Archive through November 18, 2003
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: Cooking Faux Pas: Archive through November 18, 2003

Eliz87

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 08:33 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
At one time or another, we all (no matter how good we are in the kitchen) screw up. Thought I'd start a thread that we can use when we need something fixed or have a question, because I did something really stupid today.

I made a cheesecake using an 8 oz. block of cream cheese, three 3 oz. blocks of cream cheese, a 16 oz. container of sour cream, along with sugar and extracts (and eggs of course).

The problem is this -- after I put it all together, I noticed that the three 3 oz. blocks of cream cheese had an expiration date of October 19th. *sigh*

The cream cheese didn't look funny or smell funny, and everything tastes fine. Think my cheesecake is okay to eat? (It tastes delicious by the way.)

Twiggyish

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:13 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I made cookies without eggs one time. Yes, they still came out, but they fell apart..LOL

Mamie316

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:22 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
When I was first married, I wanted to always impress my dh with my cooking skills. I was always trying new recipes from a variety of cookbooks. One night, I decided to make homemade chili rellenos. I went and bought the ingredients. I bought large, fresh chili peppers. Well in my excitement, I didn't really read the recipe and when I cleaned the peppers, I just washed them. I didn't take out the seeds. I swear when my dh bit into my wonderful recipe, he looked like a cartoon character with smoke coming out of his ears! He asked me to never make it again!

Zachsmom

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:23 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
nope never made a cooking mistake, and don't believe a word about a mistake of making cinnamon buns!

Sanfranjoshfan

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
My grandmother made her famous chocolate cream pie from scratch.....but forgot to add the sugar! Everyody just nibbled for a minute eyeing one another across the table afraid to say anything because she was so proud of her delicious chocolate cream pie....until she took a bite and exclaimed "My word!" We all cracked up then!

Oh yeah....her pie was the stuff of dreams for me. When my family came to visit, she'd make an extra chocolate cream pie.....just for ME...and no one but yours truly was allowed to touch it for the few days we were there. Hey, they had their own pie (to share among themselves, that is!) LOL One time, my older sister and a cousin swiped some of my pie and I found them hiding in the closet and I demanded to know if they stole my pie. They flatly denied it even though there was chocolate smeared on their faces and they were hiding the remainder of the purloined pie behind their backs! :)

Gee....I suddenly miss my Grandma (she died in 1993)...and not just because of her pie either!....she was the nicest grandma in the world!

Squaredsc

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:45 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
the first time i cooked a whole chicken i left the bag of parts still inside. this is why i hate cooking, lol.

Weinermr

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
To answer your question Eliz, yes I think your cheesecake is OK. If the cream cheese was refrigerated properly it should be fine.

Sunrvrose

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 09:54 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Oh, finally an opportunity to tell my favorite story about my sister.

My Sister has always been very frugile. She was married at 18. (that was typical in 1960)

She and her new husband invited for dinner:
my parents (2)
myself (1)
his parents (2)
and of course the two of them (2)

So, as you can see, we had seven people for dinner. My very frugile sister cooked one fried chicken.

So, chicken pieces: 2 breast, 2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 wings. 8 total pieces for 7 dinner guests.

We were all so polite, that at the end of the meal there was still one piece of chicken on the platter. No one said a thing. Thank God for polite people. She is now 60+/- and I just told her a few years ago that after we all left, my parents (I was only 14) went to a restaurant after we left and had dinner.

Eliz87

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 10:00 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks a LOT Weinermr!!! That puts my mind at ease. I hate to throw it away, because it really does taste good, and of course cheesecake is not a "piece of cake" to make. ;-)

Squared, funny you should mention that. Two Thanksgivings ago was our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple and we had our parents over for dinner. When I cleaned out the turkey I couldn't find the giblet bag for anything. I figured whoever packaged the turkey just left it out by mistake.

Well, lo and behold, when dinner was over and we were cleaning the meat off the turkey carcass, what do we find? The giblet bag nice and in tact, with the contents cooked perfectly. hehe Needless to say, I'm going to dig a little deeper in that cavity from now on!

