year old son can cook better than you; wouldn't you agree?

[greggchamberlain]

'bout the worst thing i've ever done is prep the coffee maker in the morning, pour the water in, forget to put the coffee in the filter first.

missus wakes up later. comes down for coffee. pours a cup of hot water. asks me "where's the coffee?"


:D

[Necro Mortis]

I didn't know what to do, since I was afraid to turn off the microwave and receive a electric discharge.

Ahh electrical discharge. The only way to prevent it is to use a rubber tampon.

I was once trying to re-heat some coffee and I had put it in a coffee mug with gold foil on it. It didn't feel like metal so I chose to ignore how much it obviously looked like metal.

I did that EXACT thing too! Tried to re-heat coffee in a mug with a gold rim. It's the best way to create a lightning storm of your very own and incidentally the best way to blow up a microwave. 2 birds with 1 mistake!

Well, I myself personally don't have any bad experiences with the kitchen, but my mother has...

My bad.
How was I to supposed know she was bending over to get something out of the oven.

[LV426]

I had an ex roommate that killed 2 microwaves. The first time the left a fork on her plate and microwaved it. She basically put the plate in for 3 min and walked out of the room. Needless to say I came in just as the microwave door exploded off the hinges.


The second microwave she had a metal mixing bowl and she was trying to beat butter and sugar but the butter was too hard so she put the bowl, the metal bowl, in the microwave. I heard a scream and she's running out the door while arcs of electricity are bouncing across the kitchen.


One of my explody microwave stories involves a squash but no microwaves were harmed. I was just cooking a whole squash in the microwave for my tortoises. I usually cook them about 5 min and then wrap them in foil and let them sit on the counter til they finish cooking. Anyway I had put the squash in but the holes I punched in it weren't big enough and the pressure built up and at the 3 minute mark my squash exploded and blew the door open on the microwave and splatted on the counter and floor. It was funny as hell at the time.

[Kaden]

At the time? Its funny as hell now!

[Tempest]

A few years ago I was baking some cookies or something and went to put them in the oven, then turned around to wash some dishes. A couple of minutes later I turned to ask my sister if she smelled smoke, and my eye caught the oven. Smoke was billowing out the top. I panicked and said "The oven is on fire!!!" and me and my sister frantically opened windows for the smoke to come out. My sister said to keep the oven closed and turn it off since we didn't want flames escaping. Turns out that there wasn't even a fire; my mom had a few potatoes drop to the bottom of the oven when making baked potatoes and had forgotten to take them out. The heat from the oven caused them to fill the kitchen with smoke.

[NeonLightChild]

When my friend and I were making gingersnaps, we didn't know to cream the butter and suger...so when the butter was all melted, we just went ahead and put the molasses in it and then wondered why it wasn't mixing very well.

We had to throw out the entire batch and start a new one. :(

[ThrasherCub]

At the time? Its funny as hell now!

I imagine most people would be terrified, grossed out, or at the very least upset that they made a mess.

My room mate didn't understand why I was afraid of making Mac & Cheese, so I had to tell him about my first (and at that point only) experience with it. I'd tried making it with a neighbor who was a better cook than I. It ended with a burn, two scaldings, one very painful eye, and a stabbing.

This was for plain old Kraft Mac, too. There were more injuries than steps to follow.

[BlackRosePhantom]

My room mate didn't understand why I was afraid of making Mac & Cheese, so I had to tell him about my first (and at that point only) experience with it. I'd tried making it with a neighbor who was a better cook than I. It ended with a burn, two scaldings, one very painful eye, and a stabbing.

This was for plain old Kraft Mac, too. There were more injuries than steps to follow.


Care to go into more detail for our entertainment? :D Please. :D

[ThrasherCub]

Care to go into more detail for our entertainment? :D Please. :D

We over-filled the pot with water, so when we went to strain it it was all wobbly and since the pot was old we were afraid the handle was going to break. So naturally, I grabbed the pot itself (burn), which caused me to throw boiling water onto her (scalding #1), and because of all this, we pretty much threw the pot at the strainer which was in the sink. We threw it with enough force to slosh the water up the side of the sink and directly on to me (scalding #2). After straining the pasta you mix in milk, butter, and that powdered cheese stuff. I was attempting to cut a stick of butter (and some how failing) while she opened the packet of cheese powder. She opened it by grabbing into the two sides and pulling, which caused a huge gust of powdered cheese to poof out and into her face which, when gotten in the eye, evidently burns like the apocalypse (hurt eye). She screamed appropriately enough which caused me to flinch very badly, thereby causing me to forcibly insert a highly buttered knife into my left index finger (stabbing), which left me running around the kitchen attempting not to bleed on anything.

