A A A C C K! Don't Do This When You Cook!

doomsdave

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Some cooking errors can't be fixed.

One time I put salt into the water for some pasta, and didn't taste the pasta before I used it and the PASTA WAS SO [EXPLETIVE] SALTY I HAD TO SCREAM.

In other words, I used too much. Now I don't use any.

Maybe warn us from faux pas you've done?
 

Tobermory

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I may have an example from today. :) I wanted to have cornbread muffins with chili tonight. I checked and had all of the ingredients...I thought. When I opened the sour cream container and spooned it into the 1/2 cup measure, I had just over 1/4 cup. Aargh. I filled in with plain low-fat yogurt. We’ll see how they turn out. The yogurt has more moisture than the sour cream, although the Tillamook low-fat yogurt is nice and thick. My fingers are crossed!
 

Winchester

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Check (and then double-check) the amount of salt in recipes. I've made this egg-braided bread recipe now for years. Years! You made the dough, then braid the loaves. It's such a good bread. One day, for some reason, I assumed (and you know what happens when you assume!) that I needed one tablespoon of salt in the recipe. I thought I had the recipe memorized.

Well! I tasted the dough and almost gagged. Whatever I was thinking was wrong. It was about three times the amount of salt that I really needed. I simply needed to add more other ingredients and ended up tripling everything else to come into compliance with the salt. We had bread forever. I gave loaves away and froze some, too. That was a simple fix; most of the time, I'm not so lucky.
 

Tobermory

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I discovered that you shouldn’t have a piece of foil under a Papa Murphy's take-and-bake pizza. I had foil in the oven from a previous use (to catch potential overflow from a pie) and didn’t think anything about it, just plopped the pizza on top. We sat down to eat and when I pulled up the first piece, it drooped into an L shape. The crust was soggy. So disappointing when you’ve been looking forward to a mouth-watering, cheese-rich piece of pizza! :confused:

And btw, the cornbread muffins were okay. The yogurt substitution worked out! :)
 

Boris Diamond

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The first time I ever made cookies it was a Boy Scout requirement for Second Class Scout. Or something like that. I was about 12. I melted the shortening as the directions said. Then it said "add an egg." I added an egg. Unfortunately, the shortening was hot. Really hot. The egg fried! :flail:
 
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doomsdave

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The first time I ever made cookies it was a Boy Scout requirement for Second Class Scout. Or something like that. I was about 12. I melted the shortening as the directions said. Then it said "add an egg." I added an egg. Unfortunately, the shortening was hot. Really hot. The egg fried! :flail:
:lolup:
 

susanm9006

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Not just once for several times I have added baking powder instead of baking soda resulting in either flat or rock hard and inedible bakery items.
 

Furballsmom

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I may have mentioned this one elsewhere, but be aware that vegetable oil can become rancid, without necessarily smelling like it did.
I ruined a fried chicken recipe, couldn't figure out why, then it dawned on me that on that particular day I was cooking in a household that hadn't done much in the kitchen LOL
 

Tobermory

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I’d say don’t do this when you cook, but I don’t know what I did to end up with crescent rolls that could have doubled as hockey pucks. They were so bad I had to throw them away!
 

islander

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MY first cookery lesson at school, waaaaaaaay back in history ;)

It was rock cakes and we had to take the ingredients in from home, ready weighed.... So I made my batch, put them in the oven and started clearing my table. OH NO! The packet of sugar was still there! A sneaky look to see where the teacher was, grab the tray out of the oven, back into the bowl , mix in the sugar..... They were perfect! The moral is always find a way to correct your mistakes!
 

rosegold

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Last week I was making chicken chili in the crockpot, meant to turn it on low for about 8 hours... accidentally put it on high, and had to leave the house unexpectedly for most of the afternoon and evening... It cooked from about 9am to 10pm on HIGH. The chicken had been boiled to hell and was inedibly dry, the veggies were liquified, and the broth was watery and weird. Somehow the kidney beans survived!
 

susanm9006

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This was a cooking disaster not of my making. The afternoon of the birthday party I was having for my son I was preparing his cake, this year a delicious lemon bundt cake. I preheated the oven, put the cake in and went about doing other things. A few minutes later I hear a loud pop noise and turned to see flames shooting up the wall from the stove’s control panel which had evidently shorted out and caught fire. By the time I got the extinguisher the panel was just smouldering and melted but the fire was out. The wall behind the stove was scorched and the aroma of burned electronics was overwhelming. Fortunately it was still summer so for the party we had take out and store bought pie.

Since then I never leave anything simmering or in the oven, even if I am going to make a quick store run or work in the yard.
 

micknsnicks2mom

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One other thing that you don’t think about going rancid is brown rice. White rice will last forever, but in just a couple months brown rice gets stinky and horrible tasting.
i read online, that dry ingredients (including brown rice) will stay fresh (much) longer if stored in a canning jar with an oxygen absorber in with it. give the jars with oxygen absorbers 24 hours to seal (in other words, hear the 'toink' sound), and if they don't seal then try with a fresh oxygen absorber. i use this method to store spices, rice, dry mixes (pancake, and biscuit), tapioca granules, and etc. i use one 300 cc oxygen absorber per pint canning jar, and two of them for a quart canning jar. something to note is that once we open a package of oxygen absorbers, they'll immediately start absorbing oxygen -- so have jars filled and ready to as quickly as possible add oxygen absorber(s), then pop on the lids and rims and tighten them. i label my jars using yard sale stickers, use various letters/letter combinations on the stickers, and keep a set of sheets on the side of my fridge which list what each sticker means/has in the jar(s).
 
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doomsdave

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One other thing that you don’t think about going rancid is brown rice. White rice will last forever, but in just a couple months brown rice gets stinky and horrible tasting.
Wow, two months is fast!

Maybe it's old to start with when you buy it?

I go through tons of brown rice, maybe get arsenic poisoning . . . . .
 

susanm9006

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Wow, two months is fast!

Maybe it's old to start with when you buy it?

I go through tons of brown rice, maybe get arsenic poisoning . . . . .
I don’t think it was old but I used to buy Uncle Bens. Now I buy generic bin brown rice and only as much as I need for whatever I am cooking. Back up for unexpected need is bags of frozen brown rice.
 
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