This giveaway is now closed. BUT…I highly recommend you keep reading. There are some good kitchen disaster stories in these comments! And feel free to leave more great stories. I will do a follow-up post soon announcing the winner and highlighting some of the messiest/scariest/hilariousest stories you shared!
Kitchen disasters. We all have them. My most memorable disaster involves a microwave, a bag of popcorn and a phone call. Oh. My. Goodness. Who knew microwave popcorn could catch fire AND create such a great amount of smoke? I was pretty sure I had written about this experience, so I went digging around on the blog and, sure enough, I had. I had forgotten so many of the details of that day I was glad I had written it down. All I really remembered was black popcorn, more smoke than any one bag of popcorn should be allowed to produce, and feeling like a complete dummy. I had forgotten that it was a wicked hot day. And that we were planning a fun day at the movies with our girls, which never happened. And the reason I started a popcorn fire was because I was chatting on the phone. I guess that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise! Our house was SO STINKY for SO LONG…and, it was SO HOT that day. Opening the windows was the last thing we wanted to do. But we had to. Either that or suffocate. We opted for heat, but it was a tough decision. 
I’ll never forget one of my mom’s “disasters.” She used to make this yummy chicken cooked in a tomato sauce for fajitas. Well, one evening, the family sat down to dinner and started to dig in. As we took our first bites we knew something was wrong. But we just kept eating. Not one of us mentioned that the fajitas tasted beyond strange, in fact, kinda gross. We didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings. When my mom finally sat down and started eating, she immediately asked us why we were all eating this awful food?!?! She knew immediately what she had done…cinnamon instead of cumin! She saved us all from being nice and promptly cleared the table. It’s actually quite a fond memory and still makes me laugh.
Today it’s all about kitchen disasters. It’s time to spill the beans! Please share your worst kitchen disaster. Or your mom’s worst kitchen disaster. Or your best friend’s. If it’s a kitchen disaster, we want to hear about it!
There are four other food bloggers writing similar “Spill It” posts on their blogs today. Whichever blogger gets the most comments wins a big old Pampered Chef shopping spree. There are so many Pampered Chef items that I would just love to get my hands on, so I’m really hoping we can pull this off! And just think what wonderful posts I could write for you if I had all those wonderful cooking tools! Plus, I’m willing to share the spoils…
The Pampered Chef folks told me if I don’t win, they’ll still give me this totally cool Easy Brie-zy Pizza Set. But, I’ve decided I’m going to give it to one of you instead. That’s right, I’ll randomly select one of the commenters on this post to win the pizza set! And, if we can get lots of comments on here and I actually do win the shopping spree, I’ll use part of my winnings to get the pizza set for the winner…as well as something else special! See, you DO want me to win that shopping spree!
To enter the giveaway for a chance at the pizza set (and maybe more!), help me win a shopping spree AND share your great kitchen disasters (come on, I know you’re dying to “Spill It”), get commenting! Comments must be made by 12:00 pm CT this Friday, April 15. (Must have continental U.S. shipping address to ship the prize to.)
You can also “like” The Pampered Chef on Facebook (and why wouldn’t you, they’re great!) and share your disaster stories on their wall as well! AND…if you click on the “Contests” tab over on the left of their Facebook page, you can enter to win the same grand prize that I’m trying to win myself! It’s big…$3500 for The Pampered Chef and $125 to Spa Finder.
I can’t wait to read all your comments…this is going to be fun!
Hello! My name is Jane Maynard and you've landed yourself on my blog, This Week for Dinner™. Every Sunday I share a weekly menu...and then count on you to share your own! You'll also find other deliciousness that I hope you'll enjoy!
6 years ago I was making Coconut Custard Pies to bring to Thanksgiving dinner the day before Thanksgiving. As I put one of the 2 pies in the oven, I spilled some of the custard onto the bottom of my electric oven. No worries, I thought, I’ll just clean it up later. I finished baking the pies and decided to throw in a small pizza for my lunch. I turned the heat up to 425 and started cleaning my kitchen. Suddenly, I heard “Poof”. I continued to clean with my back to the oven thinking “why did my pizza make a poofing sound?” I decided to turn around and look at my oven only to see flames inside the oven and smoke starting to pour out! The custard had caught on fire when I turned the heat up. I grabbed the baking soda, tore the top off, opened the door and tossed all the soda in the oven to put it out. Cleaning that oven totally s**ked! I am more careful now when I bake!
Oh and as I left my house to get my son from school, I was driving down a side road…kids were playing in their front yard with their cat…who decided to run out in front of my car. There was no way I could stop my car in time. The cat did not make it.
Jane,
Your blog is so appealing. I love you humor.
first time I ever used dried chickpeas, I didn’t realize you needed to soak them before cooking . . . ended up going out for dinner that night
My first year of marriage, I tried making enchiladas with canned tuna – and as you can imagine, it was really, really awful!!!
