Minor kitchen disasters yesterday, anyone?

on christmas eve I made a stollen according to the hairy bikers' recipe, however it more than trebled in size and took well over an hour to cook, when I took it out I managed to get molten marzipan stuck to my finger. Ended up with a second degree burn

I think we have all left things in the microwave for some meals.
It’s when we are doing a lot of veg, one is bound to get left out, but not the roast spuds!! I knew there would be drink involved Meno tut tut.

We have another Christmas on Tuesday for my sons and grandchildren so hope to get it right then but my usual mistake at Christmas was leaving the sliced beautiful ham in the microwave. Oh well!

A month before Christmas I did a big roast for my son's 30th. As husband carving beautiful leg of lamb I started to get veg out and he said where are the roast potatoes, completely forgot them until that minute, never done it before! Quickly peeled and boiled in tiny pieces two large spuds and mashed them just in time. Thought whole meal looked a bit anemic with onion sauce and cauliflower cheese on table only to realise I had forgotten the peas (which husband had gone our especially for earlier), speed boiled them and just made it work but honestly I couldn't believe my mistakes after cooking roasts for years. There was a hangover involved, that's my excuse!!

Indeed Dolally !!
The mention of crackers reminded me. DD asked what to bring. I said crackers. Nearer the time ie in Tesco en route, she asked do you still need crackers?
I said well there are a couple of stray ones in the attic from previous years. Only then did she realise I meant Christmas crackers not Jacob's cream.

Dolally ?That could have been a ‘disaster, darling’ if glass had sprayed onto all the dinners!

Everything was going very smoothly this year until I managed to clip a glass (not a delicate glass either) and it shattered all over the table where everyone was enjoying their Christmas Lunch! A piece of glass hit my husband in the face and so we felt his lunch was probably contaminated so that went in the bin. Fortunately we had leftovers so I plated up another meal and we all carried on eating - plenty of shards of glass on the table cloth though!!

My pork crackling didn't, if you get what I mean. Frantic attempts to get it to do so under the grill to no avail.

Oldgimmer1 I do hope your legs are better. What a horrible accident!

Cooking at my daughters and whilst the bird was resting put the plates and veg in the aga slow oven to keep warm. Twenty minutes later took everything out to find she had turned the wrong oven on and everything either cold or lukewarm.

I did venison which has to be timed exactly. My sister-in-law rang the doorbell just as the kitchen timer went off to take it out of the oven so it got left in for a few minutes longer. It was still moist and succulent but no longer pink inside.

And yesterday I did a trifle - put the blancmange and fruit base on the window sill outside to cool down in the near freezing temperatures out there. I used a jar of cherries for the base, and as there seemed to be a lot of liquid, I added some gelatine so that the base would solidify and not mix with the blancmange to make an unsightly join.

It wasn't till the gelatine had set hard that I realised I hadn't put any sponges in! So I served them separately. There were only 3 of us so no one minded.

And I forgot the crackers. I do this every year. And they're so difficult to get hold of, you can't bring them over from the UK, neither in hand luggage nor hold luggage. I bought some when we visited DS2 in Bonn at the English shop there, and promptly left them at his. So I ordered some more from the English Shop in Cologne and then forgot them!

However, I got a lovely e-mail from DS2's mother in law saying how they enjoyed the new "English custom" that they had been introduced to (I told DSD2 to use the crackers himself) and the second lot which I had mail-ordered, will be going with us tonight to a family gathering as my sister-in-law's boyfriend has invited us out for a Chinese meal for his birthday.

These little problems only bother us women - as someone said: No one noticed the parsnips weren't there! Mind you, as half the family is German, they don't know what to expect anyway.

Oh- just thought of another one. Just as I was serving up the roast chicken for Boxing day, I realised I'd forgotten the chestnuts. DS3 jumped up and said he really would like the chestnuts, he'd see to them, where were they? So we got our chestnuts after all; I had ready-cooked ones, so they just needed warming up in a little butter, which was quickly done whilst I was carving the chicken.

Left the broccoli in the microwave!
DH did lots of veg for Christmas lunch and we didn’t even notice until afterwards.A minor mishap though.

Yorkshire pudds for me also! (aunt bessies frozen ones in little tins) they rose high up almost 3 inch....then!! came to get them out and were like little flat biscuits

My Yorkshire pudds disgraced me- I make these all through the year to no problems. Thought the batter was not thick enough but carried on, when I should have started over. They stayed in the oven in their disgrace.

Bah

My son and his wife had breakfast at my house then went off to son's mother in law for Christmas day lunch (literally around the corner from my house). When they returned rather later than expected they explained it was because the 'fresh' turkey had gone 'off' so they had sandwiches for lunch while a piece of lamb from the freezer was being defrosted - they didn't eat the meal until dinner time. There was room and food enough for them all to have come here, but everything else for the meal had already been prepped and no doubt it will become a 'Christmas Tale' to re-tell in years to come.

Yes, had my own mishaps, even today I overlooked the roast parsnips! How is that possible???!!!!! But I'm sure GN members will agree that the best Christmas dinner was cooked by the late Caroline Aherne in the Christmas episode of The Royle Family! A frozen turkey that they were defrosting with a hair dryer on Christmas morning and cup-a-soup with a twist; served in a bowl! Epic!

As reported on another thread. I overcooked the turkey and the legs fell off as I transferred it from roasting tray to carving dish. Tasted fine and was deliciously moist.

I hope you are OK oldgimmerl Ouch

No problems yesterday but we had our family Christmas on the 16th and DD1 and I picked half the roasties off the floor.

We put them in a separate dish but they got eaten, floor had been washed that morning lol

Today we had friends round and I under cooked the baked spuds. Not too badly but the centres weren't edible. Ho Hum.

It wasn't a problem as we have all been well fed over the last several days we didn't miss out on a bit of potato.

I'll count that as a win, I am know for dropping food when I'm cooking and often with a worse outcome.

I used a shallower than normal cooking dish for the turkey crown.

Not realising the juices had gathered therein, I took it out to check it and covered my legs in boiling hot fat. Thankfully wearing trousers but left with two matching red burn marks across the top of my legs.

Put the double cream in a fridge that we don’t normally use. Didn’t know the thermostat wasn’t working properly. Anyone for frozen, rock hard cream with their Christmas pud? Thank goodness for a good strong homemade brandy butter. After that nobody cared about the cream.?

Completely forgot to roast the parsnips! They are still in the salad drawer.
Quite frankly, no-one missed them.

Pretty good this year. The roasties were cooked rather than half raw which is always a good thing.
DIL said she was bringing a chocolate cake for those who don't like pudding. I envisaged a luscious homemade Nigella style cake. But it turned out to be a chocolate roll out of Tesco. (Meow!)

First time we accepted an invitation to, relatively new, friends. After many offers to help and being told all under control, we were providing puds and cheeses. Arrived as agreed to find cooked lamb but sod all else, all veg in fridge and yet they still didn't want help, just told to,sit in lounge with beer, bloody starving. Felt awkward trying to help but laid table quietly as that not done either. Lots of drink and have to say good fun overall but who invites people round with nothing done and they have no children so no distractions really. It worked out ok and obviously we are all different but that was a new one on me!

It wasn't until MrA had carved half the turkey and all the side dishes were ready that I realised I’d forgotten to make the gravy
Fortunately I had done the giblets the night before so it didn’t take too long to rectify the situation.

Oh Corner, how I long for that day after cooking Christmas dinner for the last forty years!!

None - doubtlessly because I didn’t cook it. .