ever have a bad cook?

WileECoyote

The forum and recipe sites are full of exotic concoctions, bright colorful photos that are good enough to eat, and lots of celebratory meals fit for a king. I have to admit that almost everything on the egg has turned out great, yet I just had a meal go bad recently and I thought it would be a good idea to share it so others can learn what not to do.

I started with a mix of large green and orange peppers and removed the stems / seeds. Mixed up 2 lbs. of ground beef, 2 eggs, chili beans in hot pepper sauce, and various spices. Stuffed the peppers with the mix and set them in a ceramic-coated dutch oven with some pizza sauce in the bottom of the pot. Cooked indirect at about 290 for 90 minutes then topped with a mix of 5 shredded cheeses and smoked lightly with mesquite for another 30 minutes.

They looked awesome but tasted absolutely horrible. They would probably have been a lot better with just 1 egg and no beans, or at least some different beans and without the pepper sauce. I thought this would add heat but instead the beans turned mushy and the pepper sauce tasted like a weak spoiled tomato soup. No heat at all. I tried to save it by adding some hot pepper spices at the end, which did add spice but not enough to cover up the bad taste. I only ate 2 small peppers and had to feed the rest to the outdoor critters.

So what have you made that turned out bad? Sharing a disaster might save someone else from wasting good food on the egg...

mad max beyond eggdome

sure stuff turns out bad. . ..one time i made beef kabobs. ..overcooked the crap out of them . . . i knew i was in trouble when the spawn reached for the bottle of ketchup .. . after the second unchewable bite, we pitched the whole mess and i made a bee-line for mcdonalds. . . .

always remember my favorite saying

"if everything was great. .it would all be average" :woohoo:

Car Wash Mike

Heck yes. I bought a small Boston butt for pulled pork. No, no, and a big no. Get the biggest ones you can find.
I still finished 28th out of 40th though.

Mike

Susan Egglaine

Hot dog buns? I think the picture speaks! :laugh:

Eggtucky

hahaha Susan!..those are wonderfully horrible!..thanks for sharing that!..for me it was one of my first pizzas..didn't get pix cuzz I was too busy flinging it out the back door!..the crust stuck and I was trying to get it unstuck before it was done...most of the topping fell off into the egg and made a horrible smell (had to completely clean the egg, reload lump and do a clean burn)..by the time I got the whole mess off the stone..it looked like some sort of mutant stromboli!!..ugh!!..

Mike in Abita

More than I'm willing to share on an open forum :woohoo:

WileECoyote

Great pic Susan! They may not look much like hot dog buns but they still look like pretty decent bread... if not for you then maybe for the backyard birds... :-)

I did take a pic of the horrible stuffed peppers but then I was so disgusted by the result that I deleted it. I wouldn't have wished those on a death row inmate!

I also forgot to report that my first brisket was terrible. It was a 4-lb. corned beef brisket which had all kind of nasty solution injected from the factory. I was hoping the egg would transform it into a succulent morsel of fork-tender beef but instead it came out tasting like salty shoe leather which had been dunked in ocean seaweed. I haven't had the nerve to try a real brisket since then... still working to perfect my pulled pork and ribs first...

Grandpas Grub

Corned beef brisket if for Corned Beef/Pastrami and when done corectly it is fantastic. Especaill good for making pastrami burgers. Some of the best food the egg can produce.

GG

Celtic Wolf

83rd in Ribs.. 84 teams nuff' said!!

I tried to make a recipe for hamburgers I saw on one of Paula Dean's shows. They were good, but could have been even better.

Smaller burgers and raise the pizza stone off the platesetter so the puff pastry doesn't get extra crispy.

Car Wash Mike

Hopefully we can work on that.



Mike

Celtic Wolf

I have convinced my self to try your suggestion. My ribs are really good, however, they still tank. What have I got to lose..

Now if I DAL my ribs at Tryon I am coming after you :woohoo:

Car Wash Mike

One more spot, 84th. :woohoo: Lets talk before that comp. Pete.

Mike

dhuffjr

I cooked a brisket flat once direct.....don't know what I was thinking.......I could have sent to Leroy for him to use as a paver for the chicken coup.

Burned my share of pizzas.

Torched a couple steaks one one side trying to "sear" them. I've since decided that sear equals burn and just cook them the way I enjoy them.......not burnt....

Made some baby back rib jerky once........

I've oversmoked a couple things too.

You cook enough and your going to tank a few.....and I'm pretty confident on my cooking.

Car Wash Mike

Didn't have chance to respond on your weekend. Pig Candy, man I cooked a lot for my nephews Super Bowl party.
How is my little rib painter doing? I'm sure not much trouble.

Mike

Frank from Houma

My first is still my worst. Trexed a couple rib eyes. Didn't wait for the bad smoke to go away and on top of that put way too much hickory. Got my first flashback and fried my gasket. Whooooaaa Bubba. Dropped back 10 yards and punted :woohoo: .

Essex County

I've had a few bad cooks but the worst was my attempt to make a peach cobbler after a spatchcocked chicken. The cobbler looked great but tasted like sooty chicken grease.

Another time I used a pyrex dish as a barrier for an indirect cook. Use your imagination.

Paul

stike

they can't all be gems.
here's a forgotten hot dog.

stike

hahaha
i forgot about that copyright notice.

(for the newbies to the forum, there was a big broo-ha-ha 'round here once when someone posted someone-else's pic. ashortly after that there was a spate of copyright notice panic with people adding the notice to their pics.)

stike

never try to deglaze a pyrex pan. in the electric oven. on easter. after you've had a bunch of wine. while your sister in-law is standing there watching all-knowingly and told-you-so-ingly.

WileECoyote

Hillarious dog pic, copyright and all. I had a few forgotten dogs myself - just chucked them over into the woods for the critters to feast on. Didn't have the heart to take a macro photo, let alone copyright and post! :-)

dhuffjr

Both of them are in rare form......today is the last day of school and with my mom and Dorothy up to visit they are wound tight. We call Dorothy Matthews friend Dorothy because a couple years ago when he was 3/4 he told everyone this is MY friend Dorothy

I did pig candy twice. Once with straight brown sugar and once using the splenda brown sugar blend. The splenda substitute turned out really good. I tried some last year made with another sugar free brown sugar I think and it tasted too "diet" to me.

I'm going on six weeks of diet soda though so I'm becoming used to the nasty taste :S

WileECoyote

After you get used to diet soda it is hard to go back. I used to despise it and couldn't even drink a few ounces of diet coke but now I can't drink anything except for diet. The sweetened drinks just taste horrible - too much sugar which masks the true flavors. If I accidentally get the wrong drink in restaurants I usually smell all the sugar from a distance or choke on it in the first gulp.

I find the same is true of hot peppers and beer: both acquired tastes which you stick with for life once you get used to them.