# Kitchen mishaps?



## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

You all may be much better in the kitchen than I.  I like to think of myself as "domestically challenged".  In the ten years that my husband and I have been married I've set my kitchen on fire six times.  Two of those times required the use of a fire extinguisher.  It's gotten to the point now that if flames spout forth, there's no panic from anyone.  It's just like, "Oh, great, she's started another fire."  I've found my best friends to be my slow cooker and my electric skillet, since neither of them have ever caused me any trouble.

Anyone else?  Am I alone here?


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

I've never set anything on fire - I just can't cook anything that tastes good. My husband is the opposite - he makes food taste great but he has almost set two fires (by putting oven mitts on the hot stove) and almost dropped the roasting turkey on the floor, spilling hot oil and fluids all over the floor. He also once left the milk out and it eventually soured enough that it exploded all over the kitchen. That was fun.


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## Thea J (Jul 7, 2010)

Milk can actually explode? That's kind of awesome, really.

One of my daughter's roommates baked frozen pizza with the cardboard still under it… Twice. Sadly, I'd be more afraid of what he could do with a fire extinguisher in his hands than even the smoking oven!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Thea J said:


> Milk can actually explode? That's kind of awesome, really.


So can cans of coke left in the back of a car in the hot sun. . . . . . . . . . .it doesn't smell as bad as spoiled milk, but it's a lot stickier. . . . .


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Thea J said:


> Milk can actually explode? That's kind of awesome, really.


lol not when it's the middle of winter and you have to open the windows and doors for hours to get the smell of sour milk out.


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## Thea J (Jul 7, 2010)

history_lover said:


> lol not when it's the middle of winter and you have to open the windows and doors for hours to get the smell of sour milk out.


Okay, I should clarify. The theory is awesome, because I didn't know it was possible. I agree that the reality might be fairly disgusting.


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## LCEvans (Mar 29, 2009)

My tea kettle doesn't whistle and a couple of times I've boiled it out of water--most recently yesterday. I've now made the decision to retire this little gem and get one that calls me loud and clear when the water boils.

Linda


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

I have a wonderful electric tea kettle that clicks off when it's done.  No boiling till it's dry anymore.  
I got it at Macy's.  
deb


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

We got a whistling kettle at Christmas:  DH enters his "coke" points and had enough to get it free. . . . . .  We'd had one before, 'cause I never saw the point of a boiling kettle that didn't tell you when it was ready  But the dohicky on the spout that makes it whistle broke. . . . .


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## Valmore Daniels (Jul 12, 2010)

I accidentally burnt and exploded a potato in the microwave once.

The smell was _*horrendous!*_


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Valmore Daniels said:


> I accidentally burnt and exploded a potato in the microwave once.
> 
> The smell was _*horrendous!*_


Worse: (at least mess-wise) Peeps in the microwave. . . . . . .


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## Thea J (Jul 7, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Worse: (at least mess-wise) Peeps in the microwave. . . . . . .


But it looks so funny in the YouTube videos!


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

Back in the day, margarine was called "oleo."  My grandmother's recipes were all on cards and we used them all the time.  Her brownie recipe was wonderful and contained "oleo."  I knew what it was and had made them for years.  When my younger brother decided to try his hand at them...he had no idea what Oleo was.  So he left it out...

Bricks for building anyone


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I have an old recipe of my grandmother's. . .that was probably _her_ grandmother's. . . .that calls for "a scant half teacup of sugar".


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Maria, that's a funny story.  You would think he would have asked someone.  

Another thing I love about my tea kettle is that it sits on a base.  The base plugs in.  So no more dropping the plug in the water when I'm trying to fill the kettle.  It's Russell Hobbs.
deb


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

I've never set a kitchen on fire, but I've produced my share of inedible-brick loaves of bread, back when I was starting to bake... 

BUT this reminds me of something else -- sort of OT but several people mentioned tea kettles.... There is/was a little catalog for a while called Dancing Dragon, which featured all sorts of knick-knacks and jewelry and such with dragon motifs. They had a teakettle with a dragon head at the spout, and when the water boiled it whistled and the steam came out of the dragon's nostrils. I really wanted that, but waited too long to order, and they were sold out. I called the company and they said that they were no longer working with that supplier (some company in Asia). Has anybody seen one like that elsewhere? I mean a _functional_ kettle, not a decoration, and also_ safe_, not made of something that's going to leach lead into my tea.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

It's not a kettle, but we have a cast aluminum dragon that sits on our wood stove.  When filled with water and the stove gets hot he steams.  We call him Stanley.   Good for adding moisture to the air in winter.

Quick Google showed no dragon tea kettles, but many tea pots with dragon motif. . . . .


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## austenfiend (Nov 17, 2009)

My neighbor says that her Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season is not officially underway until a fire starts in the oven.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Quick Google showed no dragon tea kettles, but many tea pots with dragon motif. . . . .


