What's the most disasterous dinner you've ever tried to serve?

I spilled a pot of beef stew down the side of my leg; dinner was interrupted while I went to Doc’s for treatment of 2nd degree burns. I still have faint scars.

I once had my husband’s entire office over for dinner, and it wasn’t until I started putting things in the oven that I realized that all 7 dishes I prepared, needed to be in the oven at the same time. I only have one oven. To top it all off, butter leaked onto the bottom of the oven, filling the house with smoke, and setting off the smoke alarm. I stayed in the kitchen and drank by myself, while I waited for things to finish.

Second is the thanksgiving that I sliced open my thumb and had to go to the emergency room for stitches. there was no one else to cook, and 15 people coming for dinner.

my dinners all come off pretty well. but when i was 9, i made peanut butter cookies, but misread tspn for tablespoon, and added far too much salt and baking soda.

let’s just say those cookies didn’t get eaten.

I tried to make this stupid chicken stuffed thing and it exploded all over my oven and it never looked the same again haha

@eponymoushipster Bad cookies are a crime!

@avvooooooo i was 9. what can i say? now i cook like a champ.

My meals work out pretty good, but one Thanksgiving,, I put the pie in the oven without noticing Hubby had stashed the roasting pan there after taking out the roast.

The grease burst into flames, and the fire department had to come. Only the built-in double oven and part of the kitchen were damaged.

The feast was in the dining room, well out of the way of the excitement.

I volunteered at a church one time. We had to serve dinner to a large crowd of people. My job was to carry food items to the table. Mashed potatoes and gravy were on the menu. I noticed a tiny bit of gravy on the handle of the gravy boat, but continued on unbothered by it. As I carried it to the table I began to feel it slip due to the gravy. I hurriedly tried to set it on the table but it was too late. A whole boat full of hot gravy now lay on the lap of one of the women attending the dinner. She screamed but was not injured. I felt like committing seppuku. The lady was quite understanding, considering I just ruined her beautiful blue dress and her whole night at the dinner party.

I never again volunteered my services as a waiter.

There’s a dish called Plov I’m particularly proud to make and attempted last month. It calls for thinly sliced matchstick sized carrots and other diced vegies which I normally have no problem doing. So, add in way too much Crown Royal and a super sharp chef’s knife and I slice the tip of one of my fingers open, more like sliced a piece off since what was hanging had no chance of being stitched up. I go into shock when I see myself bleed and my host had no bandages in his place so I had to instruct him how to snip & clean the owie, make a fabric bandage and tie it with some string. All the while I’m in shock and starting to mutter so he gives me a Xanax and after that I don’t remember anything except waking up the next day and seeing a crusted pot with sticky yucky burned all over the inside and outside. He didn’t let me cook anything until a few nights ago and there was fear in his face :D

i lurve me some plov. without fingertip, of course. or raisins.

I once made a huge dinner and a giant yummy cheesecake for my boyfriend who was coming over that night. When he got there, we got in a huge fight and we broke up. I was so upset, I threw all the food out. Although I really wished I hadn’t thrown out the cheesecake later when I was all sad and crying.. I probably could have eaten the entire thing.

I was preparing a dinner party for a bunch of relatives by marriage that I did not know. There were hungry children. Dinner was finally ready. It was a giant crock pot of spaghetti.

I set it on the table and people went up to begin serving, and the dining table collapsed spilling hot spaghetti sauce everywhere.

We ordered pizza.

@eponymoushipster: I make green plov also but no raisins, they make me nervous

@hungryhungryhortence please send me some. with fatty chunks of lamb. nomtastic!

I saw this recipe in a Bobby Flay cookbook for grilled, butterflied whole chicken. Like a trained chef, I beautifully butterflied the chicken. It was then rubbed with various seasonings and set in the fridge to marinate. Then, following the recipe directions, I found two bricks and wrapped them in heavy-duty aluminum foil. When I was ready to cook the chicken, I preheated the grill, put the chicken on, and then placed the bricks on top of the chicken.

I’m not really sure what the bricks were supposed to accomplish. However, it was pretty obvious after a little while that the chicken had caught on fire. It was burnt to a crisp but completely raw inside. We ordered pizza.

What’s really sad is that I was so entranced by the idea of using those damn bricks that I actually tried the recipe a second time. I made sure the flame wasn’t too high on the grill. I watched the temperature gauge carefully. I wanted to belive that Bobby Flay knew what he was talking about when he wrote that recipe. Imagine my surprise when, once again, the chicken burst into flames. That time, we ordered Chinese.

My husband now forbids me to cook with bricks.

The turtle gumbo I made one year was pretty bad, and the recipe I was given for my Easter rabbit dinner this past Spring didn’t turn out very well either. it’s probably a good thing I can’t remember who it was on Fluther than gave me the rabbit recipe.

From now on, I am sticking to my tried-and-true recipes. All exotic meats will be oven roasted, and burgers and fish are going on the grill.

As a teenager I made Thanksgivng dinner and didn’t know to take the dressing out of the bird right away. I brought the whole family to their knees.

I made a birthday cake for my now ex-. It was during the summer when we, my and his kids (5 under 14) were together in a summer lake house. After I put the 45 candles in the cake, I hid it in the oven. Later, having been distracted by the five kids, I turned the oven on. Frosting became layered with wax. Cake became embedded.

I have an ex-boyfriend that is Jewish… so Passover rolls around and I offer to have the Seder. Like a good girlfriend in training to be the wife (or so I thought)I followed ALL the Passover rules, cleaning the house, etc… and then set about making dinner. I had this great recipe for Gefilte Fish by Jeff Smith, I took great pains to make sure I had all the ingredients, etc. the only thing I didn’t notice in the recipe is that it’s to be served cold….

I served up steaming hot bowls of Gefilte fish in broth, and nobody knew what the heck it was supposed to be!

I was MORTIFIED! Everyone got a good laugh that night (well… except me of course!)

I once tried to make spinach soup—as a ‘healthy’ dish.

Unfortunately, the recipe asks for you to put the spinach in the blender with the hot broth.

There were no admonitions against using a blender with ridiculously hot (just boiled) food.

So the pressure built up and exploded, forcing the lid of the blender off and badly burning my arm. I still have the scars.

(Soup was good, though.)

@evegrimm Ouch!

Last night the olive oil I was heating in order to brown a roast caught on fire.

That was…interesting.

@Darwin Roast flambe! I’ve been there.

@Darwin, As I recently found out in cooking class, and you found out through experience, olive oil should not be used to brown meat, as it has a lower burning point than canola or vegetable oil. Also, make sure the meat is dry, or it will not brown.

@PandoraBoxx But I was out of canola oil and that and olive oil are the only two we are allowed to use. And I have often done it before successfully. I just got distracted. And yes, the meat is dry when I go to brown it, and it did brown successfully, even with the fire.