"Why is this brownie mix so dry???"

"I don't know, it looks kind of funny."

"It's not spreading at all."

"Ok, so the instructions start with 'add one egg...'"

"Wait..."

- me and my sister in the kitchen

I dropped an entire springform pan full of cheesecake mixture while putting it in the oven. Uncooked cheesecake all over the oven door, the oven hinges, the kitchen floor.

I forgot the difference between cloves of garlic and heads of garlic. I put in 8 heads instead of 8 cloves. Didn't end well.

Yep. Been there, done that.

I don't consider myself a cook, but I do enjoy it from time to time. My biggest continuing issue is that I have to read, re-read, re-read again, and re-read even AGAIN, the recipe -- and even in so doing, it's not unusual for me to inadvertently skip a step or leave out an ingredient. I don't know why I have this problem when it comes to recipes, because I'm ordinarily pretty much on the ball when it comes to following directions.

Follow the trail of scars on my hands and forearms for the story of all the idiotic things I've done while cooking/baking. Latest escapades involved losing the tip of my finger and then this week, grabbed a cast iron frying pan without the benefit of a hot mit. I get distracted and I ought not be allowed in the kitchen......

Years ago when I first started baking, I made my boyfriend at the time a birthday pie from scratch. It was my first ever and his favorite, blueberry. It was so pretty when it came out of the oven, that I quickly put candles in it and brought it to him singing happy birthday. He blew out the candles and pulled them out only to find that their bottoms had all melted into the hot pie. :c( I was so upset but he was nice about it and still ate the pie, wax and all. It was a fun memory for us for the years we were together.

I have left steaks sitting on the kitchen counter when I have two cats.

My dog ate $30 piece of aged gouda. I can't recall her ever stealing any other food. Apparently she was biding her time for the really good stuff.

I've always enjoyed baking from scratch. When I was a kid I set out to make pineapple upside-down cake. The cookbook was open and propped against the backsplash. On the facing page was a recipe for cornbread. Seems I mixed up the two recipes' ingredients and ended up with something very inedible. I thought it was funny, but my mother was pissed.

Oakley, I already kinda did:)

make an exception for holidays..and these freaking eggs..lol

I was a "main cook" in our family until 2015 included..I think. or was it 2016? in short I don't cook much anymore

I still clean, blahblah

(I sliced myself many times too. I have a special ability -since childhood-I could get cut with grass,a thread, you name it.

So I'm a bit late bloomer with cooking-my folks, they expected me to help a lot in the kitchen and in the house, but seeing me next to knives distressed them..))

BTW I also have to follow recipe very closely and many times, much like IdaClaire describes- until I master it and know it by heart and have courage to tweak it a bit

That's interesting, because I have great memory when it comes to some other things

But i've poor memory with everything to do with numbers, historical dates, and recipes

Oh those jalapenos! Hub and I make salsa often. Once while the salsa was resting before the guests arrived, we had a quickie. Let me tell you, it is not just eyes that are affected by jalapenos! Whoa, Nellie!

One Christmas i bought an enormous prime rib to feed our family of around 16 at the time. Because I do not have enough freezer space and it was below zero, I put the roast, still in its butcher wrap in their plastic grocery bags, on top of the recycling bin in our garage. Late Christmas eve I went to retrieve the roast to thaw. Yes, hub had dutifully put the roast into the bin and taken it to the street earlier that day. Instead of prime rib, we had a smorgasbord of every little thing I had in the freezer.

Sheesh!

is that what they are callin' it now? "makin salsa"?

I don't like wearing gloves when chopping chilies, but I do put olive oil on my left hand - the one that holds the chilies - and make sure not to touch the chilies with my right hand, which holds the knife. The oil will protect your skin from the chilies long enough for you to wash off the chili if you wash right after chopping the chilies. Also, you should avoid touching the inside of the chilies as much as possible. I chop Habanero chilies all the time, and the oil works for protecting my hands. However, since Habaneros are so hot, I only have to use one or two for a recipe, and so it is easier to avoid touching the insides of the chilies.

I had a knife accident a week ago Friday. I have very sharp Japanese knifes, and I was using one to remove the wax from some Jarlsberg cheese, and my hand slipped and I cut deeply (it seemed) into my left thumb. It wasn't enough for stitches, but I kept it bandaged for a week. I'll be more careful removing wax in the future.

I have two mandolines, and I would never think of using them without the finger guards, plus I have Kevlar gloves that I wear when using them. I should have been using the Kevlar gloves when I was cutting the cheese.