Yeah, _those_ are abundant. I just thought that with the Power of Kindleboards, maybe someone knew of another source for a kettle. There's always somebody here who knows the answer, right?  (and no, in this case it's not Hibbing. Too cold for dragons there.)


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## G.L. Douglas (Jun 27, 2010)

OMG! Reese!!  It's not funny, but I had to laugh at your great writing/accounting of your kitchen fires.   

My worst thing is forgetting that the pan I just removed from the oven with a mitt is still hot a minute later when I grab it with my bare hand to move it or unload it.

Also, a couple of times in the microwave and also on top of the stove, when trying to heat water to the boiling point, after too long a time the water doesn't boil. Then, if you pick up the vessel, all of a sudden water "explodes" everywhere.  Very dangerous when it happens.  Sometimes it will "explode" even if you don't move the vessel.

I swear I thought my house was possessed when this happened, but then good ol' Martha Stewart had a spot on about it. It's called superheating. There are some scary videos showing what happens if you Google "superheated water."  Rather than trying to put it into Martha's words, here's the scientific explanation.

In physics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, or boiling delay) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. Superheating is achieved by heating a homogeneous substance in a clean container, free of nucleation sites, while taking care not to disturb the liquid.

Martha said the problem is that the vessel/container is clean. To prevent it happening, toss a few grains of sugar or salt (to complement whatever you're going t use the water for) into the water, and that will create enough of a disturbance to keep it from superheating.


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## D. Nathan Hilliard (Jun 5, 2010)

If I had not gone with fantasy and horror as my genres of choice, my first book could have easily been "20 Great Recipes and How they Look on Fire."


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

D. Nathan Hilliard said:


> If I had not gone with fantasy and horror as my genres of choice, my first book could have easily been "20 Great Recipes and How they Look on Fire."


ha-ha!


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

drenee said:


> I have a wonderful electric tea kettle that clicks off when it's done. No boiling till it's dry anymore.
> I got it at Macy's.
> deb


This was one of my worst problems. Boiling water. Ha! I can cook pretty good, but boiling water? All my pots had blackened bottoms and permanently scarred metal even on the inside. My family bought me an electric kettle! A wonderful gadget. You can get cheap ones at my favorite store: Yep, Wally-World. Mine is a de Longhi and it has lasted for over 10 years. I got new pots now. They look fine.


D. Nathan Hilliard said:


> If I had not gone with fantasy and horror as my genres of choice, my first book could have easily been "20 Great Recipes and How they Look on Fire."


 
That's hilarious. You ought to go for it!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Hmmm...nothing too horrible comes to mind. Probably the funniest was when I was making a dip that consisted of roasted red peppers, goat cheese, cream cheese, and assorted aromatics and herbs. Ultimately everything went into the large mixing bowl and the mixer was turned on. What the recipe neglected to tell me was that the goat cheese should first be broken up into smaller pieces. So once the approximately 6-inch by 1.5-inch cylinder hit the spinning beaters, I then had a whirling hunk of moldy goat curds flinging orange goo all over me and the kitchen.

I laughed about it much later.


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## Steven L. Hawk (Jul 10, 2010)

My wife uses the smoke alarm as an oven timer.  When the alarm goes off, it's time for whatever is in the oven to come out.  

Okay, okay... in the interest of full disclosure, it's only happened a half dozen times in our 20-year marriage.  But still.


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## julieannfelicity (Jun 28, 2010)

OK ... I'm probably the biggest dummy (hands down!).

When I was at work one day, I decided I was craving chocolate covered pretzels. (I make them each Christmas/Hanukkah holiday for family and friends) So I went ahead and put several Hershey's Hugs in a bowl, along with the pretzels, into the microwave. It didn't dawn on me, as I sat at my desk patiently waiting for the *ding* of the microwave, until the smell of smoke and coughing of co-workers, that the kitchen microwave was on fire.

<Sigh> ... Yeah ... I put a PLASTIC bowl into the microwave and it caught on fire. (face-palm moment, that's for sure!)


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

Ok, not  quite *my* kitchen mishap, but I was supposed to be the responsible one!

I was babysitting 2 girls, aged 7 and 8. After dinner, the older one asked if she could make some tea. "Sure!" I said, while cleaning up the dishes with my back turned toward her. I heard her jump up on the counter, pulling out a mug and some tea and opening up the microwave, beeping, etc. Nothing to worry about, right? It wasn't until she said, "Jessica? JESSICA?!" with extreme alarm in her voice that I turned around to see THE MICROWAVE ON FIRE. Well, maybe not exactly on fire, but there was a small fire burning inside. 

She had put a teabag in a mug and stuck it in the microwave for a few minutes instead of heating up the water and then putting the teabag in. I opened up the microwave, threw the mug in the sink and soaked it in water. We had to open up all the windows to get the smoke out, but fortunately the microwave seemed no worse for wear. We all agreed not to tell her mom about the incident. 

