Funny Meal Bloopers and Mess Ups in the Kitchen
Over the years, I have really made some real meal bloopers and mess ups! They make for good stories now, but most of them were pretty bad at the time.
I know I cannot be the only one to have so many mess-ups over the years, so I am hoping you share your food bloopers in the comments!
My Meal Bloopers
Announcement: There is nothing wrong with the recipes I am sharing with you today. They are delicious. These bloopers were all a matter of user error.😂
Homemade Lasagna
When Jay and I had been dating for a few months, he had a momentous birthday (he’s a bit older than I am). I thought it would be really nice to make him an elegant homemade dinner all by myself. After all, I took a homemaking class in 9th grade. It had only been three years – how hard could it be?
My parents left the house, and of course there were no cell phones to call them and get advice. I followed the directions to a T, almost! You can even see my high school notes written on the recipe.
Who knew that they would put part of the directions in the section with the ingredients? I looked and looked in the directions for where it said to boil the noodles, but I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t imagine not boiling the noodles, but I didn’t see it in the directions.
So, “following the directions,” I did not boil the noodles! We had extremely crunchy lasagna for his birthday. I don’t think I made a very good impression as we could only eat the center portion.
Beef Tips & Noodles to Impress My New Father-In-Law
Fast forward almost two years, and I was a newlywed (still without cooking skills). Actually I lacked a lot of skills, but we were happy.
Literally the week after we got married, my father-in-law had a birthday. There was something back then about trying to make a special birthday meal for people that always turned into a disaster.
We had him come over on his lunch hour to have a sit down meal. Jay’s mom, had written out several recipes in a steno pad that were Jay’s favorites. I decided on Beef Tips & Noodles. Even now I have no idea what went wrong.
Jay and I took our first bites together and couldn’t eat another bite. Somehow the flour turned into paste and mixed with the noodles. It was pretty disgusting!
His dad was so gracious and somehow ate all of the pasty mess on his plate. We kept telling him that he would be sick, but he ate every bite! To my knowledge, he never got sick.
Other Family Meal Bloopers
Our Son’s Breakfast Blooper
Our son, Jacob, always enjoyed cooking. He eventually became a really great chef. Once when he was in high school, he decided he wanted to make us homemade waffles. We were all excited, and Jay got the first one. He went ahead and ate most of it before Jacob and I sat down with ours.
Jacob and I took our first bites together and both spit them out at the same time. He had accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder. I guess Jay takes after his dad, because he ate the whole thing, not wanting to hurt Jacob’s feelings.
A Cousin’s Birthday Cake Blooper
We went to eat with Jay’s family recently. One of his cousins was telling the story of how he made his wife a special cake for her birthday. (There is that birthday thing again!)
I imagine he had a beautiful cake in mind with delicious cream cheese frosting on top. Best thoughts and plans!
When the recipe told him to separate the egg whites, he was baffled. The only way he could think to separate them was to boil them. LOL!!! He did boil the eggs and separate them. If I heard correctly, someone came in and stopped him before he added them into the batter. His sister-in-law called him a real live Amelia Bedelia!
The meal bloopers and mess ups we have experienced over the years are fun to look back on and laugh. They have given us wisdom and built our character with a big dose of humility. Isn’t that the way all of our bloopers in life work? Please share your meal bloopers in the comments so we can all get a good laugh.
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Related Posts
There have been many other mishaps, too many to tell. Here is another post I wrote about our wedding and honeymoon. These weren’t food bloopers, but they were bad in other ways.
Looking back at all of these experiences, I am not sure how we ever made it. I was very young but thought I was grown. The Lord was the only way we made it through!
Enjoy the mess ups!
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“Our mouths were filled with laughter then, and our tongues with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’” Psalm 126:2
I feel totally normal now, Susan! I am TERRIBLE in the kitchen. I barely even try anymore because it’s been so bad. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set off the smoke alarm from trying to make very basic things like bacon and eggs or black bean quesadillas. I love to bake though so that is my saving grace but the littles thank me all the time when I take them out to eat now ha ha. Sending you hugs for a happy week, CoCo
That’s funny! My specialty is boiling tea. It ALWAYS boils all over the stove! I left out the time I was experimenting with a new recipe that included tomatoes and peanut butter. I thought I was brave for branching out, but in the end I wasn’t calling it brave. Lol!
