Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Monstrosity of a meal

131 replies

Jumping2feet · 05/09/2023 19:19

I was going to eat prawn salad for dinner. Delicious and easy.

Then I saw the purple sprouting broccoli and mushrooms I bought last week. So I decided to cook pasta and use up the veg. In my head this would all go with pesto and a bit of chilli. It doesn't. I haven't eaten it. It's vile. Never mind the waste which I can't even think about. So now dinner is a bottle of beer. Thankfully only myself to please.

What monstrosities have others created that should never have seen the light of day?

OP posts:
beeswaxinc · 05/09/2023 21:27

I am hooowling at “tasted sinister” 😂

Original poster
Jumping2feet · 05/09/2023 21:32

Ah my friends. I'm glad it isn't just me. Why does some things in your head seem great and the reality is so fucking awful. I'm also laughing at the 'tasted sinister'. This might be go to phrase now. I might sneak a bowl of cereal before bed.

OP posts:
Pasadenadreaming · 05/09/2023 21:33

I got a lamb pie filling out of the freezer thinking it was a pasta sauce. On defrosting i realised my mistake but thought it might be OK with pasta anyway. I even named it 'lambanaise'. It was truly truly foul though and none of us could eat it! Shame as it was lovely when we had it in the pie!

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

General food
Gobbolinothekitchencat · 05/09/2023 21:34

Made a carrot cake, had no sunflower oil so substituted it with sesame seed oil, no idea what my thought process was unless I was thinking of sesame seed thins. Baked the cake, made the cream cheese icing then gave slices to my sons and myself. Absolutely inedible.

Hoogieflip · 05/09/2023 21:36

😂😂😂

mauvish · 05/09/2023 21:41

I had a friend who was (normally) a good cook, and we all used to look forward to her invitations to eat at her house. One time she cooked us a veggie risotto; courgette and pine nut, IIRC. GOK what went wrong but when served, the rice was so uncooked it was crunchy. We sat there politely picking out bits of overcooked courgette before all deciding it was delicious but we were so full, we couldn't eat another mouthful. We weren't full, we were all still starving.

My DD decided to cook me a meal when she was about 12 and for some unknown reason settled on arancini - not exactly a beginners recipe. In the absence of a deep fat fryer she tried to cook them in a frying pan; of course they were falling apart in a gluey combo of raw and overcooked rice by the time they were "done". She tried to do a spicy sauce to go with them and decided that it wasn't spicy enough so tipped in a few more spoonsful of raw chilli powder. It was now horrendously overchillied so she thought some yogurt might help, but there was none in the fridge, so she poured milk over the plate. I didn't want to put her off cooking or appear ungrateful so I had to try to eat the awful mess that resulted; that was another meal where I was unaccountably full very quickly.

My mum had a cookbook when I was little (the Jimmy Young cookbook, housewives' choice and all that, I gave it to her!) and one of the recipes in that suggested making up Smash instant potato with tomato soup instead of water. I've always wondered if that was genius or gutwrenching; I've never actually tried it!

thequeenoftarts · 05/09/2023 21:42

Have done this a few times, ugh I will never learn. Best to stick to spuds, meat and veg and not try combine ingredients in my house

PlasticineKing · 05/09/2023 21:43

I’m so glad it’s not just me!

When I was kid way through being pregnant with DD, I made gnocchi from scratch for the first time. It was amazing and I really liked it, a fair bit of effort but worth it.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I was rushing around like a mad thing batch cooking, even making cakes for the freezer for when people “stopped round”. I had some sweet potatoes to use up so I thought I’d bash out some sweet potato gnocchi, not realising how much wetter sweet potatoes are than standard white pots. I struggled on and made them, open froze them and decanted them into a bag for a “quick meal” once the baby arrived. The night came, and DH made the gnocchi with some veg and a sauce. But the gnocchi completely disintegrated and it was a vegetabley, saucy, sludgy floury mess. So much wasted time (and my poor swollen feet). and I was heartbroken. He went out to get me chips. I’ve never been so relieved!

BlueRidgeMountain · 05/09/2023 21:43

Aaaaahahahahahahaha!! Tasted sinister…. brilliant! I’ll remember that next time I go MIL’s and she serves her special version of lasagne, which incorporates a layer of mince fat between the pasta sheets, and grey béchamel sauce. It’s that sinister, I get chills when I have to eat it!

illiterato · 05/09/2023 21:46

Tried to impress now Dh with king prawns in a tomato and white wine sauce with angel hair spaghetti. Dunno what went wrong but it ended up as prawns and tomato chunks floating in hot wine ( looked like when you throw up wine on an empty stomach) and the pasta stuck together so it was like a solid lump. Reader, he married me ( god knows why).

mauvish · 05/09/2023 21:46

Oh, I nearly forgot about DDs first unsupervised attempt to make a cake for me (birthday? mothers' day? I forget which). She didn't realise that you use Different Fats for Different Things. I can report that a Victoria sandwich doesn't taste great when made with lard.

(She's not a bad cook at all now but her strengths still don't lie in cakes or arancini!)

ChristmasKraken · 05/09/2023 21:49

WeWillLookBack · 05/09/2023 20:53

My husband cannot cook. One evening, I was ill - so he stepped up. He said he would make pasta.