I had friends from out of town coming for dinner. They'd spent the day skiing and had an awful experience; their 7 year old broke his leg in his ski school. I'd made a huge lasagna and brownies from scratch and timed it all for their late arrival from the hospital.

I pulled the lasagna out of the oven about ten minutes after they got the house. Perfect timing. Set it on the stove to set. About ten minutes later BOOM!!! the lasagna glass dish exploded all over the kitchen, including into the pan of cooling brownies.

I'd left one of the stove burners on low for god knows how long and didn't realize it. Everything was a total loss, not to mention the time I spent on the floor cleaning up glass slivers.

The pizza we had was pretty good tho.

I'm totally enjoying these horror stories. I'm glad I have an egg cooker though. :)

Mtn, your garlic story reminds me of my mistake in reading a recipe. We had friends over and for dessert was homemade chocolate ice cream, made the old fashioned way.

When the ice cream was ready I was in awe of it's consistency but when we tasted it we just kind of looked it at each other. lol

What happened was the recipe called for 3 cups chocolate chips and I thought it said three bags.

I have a really good brownie story but it may be illegal to tell it. ;)

I have a brownie story too, but it's the aftermath I dare not repeat.

I don't have any funny stories about cooking; but I had a great aunt who actually cut off the first 2 joints of her index finger in a mixer-beater. As kids, that finger nub fascinated us kids - she was always pointing with it.

I'm crying, but it's not from onions. Tears of laughter.

The main one I recall was when I made Potatoes Anna once for a dinner. I had just begun to use kosher salt when it started getting popular. I sprinkled some on each layer of potatoes, not realizing I didn’t need to use as much. (Oakley, using the mandolin is another story!) My potatoes turned out of the pan perfectly browned and pretty, but too salty. I was embarrassed but our good friends ate them anyway. The not-salty-at-all asparagus seemed to make up for it, and, hey, when you have good friends and enough wine, they forgive pretty easily.

Yes, the mandolin scares the heck out of me too. I had a bad experience with one that never seemed to work right. Put it in the Goodwill box and finally worked up the nerve to get another.

I can’t count the number of times I have burned something on the stovetop. Usually from letting something cook too dry. Not so much in the oven but it has happened. Not to the point of flames, thankfully.

Funny story from long ago that led to my being forever afraid of pressure cookers. My good friend when our daughters played softball together sat down at a game one evening and whispered, ‘I hope I don’t smell like chicken’. Seems she has put a chicken on low heat to pressure cook while she went to take a shower. Came down to find the cooker had exploded and there was chicken all over her ceiling, cabinets, and stove. Seems a piece of skin had clogged the vent. She had that mess to clean before coming to the game.

I drink tea and have forgotten that I put the kettle to boil a few times. I'm always home, but have gotten distracted with other things. The burning smell gives it away! My new kettle has a really loud annoying whistle.

Mine was not the kitchen, but the microwave. I was going to school (to teach) one winter day and I had left my mascara in the car over nite. It was so cold it would not open. When I got to school, I put the mascara tube in the microwave for JUST A FEW SECONDS. It blew up and there was black mascara all over the inside of the white microwave. Took me a long time to live that down at school.

haha, Bunny! I'll go ahead and sing like a canary. This was back in the mid-70's and we had some friends over. Someone brought marijuana brownies. I did not imbibe at all, I promise. One guy did and someone had to take him to the ER. He was fine, and the doctors didn't report it. I wonder if they'd have to report it today? And since it was our house, would we be the ones in possession and put in the pokey? lol

I solved the solution on not letting things burn. Whether baking or cooking on the stove top, when I know I'll be out of the room more than 5 minutes I set a little timer and keep it with me.

Waaaaay back when we were newly weds and poor college students my favorite uncle gave me an electric wok for Christmas. I pinched pennies for a few weeks so we could afford to buy shrimp for a stir fry. We were really looking forward to a special meal and I was excited to try out my fancy new wok.

I chopped and sliced those beautiful veggies, stir fried them perfectly. Added the shrimp and let them cooked for just a minute. When it was time to add the cornstarch to thicken the sauce--I carefully poured in the "slurry" of cornstarch and water.

Instantly the entire wok full of delicious stir fry foamed up! What??? And then it hit me--I'd used baking soda instead of cornstarch. Although now I'd certainly notice the difference in texture of the "slurry", back then I was a very inexperienced cook.