In retrospect, I should have realized there was something wrong, seeing as I was using the sink at the time and she obviously hadn't gotten any water from it.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

Nogdog's post reminded me of one.  I used to supervise an institutional kitchen that employed over 140-150 workers on a twenty-hour a day operation.  One of the things we (they) used to make in large quantities was peanutbutter and jelly for sandwiches.  The big mixers are not to be used by amateurs or idiots and my crews usually contained an inordinate number of both/and/or's.  So I'm standing in my office, gazing out the window that overlooked the main production area, lost in deep and most likely profound thought (like why did the clock hands at work move so much more slowly than the hands on clocks at home). Anyway, suddenly, three of my best employees turned on the 40 gallon mixer right in front of my office after dumping in twelve 1-gallon cans of cold peanut butter and six 1-gallon cans of cold grape jelly.  The explosion as the mixer jumped into high gear from standing still send peanut butter and jelly all over the kitchen, floor, walls, ceiling and my window.  Another employee, spying me in the window, immediately grabbed a squeegee and raked the muck off the glass.  There were my three best employees still standing there at the mixer, covered in peanut butter and jelly from head to toe.  All I could do was smile and sit down at my desk where I began to work on the next day's menus.


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## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

Great stories, everyone!  I'm so glad to hear that I'm not alone!


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

ReeseReed said:


> Great stories, everyone! I'm so glad to hear that I'm not alone!


Oh no, you're not alone! In fact, I've had so many "kitchen" moments that when my son requests a grilled cheese sandwich (and my husband isn't around to make it) he usually requests that it be "brown but not black." 

It's been fun reading these! And reminds me why my hubby usually cooks in our house!

Vicki


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## rscully (Jun 5, 2010)

My wife cooks on hi, enough said


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## G.L. Douglas (Jun 27, 2010)

Steven L. Hawk said:


> My wife uses the smoke alarm as an oven timer. When the alarm goes off, it's time for whatever is in the oven to come out.
> 
> Okay, okay... in the interest of full disclosure, it's only happened a half dozen times in our 20-year marriage. But still.


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## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

Great stories!

When my parents-in-law first set up house together (they'd been married for a year by then, but had been living with his parents), one of the first things f-i-l had to do was dig a large hole in the garden for all the burnt offerings.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I am actually a really good cook.. DH however... well, after almost 20 years, he is learning...

Back in the days of Dot-matrix printers, he found a recipe for a coconut cream pie and decided to make it to have ready as a surprise for me when I got home from work.. I came home, see a pot in the sink but it hadn;t been filled with water yet, so I swipe my finger along the edge to taste what's inside...... OH MY GAWD!!!!! It was horrible.. nasty.. vile... I'm spitting and sputtering at the sink, grabbing a glass rinsing out my mouth.. and yelling for him.. he comes in, asks whats wrong. I said what in the world did you make? He said a Coconut cream pie. I'm like and this was the filling? he's all yep! I said.. uh.. did you TASTE it? he said no, it still had to sit for another hour in the fridge. Then he told me about finding the recipe and it being a surprise.. I asked to look at the recipe.. and there's 1 line you cannot really read completely.. I asked him what it was.. he said Oh.. 1/2 C Vinegar.. I said really?? looking closely at it.. I can read the  1/2  a few dots and the gar.. I said I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be SUGAR...His eyes go wide, He looks at the pot in the sink........ sticks the tip of a finger in the pot.. tastes... walks over to the fridge, takes out the pie, and walks outside. He comes in a few minutes later.. and had thrown it out in the neighbor's dumpster they had while doing a MAJOR house renovation.


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> I am actually a really good cook.. DH however... well, after almost 20 years, he is learning...
> 
> Back in the days of Dot-matrix printers, he found a recipe for a coconut cream pie and decided to make it to have ready as a surprise for me when I got home from work.. I came home, see a pot in the sink but it hadn;t been filled with water yet, so I swipe my finger along the edge to taste what's inside...... OH MY GAWD!!!!! It was horrible.. nasty.. vile... I'm spitting and sputtering at the sink, grabbing a glass rinsing out my mouth.. and yelling for him.. he comes in, asks whats wrong. I said what in the world did you make? He said a Coconut cream pie. I'm like and this was the filling? he's all yep! I said.. uh.. did you TASTE it? he said no, it still had to sit for another hour in the fridge. Then he told me about finding the recipe and it being a surprise.. I asked to look at the recipe.. and there's 1 line you cannot really read completely.. I asked him what it was.. he said Oh.. 1/2 C Vinegar.. I said really?? looking closely at it.. I can read the 1/2 a few dots and the gar.. I said I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be SUGAR...His eyes go wide, He looks at the pot in the sink........ sticks the tip of a finger in the pot.. tastes... walks over to the fridge, takes out the pie, and walks outside. He comes in a few minutes later.. and had thrown it out in the neighbor's dumpster they had while doing a MAJOR house renovation.


Hahahaha, that's hilarious. My boyfriend claims he's a great cook, but I had to help him cook noodles the other day. No joke. He didn't know how much water to put in the pot, how long to cook them, or how to tell if they were done. *sigh*


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## D. Nathan Hilliard (Jun 5, 2010)

This thread exhibits the exact reasons us guys like to grill. There is already a fire going in the first place, and if the food ignites that just means the fire spread a little...could happen to anybody.