And then the macaroni sucked on top of that.

[LV426]

Oh yeah I remembered another. I was in 7th grade spending the night at a friend's house. We decided to make pancakes. So we turned on the burner but it was the wrong one, the burner we turned on was actually under this metal kettle thing that her mom kept on the stove that was FULL of used bacon grease and oil. So as we were waiting for our pancakes to cook suddely flames shoot out of this kettle thing and the two of us panicked. As she ran around the kitchen I thought I was doing a smart thing by throwing water on the fire. Well there's a reason water shouldn't be used in a grease fire. When the water hit the grease exploded out of this kettle thing and showered us both with scalding hot droplets of liquid fire. Faces, hands, arms, and not to mention all over the kitchen. There were even melty spots on the linoleum. So since that failed I made a brave move and grabbed the whole kettle thing with thr flames and grease and hauled ass out the backyard where I tossed it as far as I could. Eventually the flames went out and we were left to de-grease the kitchen and clear out the smoke. Needless to say we never did get our pancakes.

[greggchamberlain]

We over-filled the pot with water, so when we went to strain it it was all wobbly and since the pot was old we were afraid the handle was going to break. So naturally, I grabbed the pot itself (burn), which caused me to throw boiling water onto her (scalding #1), and because of all this, we pretty much threw the pot at the strainer which was in the sink. We threw it with enough force to slosh the water up the side of the sink and directly on to me (scalding #2). After straining the pasta you mix in milk, butter, and that powdered cheese stuff. I was attempting to cut a stick of butter (and some how failing) while she opened the packet of cheese powder. She opened it by grabbing into the two sides and pulling, which caused a huge gust of powdered cheese to poof out and into her face which, when gotten in the eye, evidently burns like the apocalypse (hurt eye). She screamed appropriately enough which caused me to flinch very badly, thereby causing me to forcibly insert a highly buttered knife into my left index finger (stabbing), which left me running around the kitchen attempting not to bleed on anything.

And then the macaroni sucked on top of that.

which is where we get the expression "Adding insult to injury."



:)

you poor guy. :(

[ThrasherCub]

you poor guy. :(

Poor lady. My boyfriend's mom is SURE I know how to cook, due entirely to the fact that I am female. Perhaps I should show her the post about the mac & cheese.

[Tiamot]

My most recent one was earlier this year. I made some delicious looking French toast out of cinnamon swirl bread....and dusted it liberally with...baking powder! I *thought* I was putting the powdered sugar on but accidentally grabbed the wrong Tupperware container. My husband ended up eating about a piece and a half and not saying much of anything!

The best one I have though, was my mom's mistake. When I was about 8, she somehow procured a big bag of 'frozen apples' which were cut into wedges. What else to do with a huge bag of frozen cut up apples than make a pie! Now, my mother is a notoriously bad cook. She burns everything. Of course, this pie comes out PERFECT. The crust is not broken and is all golden brown. The smells of cinnamon and sugar are wafting up from the pie, Mmmmmm! So we anxiously await for the pie to cool, and my mom cuts herself a big slice, dips her fork in...and gags.
It turned out the bag of 'apples' was really russet potatoes. The dog had a feast that night!

[Hitodama]

Here's one my Mom did many, many years ago.

She decided to make pop corn balls, simple enough right?

She had all the right ingredients, though something went wrong.

Once they came out of the oven, they were spikey, like morning stars! There was no way to eat them! They were sharper then the knives that we owned at the time, so we had to throw them away, but man I'll never forget them.

"What happened?!"

Mom: DON'T TOUCH THEM!!

[punxnotdead]

I used stale honey nut cherios in a rice crispy square recipe and I overcooked the marshmallows...oh yah, and I froze it too.
My mom spent almost an hour trying to chistle the hardened cherios from the pan. I masacred one of the easiest recipes...
Just yesterday I made orange slice cookies. I put too much flour(way too much flour) in and the cookies fell to powder when I touched them.

