When I put my mind to something, I generally have a positive outcome.

So, I ask my wife to buy a fancy dancy waffle maker.

I wake up early Saturday morning to make some waffles for the family.

This would be the first time I attempt waffle making on my own. I read the instructions on the Bisquick container

for batter construction. I read the instructions for the new waffle maker and I even go on the internet for further tips.

It was all good until the actual pouring of the batter into the waffle maker.

I never knew you had to pour all the batter in one quick motion. I never knew about the proper thickness of the batter.

One thing I do know, I may now only enjoy my waffles if someone else makes them.


What have you tried to do for the first time and blew it? (besides that)

First oil change

Engine overhaul

Marriage

Job

 

Well cooking related the first thinh i botched would be scrambled eggs...

One i didnt know you had to coat the pan in butter or "pam"..
And two you dont need to cook them on high! Let's just say it was easuer to toss the pan then try and clean it...


First thing i botched on a car was my 1990 bronco II
The fuel pump went out and i had to remove the tank to replace it...well i dropped the tank and set it on my chest anf proceeded to roll out on my creeper and wedged myself and the tank under the bumper.. that was fun

 

Well, one thing that comes to my mind was when I worked in an IT Desktop position at a records management company and I was asked to build a port map of all the workstations.

I thought I'd be smart and found a piece of software that went out and pinged all the ports and built a port map for me.

What I didn't know was that it also pinged all the servers (all 32 of them) which sent our systems admins into an uproar - they came into my office with one of them asking "What the hell did you just do?...."

Oops... LOL...

 

ha...thats pretty good terry...

 

just a little snafu.

 

I have had a few fuel tank situations myself, they don't look heavy until they

Drop down. My Bronco tank seemed like it weighed a ton. Stupid thing.

 

Guess what? I just bought a stovetop hand crank popcorn popper.

Waffles were two days ago, and now I got this new cooking tool.

I'll let everyone know how it all pops out.

 

Hmmmm, cooking gaffes huh?

Once made Cream of Broccoli soup, recipe called for two cloves of garlic, I used two bulbs, not knowing garlic is a natural laxative!

The ensuing near-disaster of not finding a toilet too soon was hilarious after the fact, not as much while it was all going on naturally!

 

First time I ever cooked a frozen pizza, I did not know you had to remove the cardboard the pizza is on before the pizza is placed in the oven.

The instructions made no mention of this.

My sister came home before any real damage (except for my pride) happened.

This was over 20 years ago and she still gives me crap about it.

 

When I was a kid, I came home from school one afternoon, and since no one was home, I thought I'd make myself something to eat. BTW, I like corned beef hash. For some reason, my mother used to remove the labels from the hash cans. I opened up what I "thought" was some hash, it was the only unlabeled can left.. Made nice little patties of it, and fried it to the edge of crispy perfection, and pigged down.
A few hours later, my mom came home, and went to feed the dog. She asked me if I had fed the dog. I said, "No". She then says, "I could have sworn I one can of dog food left".



I knew it had a different texture and smell, but thought it may have been a different brand. All in all, it wasn't that bad, just needed some extra catsup.

 

Years ago I tries to make some Jell-O. Basically fool proof, right? Wrong! All it takes is boiling water. Well I put some water in the pot, pot on the stove, turn up the heat, water begins to boil, and I pour in the Jell-O powder. What a cherry mess! Believe me, it makes a difference whether you put the powder in the boiling water or the boiling water in the powder.

 

My first rebuild. Got the engine out ok. Disassembled OK. Pressure washed the block, bought new parts and began reassembly. After installing the pistons and rods, I couldn't cycle the crank. Took it apart and found all the places where I gouged the crank. Took it to the machine shop and had all the burrs removed and the crank ground. I was more careful and completed the rebuild. Engine ran fine when I sold the car.

 

I don't have all day to sit here and type the longest post ever made about all my mistakes (and there have been more than a few!) My dad once told me he didn't want me to try anything that I had to absolutely do right the fist time, specifically sky-diving and hang gliding! But, I got the waffle thing figured out at a fairly young age and can usually cook some pretty edible food. Not gonna run out and open a restaurant anytime soon though.

One good learning experience I had as a kid of 16 comes to mind however. I had a '65 Olds Cutlass convertible which spun a bearing. I blissfully undid the motor mounts and raised up the engine far enough to get the pan off, then replaced the rod bearings. The bad one was obvious. The crank didn't look too bad so I wasn't really concerned, had no knowledge of checking for out-of-round and I didn't know that I should've had the crank turned anyway. Didn't even think about metal particles in the oil passages. It ran great...for about two miles of my test drive but was hammering pretty good by the time I got home. It was the first V8 engine I ever did a total rebuild on.

My best friend's older brother had a '69 Road Runner and lost oil pressure, determined that the oil pump was bad and needed to be replaced. He went thorough the same thing I did with undoing the mounts and jacking up the engine to get the pan off, only to find there was no oil pump inside the pan, on the Dodge V8s it was external and he could've replaced it in about 15 minutes without even cracking the pan! He was pissed!

 

These are all funny stories, thanks everyone!

I hope old wounds were not opened up.

When I look back at high school, taking a home economics or cooking class would have been a good idea, even if it was not

the manly thing to do.

Still looking back, it would have been a great way to be around a bunch of girls for an hour or so.

Learning how to cook would have been a good idea too. I have mastered the "one pot" method of cooking.

Chili, stew, sloppy joe, Hamburger Helper.

 

This also brings back another cooking disaster! In 8th grade had a progressive Industrial Arts teacher, Mr Steve Guyro who got together with the shapely younger Home Economics teacher deciding the boys and girls would swap classes for a six-week grading period. Boys and girls were equally divided who'd love it, who'd hate it but there was no way to opt out.

Sitting in groups of 4 our first actual assignment was making batches of cookies. Most of us even in the early 60's were already learning to make ourselves snacks and light meals so this would be a snap---right?

Things went very, very well until my little group thought we had made too much batter, were concerned we'd flunk this part for being wasteful. My buddy Greg and I decided we'd eat the left over batter and no one would be wiser. Popped our cookie dough on the sheet, that into the oven and we were delighted when our batch came out looking great.

Even though my group was seated in front of the classroom teacher started at the back, tasting each batch, giving feedback on how to improve next go 'round Finally getting to us she looked our batch over and asked where the second batch was, where had we put it?

When the truth was finally revealed she was livid, started yelling at us for being 1. so dumb and 2. not asking questions! She decided to fail the whole table for the day, the classroom was dead quiet except for the snickering and I thought that was the end of it. The two non-guilty guys told us we'd screwed up, they shouldn't have to pay and we needed to tell teacher what really happened. Oh my my..........................

Not already mad enough this really threw her into over load since the second batch was supposed to be shared among the rest of the class, that we were not only dumb but selfish too. The snickering continued.............

This was in the first week of the exchange so our table really had to work hard to finish well in the class. That hard work turned out because once the time to switch back came we were the top dogs in Home Ec.

The poor girls weren't allowed to build much of anything, mostly watched film strips and tool demonstrations of men working in industry.

That was a fun year in Junior High School, ca. 1963 or so!