Tabbyking

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 10:10 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
when i was 13, i made a cake and found the eggs on the counter as it was cooking. it made a huge chocolate cookie! i frosted it and gave squares to each of my 6 siblings and they never knew it wasn't meant to be a cookie!

when i was 19, i made a sauce for the ham to serve to 6 docs; it was too late to run from the mountains to town to get anything...my friend and i were cooking for her folks and two other physician couples...we put in the apple juice and the cornstarch and added the raisins. just as they went in, we saw that the raisins had many little weevils or worms in the box. we just cooked them up and made sure she and i had no sauce on our ham! lol

i took my kids camping once at the reservoir 10 miles from home. it was windy and cold. we all looked like the unabomber with dark glasses and hooded sweatshirts. we refused to give up on heating water to make the kids' mac and cheese. but we drove home and got several oak logs for the fire! LOL anyway, it took 3 hours to get the water almost boiling and about 45 minutes to cook the noodles. when we opened the packet of cheese, there must have been a pin-hole in it or something. the soft cheese was like a dried brick. we could not eat the 'glop' of stuff we made, so we ate oreos and milk and went to bed! i can't believe our beds and warm house were that close, but we were on a mission!

Kstme

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 10:11 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Eliz, as per Weinermr, the cheesecake should be fine.

These are some funny stories.

I don't think I can list my diasters...not enough room here. I love to cook and my passion is baking. I don't usually follow recipes when I'm cooking and have a tendency to push the envelope when I'm baking. Things haven't always turned out well.

I do remember one of my very first baking experiences. I was about 6. This was before the Easybake oven. Betty Crocker, I think, made small size packets of cake and frosting mix for children. I convinced our housekeeper I could make a chocolate cake for the family. She, more or less, assisted me. I used my 'junior' mixer and beat the egg into the mix, poured the cake into the pans and put it in the oven. We brought it out, cooled it and frosted it with chocolate frosting.

I still remember my parents and sisters eating every piece of what looked and tasted like used tire rubber! Needless to say, the eggs hadn't mixed too well!! Bless them, they didn't spit it all over the table!

Tess

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 10:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Zmom, can we just say that you believe in letting cinnamon rolls take a Loooooooong time to rise?

Azriel

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 04:23 am EditMoveDeleteIP
When my daughters were little I used to pull them up to the table when I was cooking and let them 'help' me. It took longer and it was messier, but it was a lot of fun and I have a lot of great memories of time we shared together cooking.

When my oldest daughter was about a year old, I had pushed her a chair up to the table and let her stand on it and help me make brownies from scratch. We had gotten all the ingredients in and I handed her the spoon and told her to stir them while I put up some stuff and got the pan out to put them in.

I turned around to find her with the spoon in one hand stirring away and the pepper shaker in the other hand shaking away. She had a huge smile on her face and told me, 'I helpin momma!'
I grabbed the pepper shaker, but didn't have the heart to scold her. It was just so damn funny.

I scraped what pepper I could out and then put the brownies in the pan and baked them. (Did I mention we were poor? lol) I would never make it my secret ingredient again, but I have to tell you, they weren't that bad. :)

Jan

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 05:33 am EditMoveDeleteIP
When we were children we weren't allowed in the kitchen when my grandmother cooked (she raised us) so my sisters and I had no idea how to cook anything.

One summer, as a 16 year old, I was home from boarding school and at my Mom's. She was at work and when my stepdad got up, he asked us to boil him an egg. I kid you not, none of us had any idea how to do it so we had to call Mom at work and ask her.

Another day that summer, Mom left for work before 8AM and said she had put potatoes on to boil for potato salad. She asked us to add water as it got low.

Can you guess what we did?

We were very conscientious and added water all day. The potatoes were still boiling when she got home at 5PM.

Well she never said to check for doneness and take them off :)

Texannie

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 07:24 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I tend to make recipes up. One year for Christmas I gave my neighbors a brownie recipe that I dreamed up with chocolate, raspberry jam, grand marnier in it. All the neighbors raved. Decided to do it again the next year, but really couldn't remember exactly what I had done. Anyway, make up 14 batches of the brownies. My next door neighbor and good friend happened to call while I was doing it. She said "oh goodie, can I have mine early? I am having a dinner party tonite, and I will you them as dessert". so tell her, sure come on over. She calls me the next day and says "I know you would want to know, but they really weren't very good...they were sort of uncooked and too hard at the same time." I tasted one of the ones I had at home and they were terrible!!! Even the dog/kids wouldn't eat them! I seriously debated about giving them out anyway ;) but just ended up going to the store and making box brownies! LOL

Lumbele

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 08:25 am EditMoveDeleteIP
My first years in Canada were one big expensive cooking lesson. Since DH was spoilt rotten by his mil I was expected to cook her menu. One day I attempted a butter sauce but ended up with a pot of lumps. In the garbage it went, try #2, try #3 followed. Well, I gave up until my next phone call. That's when all those kitchen disasters would be discussed. Who would have thought that those lumps would disappear if I only had let the sauce thicken again and then added more liquid?LOL

The "forgot-the-sugar-in-the-cake" scenario is also familiar. My frugal cousin was visiting at the time and wouldn't allow me to turf the result. He cut it into layers, spread jam on each one and even made it look pretty with an icing sugar design on top. It was actually edible.

