Epic Cooking Fails Anyone?

[Capt Glenn]

I have screwed up plenty of stuff over the years but one immediately came to mind being a hunting website.

When I was growing up my parents didn't hunt. I don't know why I was so drawn to hunting but I was and it was always a challenge to get opportunities to go hunting with parents who didn't hunt and didn't get it. But they were as supportive as they knew how to be and I did get to go hunting here and there prior to being old enough to drive and able to go do it on my own. I saved up the summer after 7th grade and bought a deer rifle. At some point after that I got to go deer hunting and I killed my first deer. I was maybe 14 or 15 I guess. I skinned it and gutted it and cut it up, which i had to just figure out on my own. Now, we didn't really know what we were doing beyond chicken frying the backstraps. And this was before the WWW days so you couldn't just Google search some recipes. So I went through my big stack of Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines and I found a recipe for a venison roast. It sounded magnificent and fancy. It called for a venison roast to be browned and put in a crock pot with potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and red wine. Now, my folks were not wine drinkers either so we didn't just have wine on hand. I had to talk my mom into picking up a bottle of red wine just for the recipe, which was a pretty big ask. I followed the recipe exactly and boy it smelled good... in the beginning. It cooked all day and I was sure looking forward to my first venison roast all fancy in red wine and everything. I don't know if it was the twist top wine she got or what but it was the most putrid purple looking pile of slop I have ever seen before or since. The roast never got tender, the vegetables cooked to mush and the wine sorta turned foul. I don't know what happened but it was a total loss and I was incredibly disappointed that a big chunk of my prized venison, which to me was in a very limited supply and not easily replaced, went to waste. Talk about a huge letdown. There was no saving it either. I'll never forget walking into the kitchen through the back door with my mom with the expectation of something fantastic and the smell hit us and we both knew something was definitely very not right.

I won't even begin to tell you how many times as a newlywed I failed at making gravy before I just went to my mom's house and watched her from start to finish and had a huge 'Aha!' moment. It was a bunch.

[TexasBob]

The wine story triggered a memory. My grandmother was a great cook- could make a delicious meal out of whatever could be afforded. My grandfather was not and only cooked outside or in the rare instance grandma was out of town. They both always supported my love of cooking which included wanting to make jerky. I had some deer meat from my first buck and a dehydrator my grandfather saved when my dad passed away. Plywood box with a 100 watt bulb in the bottom for illustration. I mixed up some seasonings and water. Grandpa grabbed his jug of homemade wine and added a “splash”. After the longest week of waiting for the meat to dry, I had my first taste of wine. Flavor was stronger than a drink from a fresh bottle of red wine. Jerky went in the trash. I made it through 2 pieces I think trying to like to. Didn’t give up, about to take a batch out of the dehydrator now.


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[HoustonHunter94]

My parents divorced when I was 12 or 13 and it was just me and my Dad and he wasn't much of a cook. We had a lot of canned foods and so on during that time. I was trying to learn to cook then and decided I was going to fry up some deer steaks and then make some gravy. I called my grandma to find out "how" to do the gravy and her directions were just like everyone's grandma's... "Take your grease and put some flour in there and stir it around and then add some milk and let it thicken up" Sounds simple enough. I bet I probably put a cup of flour in the frying pan when I got done frying the two deer steaks we had. No amount of milk was going thin that out...finally just gave up. My Dad didn't say anything, just scooped big spoonfuls of super thick "gravy" on his canned biscuits and went on about dinner. We laughed about it later. He said it had good flavor, just a liiiiitle thick.

Edited to state that my gravy making skills have gotten MUCH better over the years as my waistline can attest to.

[Duckologist]

About 99% of the people that claim goo is good eating can't catch a red fish. [emoji16]

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That's funny cause catchin redfish is easy as catchin a hard head.

