Cooking a really great meal doesn't have to be complicated. Sure, binge-watching Chopped has us all convinced we need vaccuum sealers, ice cream machines and an anti-griddle, but some of the best recipes in the world are actually just a few really good ingredients put together simply. Like guacamole! Yeah, you can get fancy on it but a classic recipe really only calls for avocado, tomato, onion, salt and lime juice. It's so simple that it's almost impossible to screw it up.
Almost.
One of the biggest downfalls of simple foods is how easy it can be to screw it up. Imagine picking up sugar instead of salt for that guac recipe. Now you've got an onion and avocado dessert paste that nobody wants. My mom has salted her coffee and sugared her eggs more times than I can count. And as a Puerto Rican, I can assure you messing up the rice might as well be the end of any meal. It won't matter how good anything else is.
One reddit user asked:
What is an easy way to f*ck up a simple meal?
Screwing up the rice was one of the first answers - so I feel pretty culinarily vindicated right now. Here's that answer, along with quite a few other kitchen horror stories. Long story short: check your labels, check your heat, read the directions and try to stay at least KIND OF sober. Cooking usually involves knives and fires, after all.
Read The Directions!
I don't know HOW she manages to do this, but my coworker has failed
at least 10 times to make that craft microwave macaroni and cheese stuff.
There is like three steps. Add water, Microwave, Add cheese.
She keeps adding the cheese before microwaving it and burning the crap out of the cheese. I don't know how she hasn't learned yet.
- Lelentos
The Worst
Undercook the rice. The only real way to salvage undercooked rice is to turn it into something else like fried rice.
- BradC
Drink Responsibly
Giphy
Drinking too much and forgetting the burgers on the grill for 4 hours.
- swagasus
Not Even Close To Oregano
In home ed we were once tasked with making tomato sauce. I told this dude I was teamed up with to put oregano in it and then turned my back to do the dishes. Came back to taste test and it was the worst thing I've ever tasted.
He apparently didn't know what oregano was and had put in almond extract.
Say It Louder
Overcooking meat. I'm going to say it louder for my parents OVERCOOKING MEAT! It took me until I was an adult to realize that you shouldn't need a glass of water to eat a bite of chicken to help get it down. Like, chicken can be moist and flavorful, holy crap!
Wax Paper And Heat Don't Mix
Use wax paper instead of parchment paper. They look similar, but wax paper is for cold and parchment paper is for heat. Remember, wax melts when it heats up. I've had a very hectic and crazy week this week. I went home last night and cooked some oven roasted potatoes... on wax paper.... I went to go have a shower and I came out to the kitchen filled with smoke. It wasn't pleasant.
Cheesy Noodle Cereal
My best man once in college made a simple Mac & Cheese meal from the blue box and added WAAAAAAYYYYYY too much milk to it. He was basically eating cheesy noodle cereal right in front of me while I'm asking "Woah, isn't that a lot of milk?" He'd insist that was just the way he makes it.
I asked him about it years later and he admitted he knew he totally messed it up, but just wanted to save face.
Liquid Smoke
I was cooking chicken, simple pan fried chicken. I decided that a little smokey flavor would make it pop so I reached for something in our cupboard my wife likes called 'liquid smoke'. Now its shaped alot like a soy sauce bottle so in my haste I assumed you unscrew the cap and there would be a nipple inside you would use to squirt a few drops in.
There was no nipple, I dumped half a bottle of liquid smoke into the chicken. It was chicken jerky.
Mind Your Milks
Giphy
When making a clam chowder, do not use sweetened, condensed milk. It is disgustingly sweet. Bad mistake.
I tried making mac and cheese. I really tried.
I am Danish, so I just halfassed and google translated an American recipe, that said evaporated milk, but it translated as condensed.
I invited all my friends for blunts and mac. We were horrified.
I was dating a vegan girl and tried my hand at making a vegan version of chicken pot pie and added soy milk. I accidentally used the vanilla soy milk. It was a weird, sweet, gross mess.
- Lulu_42
Mom's Steak
Growing up on a farm where we raised cattle we ate a lot of steak. I was never a huge fan. I didn't see what the appeal was until just a few years ago when I made steak for myself.
My mom just over cooked the sh!t out of the steak. I like my meat rare to medium rare and her steaks were always under seasoned and over cooked.
I used to not be able to eat steak without A1 sauce or something similar. Now when I make a steak I don't use any sauces, just the seasoning on the steak itself.
A few months ago me and my wife went back to our home town and stayed with my parents. They had just butchered a steer so they had plenty of meat and wanted to treat us to a nice meal. I offered to cook the steaks under the guise that I was being nice and helping my mom not work as hard.
