Your Worst Kitchen Disaster [Giveaway]
This giveaway is now closed.
UPDATE: Thank you guys so much for supporting me in this! I am so excited to announce that I won the Pampered Chef Blogger Blunder Kitchen Disaster contest – $3,5000 of Pampered Chef product and a gift card to Spa Finder. I couldn’t have done that without all of YOU.
Even though the giveaway is over now, feel free to leave a comment still if you’d like and don’t forget to read through some of the other disaster stories. There are some GREAT comments in here.
Congratulations to Jeneen for winning the Easy Brie-zy Pizza Set!
Disasters Happen Here Every Day
I say (jokingly, of course) that it’s a good thing that I was asked to share my worst “kitchen disasters” because we all know that I’m too good (I’m totally not) to have a “cooking disaster.”
Eric looks up and says “cooking disasters happen in here every day!” I am baffled, at a loss for words. WHAT? But he quickly recovers saying that by cooking disasters he means big messes.
And he is definitely right about that one, only I don’t view those as true “disasters,” just my genius creativity at work. But I will admit that I’ve never been a very tidy cook and have always felt that the only thing I hated about cooking is the cleaning up part.
My Worst Kitchen Disaster
I’m home from vacation with one day to unload the car, unpack, do laundry, settle the kids and pack myself up again before I leave for another trip, this time work related.
I come downstairs from laundry, quickly rushing to the kitchen. My mind is obviously somewhere else because I’m completely perplexed as to why the floor feels so…disgusting…and crunchy.
It takes a moment for the horrifying scene before my eyes registers with my brain. I realize that what I’m stepping on are tiny multi-colored sprinkles. And there aren’t just a few. There are a lot more than a few. A whole heckuva lot more.
Upon further inspection I find that not only has Madeline emptied several once full bottles of sprinkles onto the kitchen floor, but that she’s sitting on the counter rubbing her sweet little hands together like she’s putting on lotion…only she’s used an entire bottle of green food coloring for the job.
She must be pretty satisfied with herself because she stops rubbing those hands to flash a toothy, chubby cheek smile my way before continuing on her merry way.
The next task at hand — dumping curry powder into some concoction she’s got brewing nearby. Unfortunately, more curry makes it onto the counter than into her bowl. Which then ends up all over the seat of her pants.
At the time I’m feeling all sorts of things: annoyed, concerned, furious… that my 2 year old has figured out how to push a chair from the kitchen table over to the counter so she can get into the spice cabinet.
I’m so beside myself that I call Eric and tell him that I don’t care how tired he is, that there will be child locks on all the kitchen cabinets when I’m home from my trip.
I have too much to do still, and so I leave the mess as evidence but not before I take the chair and the bottle of curry powder away.
The only thing I can think to do is send Madeline out back in her diaper with the sprinklers on and popsicle in hand so she can wash off while I pout about my circumstances.
Payback Time
Only now months later do I realize that this is just payback for the occasion that I, as my 3 year old self, found it quite prudent to create my very first cake on the kitchen floor. Like mother, like daughter.
I think my parents must have known back then that the kitchen would be always be my most favorite room in the house, because after that disaster I certainly made many, many more.
I can only hope that Madeline will one day find the same joy in the kitchen that I do. And that maybe she’ll get a little payback of her own too.
P.S. We now have child locks on every single cabinet in the house, in or out of the reach of little hands.
P.P.S. Every word of this is the absolutely truth.
Now it’s your turn – SPILL IT – what is your worst kitchen disaster?
Were you the cause or someone else? Did it involve a recipe failure, a gigantic mess, or something else crazy? Was it a major holiday recipe disaster or more every day run of the mill disaster? DO TELL! I am so curious!
Even if you don’t have anything to share, I’d love your comment. Comments on this post count as votes on my entry in the contest.
Giveaway Prize (1 winner):
Easy Brie-zy Pizza Set (valued @ $115)
Giveaway Requirements:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me about your worst kitchen disaster.
- You may NOT enter using multiple email addresses. Automatic disqualification.
- Additional entries must leave a separate comment.
- Contest ends April 15, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. CT.
- Contest open to US States only.
- Winner will be chosen via random.org and will have 3 days to respond before disqualified and a new winner chosen.
Extra Entries:
Additional entries can be earned by doing any of the following, giving you a total of 3 entries. Leave a separate comment for each of your entries.
1. ReTweet the following message: Win a @pampered_chef Pizza Set (val. $115) and help @goodlifeeats win the Kitchen Disaster contest http://su.pr/1Kft6v #giveaway
2. Become a fan of GoodLife Eats on Facebook.
Contest Info
The Pampered Chef has asked me to share my very worst kitchen disaster with my readers in a little blogger contest. I own several Pampered Chef products and have always been happy with them so I agreed to participate. Plus, this is a good disaster story and something I’ve never shared here before.
I was not compensated for sharing my worst kitchen disaster in any way, but the winner — you need to comment on my post to help me win — winner gets $3,500 The Pampered Chef kitchen tool makeover and $125 towards SpaFinder.
To follow along with The Pampered Chef SPILL IT! Contest, “Like” their Facebook Page and share your worst story there, too (by Wednesday at noon CT) for a chance to enter this same contest.