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## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

rscully said:


> My wife cooks on hi, enough said


Too funny! My husband has come behind me in the kitchen saying, "You know these things will turn down, right?" while turning the heat knob!


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

Hope my mom doesn't see this ... she really is a great cook, but even the best have their days.

My mom made pancakes once. Apparently she left something out because they were pretty much inedible. So, as we usually did with left overs we put them in the dog's bowl outside (we lived on a farm and the dog had free run of the place). Imagine the laughter and teasing upon seeing the dog sniff the pancakes then promptly carrying them to the garden where he buried them!


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Thea J said:


> Milk can actually explode? That's kind of awesome, really.
> 
> One of my daughter's roommates baked frozen pizza with the cardboard still under it&#8230; Twice. Sadly, I'd be more afraid of what he could do with a fire extinguisher in his hands than even the smoking oven!


Milk burns, too. The flames were quite a surprise, but I learned something.

My daughter did the cardboard under the pizza, too . . . but only once.

We don't have a dinner bell here. Everyone knows it's dinner time when the smoke alarm goes off.


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## Kathy (Nov 5, 2008)

My daughter and my cousin (she's only 2 years older) decided to bake me a birthday cake when they were about 14 and 16. The bought the cake mix and then couldn't figure out the instructions about egg whites. They didn't know how to separate the egg white so they hard boiled the eggs and put the cooked egg whites in the cake mix. Needless to say it was an interesting first bite. We still laugh about this now and they are 37 and 39 years old now.


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## Tip10 (Apr 16, 2009)

Okay let me start off by saying my wife _can_ cook, does so occasionally, and usually does so quite well. In general though, I do almost all the cooking in our house.

Wife wanted to make chili for a chili cook-off contest at work. Now I have any of several recipes but we decided on one that is made from a "stock" that is first made in a slow cooker. This stock is a bean/spice mixture that ends up cooking down almost to a paste that can then be frozen and used as a stock from which several recipes can be made - chili, a stroganoff kind of dish, stews, soups, and a few others. 
Anyhow, seeing as how she needed a rather large amount of chili for her contest I got out sufficient stock for a quadruple batch for her and she divided it between two crock pots and added the remaining ingredients - quadrupling as she went. She got to the point of adding the chili powder to it since it only said "to taste" she asked me how much she needed. I told her I usually used a heaping tablespoon and that since we were doing a quadruple batch she would need something like 4 tablespoons TOTAL so to DIVIDE that amount between the two crocks. She, of course, completely missed the word total, focused on the 4 and heard quadruple and added 16 Tablespoons to *EACH* crock and went on her merry way. The next day I was talking to a friend who happened to work where wife did and he commented on her chili being probably the hottest he'd ever had (and this friend is _known_ for seeking out hot spicy things). So I called her and asked her about it. She said everybody was saying it was really really HOT and she said mine usually wasn't and she didn't understand. I asked her if she tasted hers and she said no. So I asked her how much chili powder she'd used -- she told me - "Um, dear, I think I know why everybody is saying its really HOT!!"

However, as it turned out - she ended up winning the contest, beating out her boss who was a native Texan and who did not take kindly to losing a chili contest to a "Midwesterner". Good thing was the boss got transferred BEFORE the next round of performance reviews and raises came out.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

Here's one:  I made a ham and cheese sandwich for a friend of mine when I was in high school.  I ate something else (I don't remember what now) but he didn't like it whatever it was.  Anyhoo, I noticed that he was having trouble with his sandwich and thought to myself "Wow, he must have bad teeth!"  So later on, maybe the next day.  I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich and bit into it.  The cheese would not be bitten off no matter what.  I finally took the sandwich apart and looked closely at the cheese.  It was my first experience with.... individually wrapped slices of pasteurized cheese product.  Me mum failed to inform me of the change... My friend was either too afraid or too polite to tell me.  He ate the WHOLE thing, plastic and all.


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## JoeMitchell (Jun 6, 2010)

When I got my very first apartment, with my own kitchen and refrigerator, I went to the store and bought groceries to fill it.  As I went to store a gallon of milk in my fridge, I accidentally dropped it, and the jug exploded all over the floor.  There was wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor.  Why would anyone carpet a kitchen?  I had to use all my towels to soak it up, so it wouldn't stink of sour milk.  What a mess!


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## farrellclaire (Mar 5, 2010)

Steven L. Hawk said:


> My wife uses the smoke alarm as an oven timer. When the alarm goes off, it's time for whatever is in the oven to come out.
> 
> Okay, okay... in the interest of full disclosure, it's only happened a half dozen times in our 20-year marriage. But still.


Growing up, the smoke alarm was our dinner bell. 