[Capt Glenn]

The deer jerky fail triggered a bad memory of my first jerky attempt. I had a bohemian neighbor when I was a kid who made what was probably the best beef jerky I have ever had. My dad would give him whatever kind of beef he used and he'd make my dad jerky when he was making a batch for himself. What I knew of it was he cut the meat up, and it wasn't real thin, cured it in a saltwater brine and I knew it had course black pepper on it and he smoked it in his smokehouse. It was really tough, really had to work at eating it but it tasted so dang good. So that was my basis to making my own jerky. Again, this was before the WWW days so I knew very little about jerky. I knew some guys who made it in their ovens. They used teriyaki marinades, brown sugar and stuff like that. I wanted mine to be like the bohemian neighbor's beef jerky. I wanted it to be cured and smoked and salty not sweet. So I just jump right in. Cut up a bunch of venison roast, made up some saltwater as best as I could guess it. Put the meat in and let it soak for 3 or 4 days in the fridge. Pulled it out, drained it good, hit it with black pepper and put it in the smoker. What I did not take into account is that if you cure meat you need to finish with a freshwater soak to get some salt out and then let it rest to equalize the salt in the meat and all of that. I just pulled it out and got the smoker going with as small of a fire as I could burn, as low as I could go. It looked great, then it looked salty. The jerky I was trying to replicate didn't ever look like a powdered donut like this stuff started looking. When it got dry enough I took a piece and on the very first bite I knew instantly I screwed it up. It was so salty you couldn't even begin to eat it. You might as well have just poured a spoonful of salt in your mouth.

[Capt Glenn]

That's funny cause catchin redfish is easy as catchin a hard head.

They are both suckers for a big gob of cut mullet.

[Mitchell8]

Baked chicken in a big pan with tomato sauce some italian style dish. First guy grabs his sits down and starts eating it saying it taste great. Next guy sits down and his is completely raw in the middle. Cut up some and they are all raw. No big deal just throw um all back in the oven. Only problem is the first guy just kept eating his said it was great best chicken ever. He ate an entire almost completely raw chicken breast.

[MooseontheLoose]

The one that always jumps out in my mind happened when I was at A&M. We had stocked up on food and booze because a hurricane was coming. It wasn’t going to hit us directly, but it had caused enough alarm that most of our jobs cancelled shifts for the day. We decided we needed to hunker down at the house and have a hurricane party. One of my roommates at the time could cook pretty well, but he was 9 kinds of a mess.

We were having a pre-party to the party the night before. After drinking all evening, aforementioned roommate suddenly got a glow about him. If it had been a cartoon, you would have seen the thought cloud and the lightbulb click on over his head. He headed directly to the kitchen and proceeded to stack up no less than 47 different ingredients and spices on the countertop.

I asked him what he was doing, and he said he needed to make a pot of beans for us for tomorrow! The perfect hurricane party food! Of course! How in the world had we not thought of that before??

I’m not one to interrupt a mad scientist at work, so I let him be.

He worked on this mystical pot of beans for a solid hour.

Children’s tears. Frog hair. All the finest ingredients from the 4 corners of the earth were combined and added to this pot of beans. He dirtied 2 sinks and 3 dishwasher loads full of dishes during the preparation process. We were assured it would be the greatest pot of beans ever cooked.

He filled the crockpot slap to the top with different kinds of beans and the rest of his secret ingredients, spices, and liquids. The lid barely fit on because of all the goodness contained inside. Right before we went to bed, he turned it on, gave it a tap and said something to the effect of “tomorrow will be the best day ever.”

We woke up the next morning to the smell of something that had burnt pretty badly. When we got to the kitchen and saw that his precious pot of beans had erupted everywhere, sometime in the night. The liquid had all been absorbed or evaporated, knocking off the lid and causing a bean eruption all over our counter, stove, and floor. There were beans everywhere. The eruption of Vesuvius would have been cleaner.

Dejected, but unwilling to admit defeat, he scraped a bowl full of beans from the burnt beans stuck to the edge of the crockpot. He sat at the table and tried to suffer through a few bites. Eventually, he waved the white flag and canned the whole operation.

The party that day was a fitting remembrance to the best pot of beans that never was

[Robby C]

We had just had a buyer sign for our house that was for sale. We had just signed the dotted line on a new house. Life was good!!!

My pregnant wife went to eat dinner with a friend and I decided to fry some fish in the kitchen for myself. Got the oil in the skillet ready to go and placed "good enough" thawed fish in the pan and the pan went up in flames which quickly spread to the cabinets, ceiling and wall. The only fire extinguisher in the house we had was under the sink right next to stove (mistake). Luckily I somehow remembered I had one in my boat which I retrieved and put the fire out.