I asked everyone how they wanted their steaks done and grilled them all up to everyone's liking, timing when to put them on so they would all come off the grill at the same time but be done to different internal temperatures.
It was a damn good steak. My little brother who still lives at home said something like, "Wow I didn't know steak could taste so good." and it really hurt my mom's feelings, but god damn stop over cooking meat.
Dropping it on the floor.
I used to work in a meat department and from time to time things would get dropped on the floor. I was one of the only people who was willing to take that stuff home.
At one point an entire pan of 12 oz ribeye steaks fell on the ground. I quickly picked them all up and the ones that were directly on the floor I rinsed off, then I packaged them all up and my boss sold them to me for $.25 per pound. I paid less than $10 for over $200 worth of steak.
I put them in my freezer and was just sure to sear the floor steaks a bit more than usual and I ate so much steak for a few months I got tired of it. It was cool though because I could experiment with different methods of making steak without wasting a good cut of meat.
Whooooops accidently dropped the filet mignons on the floor again. Don't worry fellas, I can care of it.
Not So Easy
Easy mac, Forget to add water.
Ive done it three times and its probably one of the WORST cooking f--- ups you can do
Are you the reason we had to deal with monthly midnight fire alarms back in the dorm?
Chillax
So i doubt anyone will see this, but making chili "hot" instead of spicy. See some people equate mouth burning heat with good flavor and thats a god damn lie. Yeah there are good hot chilis out there, but they have complexity to them by using different chilis or unique spices. But there are a LARGE group of people out there that think that chili powder, salt, red pepper, and TOO MUCH tabasco sauce. It's gross, please stop doing that.
Heat does not equal flavor. Spicy is one thing, but you really can make great chili with out it being so spicy it just burns your
Gone To Pot
My ex wife managed to end up with actual flaming food while trying to cook for herself. Twice.
First was the reheating of chicken nuggets. No, four nuggets from the fridge do not take the same amount of microwave time as the whole package from the freezer.
Also, when the Kraft Dinner box says "drain the noodles, return them to the pot", do not put said pot back on the burner and get distracted by the end of the commercial break. I really liked that pot.
True Grit
Oh god do I have a story here. I used to work at a group home, and part of the job was cooking a big family meal every night for all of the residents. One day we had a super nice temporary staff worker on, and since she was a former line cook, she volunteered to handle the meal. Now nobody was going to object the a professionally done dinner, so we all focused on other work and let her do her thing.
An hour later we sit down to eat, and frankly it looked amazing. Perfectly seared pork chops, roast green beans, and corn cooked with brown sugar. We all piled our plates eagerly and sat down to eat. I was the first one to eat a fork full of the corn, and while the taste was good, something was really off about the texture. It was super gritty, almost to the point where I could feel it grinding and crunching between my teeth. I took a second bite, trying to be polite, but the dry crunchy texture just kept getting worse. As I'm dealing with that, one of the residents who was a bit less subtle took their first taste, and they let their surprise and displeasure be known pretty much immediately.
Now that it was clear that something was seriously up, the race was on to figure out what happened. Turns out that one of the residents left their container of kinetic sand sitting on the kitchen counter. For those of you who don't know, kinetic sand looks like and has a texture that you could totally mistake for brown sugar if you weren't paying attention. Having no reason to think anything other than food would be sitting on the kitchen counter, the poor temp worker took a big scoop and tossed it right in her corn.
Needless to say we all gave her crap for that one, but she took it well and we all spent most of the meal struggling to eat through the laughter. It was a good dinner otherwise though.
Curious to hear from those who lived to tell their distressing stories, Redditor mind_guardian asked:
"For survivors of attempted kidnapping. How did you escape?"
The following Redditor had very close calls.
Spontaneous Escape Plan
"Guy at a club and his mix of friends was insistent about coming back to a party, I politely declined. Didn't think much of it. They got increasingly aggressive about it, to a physical extent, and I left. Walking back home, I realized they were following me in their car."
"Dashed down the road through the mid-path of a packed apartment complex and just started yelling like crazy."
"No one actually responded or poked their head out or maybe they just didn't hear me. But it sparked the escape reflex of the creeps and I hid in a bush until my heart slowed down. Jumped the fence of someone's property -risky in its own right- wandered through a field, avoiding the main roads, and circled back to a side-street to home. Lucky I knew the area better than they did."