Claire says
When my little brother was very small (maybe a couple of years old) he managed to create a whole winter wonderland in the kitchen. Entirely. Out. Of. Sugar. It was CRAZY. And in the midst of it, there he was, with sugar all over him! lol
LisaAnn says
I like good eats on facebook
LisaAnn says
Hmmm, that is a hard one- there have been so many **sigh**. I have nine children so opportunities for mess abound. I think one of my most memorable was when the twins were two. Every single day for a week they got into the fridge and cracked/smashed/tossed/threw every single egg on the floor while I was making a powder room visit. No idea why this was so cool to them, but I bought 14 dozen eggs that week and they broke every one of them on the floor. They are 20 now and this story still circulates around the family 🙂
Rebecca says
I made dinner the first time I met my future in-laws. I made green salsa enchiladas with rice and beans. When they arrived I found out they follow the Atkins Diet which is no carbs. I didn’t think to ask if they had any special dietary requests. We ended up grilling chicken & asparagus.
Amanda J says
My worst kitchen disaster happened when I caught my bread in the breadmaker on fire. The dough had overflowed and gotten too hot. I came in to see that my bread was on fire. The breadmaker was fine, but my bread was not!
Kristi Adelsberger says
I was roasting a turkey in a pan that was obviously not deep enough. My pan completely filled up with liquid and grease which spilled into my gas oven. This of course started a fire in the oven. My 6 year old son freaked out and started yelling that we all needed to get out of the house. While I was trying to get the battery out of the smoke detector, he gets my 4 year old and 2 year old out of the house (it’s also raining) to the picnic table. My husband comes home from work to see smoke pouring out the windows and crying kids outside in the rain. Later my son draws a picture of flames coming out the windows of the house and him standing outside yelling “call 911”. (The oven was fine and the fire went out soon after I turned off the stove. )
Christine Dayton says
I have many stories of kitchen disaters because i have a wonderful curious 3 year old son. I sitting on the computer typing a friend and realized my Brody had become quiet…I asked him what he was doing and he said nothing….so i asked again…he said he was being green…confused, i told him to come see me and he was right…he had turned himself green…hands, face, teeth all green. So, i got up walked out to the kitchen and realized he wasn’t the only thing green…he had my cubbard, walls, counter, everything he could touch was green…its been months and i am still finding things green 🙂
Karen says
My worst kitchen disaster occurred during a baking venture with my cousin when we were seven. We were baking cookies and I came up with the brilliant idea of stuffing giant marshmallows into them! So we happily covered the cookies with marshmallows and stuck them into the oven. It didn’t take long for the explosion to occur, and when it did, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Gooey, burnt black and white marshmallows covered the oven. Needless to say, that was the last time I tried to bake giant marshmallows into cookies.
Jennifer says
I was using a quiche dish that was unglazed on the bottom to make a cherry clafouti. The dish caught on the oven rack as I was sliding it in the oven and the dish flipped and the entire clafouti spilled into the bottom of the hot oven! Huge burnt mess and I had company at the time.
Jodi says
I was filling cupcakes with a cream cheese filling that was colored red for the holidays. My frosting injector got jammed and like a moron I pointed it straight up while I forced the end. When the clog released it sent red cream cheese frosting shooting towards the ceiling. It was everywhere! All over the ceiling and dripping onto the floor. My husband and I had to get ladders and scrub the white ceiling 3 times to get the frosting and the dye off.
Tessa says
Sadly, I’ve had my fair share of disasters without any help from my hubby or any children (we don’t have any kids yet). The worst mess was probably the day I dropped a bowl of unset strawberry jello. As you can imagine, there were red spots everywhere! However, the worst in my opinion was the day that I dropped a hot glass bowl of recently made chex mix. Not only did I shatter my favorite bowl, but we lost all the chex mix!
Jan says
I am about 4 years old and the first one awake on a Saturday morning. I decide to make breakfast for my mom and dad. Get out the blue plastic bowl and eggs. I love scrambled eggs. Crack open the eggs and mix them up with a fork. I remember being so proud that there were no shells in the eggs. Take the blue plastic bowl and place on the stove and turn on the gas flames. Plastic starts to melt and catches on fire. Flames scare me big time. I start screaming. Dad comes running from bedroom and puts out the fire. When we moved from that house a year later there was still melted blue plastic on the stove.
Martha says
I always have such a habit of spilling stuff all over the counters. no matter how hard I try my kitchen always looks like a disaster after cooking! I guess one of my worst disasters was for the first time I was using parchment paper on my cookie sheet (that doesn’t have sides. I guess I didn’t realize that the parchment would slip and slide, because as I was putting the cookie sheet into the hot oven, (not holding onto the paper too), the paper with cookie dough slid off the pan and fell all over the oven! Somehow some of the cookie dough even fell through the door crack and into the drawer below my oven. It was horrible to clean up! And smelled even worse.
Megan says
A couple of years ago my boyfriend and I decided at midnight on Christmas Eve to make cake balls a la Bakerella to take to family on Christmas day. Our cake didn’t rise properly. We forged ahead anyway. We were melting some nice baker’s chocolate in a double broiler, but didn’t realize that the chocolate could get too hot. At about 2 am when the chocolate started thickening and we were only half-way through coating our cake balls we decided it would be a good idea to add milk. At 2:05am we learned about seizing chocolate the hard way.
Luckily, I had some back-up semi-sweet chips to use for the rest, and the cake balls ended up being a hit with the family. But I now know much more about chocolate than i did at the beginning of that night!
Jamie says
I like Good Eats on Facebook 🙂
Jamie says
I tweeted…http://twitter.com/#!/JamieG63/status/58033926081478656