I have a recipe that I call a ‘slushy salad’ using bananas, pineapple and gingerale that is frozen in a bowl, then thawed just enough to run a fork thru it to make it somewhat slushy; it’s then served in small cups. One time I was up very late and pulled a bowl out of my cabinet, mixed all the ingredients, tossed into the freezer and went to bed. The next day, I took that salad to a potluck and when it was time to ‘slush’ the mixture, there was a hard ball of ice in the center that would not ‘slush’ – after wrestling with it for a few minutes, I discovered that there were 3 plastic lids that had been in the bowl I used – all of which had frozen right into the salad! We now call that salad the ’3-Lid Salad!’
This one is short and sweet. One day I toasted a croissant in the oven without using a cookie sheet. The croissant broke and a bit fell on the heating coil. Fire happened (small and easily put out) and I said a word I shouldn’t have just in time for my just-beginning-to-speak-parrots-everything-I-say daughter to hear me and then repeat it loudly. Totally felt like a super hero.
I made a Cookie Monster (cookie pizza) on a pizza pan that had little holes on the bottom of the pan for design. I thought the batter would hold together enough in the oven until it hardened, but instead the heat made the batter get gooey and leak through the pan and I had burnt cookie batter droppings on the bottom on my oven. And to make it worse I didn’t clean it for a long time.
We participate in a super club through my husband’s work and had been assigned a dish for the main course; the dish was supposed to be ‘easy’ but by the time it was all said and done, that dish took 6hrs of actual cooking time and used literally, 15 pots and pans – everything and I mean everything, was covered in grease AND the smoke detector went off – the house was filled with smoke. The dish was fabulous but man, I probably won’t make it again!
When I first started cooking and baking in college, I had VERY little equipment to do so, so one Christmastime, I used the handle of my Swiffer sweeper as a rolling pin to roll out my gingerbread cookie dough, and on the only available large surface I had – a squishy card table. Not a disaster per se, but funny!
Soo making a chicken dish and it called for Paprika… Well I love me some paprika so I was generous with it. Cooked it, plated it and hubs ate it and spit it out.. turns out I used cayan pepper by mistake! Umm yeah it was a bad night.
I had a disaster when my husband and I were having my parents over at our place for the first time. I messed up on cooking RICE! Plain and simple rice! It was bad but I’m glad my family was in the mood for pizza.
Yeah one time my friends and I didn’t add enough flour to chocolate chip cookies and set the oven on fire. Her brother had to come “save” us by blowing out the fire. The foreign exchange student that was helping us from there on out called her brother “tornado breath” Hahaa.
My husband wanted chili, but we were living in Alaska and if you don’t think ahead to get it, you have to wait a while. He decided to use a can of baked beans and modify it from there. He kept adding things here and there and in the end it was so nasty I don’t think even a starving dog would have eaten it!
I love pampered chef and would love to win this, but the story about the wooden spoon in the smoothy made me laugh so hard, she deserves it!
There’s too many to select from, but I decided one time to spice up my typical college meal of pasta and marinara sauce by adding some microwaveable meatballs. Long story short, as I was getting ready to serve the meal to friends, someone noticed a burning smell. Sure enough when I opened up the microwave, the paper towel I used to cover up the meatballs was caught on fire. Should’ve known that paper towel+grease from meatballs+microwave= fire hazard!
Shall we talk about the time I tried to spice up ground beef and sour cream with curry powder? No. Let’s not.
I made a skillet apple pie and it looked GORGEOUS. Perfectly golden crust, drippy tart apples, until I bit into it. I’d added lemon juice–to a cast iron pan. The beautiful pie tasted like metallic awful.
Last night’s disaster: The good ol’ mistaking sugar for salt trick… Makes for some nasty pumpkin muffins
My worst kitchen disaster actually involved a Pampered Chef knife. I was washing dishes at Church after a Young Women activity. Most of the kitchen utensils we sued were second hand. Someone left a knife to be washed and I immersed it in the soapy water without giving it a second thought. Shortly afterward another leader came into the kitchen and asked if I had seen her knife. I looked down and the soapy water was red! I learned the hard way the quality of Pampered Chef knives!
When I was little, my sister tried making my Dad’s favorite fudge recipe…umm instead of 1/4 TEASPOON of salt, she used 1/4 CUP…BLAH! Funny, the fudge never did set right!
When I was newly married, I decided to try my hand at making an omlette. Didn’t have much on hand for filling, so I figured-hey, give grape jelly (homemade) a try! Yuck-eggs turned green-my husband still brings up my grape jelly omlette disaster! Thanks Dan!
There have been many mishaps, but the worst was when we not gone grocery shopping yet. I pulled together every last thing I could find and made a nice little vegetable soup- then promptly poured the ENTIRE salt shaker into it.
My kitchen disaster hurt me SO much more than it did the kitchen. I was about 6 years old and was decided I wanted to reheat some leftovers in the microwave. My darling parents taught me to set the right time and cover the bowl, but they did not mention to NEVER put metal bowls in the microwave. Not only did I destroy the microwave, I reached in and grabbed the bowl with my bare hands. The bowl was so hot, the skin on my fingers melted and stuck to it. Even though we had to get a new microwave, my parents couldn’t be mad when they saw how pitiful I was with my bandaged, mummy-like hands.
you win the award for the SADDEST kitchen disaster story – oh goodness! I want to give your 6-yo self a big hug!