I don't spend much time in the kitchen, I'm rubbish at things like cooking and cleaning. My OH is great at it, thankfully except he isn't very observant. He's melted two deep fat fryers, three electric kettles and a toaster. Plus he set a towel on fire in the microwave.  He can't make pizza, or rather heat one up in the oven. I can't remember the last time I ate a pizza that wasn't burned. He often hands me cups of tea that taste like washing up liquid. He hasn't killed us yet though! My mother gave me food poisoning when I was ten, I finally had to stay in hospital for a week.  I can't judge, at least they try!

ETA: My OH also dropped a raw chicken behind something in the kitchen and forgot about it until I started complaining about the smell. *shudders*


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## Cobrastrike (Dec 26, 2009)

Went to a friend's house for a Pampered Chef party. Think tupperware party but with kitchen gadgets. Well,  I had never seen a mandolin before, so naturally i spoke up and went to try it (for those who have no idea what one is, it's a gadget most commonly used to slice things like vegetables extremely thinly by sliding it up and down a platform across a very thin, sharp blade). This one had a nice handle for holding the food as you're slicing food to keep your hand away from the blade. Unfortunately, you cannot use it to hold a carrot, so I opted to just hold it betwen my thumb and fingers. Remember the part about a sharp blade? Yeah, I can certainly attest to that. The host had turned her back on me so she didn't think much about my request for some paper towels. I did get her attention when I asked if she had some bandages or butterfly stitches... I won't go into the gory details; suffice it to say I am extremely lucky to still have the tip of my thumb.


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## mom2karen (Aug 15, 2009)

farrellclaire said:


> My OH also dropped a raw chicken behind something in the kitchen and forgot about it until I started complaining about the smell. *shudders*


This remeinded me of a story...

My DH, I and my 2yo dd went grocery shopping. We came home and started putting away the groceries while DD went off to play. The next day we couldn't find the 5# roast we bought and yelled at the dog, guessing that he snuck it out of the grocery bags while we were emptying them. A few days later we noticed an icky smell but couldn't locate the source. Days later I was cleaning up the living room where dd had her play kitchen and found the roast in her refrigerator. Ick!


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Brendan Carroll said:


> Here's one: I made a ham and cheese sandwich for a friend of mine when I was in high school. I ate something else (I don't remember what now) but he didn't like it whatever it was. Anyhoo, I noticed that he was having trouble with his sandwich and thought to myself "Wow, he must have bad teeth!" So later on, maybe the next day. I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich and bit into it. The cheese would not be bitten off no matter what. I finally took the sandwich apart and looked closely at the cheese. It was my first experience with.... individually wrapped slices of pasteurized cheese product. Me mum failed to inform me of the change... My friend was either too afraid or too polite to tell me. He ate the WHOLE thing, plastic and all.


Reminds me of when I was in seventh grade, and my best friend was being incessantly picked on and bullied by a guy in her class. We hatched a plan that involved baking him a pan of brownies, ostensibly as a bribe to leave her alone. We sliced the brownies horizontally and emptied an entire container of pepper between the two layers, figuring that one bite would be sufficient payback for his behavior. He didn't flinch and ate the entire 8" by 8" pan of doctored brownies in front of us. Didn't notice a thing.


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## farrellclaire (Mar 5, 2010)

Brendan Carroll said:


> Here's one: I made a ham and cheese sandwich for a friend of mine when I was in high school. I ate something else (I don't remember what now) but he didn't like it whatever it was. Anyhoo, I noticed that he was having trouble with his sandwich and thought to myself "Wow, he must have bad teeth!" So later on, maybe the next day. I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich and bit into it. The cheese would not be bitten off no matter what. I finally took the sandwich apart and looked closely at the cheese. It was my first experience with.... individually wrapped slices of pasteurized cheese product. Me mum failed to inform me of the change... My friend was either too afraid or too polite to tell me. He ate the WHOLE thing, plastic and all.


That made me laugh out loud. Some people are too polite!


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## OliviaD (Jul 21, 2009)

Some of these are hilarious! Some of them make me go "Wow!!"  I thought I had some bad experiences with cooking, but nothing like these.  I did suffer one memorable tragedy early on when I was learning to cook.  My mom always kept her coffee cans to put hot grease in.  After it solidified, she would throw them in the garbage.  Well, I learned not to try to put the little plastic lid on the can while the grease was still hot.  Those melt really fast and in goes the lid and your hand.  OWWWWWWW!!!!! Never did that again.


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## cegrundler (Aug 16, 2010)

All of these are too funny. 

Years ago when we first moved to our house, the stove fan didn't work and ANY cooking would set the smoke detector off, to the point we kept a broom handle close by to shut it off. My mom ultimately gave us a needlepoint that still hangs in the kitchen reading 'Dinner is done when the smoke detector goes off.'  

