Being banned from the mitchen

[Elphie54]

(Light hearted in case it isnt obvious):

After nearly successfully burning down the kitchen, my other half has told me I am no longer allowed in the kitchen without adult supervision (he is obviously joking). My horrible crime that led to that? I accidentally put something in the microwave for 13 minutes instead of 1:30 minutes. Around minute 7, I smelled something burning and thought the neighbors were burning food, to look over and realize there was smoke coming from the kitchen. Yikes! Thankfully there were no flames.

Help me feel a bit better about myself? What are some of your worst kitchen disasters?

My grandad put Chicago town style pizza in microwave with a cardboard/foil style base. Thankfully microwave didn't blow up bit the pizza was stuck to this shiny cardboard base. We didn't eat it.

When I was about 6 or 7 I made my mum breakfast in bed - I put both tea and coffee in same cup and poured water in from kettle (not boiled though) and I made toast - burnt it and spread what I thought was butter on it. Turned out it was lard!

More recently put pizza in oven and somehow just turned the dial on oven not looking at temp ect. Took it out 5- 10mins after recommended cooking time to find it was burnt on top and doughy and slightly frozen underneath. I'd turned the dial to grill instead of oven!

Ahhh, karma is indeed a cruel mistress.

Dp managed to set the toaster on fire this morning. He put a gluten free toaster pastry in the toaster, and left the kitchen. The filling melted and super heated, causing it to ignite. I’ve been sick with the flu, so was still in bed. Heard smoke detector, and wandered out of the bedroom. Saw a few flames and calmly got the fire extinguisher from the cabinet and put it out. Dp comes running in and goes “wtf just happened?” I respond “oh it was just a fire.” He stared at me for a minute and that’s when it finally registered/my brain caught up. That’s when I flipped out “omg, it was a fire!!!”

He walked me right back to bed and gave me more medicine for my fever. We have no added toaster to the Xmas list we gave my parents (so they can buy us things and can give ideas to other family members when they ask).

@HirplesWithHaggis this reminded me of my mum, she was gifted her first microwave years ago and attempted to cook a boiled egg in it for my nephew. She neglected to put a pin prick in it for the air to release. It managed to last in the microwave but the second my nephew tapped the top it exploded all over him and the kit hen wall. Fortunately it wasn't hot enough to burn but he certainly got a shock

Many years ago my Mum cooked a haggis for tea. As soon as she pierced the skin with a sharp knife the whole haggis exploded sending haggis up the kitchen walls,on the ceiling and in every nook and cranny. We were finding bits of haggis for weeks afterwards.

I no longer have any good size sauce pans after cooking rice and pasta.
Today I burnt an oven pizza.
My worst experiences though were storing my large amount of cash in the microwave. Forgetting about it. Adding a baking potato on top of the money and microwaving. Couldn’t understand the ash. Eventually shifted through it and can’t really think about it too much due to the horror of wasting my precious cash
My other worst experience was my mum being helpful - sterilising my baby bottles on Christmas Eve evening and pressing the grill button on the microwave. 10 mins. All of it melted. Couldn’t go to the shops to buy new bottles until Boxing Day. Only had one of those tiny bottles and a new born teat left.

When I went to uni, the entire of my cooking repertoire consisted of nuking a jacket potato and popping a Kiev in the oven. After a year of eating this I decided to learn how to cook.

I spent a whole afternoon making lasagne for my housemates. I was so proud of myself. My boyfriend said I couldn’t be trusted taking it out the oven myself as I’m clumsy (true but rude). The silly sod caught it on the edge of the rack and dropped the whole thing INSIDE the oven. Dish smashed and lasagne everywhere. We’ve been married for 8 years now and I still remind him of it every now and then.

I’m also not allowed to read when cooking or baking - burned many dinners because my books is so good. Also destroyed a lemon drizzle cake because I was trying to book tickets to see Harry Potter and the website wasn’t working...

Oh, and once when I was pouring water into gravy granules it splattered all over my 7 month pregnant bump. Had to do a trip to a and e as the scald was so bad.

There’s probably more tbh...

I once dropped a new 3ltr bottle of coke on the tiled kitchen floor, bottle cracked and a jet of coke went up the wall

My mum reminded me today of the time when I was little when she and dad bought some chestnuts to roast at home. They put them in the oven but forgot that you're supposed to score them first apparently as they expand in the skins as they heat.

About 10 minutes later they heard loud bangs in the kitchen. Dad ran in just as one chestnut shot through the glass door of the oven and into the sink.

They've never tried roasting chestnuts again.

My dd1 actually ended up in a and e with a burnt foot after dropping a microwave shepherds pie on it.

Incinerated the Christmas pudding by letting it boil dry.

I decided to.make home made Easter Eggs by coating balloons in melted chocolate then popping the balloons when the chocolate had set. The chocolate must have been too hot and the balloon burst coating me and every available surface in chocolate! Like a fool I decided to try a second one and it happened again . I was finding chocolate for days.

In our first house DH and colleague plumbed in a new sink and thought they'd completed the task. A little later I washed up and pulled the plug out of the sink, as you do. The pipes hadn't been tightened properly and the water cascading out of the bottom of the cupboard looked a bit like a miniature Niagara Falls. Myself and a neighbour had to get busy with brooms to brush the copious amounts of water (which we had to wade through) out of the back door.

When MIL cat-sat for us she put the kettle on the stove (not an electric auto switch-off type) and sat down in the lounge as she didn't have the patience to wait just a few minutes for it to boil. She fell asleep and woke up to a terrible smell, lots of smoke, kettle black and ruined, plastic handle melted. She rang other DIL to come and help clean up the mess. When we returned from our weekend away you'd never have known anything had happened but for a different kettle and her confession.