Oh…how sweet to have loved ones who will eat even our biggest bloopers. Even clean their plate! Loved your stories – and love that you still have the hand-written recipes!
Thank you! I have no idea how they are it! 😂
Oh that is too funny! Having grown up cooking a lot with my mom I rarely have meal bloopers– but I’m also really bad at following a recipe and will use my own judgement for things instead. Though there are times where a cake or bread doesn’t bake all the way or I overcook a meal and it just doesn’t taste good. My husband’s aunt has some of the best bloopers stories but she’s just one of those amazing storytellers anyway.
I would love to hear some of her blooper stories. I bet they are hilarious!
I’ve never been a particularly good cook, but thankfully I don’t think I’ve had any meal disasters that were completely inedible – not seasoned right or a little under or overdone usually – but I still feel so inadequate and stupid when I’ve messed something up. The worst was recently when I made a couple of batches of homemade bread that seemed far too dense and didn’t rise as much as I had expected. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong until I decided to proof my yeast – yep, it was dead. I’d never had to proof before! I bought fresh yeast and my bread was perfectly risen and fluffy. Simple fix! Thanks for this fun post and reminder that none of us are perfect!
Eventually I have learned to laugh about any bloopers. I wasn’t laughing at the time. I’m glad your bread turned out well. I’ve never had a lot of luck with fresh bread.
I love trying old recipes they my grandma used to make. I’ve made my own fair share of mistakes too.
I love the old family recipes also! They are my favorites!
We all make food bloopers. I will not get into detail, but believe me over many years, I also have had many of those. You look, look again and when in a rush just miss that one vital piece of information and blooper here I am.
Thank you for visiting us and sharing your links at Senior Salon Pit Stop. I trust that we will see you now on a regular basis. Thanks again and welcome.
That is exactly how it happens! I enjoyed seeing all the links. I will definitely be back next time.
So true to life! Thank you for sharing with Senior Salon Pit Stop #255! I hope to see you again this Monday! This post is one of my features, thank you.
How exciting! Thank you so much!!
Susan, I’ve got to tell you I was chuckling with tears in my eyes. Me and cooking bloopers seem to be a team. It’s just me in the house now and cooking for one is so hard. Then when I see something on Pinterest that catches my eye and try to make something new, oh boy look out. Sometimes when I try it I’m like oh no I cannot eat that. Lol.
Thank you bunches for sharing this with Sweet Tea & Friends this month.
Lol!! They may not be edible, but they make great stories! 😂
They sure do. Lol.
Again thank you so much for your entry at SSPS. You will be our feature of the week this coming Monday at SSPS 257. See you again.
Thank you so much!!! That is so exciting! 😊
I told my sons when they began to cook for themselves NOT to be discouraged if things went wrong sometimes–because everyone who cooks has a few disaster stories. 🙂 One of my worst was when I made beef teriyaki. The last step was to mix a little cornstarch with water and add it in to thicken the sauce. But this time I accidentally grabbed baking soda instead. The sauce started foaming and overflowing the pan like a science fair volcano. I poured it all out, rinsed the meat off, and made the sauce again from scratch, with corn starch this time. But even with rinsing, the meat was so salty from the baking soda we couldn’t eat it. What’s worse is that I could never make it again because we associated that extra-salty taste with it.
That is too funny!!! I’m sure it was sickening at the time though. 😂
I messed up some mac n’ cheese maybe during the first 5 years of marriage. Heard about it for the next 10, as he would never even want to try it again. Luckily that was over 35 years ago, and he’s finally forgotten! Haha
LOL!!! You will have to share your mac & cheese story with me.
I still use hand-written recipes from my dad. He loves to cook and bake and at 83 still does. Not sure why he never taught me. When I got married I didn’t even know how to boil water, so Robert did all the cooking. Thanks for the enjoyable stories. A great way to start my day.
That is exactly how it was for us! Most of the times I did cook, turned out to be disasters!!!😂 My dad still does a lot of cooking as well.