Share your Thanksgiving cooking disasters here

[Anonymous]

Mine was a clean-up fiasco. Several years ago, my mother was trying to help by putting away cleaned dishes. She accidentally put a full bowl of mashed potatoes into our china cabinet, which we rarely open, in the dining room, where we rarely go. I entered the room about a month later due to a faint odor, which grew stronger as I approached the cabinet. I swore a mouse had died inside. No, instead, I flung open the cabinet and encountered a vile stench. I opened the bowl and it was crawling with a deep green, shimmering mold.

[Anonymous]

Not cooking per se, but my aunt once tripped and sent the massive crock of sweet potatoes and apples flying across the room, where it crashed all over the floor, shattering the dish, and wiping out the gravy and rolls that had just been set on a side table. It was a somber meal that year. The sweet potatoes and apples were a well loved dish. And no one should be forced to eat turkey without gravy.

[Anonymous]

Oh man, mine seems minor in comparison. I was supposed to make stuffing for a dinner tomorrow and I only realized today I didn’t have enough stake bread for the number of people it was supposed to serve. (It’s a moot point because my kid has a truly miserable cold so we’re not going to the dinner after all.)

[Anonymous]

I don't have any of my own (yet) but a few standouts over the years are the time my grandfather was carving the turkey and it slid right off the platter into the garbage. And the time my SIL didn't rinse the brine off her turkey and it was way too salty, not to mention it wasn't fully cooked so we took turns microwaving slices so they were safe to eat.

[Anonymous]

MIL cooked the turkey yesterday. She cooked an 18-pound turkey for 5 hours. She still doesn't know how she entered 5 hours on the timer. SIL and I ran out looking for another turkey without any luck. We grabbed a very small ham and a roast. I hate turkey anyway, so I'm happy!

As for my own cooking disaster, about 5 years ago I was hosting Thanksgiving at my house. Everything was going great. I had just put the rolls in the oven to bake and given everyone a heads up that we'd be eating in around 10 minutes. I was heading back into the kitchen when I heard the loudest shattering noise. The sweet potato casserole had exploded. It sent glass shards into all the other nearby dishes. The only items without any glass were the turkey that was resting on the table for carving, the baking rolls, and the desserts. That was the year I learned the difference between PYREX and pyrex.

[Anonymous]

An 18-pound turkey is supposed to cook 4-4 1/2 hours at 325. I doubt that an extra half hour rendered it inedible.

[Anonymous]

My only mistake was letting FIL make the gravy. It was an ordeal, a mess, and tasted awful and had a horrible consistency. Luckily, I had planned ahead (he usually wants to do this) and had Wegman’s gravy fresh from the deli section as a backup.

[Anonymous]

I dry brine and deconstruct the turkey. I had a 22# monster and the breasts cooked unevenly (by the time the thickest part got to 162, the thinner part was almost 170). My failsafe best-moistest turkey method...failed.

[Anonymous]

Relative used the same cutting board for raw meat as appetizer veggie tray. Half the house got diarrhea.

[Anonymous]

One year I tried a crockpot stuffing. I was doubling the recipe and I got the liquid amount very wrong. It was inedible soup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relative used the same cutting board for raw meat as appetizer veggie tray. Half the house got diarrhea.

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This happened once at my brother’s Thanksgiving with his in-laws. Luckily they live on a heavily wooded 5-acre property….

[Anonymous]

I always have problems with pumpkin pie. The first year I tried to make it with fresh pumpkin, which resulted in too much water, not enough taste. This year, the filling was perfect but I made an all-butter crust with bits of butter that were too large, and flooded the crust with melted butter when I par-baked it. As a result, I had to bake it longer to "dry" it out, and the finished pie had a crust that was too crunchy (but not burned). It was edible, and the filling was as it should be, so not too disastrous.

[Anonymous]

I ended up home with a sick kid and decided to make spontaneous cranberry glace tarts. I planned to infuse the syrup with cranberries and then strain it but I dumped in the cornstarch with the sugar without thinking (I mostly make peach glace, where I only flavour the glaze with a pinch of allspice) and it was the last of my cornstarch so I couldn’t redo it and I didn’t strain it after all. They tasted okay but not quite what I had been aiming for. Thinking I’ll try again next week sans “helpful” toddler.

[Anonymous]

My mother is an ethnic Indian from South Africa and we never had traditional Thanksgivings.

When I was in grad school I decided to host my first American style Thanksgiving dinner. I invited a bunch of friends over for Friendsgiving and I made a beautiful turkey and all the sides. My mother came down from my home town to have dinner with us. She disappeared into the kitchen for a while and then came to tell me that the turkey was ready. She said I hadn't finished preparing so she went ahead and "curried it." So we had curried turkey for Thanksgiving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh man, mine seems minor in comparison. I was supposed to make stuffing for a dinner tomorrow and I only realized today I didn’t have enough stake bread for the number of people it was supposed to serve. (It’s a moot point because my kid has a truly miserable cold so we’re not going to the dinner after all.)

You can buy a fresh loaf and put it in the over for a couple of hours, it will dry out.