it's so easy even a caveman can do it, if he had a pot-or-pan and fire, so I'm not bragging or anything...
My Mom made peach pies for me and the boy once to show her love at Christmas.
We awoke to such a clatter we said what the ****’s the matter?
We kinda peeked though the door and there she wa at 5 AM cussin and fussin and chipping at burnt sugar syrup on the bottom of the oven.
We said whats up? and she cussed and chipped at it and said she made it for us.
We acknowledged her effort, gave her a hug and salvaged the pies, which were quite tasty.
I don’t cook.
1980 I shot a goose. Decided it was Christmas dinner, got a recipe for it, thawed it out and put the ingredients with it and placed it in the oven. Wife had invited twelve of her relatives and I had six relatives and two good friends coming over. wife and I left to get liquor, snacks and little gifts. Came back and while unloading the car I sniffed and said someone’s sewer backed up in the block. We opened the door and I gagged, ran to the oven and when I opened it the smell of rancid fish/ sewer made me almost puke. I threw the bird into the backyard and opened all the windows in the house (During a 12” snowfall). Found out later that my bird had been eating fish mostly (we lived on Lake Erie) and NEVER kill a goose if there are no big grain fields nearby. Called Domino’s for eight Pizzas. Good thing I was well stocked for liquor.
Then, I discovered brining.
And The Culinary Heavens Opened And Blessed Me.
How did I fix it? I had just mopped the floor that morning so I scooped it all up, put it back in the dish and served it.
home made lamb and feta cheese ravioli with home made sauce - plated for serving, turned quickly - spilled entire contents on floor - several hours worth of work destroyed
it's so easy even a caveman can do it, if he had a pot-or-pan and fire, so I'm not bragging or anything...
I catered as well (bbq on site) - didnt you use contracts? - i got 50% up front and allowed 100% refund up to one week before hand - after that - if they cancelled, they bought the groceries. Never had a cancelation
That said - try smoked bbq on a tow behind smoker in 98 degree heat on asphalt / no breeze - I got heat stroke 5x that year, and was seriously concerned about a heart attack
I still would rather be doing that - I love cooking
oh yeah - and once - i had a large crock pot with a removable stoneware liner - the electric base was broken so I made baked beans and placed the stoneware in the oven - after about an hour there was a lot of smoke in the house - the stoneware had broken in two and 2 gallons of beans were on the oven tray
At Thanksgiving dinner, I popped a bottle of champagne.
The cork shattered parts of the chandelier over the table. Tally one entire dinner ruined by shards of glass. Oops.
My friends dad put a canned ham in the oven. Unopened. Said on the can “Heat and Eat”. Blew the door off the oven and there was hot ham all over the kitchen. It melted the carpet!
Nobody was in the kitchen at the time......
LOL!
The fix? New carpet, paint and oven.....
...let me count the ways.
THE NIGHT OF THE CHRISTMAS EVE GUMMY PASTA
My In-Laws gave my wife and I a pasta maker. A novelty item to be sure, but I was intrigued with it and began playing around with it.
After a while, I got pretty good, I could get the consistency just right...I was able to make batches of excellent fresh pasta, ziti, linguini, fettucine. I would put portions in zip locks and when I wanted some, I could just pull it out and have fresh pasta!
My in laws are Italian, they used to do the whole “7 fishes” thing (to the extreme) so I offered to make the main course of fresh pasta...my father-in-law, the Italian guy he is, would make the sauce, and good sauce it was. I was really going to impress my in-laws. This was a big deal...they were entrusting me, someone who was only 1/4 Italian, to make the pasta for the anchovy pasta.
The night before, I worked for several hours making enough pasta to feed 20 people. I carefully laid it out, placed it gently in zip-locks and placed it in the freezer.
Then next day, I came over with all that pasta. My In-laws have the biggest pasta pot you can imagine...it must be 25 gallons (in reality...maybe 10 I am guessing...:) so the thing took a frikking hour and a half to boil (or so it seemed)
When the water is boiling, I start throwing the pasta in, but...something ain’t quite right. It isn’t separating normally and is kind of...sticking together in great big huge ziplock sized globs.
Apparently, my clever little scheme didn’t scale up well, and the weight of the pasta on itself in the bags just pressed it all together.