[whisperedfreedom]

I was making chocolate chip cookies one time and need less to say I did something wrong.Although I followed the recipe to a tee my cookies came out of the oven as chocolatly goop.I ended up tossing the horrid cookies into the trash.

Later that same day I tried to make sugercookies.Well again I dont know how I messed up but I did.My cookies were like sugar cookie bread ,if you can imagine that.Those also went into the trash.

[Kaden]

I actually have a something to add to this list of kitchen whoopsie daisies.

I was cooking Fao some pizzas in the oven about 3 days ago, and it was time to take them out.

Well stupid me, I forgot oven mits. Our kitten, Lilly, suddenly tackled my ankle and caught me by surprise. My right hand, which was in the oven, jerked up and touched top of the oven (which btw was at 450°F). It was white and blistery and its goes from my third knuckle on my right hand down to the center of my hand in a straight line. It is still really sore and is going to leave a nasty scar by the time my wedding rolls around.

[Necro Mortis]

I thought about that as soon as you said you got burnt. That sucks. I hope it's not so prominent when you get hitched.

[saintnomore]

Getting burned sucks and i know. I'm a cook at my father's resturant and i'm always getting burned. My worst burn is when i was taking a rack of bread out of the oven. I didn't have the best grip with the towel so it burned my finger tips. I ended up dropping the bread into the caesar salad area and it was everywhere. I was so pissed about dropping the bread when i was cleaning up I grabbed the metal rack and burnt the hell out of my hand.

[ThrasherCub]

At first, I read that your foot was in the oven. Rather than react to how utterly insane that is I simply wanted to ask how you burned your hand if the foot was the one in the oven.

[Zayni-pie]

1) Last week, I spent the morning at my friend's house. She wanted to cook me breakfast. She turned on the stove and put a frying pan over it like you're supposed to. She then put the bacon on the pan, like you're supposed to. THEN she had me walk her dog... When I got back, she was asleep on the couch and the house smelt like it was on fire. I looked at the frying pan and it was empty. It took me a few minutes to realize that the bacon was so black it blended in with the pan. It was pretty bad, I've never seen anything so burnt in my life :p

2) I bake sometimes, I like to make cakes and brownies and cookies and such. Well, the last batch of brownies I made were the most creative (purely becouse of my own stupidity). I did everything normal, mixed the ingredients in the bowl and everything, but the thing is, I never took them out of the bowl. Me, being the complete genius that I am, put the bowl in the oven... It didn't even occur to me... But when they were done, the bowl was ruined, but the brownies were like rounded :D it was kinda cool, but still pretty bad. The sad part is, I even took the mix from the original bowl and put it in a smaller bowl. Because the first one wouldn't fit in the over, but it STILL didn't click in my head that it was supposed to be in pan :o

[ThrasherCub]

looked at the frying pan and it was empty. It took me a few minutes to realize that the bacon was so black it blended in with the pan. It was pretty bad, I've never seen anything so burnt in my life :p

I've been present for things like that before! To me, few cooking mistakes are as bad as burning something into literal oblivion.

[GoddessWolf]

I've got some stories for yah all.

I decided one Christmas to try making a "new" kind of cookie based on a smore. So I add a little of this a little of that. The batter for the cookies looked fine. So then I add the mini marshmallows in.

I pop the cookies in the oven, wait the appropriate time, pull em out. Never ever add mini marshmallows directly into cookie batter. The marshmallows melted in pools of a caramel looking substance and mum and I had to chip and pry the pancake cookies off the pans.

I retried the recipe the same day, only adding marshmallows to the tops of the cookies when they had two minutes left to bake. Those turned out fine.

Funny enough, the gooey, sticky pancake looking cookies tasted better. lol.

Oh, I have pictures!

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh8/DreamersBlood/badcookies.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh8/DreamersBlood/goodcookies.jpg

[GoddessWolf]

Ok my other story happened just a few days ago when I was visiting DW.

I decided to cook him a chicken dish for when he got home from work.

So I go out and buy some boneless chicken, some bow tie pasta, and Im looking all over for an alfredo like sauce. So I end up choosing this white gravy looking cream sauce packet mix.

So I cook the pasta and chicken just fine, no problems.

The roasted garlic potatoes in the oven turn out fine.

I'm down to making this gravy mix.

So I follow all of the instuctions, and dip a knife in to try it. Tastes aweful bland to me. What do I do, add a bunch of white pepper to make it taste better.

