What's The Not So Smartest Thing You've Done In The Kitchen?
Decorating By PennySue Updated 10 Aug 2008 , 3:05pm by dee-lite
Lesson of the day: Always unplug your mixer if you've lost your mind.
this, also, sounds like a terrific tagline to me!!
This was maybe 10 years ago. We were having an office brunch and I had a new boss who I was hoping to impress. I had signed up to bring my signature cinnamon rolls, which everyone in the office loved, and as a bonus I decided to make some chopped parmesan potatoes.
I started my cinnamon roll dough, put it in a large plastic bowl, covered it, and put it in the oven (my usual place -- small kitchen) to rise. 
Promptly put the rising dough out of my mind and began to work on the parmesan potatoes. Preheat oven to 375. Check! Ooooh yeah, I didn't catch it until the bowl had completely melted through the rack and the whole thing was a burning doughy-plasticky mess on the bottom of the oven.
Needless to say, it was a work night, there was no time to start another batch of dough, so I ended up making an emergency trip to Cinnabon ($$$) instead. At least I had a good story for my new boss the next day... 
One time I was looking after a little boy with autism. He was yelling and locking himself in his room and banging his head against the wall and all kinds of things like that so I was really stressed out and distracted. I was also looking after his older siblings. His Mom had made chicken and put it in the oven and everything. All I had to do was take it out of the oven. Just as I was trying to get the boy to cooperate with me, the timer went off and so I went to take the chicken out of the over. I took it out of the oven WITH MY BARE HANDS! I totally wasn't thinking. I was in such pain that I ran them under cold water for a few minutes but then just served the dinner and tried to made sure the kids didn't see what I did. Over the next few days I developed huge blisters on my hands and I had to try to hide them from the kids' Mom because I didn't want her to know what a stupid thing I had done. Haha.
I am soooo enjoying reading these!
kelleym- at least the fire department didn't have to come over and make a big show of hauling your dough out onto the front lawn and foaming it off. It took six big firemen to douse two little ol' lumps of burnt up pizza dough. And do you think they could keep it to themselves?? Not on your life. I was the talk of the department for quite a while. Even heard about it from a friend who heard it from another friend..."Did you hear about that lady who melted tupperware in her oven and it caught on fire...? Needless to say, didn't bake them any cookies.
Needless to say, didn't bake them any cookies.
not that they would have been brave enough to eat them anyway!
I grew up in a home with a gas stove. I got married and had to get use to a electric stove. I stuck my hand in the oven and I touched the top and what do you know there is some kind of coil there. Learned the hard way. Had to yank my hand off. I sure do miss that skin!
So several years ago I had several cakes to do in one weekend....We lived in a single wide trailer with a small kitchen cramped quarters. Well I had 1/2 sheet cakes everywhere. I decided I need a break so I walked across the road to get the mail of course it was just bills so I threw them on the counter and continued on with the cakes that I was splitting and filling. After I got them base coated I clean up the kitchen never noticing the bills had gone missing. I delivered my cakes the next day feeling pretty proud of myself and went about my weekend. Monday morning came I took my kids to school, stop to see the school secretary to see how her event had gone...which I supplied the cakes. She said fine and asked me if I knew the date my next credit card pmt was due....she had found the bill in the cake while she was cutting it. Talk about embarassed you can guess I have a better filing system.
So several years ago I had several cakes to do in one weekend....We lived in a single wide trailer with a small kitchen cramped quarters. Well I had 1/2 sheet cakes everywhere. I decided I need a break so I walked across the road to get the mail of course it was just bills so I threw them on the counter and continued on with the cakes that I was splitting and filling. After I got them base coated I clean up the kitchen never noticing the bills had gone missing. I delivered my cakes the next day feeling pretty proud of myself and went about my weekend. Monday morning came I took my kids to school, stop to see the school secretary to see how her event had gone...which I supplied the cakes. She said fine and asked me if I knew the date my next credit card pmt was due....she had found the bill in the cake while she was cutting it. Talk about embarassed you can guess I have a better filing system.