He made up a recipe - 'Hawaiian Pasta'. Hot pasta. Chopped Ham. Pineapple chunks. He used Pizza Express salad dressing as there was no mayo in the fridge.

It was bloody awful. Our youngest cried.

We still talk about the day Dad made 'Hawaiian Pasta"

Gosh, I was reading this thinking "ooh, hawaiian pasta, I reckon I could get on board with that" and then he added pizza express salad dressing and I nearly cried. Cheese, yez. Maybe a little tomato sauce. But not salad dressing 😭

Pebblesflintstoneandbambamrubble · 05/09/2023 21:51

Dds then boyfriend once made lasagna

She had raved about it so I said I'd give it a go

God knows how he managed it,but it was both rock hard and slimy with an undertaste of garlic and mouldy tasting cheese

A lot of garlic-it was an odd experience

His mum made it like that apparently but she never ate it herself as she didn't like lasagna (she was an evil witch so I can believe it)

Never again

My ex once made a spaghetti bol but instead of frying the mince,he boiled it in freezer bag

It was exactly like I'd imagine lux soap to taste like

Even the kids (who ate everything) refused to touch it

His sausage casserole-bright orange,tasted like pork that had gone off and lumps of,well,something greasy (I still don't know what those lumps where)

We poured the whole lot into the bin and had toast while he sat and sulked

pontipinemum · 05/09/2023 21:51

I lived on soup at uni. Any sort of veg and it was usually pretty decent.

All I had in the freezer one day was a mix of peas and sweetcorn. That does not make good soup 😂

Fluffywabbits · 05/09/2023 21:53

@WeWillLookBack @ChristmasKraken I LOVE Hawaian pasta!!! Mine has tinned tomatoes, garlic, pasta, oregano, pineapple and melted cheddar or mozarella cheese. (Definitely no salad dressing though LOL)

My DP is appalled by this culinary masterpiece though.😂

JustKen · 05/09/2023 21:53

My ex-MIL put large raw potatoes in a stew without par-boiling first and she didn't put anything in the stew but chicken legs, water and tomatoes. We ordered pizza after trying it.

I once nearly killed my then young daughter by serving undercooked sausages. They were pink, despite me frying the f*ckers for ages.

I am also a fan of using up things. I will cook ingredients that normally go together but find something that's going to waste in the fridge and go a bit leftfield. Burgers, chips and spinach? Roast chicken and pesto spaghetti? Spaghetti bolognaise with cabbage? That's me.

BakedTattie · 05/09/2023 21:54

Don’t worry. I gave myself the shits tonight with the dinner I made.

thaegumathteth · 05/09/2023 21:54

We all had a really horrible cold and I thought I'd add ginger to the scotch broth I was making to boost our immune systems (or some such shit). It was DISGUSTING and tasted like spicy vomit.

illiterato · 05/09/2023 21:56

I went to a friends house for her dinner and her bf was in charge of dessert. He’d actually made a big effort and had made a delicious tropical fruit salad to have with ice creams and waffles. Unfortunately he bought potato waffles instead of sweet ones. We all laughed so hard we couldn’t eat the rest.

Original poster
Jumping2feet · 05/09/2023 21:57

@BakedTattie what did you cook? Or not as the case might be

OP posts:
Moonwatcher1234 · 05/09/2023 21:57

Marie2023 · 05/09/2023 21:24

When I was really poor, all I had left to eat was some rice in the bottom of the bag. I cooked it and then found a half jar of curry sauce. It kind of fizzed when I opened it, but I thought I would use it anyway. But mistake. It was off and completely ruined the rice. I couldn’t eat it without risking food poisoning so I went hungry.

Things are better for me now, but I have never forgotten that.

oh that must have hurt - wishing you all the good things to eat now.

Physiologicalmalfunction · 05/09/2023 21:58

A roasted chilli stuffed marrow. But I realised too late I didn't have any chilli so it was just boiled mince and onion in a hollowed out marrow. It all kind of boiled together in marrow juices instead of roasting. It was like eating something from a medieval village.

JustKen · 05/09/2023 21:59

Oh! Forgot my mother's Cheese Pie. It had four different cheeses in it and no garlic or any flavour whatsoever. My daughter had Nana's cheese pie once and threatened never to visit again. It smelled like week-old socks too. I ate mine politely for a while before declaring I was full. The salad on the side was nice though.

I share my mother's talent for cooking.

Pancakefam · 05/09/2023 22:01

WeWillLookBack · 05/09/2023 20:53

My husband cannot cook. One evening, I was ill - so he stepped up. He said he would make pasta.

He made up a recipe - 'Hawaiian Pasta'. Hot pasta. Chopped Ham. Pineapple chunks. He used Pizza Express salad dressing as there was no mayo in the fridge.

It was bloody awful. Our youngest cried.

We still talk about the day Dad made 'Hawaiian Pasta"

This one sounds delicious to me!

Physiologicalmalfunction · 05/09/2023 22:02

I added a bit of turmeric to the powdered custard I made for my son - I though it would make it more yellowy (it's very pale nowadays isn't it?). It kind of went burnt ochre and tasted like mashed autumn leaves. He didn't even notice.