– Dangercakes13
Offering A Ride Home
"I don't know sure what this was, but i was riding my bike home alone, cutting through a deserted middle school and high school parking lots during the summer time. A man in a station wagon pulled up and offered me a ride home. I never stopped pedaling, just said no I'm fine."
"He pressed several times saying he could fit my bike in his car, it was no big deal. I kept saying no. He gave up and left. Don't know if it was just a genuinely helpful guy (this was the late 70s or early 80s so it wasn't yet completely extinct practice that strangers might offer each other rides) or a potential kidnapper."
– DiligentAdvantage475
Up In The Treehouse
"My mum was always paranoid someone would kidnap us kids from the yard. We used to play outside while she worked from home, we were 10, 8 and 6 at this time. She paid our neighbours teenage daughter to sit in the yard and watch us. Mostly she just ignored us and read a magazine with her headphones on and Walkman playing, but she was nice to us. I remember thinking this was stupid and mum was right there anyway so why did I 'basically a teenage' need to be babysat lol."
"One day we were all up in our tree house being jerks to our babysitter and unplugging her headset cord while she was trying to nap. A man and woman came into the yard via the side gate. They started talking to my youngest sibling trying to get her to climb down. The babysitter screamed for help but no one came. She ended up throwing the ladder from the treehouse over our back fence into her own yard and made us all climb into her yard with her dog who was going insane at the fence."
"We ended up locked in her house and she called the police. My mum didn't hear any of the commotion from inside the house and she won't speak about it even now that we are all adults. Never complained about my babysitter after that though."
– Dark_Valefor
The Creepy Customer
"I don’t remember how old I was, just that I was small enough to fit into the kids seat on a grocery cart. This was the early 90s and my mom had taken me grocery shopping with her. I was sitting in the grocery cart while my mom was focused on picking out produce only a few feet away when an older woman swooped in between us and started pushing the cart away quickly. I recall her smiling at me and trying to make me feel comfortable while also making the 'shh' gesture with her hand."
"I did not feel comfortable and started making enough noise to alert my mom. She ran over and loudly yelled at this stranger that this child was hers. The most chilling part that I still remember was that she didn’t flee the scene and instead made a comment about how cute I was and calmly walked away. Before she disappeared down an aisle she took one last look at me and winked."
– gnophy
People who were actually abducted talked about how they got out of their situation.
The Elderly Hero
"It was the 90s in SE Asia. I wasn’t old enough to go to school yet so my grandma took care of me while my parents were at work. My grandma had a little convenience store and one day 2 men approached her. One was in his 30s and the other was an old short man with white hair. They were carrying those hand weave basket pig cage."
"They asked my grandma if I was for sale. She told them to bugger off. While my grandma was distracted, they snatched me and I was carried away. I was kicking and screaming until they knocked me out. One of the neighbors saw me and alerted my grandma. My grandma rode her bicycle down the main street looking for me. She argued and threatened them to get me back."
"If it wasn’t for my grandma and her stubborn fierceness, I wouldn’t be here. She passed away in 2016. Love you and miss you grandma."
– Sir_Blinklot
Dumb Cabbie
"My wife told me that when she was just a teenager, she got in a cab and the cab driver just abducted her. He didn't take her to her destination, instead he took her to a hotel room. She was really scared but she kind of started playing along a little and pretended that she was interested and into it. Then he lay down on the bed, and she said something like 'Oh, I'm hungry. Can we order a pizza first?' and the cab driver said okay."
"So she picked up the phone, while she was dialing he wasn't paying attention so she disconnected the cable. Then she said, you know, I think the phone is broken. Let me go to the front desk to tell them, and I'll order the pizza while I'm there. So he says, okay sure."
"She went to the front desk and told them what was happening, they called the cops, the cops came and hauled him away."
– humanefly
Fighting For Life
"Was drugged at a small town bar, went to the bartender and asked what drink she had given me. She recited what I had ordered. I told her I asked because I'm not feeling well suddenly and it was like the world was spinning on its head. I sat at my seat because she said she hadn't seen anyone near my table/drink. Cool, whatever."
"It's getting worse and I feeling the worst I've ever felt in my life. I don't really remember what happened but a guy had led me outside and we were getting in a car. I remember hearing 'bracele' and seeing handcuff clink on my tiny a** wrist. My first response was scream, kick, anything. I already felt like vomiting and pooping so in my panic of scream and writhing around (drawing a LOT of attention from a closed car apparently) I stopped for a second and hear 'finally you b*tch' before I vomited all of the back seat, myself, and I threw myself forward to cover him as well."