But the one that still makes me laugh happened when I was a kid. My mom had bought those muffins that come in a paper tube like the frozen orange juice cartons. What are they called? There's cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls... you know the ones I mean. You peel the wrapper with the instructions off then press a spoon on the seam and the tube opens with a little 'pop'.  Well, whatever the case, I was helping my mom make dinner and she told me to open one of those. I do the usual steps, press the spoon on the seam and "BLAMMMO!!!!" The sucker explodes!  I'm covered in pastry dough. My mom is. The walls are, there's some hanging from the ceiling, even the poor dog got hit with muffin-shrapnel!  I don't know whether it was past it's expiration date or what, but I will tell you decades later we still laugh about it, and to this day we call those things 'Violent Muffins'.


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## lonestar (Feb 9, 2010)

These stories are hilarious.

Years ago I lived in the downstairs of a house while a friend lived in the upstairs half.  We visited all the time.  One day, her house smelled terrible.  We searched high and low, opened the windows, turned the fan on.  We were still choking.  We looked and looked and finally decided that a mouse or something had died somewhere in a wall.  She was going to call the landlord when we noticed two boiled eggs on the stove on a spoon rest.  Apparently she had boiled them and left there for several days.  Eeeeeeewwwwww!  It was stanky.  It took several days to clear the smell.  Always refrigerate boiled eggs.


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## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

For those of you battling bad smells...try leaving an open cup of clorox on the counter overnight.  It's always worked for me to clear out the smells.  Sadly, I speak from experience   This trick also works very well if you've had a smelly experience in the car (also experience-speak here)  

All the talks about the microwaves reminded me...

When my oldest son was three, he was playing in his bedroom when I put something in the microwave.  When the "ding" came indicating it was done, he came tearing into the kitchen yelling, "Dinner's ready!"

I've always said that I feel like I'm doing my future daughters-in-law a favor.  My boys shouldn't ever have to complain that her cooking doesn't taste like Mom's - I think they'll be glad it doesn't.


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## drenfrow (Jan 27, 2010)

I got started young.  My family still tells the story of when I was maybe 8 years old and my mom asked me to wash the lettuce for the salad and I washed it with soap and water. 

And I haven't really gotten much better over the years.  I am one of those people who think the stove burners have one setting: all the way up!


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## Lyndl (Apr 2, 2010)

I was about 14 and had learnt how to make pastry in cooking class at school. The teacher scored me a 10 so I was keen to show off my expertise at home.  I made a steak & kidney pie with the most perfect pastry!  You should have seen how the sugar sparkled on top after I took it out of the oven !  
My dear family ate the whole thing and never once mentioned that I'd made the pie with a sweet crust pastry!


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## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

Lyndl said:


> I was about 14 and had learnt how to make pastry in cooking class at school. The teacher scored me a 10 so I was keen to show off my expertise at home. I made a steak & kidney pie with the most perfect pastry! You should have seen how the sugar sparkled on top after I took it out of the oven !
> My dear family ate the whole thing and never once mentioned that I'd made the pie with a sweet crust pastry!


Aw! That is such a sweet and cute story!


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## ReeseReed (Dec 5, 2009)

I had another near catastrophe last night!  I had finished frying some French fries and tossed in some okra to fry next.  Apparently the grease had gotten too hot and it came dangerously close to boiling over.  Thankfully I remembered from the last time that happened and got it off the eye before it happened again.  Phew!


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## originalgrissel (Mar 5, 2010)

I have actually set something on fire on my stove, but between my sister & I we got it put out no problem. Luckily my husband wasn't home so I didn't have to deal with any ribbing immediately. Normally, I'm pretty safe in the kitchen & don't have too many mishaps, but I did once have a Pyrex dish burst in my oven showering the entire bottom of the oven with au gratin potatoes. WHAT a mess! My husband nearly once started a fire in the microwave while trying to thaw out a loaf of frozen sandwich bread because he forgot to take the twist tie off first.  So, don't feel bad. Mishaps happen to us all.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

originalgrissel said:


> I did once have a Pyrex dish burst in my oven


That's scary. I thought they were supposed to be completely heatproof... do you know why it happened? Did it have a crack or something?


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

I've definitely caught things on fire in the kitchen before. Most of the times were because I was boiling milk, got distracted, and let it boil over. It doesn't burn then, but if you don't clean out the burner, it's quite a mishap next time you turn it on. Very very smoky and burny!

Also I remember one time we were preheating our oven and sparks suddenly started flying out of it. No idea what went wrong, but something obviously broke in it. I just remember grabbing my sister and slowly backing away, eyes wide open.


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## D. Nathan Hilliard (Jun 5, 2010)

drenfrow said:


> And I haven't really gotten much better over the years. I am one of those people who think the stove burners have one setting: all the way up!


If it ain't bright red, it ain't ON! That's my motto


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## loonlover (Jul 4, 2009)

Our family moved several times while I was growing up.  Most churches my father served owned parsonages.  The one we moved into when I was 13 had a fairly old electric stove.  My mother was ill and I was cooking supper.  The cookware we used were the copper bottom stainless steel type.  I had a pan of English peas simmering when the coil of the burner apparently wore through and fused itself to the bottom of the pan.  At the same time the lid blew off and peas were exploding into the air.  I just sort of stood there watching and probably screaming (at least the lid did not hit me).  Mom was hollering from the bedroom asking what is going on.  Fortunately my brother was in the dining room doing homework and had the presence of mind to step into the kitchen and turn the burner off.  My father had to saw the pan off the burner and we cleaned up peas from around the kitchen for months.  For the rest of the time we lived in that house we only had 3 burners to use.