Needless to say, we didn't have shrimp stir fry for dinner! We laugh about it now, but I remember shedding a few tears that night.

I have a bad habit of preheating the oven and then forgetting to put the food in when the oven is preheated. We've had a lot of late dinners!

My husband never ever complained about my cooking (although he had good reason to :)). One morning I made him oatmeal. I noticed he was eating it like soup. I had forgotten to add the oatmeal to the milk and just served him hot milk. He didn't say a word.

Oh and the garlic overload. I nearly killed him by putting in a head of garlic for one small portion of spaghetti agilo e olio. That man was a saint!

sheesh - Been there, done that with hot peppers. Not an enjoyable experience.

I made a pizza on the peel. When I tried to slide it onto the heated stone in the oven it didn't slide. It just plopped all over the oven door and interior. A royal mess. I raged and told DH to call for delivery. Pizza is one of those things that worked really well the first time I did it (I even twirled the dough into a round pie up in the air like they do in the movies) and has never worked out the same since.

Just this evening! Spent the morning making my from-scratch French Onion Soup before heading to the airport to pick up my sis, who’s here with us for a week’s visit. Had a great Heirloom Tomato Tart planned to go with it. But, DH got home from golf and made everyone his “famous” Bloody Marys. So, while we were enjoying them out on our back portal, I totally forgot my beautiful tart’s crust in the oven and burned half of it to a crisp! But, I then cut the burned portion off, added the fresh mozzarella, balsamic reduction, tomatoes and fresh basil, and popped it back in the oven. Final result? It looked seriously very sad but tasted delicious. My sis has been my best friend forever and, thank goodness, is very mellow and forgiving (LOL). I’ll make it up to her when we “do” Santa Fe tomorrow!

Any time I put a pan in the oven, one I normally use on the cooktop, when it comes out I will inevitably absentmindedly grab the hot handle with my bare hand. I don't do this with bakeware or casseroles; it's when the big sauce pan goes into the oven.

I once used a kitchen towel to remove something from the oven. I didn't have a good hold on the entire towel and one edge flopped down and hit the electric element and caught on fire. I remember dropping the burning towel and it extinguishing, but I don't remember what happened to whatever I was holding. Did I set it back on the oven rack or on the stove before dropping the towel? Did I have that much sangfroid with a burning towel in my hand? I don't remember spilling food all over the floor, so maybe I did.

Regarding hot peppers--One of the great things about recipes that combine peppers and lime (and I think maybe one of the reasons that Mexican cuisine pairs the two so often) is that lime juice is the best thing for getting pepper oils off your hands. After you squeeze the limes, use the rind to "wash" your hands. Way better than soap.

My sister and I decided to make Thanksgiving dinner for our spouses. We're fine on the dinner part but not, evidently on the dessert part. We made pumpkin pie with store bought pie shells which, apparently, come with wax paper between the two shells. When they're still frozen the wax paper is the same colour as the unbaked pieshells.

I probably don't have to say anything more.

I don't think I mentioned this above but after my not a green pepper incident I've been buying big boxes of loose fitting plastic gloves which can be used for everything. I don't dread making meatloaf anymore. :)

Unfortunately, I can't eat the slightest food that's hot anymore. About 5 years ago I had mrsa and the strong antibiotic did a number on my tongue.

Lynn, DS was in Santa Fe yesterday. This was the first thing he did.

When my husband and i were newlyweds we spent the better part of a Saturday making gnocchi. It was such a production we thought it would be a good idea to make lots and freeze them. I am sure most people know you cannot freeze mashed potatoes.

Oakley, Chile Rellenos (ray- EN- yos) one of my very favorites! I can’t tell which restaurant he was at, but hope he enjoyed them.

Sorry to change the subject momentarily, but SURE you can freeze mashed potatoes Rita. I do it all the time. I fix a big ol' pot of them and freeze up one meal's worth in each container. Not sure why you were unsuccessful with trying to freeze mashed potatoes? You can buy frozen perogies which are stuffed with mashed potatoes.

One Thanksgiving my SIL and her family came to visit. She insisted that her family needed 5 pounds of mashed potatoes with their dinner so she volunteered to make them.

I had another frig in the basement where I kept extra gallons of milk and beverages. She didn't realize that I had made a gallon of Fred's Sipping Eggnog and stored it in a milk container . She sent her DH to the basement for milk and he returned with the eggnog which she promptly used to add to the potatoes. As the aroma of rum and rye and spices filled the kitchen we immediately tried pouring it off as much liquid as possible. We probably salvaged a few small portions from the bottom of the pan. But it's now one of our regular Thanksgiving stories.

