Anyone else ever have a food blunder that you fixed and made it even better? Me, me! And just today! I had the meat thawed for Soft Tacos tonight. Figured I'd make the meat mixture early and just heat it later... only I couldn't remember buying a taco seasoning packet yesterday. Drat! I was right... it was on my list, but I forgot it. Had to look for a recipe for homemade taco season.. made it, and it smells exactly the same. Luckily I had all 8 spices... #9 was cayenne which I didn't have but was optional. I buy the lower sodium packet, but this will have even less, so I think I'll not be buying pre-packaged any more. What's your biggest kitchen mishap that turned out great?
Unfortunately, many of my try to fix it up meals didn't pan out and ended up in the trash. But I did remember this: I was making a quick meal of Hamburger Helper. Meat browned and water, noodles already in skillet. I reached for the box to get the cheese packet and saw that it was white instead of yellow. What!? I looked at the box and it was Tuna Helper. Disgusted I said, 'Johnny will eat it he eats everything.' Sure enough he ate it and came back for seconds with no complaints at all. I never said anything about the mistake.
What a wonderful story, @Von Jones ! It took me a long time to realize that recipes can be changed and altered (whether on purpose or by accident) and still turn out great or sometimes even better. Did Johnny ever request a repeat of it?
I haven't experienced goofs in the kitchen but I can tell of kitchen disasters if you want, hahahaaah. My fist failure was cooking rice using a casserole. We had no rice cooker yet and the only thing I could find was the casserole so I cooked rice using it, unknowing that rice would stick on the bottom of the casserole. There is a pot particularly for the rice and I got to know it after that big disaster. Fortunately now that the rice cooker is a standard in homes, maybe I have no more problem in cooking rice.
I think your rice situation probably qualifies as a kitchen disaster, @Corie Henson . Thank you for sharing your story! I have never owned a rice cooker and I've (luckily) not had a rice disaster yet making it the way I do. Hmmm.... now that I think of it, I hope I won't have to eat those words tomorrow... I'm making Jambalaya for Mardi Gras and I'm hoping my good luck with rice continues!
I happen to be one of those cooks that just puts stuff together and it turns out good. I can never repeat the exact meal because I never remember what I put in the first one. I like to create meals, right now I am making vegetable soup to use up a large amount of carrots my daughter purchased. I make cookies from what ever is in the kitchen, one of my favorites is to use a container of cake frosting mix in some peanut butter and make really good cookies.
Just a little disaster of not having pizza dough. I love pizza and so does my Mom. We buy the frozen ones all the time like Red Baron's french bread pizza. I doctor it up with string cheese, more pepperoni and regular cheese that I buy for cheese sandwiches. I also buy the very inexpensive generic pop open biscuits on sale. I wanted to eat pizza and did not have pizza dough or old bread, but had the pop open biscuits. I wondered if I could make a pizza out of the pop open biscuits. I opened the biscuits and placed it in my cast iron pot and hoped it turns out okay. I was slowly browning the biscuits and wondered if I should turn them over for making the pizza cook through and through. I decided to flatten the biscuits out thinner. Improvised with leftover spaghetti sauce, string cheese and packaged cheese and pepperoni on top. It turned out pretty good considering I did not have pizza dough. The next time I'll toast my pepperoni in my toaster oven before I top it on my improvised pizza.