Describe your worst cook

GrateEggspectations

Mine: When I was in my early 20s, my wife and I had both our immediate families (about 20 people) over for pork ribs in celebration of my birthday. I had never made ribs before and followed a recipe that referenced time, and not temperature as the barometer for doneness. Served ‘em up according to recipe specs. Seeing the bones and half eaten ribs on people’s plates as I was clearing dishes, it was painfully obvious that some ribs were quite severely underdone - still pink in some sections and featuring flesh that stuck firmly on the bone. I still shudder when I think about that gathering. I hope that I have come a long way. 

paqman

That steak:

JethroBodeen

Somebody else would have to describe it because I don't remember any of it!

JohnInCarolina

I tried to cook a pizza in the BGE at 900 degrees F, using a dough that had sugar in it.

The bottom of the crust was blacker than Mickey’s wings.

sumoconnell

I won a small bet amongst some friends, bought a bunch of prime steaks and threw a dinner party. I just got the egg, so we’re all excited and I’ve got the miraculous cooker.  I even had a (single) ribeye on it earlier in the week and told everyone, it’s good stuff. Got it fired up to about 450, threw them all on at once and they just barely fit on the grate, nicely packed tight. 

Why is the temp dropping?!?  Ouch.  I didn’t figure it out during the cook, we ate grey steaks that tasted like gasoline. Plenty of leftovers. Dogs were happy for days. 

SaltySam

Seventh grade Home Economics, we made apple cinnamon muffins.  The recipe called for something like 1.5 cups of sugar and a tsp of salt.  Somehow I swapped those.  I knew it immediately but kept going anyway.  Mrs Extrum visibly gagged when she sampled my finished product. 

JohnInCarolina

SaltySam said:

Seventh grade Home Economics, we made apple cinnamon muffins.  The recipe called for something like 1.5 cups of sugar and a tsp of salt.  Somehow I swapped those.  I knew it immediately but kept going anyway.  Mrs Extrum visibly gagged when she sampled my finished product. 

I like how this story explains your forum handle. 

Acn

Temp got away from me on an overnight brisket.  Woke up to it cruising away at 475, couldn’t even salvage anything the dog would eat.

Only upside was it left plenty of time to get something else out of the freezer to cook for dinner.

jdMyers

Atempted to rotisserie a whole duck on a propane gas grill.  No drip pan.  No experience.  Everyone said a duck was greasy.  No one said that the grill would catch fire, let alone three times.  Look liked the duck was in an airplane crash it was so incinerated and char burned.  Nearly burnt down the deck.  The funny part was I was trying to impress someone.  Sprinkled some finish salt and cut it open.  Dayum thing was still alive on the inside.  Horrible mistake.  Horrible
  Now i listem to my elders amd ask questions.   What do you mean greasy and what do you suggest??  Cause the grease was squirting out of that duck at the rotisserie prongs like it was straight gasoline on the fire.

SciAggie

@jdMyers I can see that in my mind. Great story. 

vb4677

Pre-COVID we used to get together with about 5-6 couples almost monthly and pick a global cuisine that we'd all attempt a dish from.  So, it was authentic Mexican month, and I decided to use the Joetisserie to make traditional pork tacos al pastor.  I even went to the local mercadito for all of the spices and chiles.  Figured this was a make-ahead type of meal so I marinated the pork overnight in fresh blended pineapple and spices. Smelled and looked heavenly.

Oh, the embarrassment and panic when I went to open the BGE in front of the guys and see an empty spit with the main protein in a gooey pile burning on the coals...

I mean, c'mon, who knew that 20+ hours of pineapple marinade would cause the pork to disintegrate?

Gulfcoastguy

You can’t prove it! (83 pound Boxers are good at getting rid of evidence)

1voyager

@jdMyers - I tried roasting a whole duck. Same result as you had: horrible. There was a lot of stinky smoke. I was surprised that the smoke alarms didn't go off. The odor was worse when I used the self-cleaning option to get the slimy grease out of the oven!

JohnInCarolina

Some of these are really painful, in no small part because I can completely imagine doing them myself.  

onpoint456

Wasn't my cook but I was partially culpable.

When I was a kid, my dad decided to cook a suckling pig on his relatively new offset smoker for Christmas dinner. The smoker was a cheap one you get from the big box stores, it didn't seal very well and we didn't have any of the necessary tools (pit/meat probe, hear deflector, etc).

