Hellobee Boards

Probably my biggest cooking mistake ever was trying to fry onion rings. I'd never deep fried anything and I thought I could try to make my own at home but I had no idea that oil does not act like water. I just put a bottle of oil into a deep pan and turned it on high and walked away, thinking it would get really hot and then I could come back in a bit and fry the rings up. Yea, no. Oil SMOKES bad when it gets too hot. My whole kitchen was filled with disgusting acrid smoke and I had to take the pan outside to dump it.

Bonus: The smell was so disgusting I was off all fried food for months following. (And now I know, if I really want something fried, just let the professionals do it)

I made honey ginger mahi mahi one time...it was awful! So bad that DH and I ended up ordering a pizza. I refuse to cook with ginger now! haha

I made mince pies a few Christmases ago and I didn't have any flour left to put on my worksurface to that I could roll out my pastry. On a whim, i used icing sugar (it looks the same). Well the pastry kept soaking up the sugar and I kept dusting and dusting as I rolled to prevent sticking. I don't know what it didn't occur to me that I was shortening and shortening my pasty (duh!) - and, of course, the end was result - once it came out of the oven - was pastry so crumbly it turned to dust when I tried to take the mince pies out of the tin. Honestly, you could have snorted those mince pies. Silly girl!!

@Smurfette: I feel like that's better! You can always add more salt, but it's so hard to take it away!

hmm...I haven't had a lot of cooking/baking disasters but one thing I can think of to watch how/what you substitute is potato. I didn't know until I was an adult that some potatos are good for mashing or frying and some (like russets) are really only for baked potatoes.

I was trying to make these fried potato fritters things once with russett potatoes and couldn't figure out why they wouldn't stay together until my mom told me russetts are too watery and that I needed to use a waxy white potato instead.

@HLK208: generally speaking, Google can get you out of any cooking/baking mess. I didn't have baking soda or powder and was making pancakes--googled and found out I could whip the egg whites seperately to leaven the pancakes. Worked beautifully. Same for the potato/salt trick listed above.

The first time I cooked a whole chicken I put the gizzards in water for gravy and there was a chicken head in there. I ended up cooking it and serving it to my family and then-boyfriend (now DH). Only after we finished eating and were cleaning up did someone notice the chicken head in the pot. Disgusting!!

@catlady: I did the same with frozen fish. I baked it though. It was a big mushy mess.

When I try to halve or double a recipe, I always forget to halve or double some of the ingredients. I seem to always overcook chicken and pork.