Dishes gone wrong

I just thought of one more. Many years ago, my now wife's sister was having a potluck at her place. I decided on a roasted pepper dip. I was standing outside fire roasting the peppers on the grill on a sweltering July day, and sweat started to drip into my eyes. Not being cognizant of the rampant capsaicin on my fingers (and these were some hot peppers. . .), I rubbed my eyes, with contacts in.

The resulting pain was unbelievable, and I spent the potluck with my eyes nearly swelled shut (after having to have someone else drive me there, as I couldn't see).

The dish turned out fine.

I'm seeing a theme in my "gone wrongs" - dish survives, but me, just barely. . .

When my hubby and I were newly married, we decided to have one of his friends over for dinner. Keep in mind, I had absolutely NO clue about cooking at this point. I attempted to make my hubby's favorite dish, which was his mom's chicken and rice bake. After 2 hours in the oven, the rice was not done. I still remember his friend saying politely, "This is great, Michelle!" as I heard him crunching the still mostly-uncooked rice. What a disaster.

I still can't make chicken and dumplings to save my life. The dumplings weigh about a ton, sink to the bottom, and don't cook.

I've learned to choose my battles. I overcame the chicken and rice disaster, and can now whip it up with my eyes closed. I've tried chicken and dumplings several more times, with the same results. I now leave that dish up to my hubby, whom I truly believe should go to culinary school. He is naturally talented beyond all belief.

I have never been a baker, my sister makes AWESOME cookies. I wanted to make some homemade chocolate chip cookies. I had a recipe, pretty simple and basic. I wanted to be extra generous so i, jeez i dont even know the word for this one. Double it, nahh, triple it, let's go for more, quadruple the recipe, hell let's add one more, so i made 5 TIMES the amount the recipe called for. Then i wanted to make them chocolate chocolate chip cookies, so i added some cocoa powder. Did i add a few teaspoons..... pshawwwww i added a couple of cups of cocoa powder. So here i was with this HUGE mass that resembled some type of hard brown sticky baby poop... If you have had a baby you know the kind i am referring to. I thought i could save it by adding morel liquid, water?.... sureeeeee .... milk?...... why not???? it all went in.

Believe it or not, i tried baking this crap! They were little dark brown hockey pucks!

My cookies are a bit better now.....

Three Thanksgivings in a row my brother left the giblet bag in the turkey- the taste of waxed paper and liver cannot be described. He now makes ham.

Quite the fast learner, isn't he?

Deb

Yes, it was quite unfair. In my family I not only got the looks, but the smarts too.

I definitely made tiramisu filling with salt instead of sugar once. Now, to be fair to myself - some of the dishwashers had filled the sugar bin with salt, but as I tell my students - that's no excuse. Taste everything before you add it! At least I didn't actually make the whole tiramisu - I tasted the filling before I put it together. Big waste of cream cheese and mascarpone, though. Expensive mistake!