We had no idea on how long it would take, and after struggling with temp control for hours and growing hungry family/guests we decided to start throwing firewood in the box.

Thick white smoke billowed from the smoker for an hour, we pulled the pig (it didn't look half bad) and served. Needless to say, it smelled and tasted like a fireplace. Plenty of leftovers.

Battleborn

Much like onpoint’s story. The day after our wedding, my in-laws invited my family over for a BBQ. It was monsoon season in Houston and that morning my FIL advised me that I was going to be doing the cooking. He said I had to know how to feed his daughter edible BBQ of our marriage was going to last. It certainly wasn’t the fact that it was dropping inches of rain every few hours. 

He too had a cheap side box smoker from Walmart. Ribs, chicken and sausage was on the menu. Needless to say, the food wasn’t great and I was wet. But that is still one of my favorite memories from my FIL. 

Legume

Battleborn said:

Much like onpoint’s story. The day after our wedding, my in-laws invited my family over for a BBQ. It was monsoon season in Houston and that morning my FIL advised me that I was going to be doing the cooking. He said I had to know how to feed his daughter edible BBQ of our marriage was going to last. It certainly wasn’t the fact that it was dropping inches of rain every few hours. 

He too had a cheap side box smoker from Walmart. Ribs, chicken and sausage was on the menu. Needless to say, the food wasn’t great and I was wet. But that is still one of my favorite memories from my FIL. 

That’s a true FIL pro-move.  They have a way of doing that.

JohnInCarolina

Legume said:

Battleborn said:

Much like onpoint’s story. The day after our wedding, my in-laws invited my family over for a BBQ. It was monsoon season in Houston and that morning my FIL advised me that I was going to be doing the cooking. He said I had to know how to feed his daughter edible BBQ of our marriage was going to last. It certainly wasn’t the fact that it was dropping inches of rain every few hours. 

He too had a cheap side box smoker from Walmart. Ribs, chicken and sausage was on the menu. Needless to say, the food wasn’t great and I was wet. But that is still one of my favorite memories from my FIL. 

That’s a true FIL pro-move.  They have a way of doing that.

Yeah I was thinking I might have to steal this for when my daughters get married, lol.  

Battleborn

Legume said:

Battleborn said:

Much like onpoint’s story. The day after our wedding, my in-laws invited my family over for a BBQ. It was monsoon season in Houston and that morning my FIL advised me that I was going to be doing the cooking. He said I had to know how to feed his daughter edible BBQ of our marriage was going to last. It certainly wasn’t the fact that it was dropping inches of rain every few hours. 

He too had a cheap side box smoker from Walmart. Ribs, chicken and sausage was on the menu. Needless to say, the food wasn’t great and I was wet. But that is still one of my favorite memories from my FIL. 

That’s a true FIL pro-move.  They have a way of doing that.

Keep in mind, I was born and raised in Idaho, so my idea of BBQ was burgers and dogs on a propane grill. A 22 year old Navy bachelor, I could cook packaged ramen and Hot Pockets. 

It certainly was an experience. It built character, I suppose. 

RRP

Mine was 21 years ago as a newbie egger. It was a omelet-like egg dish for a Sunday brunch. The recipe called for heating the pan using 1 quart of water in it which I did and then I added the raw eggs, veggies and diced ham. After nearly an hour that pan with all that floating mess was just that - a sick looking pot of puke! I ended up throwing it out and we just had a breakfast of toast! THEN I re-read the recipe - I was supposed to dump out that quart of water after warming the pot!

lousubcap

I have had my share of "worst cooks" but the worst (and most expensive) was when I had the LBGE fired up, dome open, temp around 400*F and shutting the bottom vent to get a nice bed of coals for a paella cook.  Upon nudging it shut the last 1/4-1/8" I encountered some resistance.  Pushed a bit harder and the BGE toppled over, off the porch and partially into a flower bed about 18" below.  What didn't find the bed found the concrete patio and that was all she wrote.  Salvaged the base (flowers to the rescue) and fire ring.  
I wasn't even close to LEO at the time.  Good thing as I grabbed the close by hose and got the lump extinguished.  Creatively managed to execute the cook on the SBGE!

lkapigian

To many to mention, if you're not making mistakes , you're not cooking enough....