Another parsonage we moved to had a gas refrigerator.  My father was a Pepsi drinker and he bought our Pepsi by the case from the bottling plant.  This was in the day of returnable bottles.  I was the only one home one day and was laying in bed reading with my Siamese cat beside me.  All of a sudden there was a loud boom from the kitchen.  The cat followed (cowering) behind me as I cautiously made my way to the kitchen to find a big sticky mess.  Not thinking about how much heat the refrigerator put out, the Pepsi had been stored in the cabinets above the refrigerator.  When the bottles overheated they exploded and left a very sticky mess pouring down onto the top of the refrigerator and then down the front and sides of it.  A new refrigerator was purchased a short time after that.


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## Valmore Daniels (Jul 12, 2010)

Ever decide to charbroil pork chops in the oven, and try to get that grilled effect by not putting a pan or tin foil under them?

Where's the fire extinguisher ... ?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Growing up, we had a wall oven.  For a reason I never really nailed down, mom stored some things in the oven. . .the broiler pan, of course, but, on the pan, an assortment of containers. . .I guess she wanted them handy but not sitting out.  Anyway, we all knew to look in the oven before turning it on.

My grandmother did not know.

One evening, she was making dinner for us. . . .mom was having a baby or she and dad were out for the evening or something. . . and she turned the oven on to preheat for the casserole she'd made.  Pretty soon we smelled a really stinky stink.  Yep. . .she hadn't checked the oven and one of the items in the oven was a plastic juice pitcher.  Fortunately she caught it in time and the only loss was said pitcher. . . .


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Jessica Billings said:


> I've definitely caught things on fire in the kitchen before. Most of the times were because I was boiling milk, got distracted, and let it boil over. It doesn't burn then, but if you don't clean out the burner, it's quite a mishap next time you turn it on. Very very smoky and burny!


I do that on a regular basis! Just snatched up the pan today before it started boiling over. You'd think I'd learn, eh?


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## originalgrissel (Mar 5, 2010)

Susan in VA said:


> That's scary. I thought they were supposed to be completely heatproof... do you know why it happened? Did it have a crack or something?


I think it was just a too sudden change in temperature. Pyrex is awesome, but any glass (or cast iron for that matter) oven-safe item can crack if it goes from cold to hot too quickly. So, it's always a good idea to let the dish/pan heat up along with the oven or make sure it is totally at room temp before putting it in a hot oven. Lesson learned.


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## RJ Keller (Mar 9, 2009)

My oven burst into flames last summer. Fortunately, I happened to be baking cookies and had a canister full of baking soda handy. I still haven't lived it down.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

originalgrissel said:


> I think it was just a too sudden change in temperature. Pyrex is awesome, but any glass (or cast iron for that matter) oven-safe item can crack if it goes from cold to hot too quickly. So, it's always a good idea to let the dish/pan heat up along with the oven or make sure it is totally at room temp before putting it in a hot oven. Lesson learned.


Ohhhh... I didn't realize it had been a cold dish that was placed into a hot oven. Yes, that would do it...



Ann in Arlington said:


> For a reason I never really nailed down, mom stored some things in the oven. . .


Easy. Not enough storage space in the kitchen. I thought everyone did that....


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## traceya (Apr 26, 2010)

Man these stories are hilarious 

I've set a few fires - usually trying to cook chips, I finally decided I can't do that  but my worst kitchen mishap came when my hubby and I were first dating. I wanted to impress him [big mistake as he's a much better cook than I] so I made Hungarian Goulash, except that I accidentally oversalted and didn't taste beforehand. He ate it - he can be very sweet like that - but to this day I don't know how, it was absolutely *AWFUL*

We joke about it now and call it my Dead Sea Goulash - more salt than anything else


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## lonestar (Feb 9, 2010)

I tried to make peanut brittle once.  I can't remember why, but I increased the amount of corn syrup from what was required in the recipe.  The whole mess solidified in my cookie sheet and I could not get it off.  I scraped, chiseled, beat and pushed it but it would not budge.  I heated it some to make it soft and it started to move but it was such a mess, I threw it all out including the cookie sheet.  It was a mess.


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## Linda S. Prather Author (Jun 25, 2010)

I've learned not to cook when I'm writing.  Sandwiches are the way to go.  Burned up too many pans while in the midst of action scenes and totally forgot about dinner until smoke filled the house or the smoke alarm went off.  Makes me feel like a horrible person, but oh well.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

I figured out how to keep this from happening when I'm cooking and doing anything else at all.  Buy one of those very loud timers and set the timer every time.  Don't forget!!  And then you'll hear it instead of the alarm.  But do not try this when mowing the yard...   I love this thread!!