So several years ago I had several cakes to do in one weekend....We lived in a single wide trailer with a small kitchen cramped quarters. Well I had 1/2 sheet cakes everywhere. I decided I need a break so I walked across the road to get the mail of course it was just bills so I threw them on the counter and continued on with the cakes that I was splitting and filling. After I got them base coated I clean up the kitchen never noticing the bills had gone missing. I delivered my cakes the next day feeling pretty proud of myself and went about my weekend. Monday morning came I took my kids to school, stop to see the school secretary to see how her event had gone...which I supplied the cakes. She said fine and asked me if I knew the date my next credit card pmt was due....she had found the bill in the cake while she was cutting it. Talk about embarassed you can guess I have a better filing system.
If you saw my kitchen you would believe this kind of thing would happen to me all the time!!!
Thanks ladies! These are great but I think I may have an honorable mention... 
First let me say, I don't mind if you laugh, but please don't judge me I was only nineteen 
. I had my first apt. and like 4starcakes had mentioned, I also grew up in a home w/ a gas stove. I was going to go out with one of my friends from out of town. I didn't have any money back then (college days 
) and didn't have a washer/dryer in my apt. so I have a brilliant idea!!! 
I don't have any clean underwear so I'm going to wash a pair in the sink and put them in the oven to dry while I shower I come out of the shower to find the apt. full of smoke and smelling like burnt plastic!!! (My undies were some cheap shiny poly-something material-even more lol). I wound up having to wash another pair and dried them with the hair-dryer! Live and learn Ahem hem...have you lost all respect???
*AHEM*...*AHEM*.(clearing throat)... When a young lady that I am aquainted with just for this story sake.. lets call her RayFay...yes, I quite like that name. ..now SayHay was a young lass of about 16...and she loved some french fries. Now this was back in days before the tranny free crisco....so she melted a big ol' chunk of tranny laden crisco and fried up some french fries and left little charred pieces etc in the family fry-daddy...(aw, c'mon your family had one too ) but I digress...and as I recall this FayLay...yeah, that was it ..right? Her daddy was all about some neatness, and if you used that fry daddy ( crisco wasn't cheap! )You strained the crisco (while it was warm) and put it in a big container that went back into the fry daddy after it was cleaned and used again. Daddy...I mean "her father" was raised in the depression and didnt let us...uh, THEM...waste anything. He finds her asleep the next day ..that fateful Saturday morning and wakes her and tells her that he's had enough of her slacking and to clean up the mess she left in the kitchen.
So ...she stumbles into the kitchen half awake to find this congealed mess in said fry-daddy and turns it on to melt the crisco so that it can be poured thru that strainer.
The crisco gets a bit hotter I guess than I, uh,...she anticipated....so that when she cant find said the container to strain it back into she puts it temporarily into a plastic bown and sits it on the counter. Apparently the grease is pretty darn hot and melts thru the bowl and all spills down the side of the counter so that as she turns around triumphantly with the container in hand she is horrified to see my dad.....skating across the ceramic tile kitchen floor with one foot somewhere above above his left ear... eyes wide and clutching a large cooking pot by the handle that he is liberally bashing everything in his way with...as he is trying to fall. Just about the time I would decide he was going to get his footing ,the skid would begin anew... and the other foot would wind up mid air and he would get a whole new angle with the pot he was whipping the whole kitchen into submission with...after what felt like an hour or two ( more likely one and a half minutes in reality) he hit on his butt and slid out into the hallway and down came the cook pot one more time HARD..with a resounding THWAAAAAAAANNNNGGGG..on the tile floor ...and there he was lying on his back ...covered in melted crisco...still clutching the pot and beathing hard.....
hair slicked up on his head with grease etc...and my mom...walks over to him looks down and says...Honey..what happened ??? Is it your heart???? To which he answered something I had never heard him utter before...sounded like pluck dew....mom just laughed.... till we both cried.
Mom and dad are both gone now...but all you had to do to get the whole family laughing till they cried for many years after was to mention that my father once skated in the "greasecapades".
KayDay-awesome story! I am sitting in my office with tears in my eyes trying not to laugh out loud to hard!