Tabbyking

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 09:10 am EditMoveDeleteIP
well, at least none of put the tv dinners in the oven still in the waxed boxes! i remember reading somewhere that a new bride did that and how it caused the companies to print new instructions for those who didn't have an intuitive grasp of the obvious. "REMOVE FROM OUTER BOX"...

Sweetbabygirl

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 10:01 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Only two come to mind for me....

My mother used to make this great spaghetti from bacon, onions/green peppers, and tomato paste; she passed the recipe onto me as I grew older. I cook it from time to time, and Frank loves it.

Anyway, as a child I decided to cook for her, wanting her to rest after a hard day's work. I asked if I could make the spaghetti, and she agreed. I cooked the spaghetti then added just the tomato paste!! She was very appreciative, but she gently told me what I did wrong, even letting me taste it. It was in fact icky, but I'm glad that she let me do it.

I also "baked" fudge for school. The recipe looked easy, but I remember what I neglected to add. Long story short, my fudge turned into milk chocolate lumps. I didn't think it was bad, but I paid for it later, as all that sweetness made me sick as a dog, lol!!

Cathie

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 01:25 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
When I was about 12 and home alone one day I decided to make a pie to surprise everyone. I found a recipe for a butterscotch pie that sounded good and we had all the ingredients on hand. After mixing it I decided the recipe must be wrong because it looked too light for a butterscotch pie--it needed more color, so I kept adding more brown sugar until it was the right color. Well, it was a surprise, all right. One bite and straight to the trash!

In high school home ec class we divided into groups and made different parts of a meal that our principal was invited to come and eat at the end of class. My group made fried chicken and gravy. We had a recipe for the chicken, and a brief note about adding flour and milk to the "drippings" to make the gravy. Nobody told us to drain most of the oil first, so we had about 2 cups of oil in our gravy. The teacher freaked out and told us to throw it away and then told the principal we didn't make gravy because we wanted it to be a low fat meal (and that was WAY before the low fat craze, lol)

Mware

Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 01:43 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Imagine my disappointment - I come to this thread thinking I'm going to see recipes for cooking "faux pas", which I figure is some elegant French dish, and all I get to read about is other people's mistakes! Not a recipe to be found! Oh well...

Love the stories though! LOL

Midlifer

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 09:49 am EditMoveDeleteIP
These stories are great, and I've posted this before, so if you've read it already, I apologize:

When I was newly married (and so stupid), my hubby told me that you didn't have to wash baking potatoes because the dirt residue had important nutritional ingredients (like minerals)...hey! he was a science teacher, why wouldn't I believe him?

ANYWAY, his brother and sister-in-law came for dinner, we ate the dirty potatoes, and I started to explain, then realized mid-sentence that I had been had. To his credit, my hubby (still my hubby 30 years later) felt terrible, but I haven't let him forget it! LOL

Lostintheglades

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 10:01 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Okay...I don't cook much and this may be why.

I have always loved boiled peanuts. When DH and I were living in GA we had some friends and they would always make a big pot of peanuts for our weekend gatherings. I watched and listened carefully to him explain how much salt was needed and how long to cook them and how they start to sink the closer they get to being done.

I bought some peanuts one weekend and started boiling them. They cooked for 12 hours and still were hard as rocks. I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

My friend still talks about it to this day. I had been boiling Roasted Peanuts instead of Green Peanuts. Trust me....you can not make a Roasted Peanut get soft no matter how long you boil it.

Resortgirl

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 12:27 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
LOL Zachsmom!!! Your cinnamon rolls made for really good skeetshooting....LOL!!!

I've made numerous mistakes.
Left the bag of gizzards in the turkey... TWICE!
Made a cheesecake in a springform pan and opened it too soon after taking it out of the oven. Cheesecake started sliding down the counter onto the floor!
Left part of the butter wrapper on when making Xmas cookies.
I'm not great at baking because I don't measure accurately so I've had many boo boo's there!!!

I'm sure no one that comes here next summer will be sampling MY cooking now!!!

maybe ya'll would feel better if I just refrained from cooking?

Lostintheglades

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 12:39 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I think Resortgirl must have the same cookbook I do!

Resortgirl

Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 12:43 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
LOL Lost... the one titled "Baking for Dummies?"