Well as it turns out, the gravy mix had more pepper in it than I thought, it just didn't come out until I mixed everything together.

Needless to say we all had flaming mouths that night. >.<

[GoddessWolf]

Last Story!

I was working at the Renaissance festival for the second time in the kitchens. I'm one of the younger ones in the kitchen, but I had more common sense. Well, to a point.

The cashiers that year were determined to make our life hell and kept sending food back to be reheated (food was hot), add more of this or that to the recipes, you name it.

So we had the roasted almond tent next to us. You know those super addictive sugar coated ones you see around Christmas? Now let me explain that this booth is DIRECTLY beside ours, nothing else between us.

Our brilliant cashier calls me over and tells me to find a way to heat the almonds up for the customer.

That's not our job, the nuts are right beside us, ask them to do it.

She insists, and then tells me to just pop em in the microwave for a few seconds.

I tell her I dont know about that, but one of the others in the booth tells me to do it anyways.

I stick these nuts in the microwave, not paying attention to the fact they have a twisty attached holding them closed. A METAL twisty.

A few seconds later I see a spark and then the bag they were in catches fire. I start screaming "the microwaves on fire!"

The college student we have working in our booth grabs a huge jug of polar water and goes WHOOSH!

Needless to say the nuts were dripping and the microwave was water logged. >.<

[punxnotdead]

I made brownies the other day. I've made the recipe a million times, but I decided to change the recipe up a bit. Instead of using refined sugar, I used Splenda. I didn't read the conversion method and put in an entire cup of Splenda. When I was finished, the oil in the brownies had seperate from the mixture, leaving the brownies charred and rock hard.

The other time, I used apple sauce instead of butter, and the resulting brownies came out to a sticky mush. It wasn't too appeitzing.

[Zayni-pie]

I sometimes make homemade chocolates. So I had everything in the bowl but I needed to heat it up again to melt some. And well, I mixed it all with a plasted whisk thing and I left it in the bowl...on accident...:cool:

Well the microwave went on for a few minutes, then I smelled smoke. I looked over, and the whisk was on FIRE :eek: Hehe I turned off the microwave and opened it >durrr< and the microwave exploded in flames. My mother most have foreseen this because a couple years ago she gave me a fire extenguisher and well...it worked! I just have to get a new microwave... :)

[punxnotdead]

Haha! Great story, Zayni!
I had a similar occurrence. My sister was making microwave popcorn, and my family was having movie night. Anyways, after three minutes in the microwave, we noticed the popcorn wasn't popping and smelled a little weird.
When I opened the microwave, it was billowing thick plumes of black smoke. Within seconds, our house was filled with the noxious black smoke, and continued to pour from the charred remains. So I hurled the black smoking ball outside and aired the house out. After an hour of airing the house out, I came back to the microwave, which had melted the entire inside and was black inside. It was fried.

[HollowAmaranth]

wow lol...
i was at home one night and trying to make supper. I had some leftover steak in the fridge and just tossed it right without thinking into the microwave, it wasn't until about three minutes later that i realized i had forgotten about the saranwrap. Not only had it melted to my steak :( but it was sparking blue sparks and starting to light on fire
it was not epic :p

[Briaredheart]

I was heating water in a glass kettle once and got distracted (probably by the computer)and left the water boiling untuil it had almost all evaporated. When I came back into the kitchen and saw what had happened I took the pot off the stove and ran it under cold water from the sink. The entire bottom of the kettle promptly fell off and shattered in the sink. That was great for the food disposal:rolleyes:

[Necro Mortis]

Heh, very hot + cold = shatter

I remember at university I got very drunk (Makes a change) and left some sausages in the oven over night. Woke up and they were charcoal but luckily no fire which was lucky because I was on the 7th floor and I'd have had to of got past the kitchen to get out :o

[LV426]

Heh, very hot + cold = shatter

I remember at university I got very drunk (Makes a change) and left some sausages in the oven over night. Woke up and they were charcoal but luckily no fire which was lucky because I was on the 7th floor and I'd have had to of got past the kitchen to get out :o

Did the same thing with a frozen pizza except I wasn't drunk, a friend asked me to go to Costco and I said ok and forgot the pizza in the oven. We were gone for 4 hours. It was just a lump of charcoal when we got back.