"At this point I had no control between vomiting and screaming as loud I as could to vomit more, my drugged self was like 'it can't get worse for me' and I literally pulled my pants down and shat as my body saw fit. Guy never left the parking lot because of the commotion I raised."
"I remember hearing people banging on the windows and the guy freaking out, so I started screaming 'help' the best I could. The guy was arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping and drugging me with meth and fet that they found on his person. Blessed be the big man 'mike' who carried my vomit poop cover self to the gym (next to the bar) where they let me shower and change."
– totallyoriginalacct
The Ultimate Betrayal
"My best friend tricked me into hanging out with her after I moved to another coast to be closer to her. Once I got there she introduced me to her 'friend' then slipped out of the house. When i asked about it he laughed and said 'you really thought she was your friend? She owes me money and you’re her payment. I’ve known about you for months. None of this was coincidental' then proceeded to pull up pics of me and conversations between them two."
"After a lot of initial crying and begging I told him I needed to go to her house to get my stuff and my phone. He told me he would get me all new stuff and I didn’t need it. Why would I go back to her. I immediately told him that he was right. I didn’t wanna go back to her. That he really saved me from her cause what kind of friend would sell me to someone. I told him that he was gonna take care of me and I knew that. I just needed my phone to let my parents know I was okay and wouldn’t see them for a bit or they’d get worried and file a report."
"After much convincing he agreed to let me go to her house around the corner to grab my stuff and come back. I took off running once I got around the corner. Had to take 2 busses and 2 trains to get home. I haven’t had a close friend since."
– [deleted]
These Redditors recalled making a run for it before anything bad could happen.
Declining An Invitation
"When I was 8 years old (f) I had just moved to a new house that was directly across the street from the school I would be starting in just a month or two. I would sometimes go to the school and play by myself for a bit. One time I was headed back home when I was approached and surrounded by a group of boys in their early teens. They told me to come hang out at their house. I shook my head and tried to run home but was blocked. The second oldest pulls out a $20 and tells me that I can have it once we get to their house. I think for a moment and decline again but am blocked again from leaving. My heart is racing and I keep looking longingly at my house."
"The boy with the money holds it out to me and says to take it and he'll give me another $20 at the house, it's in his wallet, he forgot it. The oldest chimes in telling me I would be able to buy a LOT of candy with that money. I hesitate, and start to reach my hand out to take the money and then see my chance to run between two of the boys and escape. They yelled and tried to grab me but I made it home."
"I saw some of them on occasion but I always stayed far away and they seemed to have forgotten about me. I later learned that the house they were trying to take me to belonged to a drug addicted mother who was rarely home and her son's just did whatever they wanted."
– CMaya2006
Teacher "Dad"
"I was 12 and some guy was walking towards me after school. He said, 'Hey there kiddo, You remember me, don't you!? Mom told me to take you home!' I thought, 'B*tch, that's the oldest trick in the book!' My parents told me if this ever happened, one thing I could do was run to the nearest adult and yell 'Mom, Mom' or 'Dad, Dad' So that's what I did."
"A teacher was walking into the school and I said, 'Oh Dad, there you are!' The guy got TF outta there. I explained to the teacher why I did what I did. We didn't get his plate number sadly enough."
– SMG4-Is-My-God
"It Only Takes A Second"
"When I was very little my dad took my sister and I on a river camping trip for a few days. We got to the little rural town at the end of the river where a buddy left our truck and trailer at the boat launch for us. My sister was old enough to sort of help dad with loading the boat (hold rope so it doesn’t float away while we back up etc) but I was too little to really do much so I started wandering around looking for stuff. I found a dead bumblebee and I really loved bumblebees so I decided to bury it in a little grave to pay respects. I found a patch of flowers near the edge of the boat launch, by the woods. I’m crouched down, completely absorbed by my trying to make a little cross for a headstone out of two twigs and a bit of grass, when suddenly I hear my dad’s deep, booming voice scream."
“HEY!!!”
"He was a good ten yards away from me but it was so loud I could feel it in my chest and I jump and spun around towards him. He is already halfway to me, running. His face looks scary. He looks so mad, so focused, and he’s looking over my shoulder instead of at me. I run over to him, no idea what’s happening but scared that I’d at least get in trouble if I didn’t go over to him right away. He picks me up and puts both me and my sister into the truck to finish loading by himself."
"Apparently a man tried to take me. I never even knew he was there. Dad caught sight of him just as he began lunging towards me and scared him off. I wouldn’t have known until I was already gone if he hadn’t been so aware."
"Watch your kids, it only takes a second."
