Disasters and funny stories in the kitchen

Years ago when our DD & DS were teenagers DH & I had been on a long weekend trip to France. Arriving home early evening we found a note to say DD had gone to cinema and DS to a friend’s house. The note also advised they’d cooked home made onion rings for lunch and had had a slight accident when pan had exploded and hot oil had sprayed over cooker. All was well though as they’d cleaned up before going out!
On walking into kitchen I slipped on spilt oil on floor tiles. On further investigation all cupboard doors and walls were covered in oil and even the kitchen ceiling. DH and I had to both set to and deep clean the whole kitchen. Just as well the pair of them were not within grabbing distance!

The stories on here about mishaps with pressure cookers illustrate why I've never used one. My Grandmother tried to cook one of those steamed jam puddings in a pressure cooker. It exploded and there was jam pud all over the kitchen. I've been too terrified to try ever since.

When first married I put raw potato and onion in the liquidiser and didn’t fix the lid properly. Got a face full which was dripping off my nose and eyebrows.

MamaCaz I love your apocalyptic custard....custard will truly,oozily, take over the world...people, be afraid, be very afraid
And Marydoll s tale too, of being thought of a a battered wife.Glorious!

@Glenfinnan, I’ve done that with a chicken carcass/stock - just away with the fairies! So vexing, as my granny would have said.

OTOH I once had dh throw away the lovely ham stock left after simmering a piece of gammon - to be entirely fair, it does look like dishwater. He now knows not to chuck anything without asking first.

What a reassuring thread this has been. I now realise that I'm not the only one who has caused mayhem in the kitchen.

Another disaster...

Last week DH and I decided to making a fondu with a recipe from the internet that used Gruyere, Emmental and Camembert cheese. No problem.

Yes, problem. We didn't have any cheap white plonk in the house. We substituted it with red wine - problem solved.

Melted the cheese which became a nice gooey reddish mess however it was very lumpy. Camembert, a very soft sticky cheese, has a white fungusy rind on it which usually isn't taken off. Well the rind didn't melt ... The fondu looked horrific! So out came the whisk and DH whisked as if his life depended on it. It partly did the job.

We still had the fondu otherwise it would have been a waste of expensive cheese. Needless to say it tasted nice despite using red wine in it!

Loved all of your stories!

I remember when I was in my teens, mum and dad made soup which was put in the pressure cooker to cook. Some time later there was a loud noise as the pressure cooker weight shot off and all the soup miraculously liquidised itself through the small hole and sprayed the kitchen roof! A lovely yellow colour from lentils and butternut ....

Another time dad put on the kettle. A minute or so later there was a strange noise. We turned towards the kettle to see it leap up in the air and explode, white powder filled the air. Dad had forgotten to fill the kettle and the element dried out, overheated and ... exploded.

I had a housewarming party one evening, about 4 years ago, and invited a few friends over a meal. I forgot to switch the oven on.....

"not had such a decent cury since he was serving in India during WWII

More of a dining room disaster - I’d just put my major-faff salmon mousse on the table, beautifully decorated with lemon and cucumber slices, and went to call dh and guests to the table.
Returned to find a sheepish looking dog and a slurp-sized bit missing from the side of the mousse!
Luckily guests were all very chilled dog lovers, so there was just much hilarity - I just cut that bit off and starter went ahead as usual.

I forgot one that I did. New in-laws coming for first meal with us. I decided to do a curry as not sure exactly what time they would arrive.
I decided to put chillies in it but, could only by a jar of pickled chillies. I, stupidly, did not use a spoon to measure it out and tried to pour a little into the pan. Of course, my hand slipped and the whole jar went in.
There was nothing I could do about it and with great trepidation served it up when they arrived. Naturally, no-one could eat it except darling father-in-law who tucked in saying he had not had such a decent curry since he was serving in India during WWII.

The sieve/colander and the risen cake stories have had me in absolute stitches. Much needed. Thank you!

Glenfinnan, my good friend did a similar thing at Christmas.. She made a lovely mulled wine in a huge pan, went to the sink and poured it through the sieve... unfortunately she had forgotton to put anything under the sieve and the whole panful went down the drain. We had mulled wine v2 at her party!

I have been giggling away at all of these! What a great thread. A lovely start to my day thank you.

I love your story Marydoll! Seems like your husband was the original Mr. Pastry! (I thought it was mine). Slapstick at its best especially where he hit you in the face with the mop. I was howling by then!

And the Christmas cake one! Rising up through the oven shelf! I was helpless by then.
??

I'm reminded of an incident that happened at my maternal grandparents'. Dad and some of Mum's brothers had been outside playing some games or something and they'd got all sweated up. Dad came in the kichen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a pitcher. He poured himself a glass, went to take a drink, and promptly discovered that what he had thought was lemonade was actually potato water! A few minutes later, one of my uncles did the EXACT SAME THING!

