I'm about to work on some beef ribs. Nuf said. I don't do ribs. 99 cents a pound, what was I thinking. Pray for me please. And for the ribs.

Jessica, Elery says "low and slow". I'm praying for you.

Annie

Just pretend they are pork....and add lots of sauce...
That would be Kosher Spare Ribs.
Linda C

Many, many years ago my husband found a recipe in one of my cookbooks for sauerkraut, peanut butter hamburgers. Since it was so bizarre and since sauerkraut and peanut butter are at hand or easy to come by, we decided to try it--on the theory that it sounded so bad it might actually be good. It wasn't. It was horrible.

And somewhere I have a recipe for a blue cheese peanutbutter cheese spread....
I have delayed posting it until I can find my recipe....I think it had lots of worchestershire....
Back when I was working for "The Cheese Place" we would once a year put out a request for "send us your favorite recipe"....and we got some doozies!
I'll try to locate that file....some recipes were wonderful....and others "amazing"! LOL!
Linda C

"This was a joint party..."

Do you still do that, or was it only during your hippie days?

I have to disagree on the ribs. To me beef short ribs are totally different from pork spare ribs. They need different cooking methods and different seasonings and sauces. Short ribs are best braised in a tomato based sauce. Spare ribs are best charbroiled to get a crisp exterior and brushed with BBQ sauce when they are done. That's my opinion.

For Jessie's sake, I hope we have now strayed far from the topic, which is 'bad recipes'.

Jim

My dear DIL made a pumpkin triffle - everything that went into it was something good but the result was a jumble of too many conflicting flavors. The gingerbread that went into it was a much better dessert plain or with a touch of whipped cream or lemon sauce.

But beef ribs can be quite good. I don't have a lot of experience with them either so find them a bit scary. I made the linked recipe because we had the first Anaheim peppers on our plants and some ribs that I wanted to use. It turned out really well - I didn't have chipotle in adobo sauce so I subbed ground chipotle and I was afraid I'd used too much because it was really spicy when I checked the sauce part way through cooking. Perhaps the fat that I skimmed off took a disproportionate amount of the heat out because the final dish was about right.

So the following recipe doesn't fit the category of this post. It was a good experiment:

Here is a link that might be useful: Beef ribs in Chipotle and Green Chili Sauce

(hey ribs turned out edible! Jimster, one of these days I'll read up on the different ribs. I just don't like them well enough to really get into it)

Back to subject....one time DH made a chinese dish using tarragon vinegar. Take-out pizza, please.

My SIL has a recipe for a potato casserole that calls for frozen hash browns, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chopped onion, Special K and cheese. She wanted to serve it for her sons rehearsal party. I damn near gagged at the thought but bit my tongue. Well it was gobbled up and got rave reviews.

For son number two's wedding rehearsal she wanted to serve it again...what could I say after how well received it was? This time I couldn't help myself so I tasted it....it was really good! My cooking snob factor went down a notch!

Jim ,I agree that beef "short ribs" require braising but beef "long ribs" are more like spare ribs. Having said that I think they are both awful no matter how you cook them! LOL

I was talked into this one by a friend. I was giving a baby shower for a relative. My friend was helping. We were discussing what to serve. She made a suggestion: "You grind together Spam, Velveeta, an onion and a green pepper. You spread it on hamburger bun halves and run it under the broiler. It is sooo good!"
It sounded terrible to me but she was so enthusiastic I thought she knew what she was talking about. So the Spam concoction was to be her contribution.
The day of the shower arrived, and all the guests came in. My friend put the "spammies" into the broiler and told me "They have to be watched very carefully, they burn easily!!"
Right then the crowd was oohhing and aahing over some cute baby gift. She walked away from the broiler!!! Some friend!
The food of course was awful. Nearly inedible! I did let everyone know that this was Cathy's contribution in the nicest possible way. Both the processed foods combined to make the only taste salt, salt, and more salt. Yuck!

LOL, chase, Amanda makes those "party potatoes, but she doesn't use Special K. Everyone seems to love them and David asks her to make them on a regular basis. I've done them with "real" potatoes and they just aren't the same. (grin)

I can't contribute much to the rib discussion. I love pork spareribs, grilled or done in the smoker and nicely sauced, not so tender they fall apart when you pick them up, but tender enough that it's not a fight to get the meat from the bones. I don't like beef ribs at all, no matter the recipe or cooking technique. They always leave a film of tallow in my mouth, even when refrigerated overnightand then reheated after skimming off the layer of hardened fat.

I have to say that the dish my family liked least was one of the rare times I made a Julia Child recipe that we didn't care for. It was Coq au Vin and none of us would eat it, not even Ashley's boyfriend who will eat nearly anything. I figured I screwed it up and tried again. Elery asked me why in the world I would cook chicken in RED wine. Well, because that was what the recipe called for. Nope, it was just not something we liked.

So maybe a "bad" recipe is all a matter of perspective, but I found I sure don't like Coq au Vin, neither did my Dad, Elery, neither of my girls, David, or the grandkids. I threw away two perfectly good chickens in the process of learning that.