[Briaredheart]

My dad was making hard boiled eggs one day and he fell asleep. When he woke up the water had all evaporated from the pot and the eggs had literally exploded. There was yoke spattered all over the ceiling, and the ceilings in my house are high.

[Layira Aura]

Haha, Briaredheart, something like that happened to me.

My mom, my dad, and I were eating breakfast one day and my mom was making me some soft-boiled eggs. So, I get the egg and when I opened it, I could see that the yolk wasn't really cooked enough to eat. I told my mom this, and she says to stick it in the microwave for literally three seconds.

I told her that eggs explode in the microwave, but she reasoned that the egg had already been opened at the top so it shouldn't explode. I thought it made sense, so I put it in the microwave.

Well, it didn't explode in there, so I carefully took it out and went back to the table. But I wanted to check if it was cooked, so I poked the yolk with a knife...and POP! That's when it exploded.

It was gross! The egg went everywhere; on the ceiling, into the kitchen, and all over me!

Moral: NEVER microwave an egg...no matter what!:eek:

[Barlow]

I remember I once tried to make some bread from an old family recipe. I made Hardtack.

Also, I once made a sandwich and decided to heat it up in the oven to melt the cheese, and apparently the little knob for "BROIL" and "BAKE" was backwards, (no shit, this was the first time I used the oven.) and ended up leaving it on the top rack for too long. It caught fire. I had about twelve heart attacks. Good thing is only the top slice of bread was ruined, so I STILL got my sandwich.

[Blackledge]

When I was about the age of nine, I was given the task of cooking two mini pizza's for me sister and I to eat later that night.
Thinking I was doing the correct things by leaving the plastic wrapping on the pizza's, I placed them in the oven at an extremely high temperature, and left them there for a while.
Upon returning to them, I used oven mitts being so scared of burning myself, and took the crispy, burnt, melted plastic covered pizza's out of the smoking oven.
We ate hot pockets that night.


Another time I was over at a friend's house and we decided to cook gingerbread men. After leaving them in there for the correct amount of time, they came out perfectly. We painted them like Lord of the Rings characters. One being Legolas, another Aragorn, and so on. But, we forgot to turn the oven off, and forgot to check for any missing ginger bread men.
That morning as we all come downstairs, we open the oven to cook some breakfast and find a black, shrivled little man lying on the bottom of the oven. Carefully we removed him and named him Denethor...

Anyone who does not know who Denethor is from the LOTR books, he was Faramir's father, he set himself on fire...it was a lame joke I know!

[kathryn]

Umm... I set some popcorn kernels on fire. Instead of using the microwave popcorn, we have been going back to doing it the old fashioned way on the stove. I was doing popcorn, and I set a few kernels in with some oil and turned it on high. I got distracted by my mom's movie, and I sat down for over ten minutes and completely forgot the popcorn. Then my mom makes a comment, my memory is restored, and my uncle asks "What's burning?"

I dash to the kitchen and see smoke rising from under the cover on the pot. I open the lid carefully, get blasted with heat and an oil fire. Knowing enough not to put water on it, I completely forget about the fire extinguisher in the pantry and I put the lid back on and smother the fire. It took about an hour to get the smoke out of there and by the end of it, I retried the popcorn, this time doing it perfectly.

Also, there was this time when I was helping my mom bake and I cut my finger up something bad with a kitchen knife when I was younger. I knew enough to know that I didn't need stitches, and I was lucky not to lose a finger. So I stopped playing with the knives until I was old enough to learn not to cut myself.

The only other incidences I can recall is more accidents where I burned something, including the plastic bag for bread (that my brother forgot to put away), a lunch bag (which my mom had set there after I turned on the stove), and a stove mitten (these are not fire proof, as I learned that day).

All for silly reasons, but no matter how much I burn, I am glad for the many windows in our house that can quickly get rid of the smell of burning plastic.

[greggchamberlain]

well, i have not got anything really exciting or funny to contribut here except for a personal observation about some of my cooking skills.

i am great with a crockpot but...

...i may be the one person in the universe who cannot make a simple pizza using a Chef Boyardee pizza mix EVEN if i do follow the directions!

i end up with thin-crust pizza even if it is not supposed to be thin-crust pizza and the toppings do not spread out evenly.

then i end up either burning it or taking it out half-cooked (and having to guess where the cooked, half-cooked, and uncooked portions are).