Binning completely inedible meal - guilt

[macandplease]

DH and I like cooking up different recipes for each other. Often we follow a recipe. I’d say in a usual year we both make at least one meal that is (by accident) completely inedible. Today I cooked pasta sauce in a rush, it involved blending spinach into the sauce. I took handfuls out of the bag without looking and something made me check back in the bag before serving the meal. Loads of mould on the leaves at the bottom. I’d only bought it today but it went in the bin as there’s no way of knowing if the mould spores have spread. No big deal, used a new jar of pre made sauce from the cupboard which we have never tried. Sweet potato and onion. Mixed it into the pasta. Absolutely gross, and inedible. DH was polite but could tell he also couldn’t stand it 🤣

We are now on the way to collect a takeaway but I feel so guilty for this as obviously it’s a privilege and throwing away food seems morally wrong! Does anyone else have cooking faux pas and has taken to doing this before?!

I think everyone does now and then. I made an artichoke risotto once but hadn't prepped the artichoke properly. It was like eating a spikey cactus. Went straight in the bin 🤣
I wouldn't feel too guilty if it's an occasional experience. I'm sure you rescue lots of food along the way that others would chuck.

My DH is a good cook, occasionally he likes to experiment. Most of the time they come off, sometimes they're not as good as he hoped, occasionally the result is vile.

We still laugh about the whitebait rendang. Gritty, fishy slop. Had to bin it after a couple of bites each. The smell was so strong it then had to immediately go in the outside bin 😩

Don’t be daft it happens!
I made spag bol last week using a different recipe, added way too many herbs by mistake to the point it just tasted like Paxo, binned the lot as it was revolting

I'm sure I've made a few similar mistakes, one I remember is cremating an entire large chicken. It was one of those you cook in the bag too, so I really had no excuse!

I had to throw an entire salmon once. Absolutely gutted. Thanks BBC Food.

Now the dog gets most inedible things.

I like sweet potato but there’s a reason it’s not usually used as a pasta sauce. That sauce sounds gross. As long as you’re not routinely tipping edible food away it’s fine. If you have a food waste collection it goes to compost anyway so not wasted.

This happened to me for the first time yesterday! I was making a Cajun rice thing but had no Cajun seasoning so looked up the spices needed and seemed to have most of them. I then had to Google a couple of substitutes as I didn't have everything.

It was so weird. Too spicy but at the same time bland?! How is that even possible? Unless the spiciness burnt off my taste buds somehow? DS and I managed half of what I'd served us before calling it quits. I put the rest in a box for today, but chucked it this morning instead.

I once spent ages making an apple pie from scratch. I’d made some pastry a few days before so I used that, forgetting that it was savoury pastry from a meat pie. I was just on auto pilot when I used it. It was disgusting🤣 nothing could sweeten it enough, not even custard or ice cream it was just too salty so it went straight in the bin🤦🏻‍♀️

I also once made us a lasagne, but whilst I was taking it to the table I tripped and threw it all over dh and the dog and none of it could be saved. I could have cried🤣 that felt like even more of a waste than the pie!

I once made a completely inedibly hot chilli-and we're a spice loving family. I compounded my sin by adding a load of other stuff to try to cool it down- which meant I had to throw away an enormous inedible chilli, not just an ordinary sized inedible chilli...

Incidentally-I probably would have still eaten the sauce with the spinach in if it tasted OK...

I once made profiteroles from scratch and had to bin them after I didn’t think and the cat licked every single one until they were soggy.

Oh no the lasagne!

I made a stir fry last year and bunged in one of those bags of ready chopped veg. They were 2-3 days past use by but I just thought hey it’s veg it’ll be fine. Then I noticed properly the beansprouts in there were a bit slimy looking. Googled to check as I had nagging feeling and saw that yes, you really mustn’t eat beansprouts past their best. Serious food poisoning risk. And they’d smelt a bit funny. Had to bin the whole thing and start again.

My sister tried to make macaroni cheese without weighing out the white sauce quantities. She didn’t have a good sense of how it ought to go and it was irredeemably stodgy. She bought scales after that!

Everyone does it. It doesn't matter. Guilt is pointless.
My SIL would have made everyone eat it. Thankfully she lives a very very long way away and we haven't stayed with her for 20 years . Purely because her cooking is disgusting.

I have chickens so no such thing as food waste in this house!

It happens. Food waste is where you buy or cook too much, repeatedly. What you did was fine.

I thought it was illegal for feed kitchen waste/scraps to pet chickens (unless you're a 100% vegan household)?

I was making an omelette once, whisked up the eggs, tipped in the ready grated cheddar then noticed it was blue - wasn’t supposed to be! Had to go in the bin; ordered a pizza. Happens to us all op

Made a roast dinner for dh,he had just poured gravy on it and the cat came tearing in via cat flap leapt into the table,skidded,and entire dinner and cat landed in his lap..😹

Another time I was serving each guest from a serving dish and was so worried and rushed I didn't take my eyes off of the server,if I had I would have seen that the guests had no plates and I was carefully spooning chicken in sauce into the tablecloth with sauce beginning to drip,nobody said a word!whether that was shock or politeness I don't know😀

DH banged on and on about using asafoetida in curry. I wasn't keen based on the smell of the jar alone, but he was insistent it would really add depth of flavour or something. The first time I attempted to use it I inadvertently put in way too much. Then slow cooked all day. The whole house smelt of rancid cheesy feet by the time we got home. Binned the whole curry and I've never used asafoetida again.

My DH is a very good cook. But he made a beef casserole in the slow cooker last weekend which was inedible - tough, tasteless and just grim. We mashed baked potatoes into the gravy and ate some broccoli with it. Expensive meat got thrown out. It happens 🤷‍♀️

The time I left the chicken stock on the hob overnight. The smell seeped into our clothes, people at work could smell it. The flat upstairs complained. Not my finest moment.

This is outing to anyone that knows me...

I was making pork pies at Christmas and went completely wrong with the black pepper and mace. It was horrendous.

I had about 3 KILOS of pork that I'd minced. And I just couldn't throw it away.

In the end I worked like a demon to recover it, added minced beef, vegetable and tomatoes and other things to make a bolognese - 35 portions in the freezer. I have about 10 left now. It's edible but we can't eat it often, the mace is still a bit overpowering!

I also made 30 meatballs, and then used the last remaining macey pork with lots more normal pork and got my pies.

It was hard work! But I just could waste it.

I understand wanting to not waste food, but if this happens to you once a year, I really don't think it's a big deal at all.

That's hilarious, I would definitely have said something, well I would have been laughing so hard that you would have realised something was up?

Yep made a from scratch spicy tomato sauce for with meatballs, grabbed a chilli out the freezer (a small one) didn’t think to try it and chopped it and threw it in, tried the sauce and it was beyond spicy, turns out the chilli was one of my dads homegrown ones not an Aldi one.

I did try and rescue it by adding more tomatoes and making about 4 meals worth of sauce.