I have done @Mickey wings 5o a brisket and steak.....forgot to account for salt in several items added in a chili cook off and many many more 

jdsmithii

About ten years ago, in my pre-BGE days, I had finished smoking a full rack of spares on my cheap old offset. I was bringing them upstairs to eat when I tripped and dropped them in the driveway. We brought them upstairs, cleaned them as best we could, and still ate them. The were a bit...gritty.

Around the same time, the wife, who does not like to cook, decided she wanted to make authentic tiramisu. Unfortunately, she misread the recipe, switching the amounts of the brandy and the coffee. We ended up with a tiramisu that, one slice, would get you a DWI.

Canugghead

SaltySam said:

Seventh grade Home Economics, we made apple cinnamon muffins.  The recipe called for something like 1.5 cups of sugar and a tsp of salt.  Somehow I swapped those.  I knew it immediately but kept going anyway.  Mrs Extrum visibly gagged when she sampled my finished product. 

Haha I can totally relate to that.

Eons ago I was a foreign student across the big pond, moonlighting at a restaurant and a bakery. First week on the job at the restaurant I was asked to refill all the sugar jars, guess what went in?   

Canugghead

Great thread.
Way back when even before my George Foreman grill days IIRC, I bought this latest/greatest multi-program Panasonic combination microwave. Decided to cook a whole turkey unattended on timer and left home for apple picking. Came back hours later and the gobbler was just starting to char and smoke.  Actually it was edible after removing the skin, but oh boy I could have burned down the house 

loco_engr

SciAggie

I remember well my first cook in a camp oven. I was at deer camp with some buddies a loooooong time ago. I wanted to cook biscuits for breakfast. 

At home my mom preheated the oven and put a little Crisco in the baking dish to melt before adding the whopper biscuits. 

So.... I preheated the oven for about 10 minutes. I added a little Crisco... and then added the biscuits. I cooked for 10 minutes just like at home. Of course I had NO idea how many coals to add - so I loaded ‘er up...

When I lifted the lid I had THE most beautiful black, fried hockey pucks you ever saw in your life. COMPLETELY inedible. 

I’ve had many failures over the years and cooks that were not what I had envisioned. This may be the one though that sticks out in my mind the most. 

Edit: I have to add that these were some of the best days of my life. Back in those days none of the ranchers leased for hunting. Me and a couple of friends had (literally) 70,000 acres to roam as we pleased. We’d spend a week of Christmas break (still in HS) sleeping in the back of a pickup and eating sandwiches. We hunted and roamed a lot of country. We had no clue what a deer blind was. We stalked - and sat - staked out water holes.  I had my uncle’s old Savage model 99 with a 4X Weaver scope in .250-3000. I killed a pile of deer with that old rifle. I wish I had known then what a gift that was. 

Botch

First semester out of the college dorms, I "winged" a recipe as my roommate had a late afternoon class (he usually cooked).  A pan of fish sticks, I added a tablespoon of white wine to each 'stick.  Then thin slices of cheese (Velveeta), and I drained a small can of sliced mushrooms over the top.  It smelled okay when I took it out of the oven.
Roommate took a couple of bites, looked at me, and said "Don't you EVER make this again!"    
 
I got better. [/Monty Python]  

Corv

Used the medium Egg to grill ten pounds of Hatch chiles. Took 'em inside to cut open and remove the stems and seeds. I used the faucet to wash the seeds off. Took like partway to forever to do that for some reason. Found out that I'd done a decent job of washing the smoke flavor off the chiles. Most of these went into the trash.

SaltySam

JohnInCarolina said:

SaltySam said:

Seventh grade Home Economics, we made apple cinnamon muffins.  The recipe called for something like 1.5 cups of sugar and a tsp of salt.  Somehow I swapped those.  I knew it immediately but kept going anyway.  Mrs Extrum visibly gagged when she sampled my finished product. 

I like how this story explains your forum handle. 

Oh man, the real story is way more embarrassing!  

Canugghead

SaltySam said:

JohnInCarolina said:

SaltySam said:

Seventh grade Home Economics, we made apple cinnamon muffins.  The recipe called for something like 1.5 cups of sugar and a tsp of salt.  Somehow I swapped those.  I knew it immediately but kept going anyway.  Mrs Extrum visibly gagged when she sampled my finished product. 

I like how this story explains your forum handle. 

Oh man, the real story is way more embarrassing!  

I just bumped this thread, help yourself 
https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/778040/handle-names/p1