Thanksgiving disasters (funny only in hindsight)
Just moments before guests arrive.....
**The recipe says to blend the gravy so I put it in the food processor and it leaks through allover the counter down the cabinets and onto the floor and its HOT! So I scream to my husband to grab the blender and turn the whole leaking food processor (still attached to the base and plugged in) upside down and pour the gravy in the blender. We clean up the mess.
**Then I turn the blender on and that's right, its too full and spills out allover the place. That's where I say F-it and pull out the strainer. Who needs neck meat and onions anyway?
**I get back to the stove and realize i was supposed to use the same pan but already dumped it and had no butter mixture to pour my flour into (clocks ticking) so I grab a lump of butter and melt it in a new pan, add the flour and its really dry so I dump some canola oil into it (saw Rachael Ray do that once). It turned out okay. And nobody knew it happened.
**They also missed me carving (read butchering) the turkey. I have watched many videos, had a chef personally show me me how, had my knives professionally sharpened and can't seem to carve a turkey to save my life! The breasts are okay but the limbs never behave like they do in the videos and the meat ends up in shreds. ( I HAVE to do this before guests arrive) I put it on a platter nicely arranged with pretty kale and sage leaves and it tasted great (thanks to Alton Brown)
**I also baked Brie in a ramekin (bought a wedge instead of a round by mistake) and topped it with cranberry sauce. I guess the cold sauce cooled the brie and it was very rubbery. There were other cheeses, crackers, apples, grapes, spiced nuts, olives etc so it was okay.
**I also made enough food to feed an army. I put the food on big platters and I think they were to big and too heavy to pass around the table.
**Today I'm realizing that i left out saltine crackers from the Paula Deen cornbread stuffing recipe I made. Oops.
**Next year the plan is to simplify!
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
21 Comments:
the only disaster was we had out dishes on the table tuesday and the dog chased the cat. well cat jumped on table skidded and knocked everything on the floor. only 4survived, chipped but whole. was supposed to buy new ones but forgot to. so when it was time to pull out the dishes for the meal, we had to use some small platters i have from my grandmother. nobody battered an eyelash. they just piled on the food and ate.
dearrie at 7:45PM on 11/28/08
Bad kitty!!
buffy at 7:59PM on 11/28/08
bad indeed.
dearrie at 8:31PM on 11/28/08
@dearrie - Bad kitty??? It was clearly the dog's fault! (I'm glad everything worked out okay.)
producestories at 9:54PM on 11/28/08
Quite true. The phrase "bad kitty", however, is used often in our house so it immediately sprang to mind.
Can't say we had any disasters. I suppose I should've given my kitties some tuna for a special treat, though.
buffy at 11:46PM on 11/28/08
My boyfriend's father didn't make gravy. When I saw he was bringing the turkey to the table and hadn't touched the pan, I asked if he wanted me to start the gravy. "Nah, we don't need gravy." he said. I was flustered and didn't want to commandeer someone's kitchen, but gravy is seriously important to my Thanksgiving meal!!! I sort of feel like I didn't have Thanksgiving.
marzipanda at 12:43AM on 11/29/08
Oh the gravy story now that would piss me off, why didn't he want gravy?
pjracz10 at 2:59AM on 11/29/08
usually it is the dogs, but this time it was the cat, got a new bag of catnip and the guys thought it would be funny to put some on the dogs.
dearrie at 9:30AM on 11/29/08
See, I knew it - - the cat probably aggrevated the dogs in the first place. :^)
Worse disaster, my SIL's pie crust. As the old saying goes, you could use it for manhole covers; luckily the apples taste yummy!
bubbamom at 10:38AM on 11/29/08
that's where they got the idea for frisbee's
dearrie at 10:45AM on 11/29/08
Woops, I posted this on the wrong post:
I didn't realize that a turkey had a top and bottom - I just thought the front and back mattered.....
When you take it out of the cooking bag and try to carve it and there is no meat, do not panic - I speak from experience.