Thought for sure I had screwed up the whole transaction on the sale of the house. Luckily the buyers didn't back out. They got a brand new kitchen, flooring and new paint throughout.

I'm not allowed to cook inside anymore.

[S-3 Ranch]

I had a guy trip and fall with a tray of steaks @ the lease , dropped them in the dirt/ sand , no amount of washing and scrubbing could remove the sand and gravel, unfortunately we had no backup and he insisted that we try to eat em ,
I have caught a couple of brisket on fire before pretty easy for me to do when distracted by the wife

[dustoffer]

Wife cooked a beef roast with a new recipe that called for baker's chocolate. However, instead of using 1 square, she used the whole bar!!!

[Gumbo Man]

Ok you guys have been so transparent I will share another. We love chicken and dumplings and make it alot. Our dumplings are not traditional. We make drop dumplings. My moms recipe for dumplings was flour,egg, salt, pepper, milk and a PINCH of baking powder. At the time ( young) in my mind if a pinch was good a couple of spoonfuls should be better. I mixed up the dumpling batter and dropped all of it in the pot of chicken a spoonful at a time. 20 minutes later I heard a bang in the kitchen and when I went in the lid to the pot was on the floor and I had a huge mushroom growing out of my pot. No problem. I took two spatulas and wrestled the 3 lb dumpling out of the pot and let it cool. Then I cut it into golf ball size chunks and put it back in the pot. It was still good but I had throw half the huge dumpling away cause it wouldn’t fit back in the pot.

[waterdog]

years ago big sis frying chicken, pan got on fire. she tell use. i got this! and throws 1/2 a bag of flour on it we all yell no!!!! she blew us upl. mom and dad very p when got home.

[Big Lee]

When we would catch a lot of them we made Gou Balls. Just like Gar Balls. The trinity and Cajun seasoning can fix anything.

In Louisiana you can eat anything with the right type of sauce and seasoning!

[Big Lee]

The one that always jumps out in my mind happened when I was at A&M. We had stocked up on food and booze because a hurricane was coming. It wasn’t going to hit us directly, but it had caused enough alarm that most of our jobs cancelled shifts for the day. We decided we needed to hunker down at the house and have a hurricane party. One of my roommates at the time could cook pretty well, but he was 9 kinds of a mess.

We were having a pre-party to the party the night before. After drinking all evening, aforementioned roommate suddenly got a glow about him. If it had been a cartoon, you would have seen the thought cloud and the lightbulb click on over his head. He headed directly to the kitchen and proceeded to stack up no less than 47 different ingredients and spices on the countertop.

I asked him what he was doing, and he said he needed to make a pot of beans for us for tomorrow! The perfect hurricane party food! Of course! How in the world had we not thought of that before??

I’m not one to interrupt a mad scientist at work, so I let him be.

He worked on this mystical pot of beans for a solid hour.

Children’s tears. Frog hair. All the finest ingredients from the 4 corners of the earth were combined and added to this pot of beans. He dirtied 2 sinks and 3 dishwasher loads full of dishes during the preparation process. We were assured it would be the greatest pot of beans ever cooked.

He filled the crockpot slap to the top with different kinds of beans and the rest of his secret ingredients, spices, and liquids. The lid barely fit on because of all the goodness contained inside. Right before we went to bed, he turned it on, gave it a tap and said something to the effect of “tomorrow will be the best day ever.”

We woke up the next morning to the smell of something that had burnt pretty badly. When we got to the kitchen and saw that his precious pot of beans had erupted everywhere, sometime in the night. The liquid had all been absorbed or evaporated, knocking off the lid and causing a bean eruption all over our counter, stove, and floor. There were beans everywhere. The eruption of Vesuvius would have been cleaner.

Dejected, but unwilling to admit defeat, he scraped a bowl full of beans from the burnt beans stuck to the edge of the crockpot. He sat at the table and tried to suffer through a few bites. Eventually, he waved the white flag and canned the whole operation.

The party that day was a fitting remembrance to the best pot of beans that never was

I read this in a narrated voice. Similar to watching Stand By Me.