Well...they had a good laugh at that, and my father in law mentioned he had boxes of pasta in the cellar (doesn’t everybody?) So...we dumped out the pot, threw away all that homemade pasta, refilled the pot and started heating the water again. An hour and a half later (again, so it seemed) the water was boiling, so I rip the top off the boxes and pour the pasta in.
I am watching it cook, dutifully stirring it, and I see all these little black specks and think “Hey...I didn’t put any pepper in there...”
And then I realized the pasta had been infested by weevils.
They still talk about that night in her family...
I am from the Deep South... but I attempted a nasty oyster stuffing for my family. I pulled it out of the oven, put it on the counter.. the Pyrex shattered from the sudden temp change. Who knew Pyrex would do that??? Fortunately I already prepared a large pan of my Cornbread Dressing for myself because I had not intention of eating oyster stuffing. The fix was sharing my famous cornbread dressing with family. Fortunately my kids have some Southern DNA. If you are wondering what the difference between stuffing and dressing is... don’t ask. It’s a Southern thang.
Our kitchen isn’t outfitted with all the extras. One Thanksgiving, I fixed turkey and dressing from scratch. It was in a glass oven dish (first mistake). I placed it on top of the woodstove, then later moved it onto the wooden butcher block. It exploded all over the kitchen, and we were severely limited on the dinner we served the guests. Husband had BAKED a country ham, which didn’t work; it was tough as whitleather. - Husband’s brother announced that very day that they would “be staying home for holidays from then on”; then gave an excuse for it instead of the truth - which was “this is the cruddiest Thanksgiving meal I’ve ever had!” - I couldn’t fix it as there was glass all through the dressing.
I was 18, away at college, and having my first-ever Thanksgiving away from home. Several frosh buddies and I decided to cook a Thanksgiving feast — how hard could it be? We’d all seen our Moms do it many times.
I thought it would be great to have homemade bread, so I whipped up the dough, popped it into the pan and shoved it in the preheated oven. 45 minutes later out came this glob of a mess in the pan — I didn’t know what “letting it rise” meant. The rest of the meal was actually pretty good.
We barbeque our turkey on the Weber charcoal grill every year and use my Mom’s bread and sausage stuffing recipe. Her “secret” is to moisten the stuffing with the water used to boil the giblets. Turkey always comes out perfectly cooked with crispy golden-brown skin. The Weber is really fool-proof and highly recommended (plus no danger of a huge kettle of oil catching on fire). Just use the indirect method and fill up the charcoal once an hour.
When we were pretty sure that the giblets were cooked, we opened up the pressure relief valve and waited until no more pressure was released. We also placed the cooker under cold, running water to cool it down. We were sure that the pressure had all been released, but the lid wouldn't twist the one inch it needed to twist in order to open. It had to be broken or something.
After about 10 minutes of struggling, I finally realized that I could probably take a screwdriver, wedge it between the top and bottom handles, and pry them apart horizontally to twist the lid open.
It worked.
You can guess the rest.
Something had clogged the pressure valve to keep air from escaping. Once the lid twisted far enough, the remaining pressure threw the lid across the room and spewed scalding water and giblet chunks all over the kitchen. I got burned a bit (nothing serious) and we were cleaning turkey parts off of the ceiling and from every crack and crevice in the kitchen for the next week.
A friend of mine was officiating at a Scottish gathering and he was to open the first bottle of champaign for the evening. Dressed in full kilt, doublet, festooned with sgian dubh, dirks and steel flintlock pistols. He pulled out his two handed broad sword and swung it with the intention of cutting the neck off with the sword in a grand manner. The bottle went into the air, shattered on the floor and bathe some of the meerymakers in Dom Perignon. People laughing so hard they were holding each other up.
And that is how the Scots celebrate in Texas.
Thanks for all the dinner invites but I am very busy for the rest of the year! lmao
My ex girlfriend (wonder why she's an ex?) decided she was going to be nice and make me some sugar cookies. To do this, she, of course, needed 3 cups of baking power and 2 tbls of flour.
Yes...you read that right...3 CUPS of baking powder and 2 tbsp of flour. She mixed up the recipe...had to go out and buy something like 12 cans of clabber girl...and it never donned on her that something was wrong. Imagine my surprise when I bit into her nice deed.
Initially...you could taste the butter and for about 1/2 second...it was "interesting'...then the baking powder taste hit me. That was 20 years ago and where I was and my reaction is etched upon my mind. She had the nerve to get mad at me because I didn't like it.