My own story, I was about 12 years old and home during the summer. I am an only child, so when i wasn't on the phone with my friends, I was watching some cooking show on TV or reading a cookbook. Anyway, I decided that I was going to have dinner ready for my parents when they got home that day, but nothing too extravagant because there were extreme restrictions on using the stove while home alone.
So, I come across a recipe to make your own pizza, including the crust! I get so excited and start mixing dough and crushing tomatoes, etc. When the time came to bake the pizza dough, I forgot that our oven was broken at the time. So, the little light bulb went on over my head and I said I would "create an artificial oven" How do you ask does one do that? Well, being he creative twelve year old that I was, came up with a seemingly brilliant idea. I take one of my mom's very expensive non-stick (of course!) pans and put it on the stove. This pan was wide enough to fit the sheet holding the pizza and cover with the lid. I turn the burner up to high, of course to similate the hot oven! I then proceed to go to the basement and watch television until my mom gets home. Of course, 45 mins later she walks in adn starts yelling because the entire upstairs smells like we had a house fire. Her favorite pot no longer had a bottom to it because it was completely burned and my pizza never cooked!
I am laughing so hard there are tears in my eyes!
Ok, I'll add one more. This one is for my daughter. She, like her, Momma, loves to cook and experiment. When she was younger, her lab rats were her two older brothers. Well, one day she decided to bake them a cake. She had no particular recipe to follow so she threw into a bowl all of the different ingredients she though she remembered me using. Put the sheet "cake" in the oven and baked away. When it was done and by the time it had cooled, it had taken on the properties of silicone rubber. Yes, it bounced....a lot 
. It was so heavy that the boys call it "Annie's door stop" to this day. We still get a big chuckle from it. Annie is pictured in my Avatar and yes, she now a very good cook!
Lynda-Bob; My mom hand washed a pair of denim shorts & decided to put them in the microwave to dry them faster. My sister & I tried to tell her that the sparks flying from it were not normal. She waved her hand & us, we left the house. She ended up buying a new microwave" Because the old one didn't match her newkitchen." The "old" one was only two months old.
SSSSSSTTTTOOOOOPPP! The madness has got to stop!! You people are insane!! A reminder: always go with your first instinct I didn't go to the bathroom before continuing. I've read all 3 pages, all of your stories had me crying KayDay your the one who made me realize go with your first instinct. I was laughing so hard tears where pouring out my eyes while running and relieving myself at the same time!
Alright here's mine. About a month ago, I did a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. Had things all over the counter needed to get things out of my way so I placed certain things in the oven. Didn't need the oven til a week later and forgot about what I put in there. Started preparing my pans, preheated the oven and started the batter. I was pushed for time because this last cake was made the night before but fell apart. Next thing you know, smoke starts coming out the back top of the oven 
and when I opened it up things melted. It was a Philadelphia cream cheese cheesecake holder and some spatulas, Burned up my fingers, hands and wrist with this one. 
The cake holder melted and wrapped around the rack.
When I was about 13 my friends came over one summer morning just as I was making breakfast for myself. I was frying bacon and we got distracted practicing our dance routine and we started smelling smoke. Ran to the kitchen the bacon was so burnt it evaporated and left nothing behind but black strips of where the bacon used to be no grease or nothing.
I had problems adjusting to electric burners too, my husband got SO mad at me when I caught a towel on fire. He was even more upset when I caught a few pot holders on fire too. Those burners should have a warning light until they're completely cool.
I burn myself at least twice a month anyway so I was very glad when we moved and the new place had a gas stove.
There are so many it is hard to choose! I did the pot thing too. I was going to make a quick pot of KD, put the water on w/ a bit of butter in to boil...proceeded to forget about it completely and an hour later I went back to the kitchen, saw the pot and thought, oh yeah, I was making KD. Pulled the lid off (the burner was on hi) and burned my hand the pot got wind of oxygen and ignited on fire from the butter, scared the pants off of me and I dropped the lid. After dousing the fire I picked up the lid off the floor and there was a big hole melted where the pot was. Never again have I made KD...