Then there was the time I was washing a chef's knife and dropped it - and then automatically caught it with my fingers. It's hard to use flatware when you're fingers are bandaged.

Every now and then I'll make pasta with meatballs and hot sausages for dinner. I'll set the table, put out the salad and call everyone in to eat only to discover that I hadn't made the pasta or even boiled the water.

I hate to think how many times I've made a cake and lost track of how many cups of flour or sugar I've added because I was distracted. I've finally wholeheartedly adopted mise in place.

arkansas girl, OMG those gnocchi turned to soup when we tried to cook them. The ones we boiled and made the same day turned out perfectly. I wonder if it's something about the addition of flour and egg. I will Google.

ETA I am such an idiot! No problems with freezing gnocchi apparently. I don't know what we did wrong, though i think we tried freezing the dough instead of the formed gnocchi. This was in 1994. No internet friends or Google for advice.

The first time I used a pizza peel, like rosestink, all over the door and oven floor. Huge mess.

One time I baked a beautiful blueberry pie. As I was lifting it out of the oven, the edge of the pie pan caught on a upper rack and the whole thing flipped upside down. You’ve never seen such a mess. I did manage to eat a couple bites off the oven door.

Another time I made a German Chocolate Cake for a school function. Afterwards I walked in the back door and noticed two sticks of butter on the kitchen counter. Yup, I made a cake with no butter. Good thing that cake is all about the icing.

After ruining two stovetop teakettles, I got an electric whistling kettle. If I have to leave the room while something is cooking, even for a moment, I set a timer!

This one wasn't my fault, but you know those labels on clothes about meeting California flammability codes? There's a reason for that. I reached across the gas burner and watched in horror as flame flashed up my sleeve! I was fine, thank God, must have been sizing on the sleeve? I threw it out. I also turned on the gas of our new grill with the lid closed, and when I opened it I nearly singed my hair off.

And of course, we've all left the giblet sack in the turkey when cooking it for our first Thanksgiving dinner with our sweeties . . . haven't we?

I don't think this quite qualifies as idiotic, but I make candy a Christmastime and have an almond roca that had always been very reliable. When I got married, though, I started having trouble with it--the sugar and butter would separate at the end and I'd have a greasy mess. Was it the cookware? The altitude? What had changed? I didn't figure it out until I read something on social media that mentioned adding salt to stabilize toffee. My then-husband routinely bought unsalted butter, where I had always purchased salted (as had my mom). I switched back to salted butter and haven't had a problem since.

Not idiotic at all cawaps. Brilliant for figuring it out!

This isn’t exactly cooking related, but it does involve solar heat… When I was in college, I left a 164 count Crayola crayon box on the dash of my now ex-husband’s car. When I came back hours later, all the crayon wrappers were completely intact but 100% empty and a huge puddle of wax covered the top of the dash. I still remember thinking, “wow, how cool is that! “

I have a blue stain on the back seat of my car from a crayon from when my daughter was a toddler. Cars get hot, and crayons have a low melting point!

For the record I'm not a talented/gifted/instinctual cook. I personally prefer my food overcooked although nobody else in the household AKA my poor husband shares that preference. And I tend to get distracted easily. So I've definitely got my share of cooking oopsies.

Once I picked up a container of cocoa powder to put into the batch of frosting I was working on. Knowing that stuff usually cakes and clumps, I gave it a quick upside down shake to easily spoon out powder. Yep, lid was loose and I spent the next hour cleaning up cocoa powder from floor, pantry, counters, fronts of cabinets etc.

My husband likes to hand wash dishes and consistently leaves dish towels sopping wet which annoys me because I hate picking up a gross damp towel, especially one that was clean and fresh a few hours earlier. Had the bright idea to put a moist towel into the warm oven one night after dinner to dry out, thinking I'd just grab it in a few minutes. A few minutes turned into the next night when thank god I smelled something odd in my now preheating oven. It was dry though, I'll give myself credit for that.

One Thanksgiving I hadn't taken the turkey out to thaw early enough and it was still semi frozen in the morning. I could not get my hands into the cavity to dig out the giblets, and eventually after poking around I figured maybe there weren't any so into the oven it went. There were, and I guess the turkey that year had it's own make-your-own internal giblet gravy flavor. My MIL wrote in her journal about the kids excitedly calling her later 'grandma! Mom found the turkey parts!'.

