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.
Polly says
I have a cockatoo who lives in my kitchen. I came home the other day to his 5 pound food box thrown across the kitchen. I cannot tell you how many sunflower seeds I’ve found in random places. Poor guy LOL
Stephanie says
My second year of college, my friend and I decided to make our first Chicken Parmesan. We pan fried the chicken successfully and we were getting it ready to go in the oven. I went to open the bottle of Tomato Sauce and it slipped out of my hand. I juggled it for as long as I could trying to get a grip until it finally fell into the glass window on the front of the stove, shattering it into a million glass peices that were covered in tomato sauce. We had to pick up everything and go to her house to finish our meal… My landlord wasnt happy and I had to pay to have a new peice of glass put in!
Katie says
I hate that! You can see it falling in slow-motion before your eyes and you keep trying to catch it but it keeps slipping.
Jocelyn says
I know there have been more disasters, and maybe even a worse one, but the one that sticks out to me right now is the time my husband and I made potato salad. We had boiled the potatoes, drained them, and put them in our Pyrex bowl on the kitchen counter, when it suddenly exploded! We guessed the heat of the potatoes and the cold of the tile counter were the culprit. My husband was sorely disappointed to not have potato salad!
Laura F. says
Most early morning cooking attempts are a disaster for me. I made French toast a couple years ago, but in typical am form, I cranked the heat too high-burnt the outside and left the inside gooey.
When our friends stay with us now they frequently bring breakfast with them for the next morning!
Jill R. says
Once I was making a pan of pecan pie bars. I peeked in the oven window to see how they were doing, and there was a FIRE in the oven! The syrup had dripped over the edge of the pan and formed a puddle on the bottom of the oven, which then ignited. I didn’t know what to do — I thought if I opened the over door, the fire might go whoosh! and spread even further. So I just turned the oven off and waited to see if the fire would die out. It did…and I was even able to salvage my pecan pie bars! Kitchen disaster averted!
Donna says
I don’t remember the year, but I do remember it was right before Easter. My aunt and uncle had just bought a new microwave (this was before everybody had one). We were reading the instructions and it said you could boil eggs in a bowl if you covered them with water. So, I put about 3 dozen eggs into a big glass bowl, covered them with water, and into the microwave they went for about 10 minutes. This was so exciting! I got to be the first to cook something in the new microwave! Well, before the 10 minutes were up, there was a really loud BOOM! The bowl had cracked; the eggs exploded; and the floor of the microwave had shattered! Needless to say, I never cooked eggs in the microwave again! They were able to return it for a new one, but no one really knew if it was operator error (probably) or a defect in the construction.
Donna says
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Donna says
Tweeted @TuttleDB
Patrick Sadil says
Just came back from a massively long run, my father was away, we were low on groceries for the week, I was in a highly experimental phase in baking. I was hungry. I saw potatoes. Awesome. I saw freshly made yogurt. It’s a bit like sour cream…Then I remembered the recently purchased anis extract. I do love licorice…Mix it all together, and you get one of the few things I actually couldn’t swallow. Nevermore, nevermore.
kolpin says
my cat knocked over our two steaming hot plates dinner right onto my date’s lap. can anyone say 2nd degree burns?
kolpin4680 at gmail dot com
Jessie says
As a teenager, I was making mini cherry cheesecakes to bring to my family’s Thanksgiving festivities. As luck would have it, I wasn’t feeling well and was taking my temperature (with an old school mercury thermometer) as I put the final touches on the cheesecakes. The thermometer fell out of my moutn and broke all over the kitchen counter. I was able to clean up the mess and believed the cheesecakes to have been spared until (thankfully) my mom came down to help and realized that the tiny beads of mercury had in fact made their was into the cheesecakes!! We tossed them and spared the family from mercury tainted desserts!
Shaina says
I forgot to add baking soda to my birthday cake this year. The texture was pretty off-putting. I ended up mushing the entire mess together and making cake balls, which turned out surprisingly decent!
Tricia says
I forgot to add yeast to the bread I was baking. Talk about ROCK HARD! I still cringe thinking about it.
Ashley says
My worst disaster was when I tried to cook a single serving of red beans and rice in the microwave but I followed the directions for the whole bag. I melted the plastic container and nearly set my apartment on fire! I smelled burnt plastic for weeks!
demureprincess7(at)gmail(dot)com
Rebekah says
Well, my LATEST kitchen disaster happened this past Friday morning. At 4:30am. You see, my husband goes to work then, and he was scrounging in our makeshift “pantry” (we live in an apartment with no pantry. Ahem) for some Nutter Butters (YUM!). Well, the gargantuan bottle of Vanilla Extract from Costco, was in the way of the cookies, and SPLAT! Down fell the bottle in slow motion, first dousing my husband’s face and entire being, and then all over the wall, white board, refrigerator, and floor. He, of course, was only half awake, and I was not even half awake. My husband was late to work that day.
Note to everyone who encounters vanilla disasters: it can and WILL stain your beautiful, spotless (ha!) surfaces if you let it.
Hope I win! =)
Jessie says
When I was a kid, I made some cornbread for a family dinner. I mixed up the baking soda and baking powder. The result was horrifyingly bad! The family never let me make cornbread again.