Disasters and funny stories in the kitchen

When we were first married, we lived in a rented house that had the kitchen in a glass roofed extension at the back of the house. One of our wedding presents had been a pressure cooker and as I'd never used one before I didn't understand about building the pressure up and then reducing it or even how to use it properly. I'd put stewing steak and vegetables in to cook and left it in the hob to its own devices. About half an hour later there was the most almighty explosion. The pressure cooker weight had blown clean off and shot through the glass ceiling, blowing meat and vegetables in every direction. It was like a meat and veg bomb going off. We had a lot of explaining to do to the landlord. Never had another pressure cooker.

My mother-in-law gave us a hamper of storecupboard essentials for when we moved into our new house. It was before the time of sell-by or use-by dates. I decided to make a Bolognese sauce as there was a tin of tomato purée in the box. As I pierced the can top with my tin opener, a jet of blood red purée shot out, hit the ceiling (remember, brand new house, white ceiling) and ‘splatted’ . It looked like we’d had a massacre.

Kiwigramz my first disaster was also making soup! I was newly married 52 years ago and boiled a chicken carcass to make stock as I’d seen my Mum do. I then strained the stock through a sieve ....right down the sink! I was left with the bones and bits!!!

When we got married my mother gave me a Robert Carrier cookbook. I decided to try a Chinese meal, can’t remember what. The recipe distinctly said “I prefer to fry the rice first“. It didn’t say anything about what to do with the rice afterwards so I didn’t do anything!

We had a large pantry in which there were dozens of jars of home made preserved fruit and veggies. One night there was an almighty crash and we looked in the pantry to see a very startled possum that had dislodged several of the ceiling boards and fallen through them. It managed to cause a domino effect and several shelves with the preserves on to crashed to the floor. Many of the jars broke and there was broken glass and fruit and veggies all over the pantry.

My first and last Christmas cake. I’d only been married for about a year and decided to make a lovely Christmas cake. Added all the scrumptious ingredients and then found that it required a much larger baking tin than I had. I decided to put it all in the smaller one. It came about an inch from the top. After about an hour,I looked in the oven and the cake had risen up through the bars of a higher shelf. ?
I left it to finish cooking and it took two of us to get it out of the oven,,as we had to bring the shelf too. Loads of the cake had cascaded onto the floor of the oven and burnt. Anyway, I chopped the top off (plus shelf) and turned the cake over and iced it. It was lovely and the top bit fed the birds! ?

The very first dinner party I gave, I had never cooked ANYTHING before, I bought a Sara Lee Black Forest gateaux. The wife of our guest commented on how delicious it looked and asked if I had baked it - of course I said yes. I cut into it only to be faced with a ring of corrugated plastic. Needless to say I learned to cook very quickly after that.

Funny to see other stories about pressure cookers. I would never use one after Mil’s experience !

Many years ago, we hadn`t been married very long, baby was just 5 months old, and hubby was at work on Whitsun Saturday. I heard the band playing for the Whit walks, so picked my daughter out of the pram and went outside to watch. Afterwards I was chatting for a while to neighbours, then opened the front door to go back inside, to be met with an enormous wall of black smoke! I`d forgotten that I`d left the chip pan on, and my kitchen was on fire!

The man next door went in with a damp towel round his head and brought the chip pan out and put it on the ground then went and threw water everywhere till the fire brigade turned up.

It was an old house, the wall behind the cooker was made of wood, so that was all blistered and black, the cooker was in a state, light switches all burned out, and the ceiling and walls all black from smoke, and later in the day a small patch of ceiling fell out.

I was just so thankful that I took the baby outside with me.
I waited at the bus stop across the road for hubby to get home from work, the fire brigade and electricity board were still in the kitchen. When he got off the bus I said "Promise you won`t be mad?"!!

A few weeks later, kitchen still not redecorated and hole still in ceiling, my mother came over for a visit with my 4 year old half sister. Annette walked into the kitchen, looked round, then said "Oh, I do like this house!" I was just thinking what an odd child, when she followed it up with "Isn`t it lovely and dirty?"!!

Shortly after one Christmas, when we had guests, I made a pie with a layer of mincemeat under a layer of apple - 2 layers of pastry which I’d made - none of your JusRol stuff.