Potato water is just what it sounds to be, water that was used for cooking potatoes. Grandma used to save it when she drained the potatoes and she used it to make her famous buns.

I was expressing milk every day for my prem baby, who was still in hospital. One evening I put it in a jug in the fridge, forgetting to transfer it to the appropriate bottle. Hubby came home from work late - I'd gone to bed - and used it all up in his coffee.

Youngest daughter didn't come for tea when instructed (as per usual) so I took her plate of food and threw it out of the patio door - but I forgot to open it first!!

Have you ever seen a custard volcano?

A colleague and I caused one when, due to staffing problems, we were sent out to prepare a school's dinners in a tiny kitchen pod in the school car park.

We discovered that only way to make custard was in the microwave.
Having switched the machine on, we turned out attention back to the main meals on the oven.

Minutes later, we looked on in horror as molten custard poured out of the microwave, ran down all sides of the cupboard on which it stood, and flooded across the floor and out of the door. All that from one single jug!

I have to admit that our initial horror soon turned to hysterical laughter

I left a (glass) bottle of cooking oil on the kitchen worktop, then went out for the morning,
When I got back, there were shards of glass and oil all over the kitchen.

Although the bottle hadn't been in the sun when I left it, the sun was shining in through the window, and must have ended up shining on the bottle as the morning wore on, and the heat must have caused enough pressure to burst the bottle.

I dread to think what might have happened if any of us had been in the kitchen at the time it exploded!

I'm sure I've told this story before. I was making a quiche for the village show. It came out looking lovely and I left it on the worktop to cool down. When I came back to look at it one of the cats had eaten a lump out of the middle of it! This was in the days when shops closed at 5pm so there was no chance of getting ingredients for another one. In the end I beat up some egg, milk and cheese, poured it into the whole and popped it under the grill to cook. My quiche got 2nd prize in the show with a note from the judge commenting on the lovely flavour! Hopefully that didn't include any cat hair!

In 1971 we’d just moved into a house that had been fitted with a Hygena kitchen, so posh, I loved it! My husband was a fireman and he was on nights. I came home from work, rushing because I was having a Tupperware party that night so put the chip pan on the hob, popped across the road quickly just to ask to borrow a couple of chairs. Well, I got talking, completely forgot about the pan, didn’t I?

I eventually walked back up the drive, puzzled to see the kitchen window all black and smoky! I completely panicked, looked to see flames all up the eye level grill, up to the ceiling, melting the polystyrene tiles, so without turning the gas off or anything, I panicked, ran around all the houses for help, before finally ringing 999! I hadn’t turned the heat off or shut the doors or anything sensible. A neighbour came and carried the burning chip pan outside, still on fire, so dangerous.

I was so relieved so I rang 999 back crying, asking them not to send anyone as the fire was out and my husband would kill me! The operator said, too late, love! I could hear two fire engines coming up the hill preceded by loads of kids all very excited about this fire shouting that there was a fire on our road!

I was mortified as everyone knew we were Fire Brigade. Anyway, they were very kind and rang husband to explain everything was ok. Every single cupboard and contents in the whole house was black, it took weeks to clear up. The polystyrene tiles did most damage, dripping onto everything and filling the house with evil smoke. I’ve been laughed about a lot since but not really condemned for my stupidity which if it had been the other way round, I’m sure I’d have done!

DHs daughter’s partner used to work in a juicing factory and he often bring new ranges home for the family to try. They gave us a few bottles of a smoothie type drink to try but since our fridge was full I left them on the kitchen counter. Before going to bed that night don’t ask me why but I shook them.
We came down the following morning to find they had exploded all over the kitchen, even the ceiling was covered in orange coloured sticky gunk. We never did get to taste those smoothies as he finished there soon afterwards... I never told my DH that I shook the bottles either, I would never have heard the end of it and I didn’t feel the least bit guilty when he cleaned it up...well HIS daughter brought them!

I was a bit flustered one day trying to cook pasta for my family and five family visitors. Having drained the pasta, I put the filled colander back on the pan for only a minute or two while I laid the plates out, only to turn round to see the colander ,complete with cooked pasta sinking into the pan.The colander was plastic and I'd forgotten to turn the gas out under it

Laughing like a drain at these with a special mention of the cake that rose through the top grills of the oven!(and just typing that started me off again)

My sister in law wasn’t very good at cooking and when she first got married many years ago she bought a fray bentos steak and kidney pie, opened it didn’t like the look of it so scrapped most of the top of it off, put it in the oven to cook, took it out and obviously there was literally nothing there, when asked what had happened she said, well I didn’t like the look of all that fatty stuff so I scraped it off??