Kitchen

[RedTop]

I have a friend who is the queen of odd recipe substitutions, and kitchen disasters. She made a pineapple upside down cake for a bake sale, and didn't have maraschino cherries to put inside the pineapple rings for decoration, so she used cinnamon red hot candies.... She was in the midst of making hash brown casserole and realized she didn't have any sour cream. Knowing that sour cream was adding moisture and creaminess to the casserole, she passed over substituting logical things like mayonnaise, yogurt, or even cream cheese, and added pistachio pudding! She also made a chocolate sour cream pound cake that had guacamole substituted for the sour cream. NO ONE eats anything she prepares until they ask whether it's made by the original recipe, or has she subtituted......

[tkins]

I know a person (not me) that had no cooking skills (she burned boiling water) and wanted to cook for a special someone. So, another person (again not me), cooked scratch sauce and made lasagne, put it in the oven and told them to put a teaspoon of dried oregano on top at a certain time. Instead of sprinkling it evenly, they put it in a nice pile right in the middle of the lasagne. The pile caught fire and stunk up the apartment. They scooped out that part and ate the lasagne. Still makes me giggle to this day.

tkins

[lynnie61]

A co worker in the 70's once told us about making a ham dinner for her "new boyfriend" in her new apt. Well that was when hams came in a can, and she called her mother frantic, saying how do you use this key to open it when it is so hot out of the oven? We tormented her for years over that one.

[chickadee]

I once made the most delicious swiss steak on the first try. It should have been after I pounded the heck out of it with the metal tenderizer hammer!

The problem was that I also pounded the heck out of my countertop... it was the first time I made it, so I had flour spread over the whole time I was pounding the steak. I didn't see the counter carnage until clean up time. Thousands of little holes! Word to the wise - always use a cutting board under the tenderizing hammer.

[house cat]

On 4/19/2014 RedTop said:

I have a friend who is the queen of odd recipe substitutions, and kitchen disasters. She made a pineapple upside down cake for a bake sale, and didn't have maraschino cherries to put inside the pineapple rings for decoration, so she used cinnamon red hot candies.... She was in the midst of making hash brown casserole and realized she didn't have any sour cream. Knowing that sour cream was adding moisture and creaminess to the casserole, she passed over substituting logical things like mayonnaise, yogurt, or even cream cheese, and added pistachio pudding! She also made a chocolate sour cream pound cake that had guacamole substituted for the sour cream. NO ONE eats anything she prepares until they ask whether it's made by the original recipe, or has she subtituted......

A few years ago my good friend was telling me that her very, VERY fussy eater husband, wanted egg salad for lunch every day. He was not the nicest guy, very critical of everyone. On this particular day, she ran out of mayo and knew he would berate her for not keeping up with the shopping. She used Cool Whip in his egg salad and thought he wouldn't notice. There must have been some kind of divine intervention that day, because he never mentioned it.

[sciencegeek_1]

I love this thread! I needed a good laugh, and you ladies came through.

When I was first married, I was making potato salad for a picnic with friends, and realized I was out of Miracle Whip. I sent new hubby to the store, and he was gone for a looong time. He came back and told me he looked everywhere before he found it...and he proudly handed me Cool Whip! After laughing so hard I almost peed my pants, I went to the store myself, and was in and out in under 5 minutes.

One of my biggest boo boos was trying to follow a recipe for microwave Chex mix. I didn't look to see what wattage it was for so I could adjust. Mine was way too powerful for the time listed, and I had a fire IN my microwave. I unplugged it quickly, so it stopped venting so there was no air to feed the fire so it died out. But I had smoke pouring through the room and the smoke alarms blaring, and my upstairs neighbor slightly panicky. I had to show her there was no more fire before she calmed down. But I've never tried a microwave version since.