Cooking Disasters

[blades]

Absolutely. If you don't make mistakes, it's because you've never tried anything. (Albert Einstein).
I'm not a good baker. Last week I had to make a lemon vanilla cake (simple, from a packet) and a chocolate cake (also from a packet).
Followed the instructions to a T, and put them both in the oven at the same time.
The lemon vanilla came out looking like a nuclear mushroom. The chocolate cake sunk in the middle.

If the cake sinks in the middle, that indicates that it was not completely baked. I have no suggestions for nuclear mushrooms.

 

[ZCook]

My OH had just had one. The house still smells awful.

He was reheating our evening meal tonight. Here always does the weekend because that's when talk to my family back in the UK.

I could smell something whilst I was on the phone to my brother. I assumed that he had dropped some rice on the cooker and that was burning. We also have the stove lit which had a habit of being smoky as well, and I need to look at the door handle again because I'm convinced that it isn't shutting properly, so I had assumed what I could smell initially was wood smoke, but it had a slight overtone of burnt rice every now and again.

Sitying down at the take, we had the rice and we had the stuffed courgettes. I had to get up to get a glass of water because I was having problems swallowing the rice. It was drier than I can swallow without issues.

I had sat back down and continued to eat, when the smoke started to get much worse. My OH said he hadn't known it be this bad (meaning the wood burning stove). I mentioned that it smelled more like burning food to me, he can't smell properly... glancing round i realised that the tomato sauce i had made to go with the rice, hadn't been served, so asked if the cooker was turned on....

Yeah, let's just say it was black, totally black inside, well and truly long since dried out, then dehydrated and finally burnt... and they were home grown tomatoes as well


That was 6pm. It's nearly 9:30pm and the house still stinks of the burnt tomatoes really badly.

Been there done that. I multitask a lot and sometimes step away from kitchen-smelling distance - I use timers a lot! Smell antidote can include toasting a small amount of ground spices of choice - I've used cinnamon for example. I have a small spice/nut toasting pan. Burning aromatics like white sage also works.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I'm glad I (still) got a good sense of smell

Me too.

However I can still smell it this morning.
Luckily the weather is due to be sunny all day, so every door and window will be open.

If that fails, I'll comment on it still smelling this evening, just to remind him

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Been there done that. I multitask a lot and sometimes step away from kitchen-smelling distance - I use timers a lot! Smell antidote can include toasting a small amount of ground spices of choice - I've used cinnamon for example. I have a small spice/nut toasting pan. Burning aromatics like white sage also works.

This wasn't a multitasking fail. He totally forgot one of the parts of the evening meal. The timer had sounded, he just put 2 of the 3 things on the plate, totally forgetting the 3rd, hence never turning the ring off.

 

[karadekoolaid]

I think the moral of the disaster is:
When you're cooking (or even re-heating), you have to be in the kitchen and you have to watch what you're doing. There are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter whether it's one, two, three or four different dishes; you have to watch them. No talking on the phone, no watching TV, no nothing.
My wife is an expert at heating up the oven, sticking an arepa or two in it, and then disappearing to do something else.
I overcooked a quiche the other day because I was talking to my son in Atlanta, and didn't hear the timer.

 

[Barriehie]

I think the moral of the disaster is:
When you're cooking (or even re-heating), you have to be in the kitchen and you have to watch what you're doing. There are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter whether it's one, two, three or four different dishes; you have to watch them. No talking on the phone, no watching TV, no nothing.
My wife is an expert at heating up the oven, sticking an arepa or two in it, and then disappearing to do something else.
I overcooked a quiche the other day because I was talking to my son in Atlanta, and didn't hear the timer.

Yes, people think they can multitask but truth be told humans can do one thing at a time. It's really a measure of attention span and short term memory.

 

[karadekoolaid]

Yes, people think they can multitask but truth be told humans can do one thing at a time

How right you are. we should re-define "multi-tasking"as doing several things "individually, in a short space of time".
It is, as you say, just one thing at a time.

 

[JAS_OH1]

Yes, people think they can multitask but truth be told humans can do one thing at a time. It's really a measure of attention span and short term memory.

Well, women are genetically designed for multitasking a little better than men i believe. Sorry for the gender stereotype, I dont mean to offend anyone.

Edited to add: Women 'better at multitasking' than men, study finds

 

[ZCook]

I think the moral of the disaster is:
When you're cooking (or even re-heating), you have to be in the kitchen and you have to watch what you're doing. There are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter whether it's one, two, three or four different dishes; you have to watch them. No talking on the phone, no watching TV, no nothing.
My wife is an expert at heating up the oven, sticking an arepa or two in it, and then disappearing to do something else.
I overcooked a quiche the other day because I was talking to my son in Atlanta, and didn't hear the timer.

Yep. True. True .
Multitasking is a misnomer. Most of us do it sometime or other.

 

[badjak]

I think the moral of the disaster is:
When you're cooking (or even re-heating), you have to be in the kitchen and you have to watch what you're doing. There are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter whether it's one, two, three or four different dishes; you have to watch them. No talking on the phone, no watching TV, no nothing.
My wife is an expert at heating up the oven, sticking an arepa or two in it, and then disappearing to do something else.
I overcooked a quiche the other day because I was talking to my son in Atlanta, and didn't hear the timer.

It's one of the reasons I got a whistling kettle

 

[Barriehie]

It's one of the reasons I got a whistling kettle

And I've a microwave that beeps until the door is opened. Ever loose a baked potato???

I don't like the word multitasking, time slicing is a better descriptor.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

The worrying bit was that he was in the kitchen and is not a large kitchen. He had set a timer and it did sound... he just doesn't think. He prefers to listen to music on his headphones (in ear ones) which i hate him doing.

 

[Barriehie]

Situational awareness is a thing! There's no way I could deprive myself of a sense in any situation. I have to know what's going on around me.

 

[JAS_OH1]

I gave my husband 1 task to do tonight. Normally I just do everything myself but he offered to help, so I asked him to brown and keep an eye on some ground lamb and Italian sausage that was already in a fry pan so I could chop mushrooms and shallots. He stood there for a few minutes and stirred occasionally, then went over to his phone and got distracted by some photos via text from one of our kids. I had my back turned to the stove but I could hear splattering and knew that it needed a stir. I had to ask him several times to go stir it, he didn't even hear me the 1st or 2nd time. It didn't turn into a disaster because I was aware of what was going on, but if I'd walked out of the kitchen, who knows.