When your mother comes in and discovers what you have done and flips the bird over and it the most delicious turkey ever created because the juices have run down onto the breast the whole time, you will then be named the Queen of Thanksgiving!
floridayaya at 11:22AM on 11/29/08
My father in law (who is a professional chef!) once mistook powdered sugar for flour when he made gravy. We are still making fun of him for it 5 years later.
missjess at 11:35AM on 11/29/08
I once thought it would be great fun to bake the Thanksgiving pies the night before while half drunk... It was fun.... but in all the revelry I completely omitted sugar.... not in one pie, but in every pie made. Being the "cook" of the family.... this has yet to be forgotten 1 culinary arts degree and some 14-15 years later. DAMN THAT SCOTCH.... FOR HE BE THE DEVIL!
Pavlov at 12:11PM on 11/29/08
@floridayaya--LOL! I actually do that on purpose when I roast a turkey, for at least the first hour. I heard about that trick years ago when the Food Network was still good.
My husband almost put salt instead of sugar in his coffee before I stopped him. Thanksgiving disaster averted?
buffy at 12:32PM on 11/29/08
I, of course, left the bag of giblets in the neck cavity for the first 30 minutes of cooking...fortunately, my brother was on gravy duty and noticed. This was 10 years ago...I'm better now!
FoodieSearching at 7:07PM on 11/29/08
@FLYaYa - I used to cook turkeys breast side down all the time for specifically that reason - the breast is very juicy. I do the Alton Brown method now so my turkey gets cooked breast side up. It's brined so the breast is always very tender.
My father in law (who is a professional chef!) once mistook powdered sugar for flour when he made gravy. We are still making fun of him for it 5 years later.
My mother did this only with asparagus. On Easter one year, she made frito mixto (Italian mixed fried veggies) and the asparagus were my favorite. She very apologetically told me there would be no asparagus that year because she mixed up powdered sugar for flour. It was all the more frustrating because the asparagus looked beautiful! But blechhhh - they tasted awful. My mother was a superb cook so I guess she gets one flub (like your FIL).
therealchiffonade at 8:29PM on 11/29/08
I undercooked the chicken. Still waiting for the moment when the boyfriend sliced into it and raw meat juice poured everywhere to become funny.
nightowl at 8:56PM on 11/29/08
I volunteered to bake rolls for my inlaws' Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. The recipe I use rises overnight at room temperature so my plan was to make the dough Friday night, shape the rolls Saturday morning and bake them off right before we left for their house late Saturday afternoon. Our baby was fussy for about 4 hours Friday night and didn't go to sleep for good until after 11pm. I was so preoccupied with him that I totally forgot to make the roll dough! I realized it Saturday morning about an hour before we had to leave for brunch with my family. I threw it together in a rush and got them all done in time for the evening meal but it was stressful.
AuntJone at 10:51PM on 11/29/08
Not me, but my friend's Mommy who is a remarkable lady in her mid-80's. She made a pumpkin pie and pre-heated her oven. She isn't sure exactly what happened as she attempted to put it in to bake, but it spilled inside the oven and the crack between the door and the oven and the floor and made a terrible mess. Of course, she had to wait until the oven was cool to clean and then she had to start from scratch, which she did. This time, she put the pumpkin pie on a cookie sheet, just in case. Never too old to learn from our mistakes!
PerkyMac at 11:01PM on 11/29/08
Nothing recently but in our early years of marriage we invited my in-laws for Thanksgiving. My husband and I were taking the turkey out of the oven when we lost control of it and it went skidding across the vinyl kitchen floor and into the dining room. Our cat, who'd been known to stalk and bring home mice, rabbits, even a dead crow or two, went after it with a vengeance. We grabbed the cat, salvaged the turkey and rinsed it off. We'd just finished cleaning the floor when in-laws pulled into the driveway.
SaraGarrigan at 1:05PM on 12/01/08
@sara... priceless... just sprayed coffee all over my laptop. Thanks!
LoCo at 1:12PM on 12/01/08