After FOAS's foray into lemon and chicken, I decided to go forward with my lemon/garlic chicken wings. Somehow, I got the salt completely wrong??? It was so salty, I have no idea if the lemon zest instead of juice worked or not. I will say, son and I ate every last wing within a few minutes. Didn't stop us at all. I was really looking forward to finally replicating that recipe. I'll try it again tonight or this weekend.

Always heard about classy Chicken Kiev when I was young. Made Alton Brown's fried version and it was Meh. Won't be doing that again. Now I have to figure out how to responsibly dispose of all that canola in the pan.

I am continuing my "pizza a week" and I have graduated from using AP flour and AP mixed with 00 to just OO. I was making a pizza to bring to "movie night" at my neighbors's and it was the first time I was using a pizza peel and I missed the pizza steel. The sauce was kind of runny and it actually tasted like the kind of pizza you buy by the slice. I was so disappointed. The neighbors' were nice and said it tasted good, but it was definitely not my best effort.

My last flop was also a case of getting stuck. I made mini Roquefort popovers and used my old pan, which was not non-stick, and they adhered themselves thoroughly to the pan - to the point that I had to get rid of the pan. I already had one non-stick mini muffin pan, but the recipe requires two pans, and I still have not replaced the pan I got rid of. I store muffin pans in the garage because I use them so seldom.

Ultimate failed recipe!!!

On another forum, members were discussing what kind of strainer will work the best to make Greek yogurt.

Some of you may know what a scientific genius that I am. A brilliant light bulb went on in my brain.

It occurred to me that this might be a perfect application to use centrifugal force.

I got two soda bottles, filled them up with regular yogurt, and carefully balanced them. I secured them firmly in my cloth washer, and set the washer to spin cycle,

Spin cycle finished, and I was excited with anticipation to taste my hi-tech Greek yogurt.

What I found when I opened up the washer was regular yogurt plastered evenly everywhere inside the drum. The bottles broke.

dcarch

That's hilarious, dcarch. I recently had a "throw away the pan" fail as Lars described. We had a large quantity of cherry tomatoes that weren't going to be used and I found instructions on the web for oven drying them - very low oven temp for a few hours (?) - can't remember. Tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. There was nothing left of them except blackened crispy residue. Couldn't get them off of the cookie sheet. Out the door it went.

Okay, but you can save those pans! Soak off all the loose stuff, then apply a liberal amount of baking soda, paper towel, and just enough boiling water to dampen the towel. Let sit overnight, or at least a number of hours. Scrub lightly, repeat. Maybe not worth it to you, but a time or two through the easy process and it should be good as new.

Dcarch, I can't top that one!

I made a chicken dish that we were eagerly looking forward to eating. While it was baking in the oven, the aroma was tantalizing. One of my granddaughters came in from work and stated that it smelled so good she could hardly wait to eat that bird. To say we were deeply disappointed by the flavor is an understatement. I was so mad that I had spent so much time prepping and making sure I followed the instructions and ingredients exactly. It was so tasteless, we could not even eat it. Needless to say, that recipe was immediately removed from the computer. I only recall one other time, many years ago, being so underwhelmed by a dish that I had made, and that was a fish preparation. I still don't understand why it was such a failure.

For me, there is no point in saving a pan that food sticks to. I only use the mini muffin pans for that one recipe, and if I used the sticky pan again, I would have the same disaster again.

For cookie sheets, I use Silpat, and I therefore avoid sticking that way. But, I have enough cookie sheets that if one failed, I would not feel bad about getting rid of it.

I get that, Lars. Next time I'd just use more or better release. :)

Yeah - there was no way we were going to spend 2 days trying to salvage a cheap cookie sheet. I was trying to be frugal - recycling the unused tomatoes.

I am really trying to cut down on meat and eat more chicken and fish. I am DESPERATE for chicken recipes. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty out there but after a while there are nothing but slight variations from the basic 10 or so. And most chicken recipes using crock pot are out for me--nothing but boiled chicken, ugh!

dcgarch... similar to Facebook, we need a tearful frown button...

dcgarch: I got the biggest laugh out of your tale.

OK it just happened today. I was trying to think of something I could do ahead and freeze for quick warm-ups for breakfast. I was thinking some kind of biscuit or muffin. So I found a bacon cheese biscuit recipe and made it. They were really good when they first came out of the oven but when I heated some up for dinner so that DH could try it they were yuck. So 4 slices of bacon and a cup of white cheddar went in the garbage. What a difference 5 hours can make.

LOL dcarch!!!

My recent recipe flop two days ago, and I'll be starting a new thread looking for advice when I'm emotionally ready. But as a teaser I'll let on that it was my first attempt at smoking in a weber kettle grill, and the food was supposed to be pork butt. Stay tuned.

This not about cooking failures this is addressing the cleanup. I tried everything under the sun to remove burned on food, grease. I finally found one(I'm 66 years old). Put copious amounts of dishwasher cleaner in pot, pan bring to a boil for 1 minute. Leave overnight. Worked for me burnt on pieces just disappeared. Then I tried the same thing with stovetop parts that wouldn't fit in a pot to boil. I put it in my utility sink, added dishwasher soap and filled the sink with hot tap water. Worked, too.

Speaking of using the washing machine for dairy products - my grandmother invented a butter churn (in the 1930s or 40s, I think) that used a washing machine to turn the paddle of the churn. She patented this invention and made a fair amount of money from it.

As for clean-up, Dawn Power Dissolver beats every other method I've used, but I've read that it is now discontinued. When I read that, I stocked up on it.

Well, now, I'm just such a darned good cook that I never have failed recipes. Ahem. Yeah, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I did have a dcarch-type fail a couple of years ago. My brilliant mind said that I could wash a bunch of collard greens in the washer, much faster and simpler and then I could just can them. I even saw it on the internet, "works great". Yeah.....

They never got clean, they were still gritty after a good "rinse" cycle. Plus little bits of green leaves stuck in the holes of the agitator/basket and it took forever to get the blasted washer clean again. And I still had to wash the greens in the sink before I could can them.....

Annie

My recent flop was an attempt to eat healthier.

I was reading chicken wings recipes as I had a craving for chicken wings. I came upon a recipe that said you could have all the tastiness of fried but instead cooking healthier in the oven... if you added baking powder to the rub. The theory was that the baking powder when mixed with salt, dried out the skin and you ended up with succulent yet crispy skinned wings.

Let me just say they tasted weird, very weird according to DH.