Nothing quite so fatal as yours, but I've lost many a good tip to my garbage disposal (new house, not used to a disposal!) and hubby once sat a wooden spoon on the blender while it was mixing - needless to say we were flossing our teeth with wood while drinking our virgin pina coladas!
my XH did that with a strawberry daiquiri, he used a plastic spool. the mixer was opened there was daiquiri all over the white kitchen. I didn't do it, i didn't clean it! 
And it seems to be a family traditions that we burn the rolls every Thanksgiving!
In our house, it's the marshmallows on the candied yams. One year we scraped them off and rebaked THREE times!
But the one I'm still getting razzed about is an attempt at a chocolate pudding pie. I was so excited that my cousin was coming to visit my new apartment, that I decided to make a chocolate pudding pie. The directions said to put the pudding in a large mixing bowl, but it seemed to be such a small packet of pudding, so I used the small bowl instead so it would be easier to wash. Then I flipped the switch to High and watched as if in slow motion as the chocolate pudding crept up the sides of the bowl and FLUNG all over the kitchen! It looked like a crime scene
I'm thinking it might have been easier to wash the large bowl instead of the small bowl, the walls, mixer, all the dishes in the rack by the sink, the cat... and then the large bowl because I decided to try it again so my cousin wouldn't know I screwed it up!
Mia.....would that then be called a "PUDDY TAT"?????
Fell asleep while boiling bottles. Woke up to an apartment filled with smoke and a puddle of something at the bottom of two pots. Couldn't tell what was what.
Cooked pinto beans in a pressure cooker on high...blowing one's top and having the ceiling blown took on new meanings that day.
Stuck cookie sheets(darkened by years of baked on grease) into the oven and put it on self clean mode thinking that "hey, it gets that sh** out of the oven...why not off my pans" um...well...I didn't realize that the dang thing locks you out of it when the fire started on my pans. So, I had to just sit there and watch the fire through the window on the oven door.
I slam my pans too hard on the counter...my ceiling is decorated with different cake batters.
Give me a while, I'm sure I can think of other stupid stuff I've done in the kitchen. Better yet, when DH gets home, I'll ask him. I'm sure he'll remember more than I would.
brilliant idea!!! I don't have any clean underwear so I'm going to wash a pair in the sink and put them in the oven to dry while I shower I come out of the shower to find the apt. full of smoke and smelling like burnt plastic!!! (My undies were some cheap shiny poly-something material-even more lol). I wound up having to wash another pair and dried them with the hair-dryer!
a que muchacha, that is why you hang them on the car window so they will dry on your way to work!!!
mine is similar to others with preheating the oven but too good! We were listing our house and a realtor wanted to show it at 10 am, I had two cakes fully decorated and ready for pickup later that afternoon. I couldn't figure out where to hide them so I stuck them in the oven.. The kids and I drove around town for an hour while the realtor never showed up at our house and finally gave up and went home.. I had to get my son to school at noon so I quickly preheated the oven and was getting him ready and feeding my infant.. A few minutes passed and the kitchen was full of smoke and no smoke alarm ever went off, although they are quick to go off when i burn supper Anywho, like a crazy person I open the oven and smoked poored into the kitchen all the while my 5 year old is screaming "get out of the house" Humorous now, but then I was fuming similar to the cakes.. with three hours to rebake and redecorate, it was not a good day after all!
For your viewing pleasure I will share Dora and Boots after they spent too much time in the oven.
Thanks for the laugh (and cry) KayDay - I am literally laughing as the tears roll down my cheeks.
I forgot to mention the time I ...this is a bad story, I am soooooooo ashamed, I certainly can't tell customers...lol. Once I was baking some cookies for my kids, and I went to take a shower (kids were napping, hubby at work)....I forgot I still had a batch in the oven, so imagine my surprise to hear the timer sounding as I was getting out of the shower. After a few minutes of it's incessant ringing, I figured I'd better run and get them out before they burned or the timer woke the kids up. So, I set them on top of the stove and then leaned over to turn off the timer on the stove...did I mention I had just gotten out of the shower and was naked? I burned my boob. On the cookie sheet. Still have the 2 inch scar. I was also pregnant at the time and a few days later went to the obgyn for my yearly (ahem) exam - it was hard to explain the burn on my boob (especially since he has ordered a few cakes before....) but he got a good laugh.
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