Annie

Linda, I have that Party Chicken recipe too - calls for Pastrami on the bottom of the casserole and bake covered for 45 minutes at 350. I actually never made it, but I'm sure the shorter baking time cut the salt, right?

One recipe I am guilty of making and serving to company (gag) was boneless chicken, can of cream of mush soup and can of white wine mixed together poured on top and baked. I was young. Oy.

Oh Sharon - your friend has stolen our "Christmas Potato" recipe and substituted Special K for the cornflakes that we use and omitted the melted butter. Wouldn't be a Christmas ham without the Christmas Potatoes in our family :) Once a year whether you need it or not!

In my daughter's family they are called "cheesy potatoes"....beloved by the oldest grandson....and made by the "other grandmother"! LOL!

The shorter baking time cut the stringiness....and the pastrami cut the fat and the wine added a certain j'ne sais quoi!! But I'm still not eatin' it!

I am amazed that this thread has so many posts and no one has yet mentioned Jell-o....
Linda C

"Jim ,I agree that beef "short ribs" require braising but beef "long ribs" are more like spare ribs. Having said that I think they are both awful no matter how you cook them! LOL"

That surprises me a lot. I've always considered beef ribs a scrumptious meal. I can't imagine them as "awful". It's the meat around the edges of a prime rib that is most succulent, IMO. Isn't that where the short ribs are from?

Wickipedia says, "Short ribs are a popular cut of beef. Beef short ribs are larger and usually more tender and meatier than their pork counterpart, pork spare ribs".

Remember, slow and low. Include aromatic vegetables such as onion, carrot and celery along with some tomato. Yum!

Jim

Jello she says ?????????? Linda, I have a lemon jello chicken salad recipe that might make you barf. And, does anybody really like tomato aspic? (Leaving myself open here.)

That said, I have a lot of jello recipes that I like :)
But only for desserts not mixed with real food.

I like that chicken, frozen potato recipe. Just never heard of putting Rice Crispies on/in it.

Tomato aspic is good....but not made with jello!!
Gotta have lots of worchestershire and a bit of tobasco, tomato juice and some knox gelatin...
No Jell-o!
I have a lemon jello tuna recipe...I'll bet it's got your chicken one beat!

My mother used to make jello salads for festive occasions, and it took me over 40 yrs to talk her out of them. Not nearly so disgusting as other recipes I've seen here, but I still wouldn't eat it. She arranged stuffed olives in the ridges in the bottom of her ring mould. Then mixed shredded cabbage and carrots (and I'm not sure what else) into the lime jello. Once unmoulded, a large dollop of mayo (or more likely a generic Miracle Whip product) was deposited in the centre hole to garnish.

Can we all agree that any recipe which contains:

a) canned cream of anything soup

b) any combination of Jell-O and vegetables

qualifies as a 'bad recipe'?

If so, I propose as the ultimate bad recipe, one which contains canned cream of mushroom soup, orange Jell-O and shredded celery. The topping would have to be Miracle Whip sprinkled with Special K and paprika.

I rest my case.

Jim

When I was engaged i was given a few recipes from a nurse I worked with who raved over beef stroganoff and tuna casserole...both were soooo bad!! My dh (fiance at the time) actually threw out the baking dish that I made the tuna casserole in. We are now going on 24 yrs of marriage and we still talk about how bad the tuna casserole was.

Year ago...avocado cheesecake...need I say more. It's supposed to be an appetizer. Now I love avocado but this was disgusting. And yes it contained unflavored gelatin.

The picture looked gorgeous.

Funny though I still keep thinking that maybe something along that line could be successful. I must be getting old...

Beef ribs, the long ones off a rib roast are wonderful. You have to be sure to strip the membrance off the back then cook just like pork ribs. I usually give them a dry rub and let'em sit overnight. Then I put them in the smoker and hit'em with a mop every hour or so until they shrink away from the bones. Then I baste with sauce and cook'em just until the sauce starts to carmetlize. That's it. Be sure to have plenty of beer chillin', it's an all day process. :-)

My SIL served pretzel jello once. I don't remember exactly what it was but after 15 years, DH has never let her live it down!

Oh my goodness, I had an attack of laughter with cooksnews and jimster's posts.

I recently made brazilian barbecue using a special beef cut, called a rumsteak or picanha. Everyone in my party thought it would be gross, because it has one thick layer of fat all over one of it's largest sides (about 12x7"). I made it traditionally, covering it in a thin layer of lard (supposedly to make it softer, only due to the possibility I had been sold the wrong cut) and covered in sea salt. Threw it on a hot charcoal barbecue and sliced very thin pieces of the sides as it cooked, medium rare, served as it cooked. The 5 skeptic girls gobbled it all up, fat and all (usually we eat some of the fat but not all, we just leave it attached for flavoring), 2.5 pounds of meat! They said it was the most tender meat they ever ate :) Of course, it was brazilian Picanha. Oh yeah, then I made chicken hearts covered in sea salt and a group of 7 people all ate them and loved them! I was very suprised, I was afraid no one was going to eat any of either of these meats.

Failed dishes, pretty much anything I ever made until 3 months ago. I vote for jim's recipe though, sounds truly revolting.