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## lonestar (Feb 9, 2010)

Just finished mopping the kitchen and wiping the ceiling and cabinets above the sink.  I was trying to get a glass of water when I noticed the cold water faucet would not shut the water off.  Just as I was going to turn to catch my husband - he was leaving the house- the faucet came off in my hand and water went everywhere.  I was paralyzed for few moments, then shouted to my son to stop my husband before he drove off.  They got the water turned off just as I was heading to "old faithful" with a rag to plug it.

Fun times!


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## rla1996 (Oct 28, 2008)

Saturday was my grandmother's 80th birthday, and I got tasked with cooking the roasts for her birthday party.  I put 6 roasts into the roaster oven, put in my onions, chilies, bouillon cubes, and some garlic.  I filled the roaster with water, set it to 350 and went to bed for the night.  When I got up Saturday morning, I found that it had boiled over during the night and there was roast juice across the counter, down the front of the cabinets, across the floor and under the refrigerator . Surprisingly enough when my DH wandered into the kitchen a short time later he didn't ask me what I was doing mopping under the fridge at 7am.


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## sem (Oct 27, 2008)

^^^ It is a VERY bright husband who doesn't ask questions about unusual activities at that hour of the morning!


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

Back in the 1970's I worked in a restaurant as a cook. The restaurant was located in a mall (important point--see below). We had two pizza ovens, one mounted on top of the other. My partner was making Yorkshire pudding. This was done by heating oil in a muffin tin and adding the batter to the hot oil.

My partner decides that the oil will heat more rapidly in the top oven (set to 600oF, rather than in the bottom oven set to 350--he'll put them below later. We have two cookie sheets, each with 2 12-cup muffin tins (now filled with oil) on them in the top oven, leaving me a little room for our other work. He goes to the washroom and, just before he returns, I open the oven to find that one muffin tin is on fire. I close the oven door.

"We have a problem," I say, nonchalantly.

"Oh?" he says.

I open the oven and his eyes go wide. Now both sheets are in flames and the kitchen's fans (powerful) are dragging the flames out the door and to the side. I close the oven door.

"Where's the CO2 extinguisher?" he asks, not quite as calmly as he might.

Well, we'd just finished some renovations and the CO2 extinguisher is, at the moment, behind an open door, in front of which someone had piled about 8 boxes of No. 10 tins -- the big ones. The dry chem extinguishers would have made a royal muck in the oven. We hurl the boxes aside and grab the CO2 extinguisher.

Now, anyone who has been in the vicinity of a CO2 extinguisher when it goes off knows there is quite a roar. This roar can easily be heard in the dining room, and the flashes of flames off the stainless steel splash coverings for wall behind the grill and broiler are reflected through the serving window. In other words, everyone out there knows just what is going on -- including the manager of the mall, who promptly calls our boss to let him know we're burning down the restaurant.

My partner blows out the fire with the extinguisher but, just like those magic candles, they burst right back into flames. He repeats . . . twice. We can't keep this up, which I calmly suggest to him as his speech becomes slightly colourful. He grabs some tongs (for turning the steaks) and grabs onto one of the sheets. With me using the last of the CO2 to blow the flames away from his hands, he carries it to the sink and dumps it. One big whoosh of flame, then nothing. The other sheet remains, unlit, in the oven. Disaster averted.

Turns out that one of the muffin tins still had a price sticker glued to it. When it hit the ignition point of paper (Fahrenheit 451 anybody?) it ignited and set the oil on fire. Fortunately, the sticker was on one of the pans that my partner grabbed from the oven.

Now we only have to deal with the smoke (down to about 4 1/2 feet off the floor). So, we're now working, bent over, to remake a couple of meals which were burned during our understandable dereliction of duty. But the fans quickly clear the smoke. A few minutes later our boss walks through the swinging doors. He looks around the now normal kitchen, turns without a word and walks out. Always admired him for that. [As an aside, he and the manager of the mall didn't much like each other and he never once mentioned the incident to us.]

Later, the waitress reported upon the actions of our customers. You'd think they'd get all packed up and ready to flee -- and they did, sort of. They left their coats, purses, etc. at their tables, picked up their _drinks_ and stood by the door.

This happened about 7 or 8 p.m.

The last scene in the farce came at 10:00 the next morning when the fire department arrived. They came tromping into the kitchen demanding to know where the fire was. The boss's wife (who ran the day shift) had no idea what they were on about.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

That's a great story..... 

... especially this:


D.A. Boulter said:


> They left their coats, purses, etc. at their tables, picked up their _drinks_ and stood by the door.


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

Six times! You poor thing!

One of my kitchen mishaps is actually something my husband did. Back when we got married, he tried to 'help out' and do the dishes. In the dishwasher.

So he used several squirts (a quarter of the bottle) of dishsoap (hehehe) and turned the thing On.

Ten minutes later, I come around the corner to find him wading ankle deep in suds and bubbles. They were _pouring_ out of the dishwasher so fast that we were up to our calves in it before I could stop laughing long enough to turn it off.


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