What happened I don’t know - possibly too many gin and tonics, or whatever it was - but just after I took my perfectly cooked, golden pie out of the oven, somehow the whole thing slithered off the plate - and into our dog’s bed!
Where it mingled nicely with dog hair and her bits of semi- chewed Bonio saved for a rainy day, etc.
Everyone found it hilarious, even though I don’t think I had another pud lined up.

We were having my husband's boss and wife round to lunch. It was winter and I was making a roast. I was nervous about the whole thing and had a 'little' to drink during the preparations. I had also been eating an apple.

Anyway, I dished up and put the dishes of vegetables on the table. Right in the middle of the cauliflower was a brown, chewed applecore. I laughed but felt humiliated.

I was lifting the trout for my dinner out of the pan. For some reason it slipped off the fish slice, did a double back flip with pike(sorry about the pun!) fell on the floor and scattered itself everywhere. Just had potatoes and peas that night.

I was baby-sitting my cousins once while my aunt was out for a short time. She had neglected to tell me she had put a pot of macaroni and cheese on to cook. I kind of knew about it as I had seen it, but forgot about it. Needless to say, it was VERY well done by the time the smoke alarm went off! My uncle had to resurrect the pot as it was in rather a state!

Oh yes, pressure cookers .... In my case, I was cooking rice and somehow the vent must have become blocked. The pressure built up so much that the still hard rice was fired out of the vent and pebble-dashed the ceiling! The rice was actually embedded and had to be dug out! ?

I did spaghetti bolognese for tea once then as I took husband's plate over to the table the entire lot slid off all over the floor, up the walls and under the cooker. Not only was there a mess I was cleaning up for weeks we had to share my plate of food!

DH had gone to bed and I was boiling an egg (in a basket in a pan with a lid) for his sandwiches next day. I got engrossed in a television programme and forgot it. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion. I thought the gas stove had exploded and expected to find the kitchen wall gone. Not as bad as that, fortunately, but the egg had boiled dry and the pan, basket and lid were scattered round the kitchen and there were bits of egg plastered everywhere. DH slept through the lot.

Twiceasnice, my ex husband did the same with a pressure cooker full of pea and ham soup. 18years later, there was still a rock-hard pebble-dash effect on the ceiling over the cooker.

My MIL decided to cook beetroot in her new pressure cooker . I don’t know what she did wrong but the pressure built up too much , the lid flew off and it all exploded up to the ceiling and then fell down all over the kitchen. Water and purple juice over every possible surface. Apparently she never used it again!

Years ago, my washing machine broke down and a new motor was fitted, so far so good. When I went to use it, the motor blew and it went on fire!

DH, disconnected it, as obviouly we had to buy a new one. I went into the kitchen later, turned on the tap, left it running to get the water hot, (we had a really useless boiler) went into the living room and came back to find the kitchen flooded.
DH hadn't sealed up the drain from the machine and instead of going down the sink, the water was pouring from underneath the sink. there was water everywhere. ?

We got old towels and mops to try and clear it up. At one point, DH swung the mop round, just as I was trying to get up from the floor and clobbered me in the face with the mop!
I ended up in A&E with a suspected fractured cheekbone and the most enormous shiner.
The doctor refused to believe, I wasn't a battered wife and asked if I wanted to call the police. I was mortified. .

To make matters worse, I had to wear an eye patch ? and not only was I meeting the Italian consul the next day, (The Italian Govt. were funding my Italian language training) I had parents' night that week.
It was actually quite funny, as everyone was trying to be polite, not to staring at my eye and pretending all was well. ?

When our 2 DC were young teens, I remember being in the kitchen getting a meal ready and taking a pan of peas off the heat then pouring them into a sieve to drain. The trouble is I did this in front of the cooker where I stood, instead of moving over to the sink, so the water went on the floor. Me and DC just stared at the floor for a short while as none of us could figure out why on earth I’d done it!

My DHs brother lived with us for a short time and while we were away for a weekend he had put a tinned chocolate pudding on to steam in a pan of water and forgot about it, of course the tin exploded and you can only imagine the mess. He’d try to clean up, badly, and worst of all he’d tried to paint the ceiling with a tin of white paint he found.
It took a lot of time and money to repair the whole mess.