Oh, crying with laughter, I love the idea of DH 'hurtling out of the kitchen' shouting 'call the fire brigade.'

“My worst experiences though were storing my large amount of cash in the microwave. Forgetting about it. Adding a baking potato on top of the money and microwaving. Couldn’t understand the ash. Eventually shifted through it and can’t really think about it too much due to the horror of wasting my precious cash “

How did you not notice you were putting the potato on top of cash??

Not in the kitchen, but does involve food...

We used to have a large flock of chickens, so DH would take boxes of eggs into work to sell. One time, he had a box left, so popped it in his desk drawer and locked it.

Then he went off sick for months. About 6 months later, the guys in the office were wondering what the awful smell was, and tracked it down to DH's desk. They forced the drawer open, to find a box of exploded, 6 month old, eggs.

Took him a while to live that down.

Another time, he didn't turn the hob off, and put the dinner plates on it to dish up. Cue one plate cracking in half.

Son kept leaving the hob on, then throwing the tea towel on it. He got pissed off every time we asked him if he'd turned the hob off, but he'd done it often enough for us to warrant asking him.

I was brewing elderflower champagne one year. It was in repurposed plastic coke bottles, and stored in the hallway, in a wooden chest while it finished fermenting. I degassed it everyday, but one day, one of the bottles exploded. The force of the explosion blew off two of the planks of wood at the front of the chest, and showered sticky elderflower champagne all over the hall and everything in it. It always worries me when I see people say they've stored theirs in glass beer bottles.

I absentmindedly (very new sleep deprived mum) put a plastic tray down onto a gas hob not realising one of the burners was still on low.

Smelled smoke and found the whole hob, tray etc on fire. Threw a saucepan of water all over it and cried at the horrendous mess. Took me days and days to clean the kitchen and Dh had to repaint it.

Boiled a pan of eggs so dry they exploded round the kitchen and cremated the pan, my mum had a new cooker and she was just getting used to it she thought she had turned oven on but it was a ring then put a plastic bowl of salad stuff on it burnt salad yum, my stbxh put the chip pan on the ring of the electric cooker we started rowing over something he walked out and I noticed nearly an hour later when I went in the kitchen for a drink cue opened back door and launched it down the garden

My parents were coming round to visit me in my new apartment, so I was doing a massive clean. Put the plastic kettle on top of the hob while I was cleaning the counter. Somehow accidentally switched the hob on.
Nothing says “I’m a grown-up now” like wafts of melted plastic billowing from the kitchen. Took me weeks to get the melted plastic off the hob too.

Not me but mum. Whe I was 8, she was trying to sell the house we lived in. 1 day she made her self an omelette for lunch and finished it under the eye level grill. Later in the day she stuck a basket of laundry on the hob while she cut my finger nails ready for a violin lesson. The eventual buyer got a brand new kitchen and freshly decorated downstairs as the fire gutted the kitchen. Mum still has smoke stained books nearly 40 years later.

I managed to cook a cake in the Baby Belling in my Uni halls once but you have to put it on Oven and Grill at the same time. The middle wasn't quite done...
I have no idea how but a friend used to microwave soup with a metal spoon in the bowl. He swore it was OK because the spoon doesn't make a circle. I'm still not sure if it actually works or he was just lucky. And too chicken to try!

Melted plastic - what nostalgia - my great aunt thought she was being very clever one year by buying a ready made Christmas pudding. Stuck it in the Aga and when she had turned it out and served it everyone said - how clever Aunty Basilisk for putting the cream on before serving. It was white melted plastic and the whole thing had to be thrown away - this is nigh on 40 years ago - we have not forgotten - but in a fond way .

As a young teenager (many moons ago) I returned from the Ideal Home Exhibition with a packet of muesli, then a bit of a novelty (I know, I'm old!). As often happened in those days, manufacturers would suggest recipes incorporating their product, to encourage more purchases, and one suggestion was a muesli cake.
I was keen to try this, and DM was happy to encourage my interest in cooking, so I was given free rein in the kitchen.
As I said, this was many years ago, and my mathematical education was largely in terms of the imperial system, but the product, being Swiss, came from a country where the metric system was the norm. The recipe in question was translated by somebody unfamiliar with terms such as "teaspoon" and "tablespoon", and I, being fairly new to this cooking lark, didn't spot the possible consequences of adding a "tbsp." of baking powder, rather than a "tsp". Baking powder being a raising agent - all I can say is, it rose with a vengeance.
The next cookery lesson from DM was "how to clean the oven".
Another one, not really the cook's fault. My DF worked for the Gas Board, often called out as a troubleshooter. A customer had bought a gas cooker which incorporated a rotisserie grill at eye-level, operated by clockwork. He was called out because the clockwork went rogue on this, just as a chicken was tender. Centrifugal force took over, raining beautifully cooked chicken all over the kitchen. Apparently, the cat thought it had been transported to heaven......

Not proud of this...bought some Quorn mince whilst learning to cook. Put it on the stove in a pan.
Then somehow forgot about it and went on a night out. My ex got home FIVE HOURS later, Kitchen full of black smoke and in the pan a black solid mess.

Bit scary that the fire alarm didn't go off (rented flat), and none of my neighbours seemed bothered about all the smoke...

I was very lucky not to set the whole block on fire.

@BasiliskStare - your story has reminded me of one - not mine, but one told by Jeremy Clarkson.

Apparently, one Christmas, he was serving the pudding, and tried to flame it in brandy, but couldn't get it to light - so being the car-obsessed man he is, he decided to flame it IN PETROL!! Unsurprisingly, they didn't eat the pudding!

I've googling to see if anyone has ever been injured or died as a result of Fray Bentos pie tin shrapnel.