– CopsaLau
A Convenient Tool
"I was about 7 at the time, and at that time i thought it was cool to carry a pocket knife, well, one day i was riding my bike, and a man knocked me over covering my mouth, i grabbed my knife and stabbed him in the side and ran inside crying."
– Toaster_Ruler
Listen To Your Gut
"I was 19 walking to work in the early hours of the morning in winter. I knew someone was following me for a little while and I was just praying I was making it up. Suddenly all the sh*t I have even been taught about self defence came forward. He grabbed me and pulled me."
"There was a moment when I turned to look at him and he laughed and it was at this point I pissed my pants. I was walking as close to the road as I physically could without being on it and I pushed my head down and then threw it back as quickly as I could."
"He fell and I ran in the middle of the road with my armsout screaming. Flagged down to cars. It was a very scary moment in my life and taught me a harsh lesson. Listen to your gut, even if you've done something 100 times if you don't feel safe you're not safe."
– Ok_Talk_90
These and hundreds of other examples on this Reddit thread reflect the sad reality of the horrors of the crime that still happen to this day.
Hopefully, what the survivors did to flee from their traumatizing situations can be a useful reminder to always stay vigilant, whether it is for yourself or your children.
And when all else fails, always scream and fight for your life before the situation can get any worse.
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Interesting points were brought up when Redditor onegrayhair asked:
"What culinary hill are you willing to die on?"
People shared cooking tips and how some foods should be prepared a certain way.
Poor Construction
"Nachos should be built wide not tall."
– DBroncos515
"I hate when the chips at the bottom don’t have all the cheese and toppings, but the chips on top have too much. Balance is key to a great plate of nachos!"
– yo_kashlee
Jaws Have Limitations
"We need to make burgers wider not taller."
– John_Lives
"If I have to disassemble a burger to eat it, it’s missing the point, isn’t it?"
– JediTigger
Just Let It Stew
"Homemade chili is almost always better the next day."
– burritokiller1971
"And most soups and stews."
– wjglenn
Add Some Zap
"Worcestershire sauce can work magic."
– dberis
Resourcefulness
"Being poor isn’t a culinary crime. It takes talent to make cheap food taste as good as my mom did."
– urbancowgirl42
People had plenty to say about rating recipes.
Unfair Critique
"When you're baking from an online recipe, don't change three or four ingredients "to make it healthy" and then leave a one star review about how bad it is."
– cliff99
Inaccurate Reviews
"Don't leave a 5-star review on someone's recipe while saying 'This was a great recipe... after I made these 10 changes!' At that point, you're not rating that person's recipe, you are rating YOUR OWN recipe. That person's recipe must not have been so good if you had to make so many changes."
"Also, don't leave a 5-star review on someone's recipe while saying 'This recipe looks great, I can't wait to try it!' Why skew the ratings when you haven't even tried it yet?"
– randomentity1
Snobbery Is Tasteless
"Being snobby about food to the point where you're hindering someone else's enjoyment is not a positive personality trait."
– swordcowboy
Taste Buds Don't Lie
"If it tastes good it tastes good."
– Danielwols
Some questioned others' capabilities in the kitchen while others straight up forbade them from doing something that is unfavorable.
The Complaint
"People who hate cooking with stainless steel don’t know how to cook with stainless steel."
– 3Me20
There's A Dress Code
"DON’T WEAR YOUR APRON INTO THE BATHROOM."
– andre3kthegiant
"I've called people out for doing this. It's disgusting. This isn't a hill to die on, this should be common sense. People be dumb."
– Aldayne
Cross-Contamination–Bad
"I had to call a girl out again for putting a container of raw meat on a cold station."
"She complained that I 'always call her out on that.'"
"Yeah no sh*t, you're the only one tryna catch state health code write ups.'
"e/ she saw the post and I made her cry, oops."
– ChefBoredAreWe
Don't Interrupt The Cook
"Get out of the kitchen if I'm cooking. Out out out I don't want your help."
– Justice171
Not All Salads Are Good For You
"I live in the Midwest, I love the Midwest but just because you call something a salad does not mean it is healthy and an acceptable side dish to your main course. Snicker-marshmallow-mayo-whatever is not salad."
– ArachnesChallenge
I don't consider myself a cook, but I do pat myself on the back for some of the dishes I do know how to make well.
One of those is Japanese curry. And while I can't keep from serving and eating what takes at least an hour-and-a-half to make, I do find that my leftover tastes infinitely better the next day.
I make a HUGE batch of curry sauce so I can continue enjoying it for the next few days. There's something about leaving it in the fridge and heating up portions at a time that really activate the spices.
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