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.
Katie R says
I tweeted! (@carrotrunr)
Katie R says
I had a huge disaster in the kitchen when my boyfriend was mixing a bowl of cookie dough. He the handheld mixer was off,a dn he was trying to remove the beaters. Instead of pressing the eject button, he hit the ‘beat at full speed’ button, causing cookie dough to go flying everywhere. That was fun to clean up….cookie dough was on the walls, ceiling, floor, behind appliances…
Tricia b says
I was making burnt sugar almonds and took that literally. There was no saving the pan, the spoon, the smell was awful and it turned into a rock. The pan was half of the steamer pot and it tools months to find a replacement. I can still remember the smell. Yuck
Heather says
I was hosting my first Pampered Chef show when my friend/pampered chef consultant asked me to boil water. I turned on what I thought was the back burner, but really it was the front burner that had her pizza stone resting on it. Needless to say the direct heat caused the stone to pretty much combust and cause flames. As the guests were entering the house, they kept commenting on the smoke. Oops. Now I always make sure to put my stone on the counter when I need it out of the way and not on the stove.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
Facebook fan, of course.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
Tweeted it.
Tara @ Unsophisticook says
That totally looks like something my kids would do. I could name several, but one that stands out is when I woke up at 5am to this loud crunching sound. I came downstairs to find my then 2yo had torn open six brand new boxes of cereal, proceeded to dump them all over the floor, and was running around on the flakes crunching them up. What a mess!
Julie says
I’ve been known the leave the stove on…all day…while I went to work. I amazed I haven’t burned down my house yet!
Patricia says
Was on the phone with my 18 month old son’s doctor, when he managed to get a gallon can of Crisco oil out, open it and pour it all over the kitchen!
Also, once my husband was melting lead in a small cast iron skillet on the stove. (He was using it to make bullets for his Kentucky long rifle.) Unfortunately, there were some impurities in it and it exploded. Lead splatters are really hard to get off your walls!
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
http://twitter.com/#!/chamoqueen/status/57859587528863744
Followed on Twitter @chamoqueen and became a fan on FB.
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1384327146
Shared on FB.
Katherine Deleon Guerrero says
My worst kitchen disaster; almost leading to 5 funerals… was: One late winter night, my hubby decides to go boil water and went back into the room and dozed of… Well, I heard a very faint smoke alarm and woke up; I nudged my hubby to go check. He jumped off the bed like it was on fire…I got alarmed and went to check it out. The pot had evaporated the water, and when hubby lifted it; metal was actually drippings everywhere on the floor because the bottom of the pot melted. I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SLEEP well after that night.
Candice Eley says
Sadly, as someone who claims to be a decent cook, I have many. There were the couple early on in my learning to cook/bake in college, like when I got a tiny tabletop grill for my deck, tried to grill scallops for my then-boyfriend (now husband), and they turned out black on the outside and cold in the middle. Or the first Christmas I spent with his family where I made a peppermint chocolate layer cake and someone asked “What’s that crunch? Does it have a cookie crumb layer on the bottom?” No, it was just burnt around the edges.
But the worst for me was the one that never got served – worst, because I should have known better after years of baking. I was entering a pie contest and rather than going with my trusty and much loved Dutch apple, I decided to try a new one. I can’t even remember exactly what the pie was (I think it was maple-ginger pumpkin, because I wanted something more “exotic”) and I was using a pie crust recipe I had never tried. I didn’t want to use shortening as the recipe stated (because of the artificiality), so I used butter instead. When I baked the crust, it didn’t so much bake as it did melt into a giant, runny blob in the the center of the pan. Totally unusable.
I managed to salvage the pie by making a quick gingersnap pressed crust on the spot, but for all the effort, the pie was mediocre, and I totally didn’t win. Not even close!
Rachael says
I have long been the official mashed potatoes maker in my family, a position passed to me from my grandma. Christmas ten years ago, my mom made the potatoes instead of me. We still do not understand what happened to those potatoes but something happened; something bad happened. They turned into glue! We still joke about the mortar mashed potatoes to this day!
Kayla says
When my son was about 18 months old he loved playing with pots and pans and pretending to cook. One day he went in the cupboard and got out a pot, went into the pantry and dumped a newly opened box of baking soda and proceeded to “cook”. It wasn’t nearly as bad as yours sounds, and when he looked up at me with his big blue eyes and a look of pure joy when I found him, all I could do was laugh and take pictures!
When my hubby was about 3 years old he dumped a canister of flour all over my mother-in-law’s freshly waxed, not yet dry floor. When she found him, she naturally was rather upset, til he looked up at her with his big blue eyes and said “but I love you mommy”.
I heat up my oven just a little then turn it off to make a proofing box for my yeast doughs. I forgot the turn it off part the other day till I heard the oven beep to tell me it was heated all the way up to 350. The dough had risen nearly to the top of the bowl and the plastic wrap had completely disappeared.
Aimee @ Simple Bites says
I tweeted too!