Meals that went utterly pete tong!

[Jewelledslice]

After a disastrous dinner tonight, i thought Id ask for your dinner cock ups to make me feel better!

Today instead of a roast, I got some salmon and decided to do it in pastry with pesto. I thought it would be a nice alternative!

The problem is - I'm gluten free and dairy free. I've been perfecting GF short crust pastry over the last year and can produce a passable pie, so I used the same recipe. I made the pastry yesterday and put in the fridge overnight as per usual.

When I got the pastry out it basically crumbled like the driest play dough 😔

However the salmon was defrosted so I tried, desperately, to form a ball. No luck!

What I made was salmon on a bed of GF breadcrumbs with a topping of pesto and GF breadcrumbs.

Oh my goodness it was foul 😂 Basically fish in dust. DH took one bite and then got up and started doing other stuff. He kindly said I could have the rest!

So help me feel better! Tell me your cooking disasters!

Was it on here that I read a post about a disastrous cake being thrown onto a shed roof so the OP’s blushes were spared, and then when she went to retrieve it it was stuck?

I present to you ginger garlic cake. I have cubes of both ginger and garlic in the freezer. Took out what I thought was ginger, let it thaw then added it to the mixture.

It was only when I cracked an egg into the ramekin that had previously held the garlic that I thought there was something afoot - it didn't smell as gingery as I had hoped. I stuck an extra couple of teaspoons of ground ginger in and hoped for the best.

No-one was able to identify the mystery ingredient.

Over boiled some potatoes they slipped through the colander like soup. I still don't know how on earth I did that.
Have also forgot to turn the oven on for the meat. Had done the veg and rice on hob. Opened the oven when everything else was done to find raw chicken.

Not my cock up, but annoying - one Christmas, I was making the dinner at my parents' house. I'd simmered the giblets for hours to make gravy stock, with careful additions of herbs, vegetables etc. I strained the stock into a jug and set it aside for when the time came to make the gravy.

Left the kitchen for a well-earned breather ... when I came back, the jug was empty. My dad had thrown it down the sink, not knowing what it was 😩

Microwaved a pizza once. Cut into the stuffed crust, cheese still frozen. Center boiling hot.

I had ramen eventually

I made marmalade which turned into a massive lump of toffee with shreds in. I smashed it with a hammer and dissolved it in gin which made the most delicious orange liqueur ever but I fear it is not replicable.

Pesto pasta in a hurry for the kids

nearly blew their heads off as it was actually undiluted mint sauce

As a kid, ice cream sundaes that were actually scoops of margarine

Made bread pudding with "off" suet. Vile. Son ate it anyway. He was a dustbin at that age.

No matter how many delicious meals I've made over the years, the rancid bread pudding always gets a mention. It'll come out in my eulogy.

I am howling! 🤣🤣 Hopefully it was edible!!

I had lots of beetroot in my veg box once and decided to make some borscht - a big fave of mine. I spent ages chopping and simmering and seasoning, and at the end had some kind of liquidiser disaster whereby I decorated my entire kitchen with beetroot soup! I actually cried whilst cleaning it up. Never bothered again.

I made spaghetti alle vongole for DH (who is an excellent cook) when we’d just started going out. Added white wine and just…forgot to stop pouring.

It reduced it down for ages but it still just tasted like wine soup.

I once tried to make pulled pork (id done it a million times)

Chucked the joint in the slow cooker and buggered off to work as normal

Came home to a brick that had glued itself to the slow cooker

I still don't know where I went wrong

I've done loads, also gluten free so have had quite a few 'dust' pastry disasters. I once followed a recipe for gf bread that I saw online and it had some weird ingredient that was meant to give it the stretch of gluten. I couldn't find it exactly so ordered something that sounded similar online. When I cut into the cooked bread it was pink and slimy inside! It looked revolting so we didn't try it.

I tried to make soda scones for my dad after my mum died. Mum made THE BEST, lightest soda scones. I couldn’t find the bicarb so decided it wouldn’t really matter and kneeded the dough like bread, banged them into the oven and they looked fine when they came out until we cut them, I’ve never baked anything so heavy. Dad threw them to the birds and maintained until the day he died the birds were running trying to take off because of those soda scones 🤣.

Tiramisoup

Ooh there was that time I ran out of paprika so decided to use cayenne pepper as a substitute. Copious amounts.

steam and ears

I was very industrious one year, and grew loads and loads of tomatoes and other veg, which DP decided to freeze. He froze it all in ice cream tubs, I used one full of tomatoes in a beef stew.

Came to nearly the end, everything's looking good and smelling great, I have a spoonful to taste for final seasoning, and enter a world of pain.

He's only carefully chopped and frozen the bumper crop of insanely hot chillies, all together in one ice cream tub, unlabelled, and in the stack of tomatoes.

What the fuck he thought we were going to do with a whole tub of chillies I don't know, but there was no saving the stew, it had to go in the bin. I was amazed it hadn't eaten through the saucepan! 😂

We do that in our house! We call it freezer roulette

First time I was invited to dinner at the in-laws. On my best behaviour - was handed an ice cream tub and asked to serve to go with pudding. Dutifully tried my best while making desperate 'help me!' faces at my now husband. They'd accidentally handed me a tub of frozen chicken stock!

Tried to make fishcakes. Couldn't find polenta in the shop so decided it didn't matter. Ended up with fried bits of fish and potato falling apart in the pan...

Christmas dinner one year - full roast cooked by my husband. We'd decided to be adventurous and go for something different to turkey. Sat down to eat, my mum cut into her partridge and had to inform husband that it was completely raw. No idea what had happened. We ended up eating all the trimmings and having the birds the next day with leftovers!

My ex made dessert for a dinner party which was icecream and tropical fruit with waffles, except he bought potato waffles by accident. We were all lauhh gg ing so much we couldn’t eat it.

Also when I made squid ink spaghetti with prawns in a white wine and cream sauce. The sauce split so it was basically prawns and bits of tomato floating in hot wine with an oil slick of double cream on top.

I had HG when I was pregnant and was basically puking all day every day all the way through. I struggled to eat and only had a few things I could manage.

We’re vegetarian and my husband (bless him) isn’t the best cook ever. One day for dinner he decided to make vegetarian sausages with veggie mince and some herbs I think. They were awful. They pushed my HG right over the edge. I still feel nauseous now when I think about them.

I might not be being fair. Maybe they were delicious and it was the HG talking but he hasn’t made them since 😂

Oh yeah I've had some disastrous dinners

Barley and broccoli soup anyone????

I’ve had loads but trying to make tomato and veg soup and ending up with industrial quantities of korma sauce was probably one of the best

Ran out of my regular chilli powder for a bean chilli. Subbed with some fancy extra hot one, forgetting it was literally ten times the strength and didn’t adjust quantity. That one burnt for days.

My mother in law ran out of red wine for a red wine reduction, decided red wine vinegar would do the same job…. (Spoiler, it did not)