I wear gloves while working with hot peppers after getting it in my eye and then on my contact the next morning putting them in my eye. Had to throw them out and get a new pair.

Recently chopping veggies for a party, I got distracted and flipped the knife over and sliced open my finger badly.

Roasting eggplant and pulled them out to see if they were done. They weren't so I slid them off the range top and back into the oven. Couldn't get the oven to close and then I realized I'd slid a cloth hot pad into the oven with the pan and onto the element. It caught on fire! First kitchen fire for me.

I refuse to use a pizza peel simply because I know with a certainty I'd make a huge mess. Thankfully I can cook a fine pizza in a pan. No matter the thickness of the crust, always cook the crust a bit before you put toppings on it.

DH used to always smoke TG turkeys in the garage overnight. While waiting for family to come out the boys were riding their bike's in one garage door and out the other, going round and round with the turkey in between. Yep, DS1 accidentally knocked the whole thing over. We washed the turkey and re-lit the fire and all was well!

One TG there was a pumpkin pie sitting on the counter. Family were on their way. When I went to the kitchen I caught my cat Echo licking the heck out of it. She ate almost a whole slice! DH & I had a quick conference. Should we cut out the piece she ate to make it look like one of us already had a slice? We did. :)

These are all hilarious, but dedtired's "I did manage to eat a couple bites off the oven door" gave me the image of what a dog would do in the same situation!

I learned at a very young age it is not advised to plug in the mixer before inserting the beaters --- just in case you inadvertently nudge the control switch while doing so. Ahem. I'm lucky none of my digits were removed during that lesson.

I'm good in math, but I cannot rely on memory to reduce or increase all the ingredients when making less or more of a recipe. I have to make pencil notes to make sure I reduce/increase throughout the prep. Another case in which mise en place works so well!

Many years ago I was using my friend’s recipe to make my first ever cheesecake. I mixed it up carefully and put it in the springform pan and into the oven. After a few minutes the kitchen started to fill with smoke. No one had told me to put foil under the pan, and the melted butter from the crust was running out of the pan and onto the bottom of the oven. What a mess.

Another time my 8 year old stepson was having a sleepover with his cousin, and the kids were looking forward to my famous pancakes for breakfast. They seemed to be enjoying them, but when I tasted mine, they were awful. Apparently I had forgotten to put the baking powder in and they were hard and flat. Kids didn’t seem to care.

I decided to make lamb chops for DD's one year old birthday party and took them out of the frig to come to room temperature. Then I went to take a quick shower. When I returned, she greeted me with a greasy grin while waving the last chop in her hand. And that's how I discovered she started walking.

After working in the yard for a few hours I came in and wanted to quickly mix up pizza dough before I took a shower. I use a hand held mixer with dough hooks. Somehow I accidentally got my thumb caught in one hook while the mixer was on. Totally freaked me out. I yelled for dh. He wrapped my thumb the best he could and off we went to the doctor's office for stitches. I think my vanity bothered me more than the bleeding. I really needed that shower.

I'm loving these stories--glad to know that I'm not the only one to do idiotic things.

I went through a crazy time in my life about 20 years ago. I had just finished an aggressive chemotherapy treatment, had very young children, and decided to to go to grad school again in a different field. I don't know if was the "chemo brain" (a real side effect of chemo that causes difficulty with memory, attention, etc.) or the insanity of what I was trying to accomplish in general--but I did tend to be forgetful. One night I got home late from a class and asked my husband what he had for dinner. He said "the chicken". I said, "what chicken?". He said "the chicken breasts that were in the oven." I stood in horror realizing that I had baked chicken breasts a couple days prior and completely forgot about them. My next question was, "did the kids have any?". I was so relieved when he replied that he had given them something else. I then asked him how the chicken was. "Pretty good--just a little dry", he responded. So, here I confess my lie of omission--I didn't tell him the truth about that chicken until a while later, once I knew he was okay. When I did tell him, he broke out laughing and said it probably wouldn't have bothered him if I had fessed up at the time.

Scalloped the tip of a finger while making scalloped potatoes on a mandolin. Fortunately not a big slice, but I spent the rest of the night elevating a well-bandaged finger, and not eating much dinner, since it was hard to cook one-handed.

Until I got a rice cooker, I'd always anneal rice to the bottom of the cooking pot. I stopped eating rice at all at home until I got that cooker, because I got tired of tossing out uncleanable pots.