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
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
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.
"I'm too old for this sh*t"
The iconic words of Roger Murtaugh, portrayed by Danny Glover, in the Lethal Weapon movies.
A thought that all of us have with each passing year, both about things we're now tired of doing, and things we once loved, but don't find as much joy in any more.
After hitting the big 3-0, we find ourselves increasingly surprised by the things we used to find fun, but now might find almost intolerable.
Redditor nonchalannt was curious to hear the things people lost their taste for after their 30th birthday, leading them to ask:
"What's not "cool" anymore when you turn 30?"
Actually worrying about anything being "cool"!
"Being cool."
"Actually for me it was around 35, because I like banging my head into a wall."
"But others started realizing earlier than me."
"Everyone I knew started realizing that all of the things I thought were cool when we were 20 were actually really, really dumb and unimportant and weren't interested in them anymore."
"And I'm not even married or have kids, I can't imagine how stupid the sh*t I was into would seem if I had a family."
"However, video games I played when I was young still seem cool to literally everyone my age, so that didn't change even though I expected it would."
Early to bed, early to rise... or at least early to bed...
"I value my sleep a lot more at 30 than I did at 29."
"It scares me."
"I’m not in my twenties anymore but life is good."- arcanehavok743
Yeah...I'll just have one glass
"Hangovers."- writer_rat
I'll pay up for convenience.
"Teenager/early 20’s: 'yo we can save money by booking the 7am return flight and not paying for accommodation - lets just stay at the club until 5am or sleep on the airport floor!'"
"30yo: I’d rather die."- Gravesens1stTouch
I'll be transparent, and I'll honor my plans!
"Bailing on plans last minute."
"If you don’t want to do something, just say so."- freakanature
Dude, we graduated over ten years ago!
"Bragging about your high school accomplishments."- Hysterical_Realist
Yeah... I'll get my own...
"Sleeping 8 to a hotel room to save money."- UrDraco
So this is what it's like to have a savings account...
"Spending all your money at the bar on payday."- deputytech
Life is meant to be enjoyed.
"Here's some prospective from way in your future."
"I'm 64."
"When I was in my 50's my motto was, 'Oh, well'."
"I have 2 mottoes for my 60's."
"'Anyway, doesn't matter', and 'I don't need that stress in my life'."
"It's a great place to live."
Our tastes and interests change with each passing year.
Hence why staying up till 5am drinking straight from the bottle and eating nothing but potato chips might not have the same appeal.
Though no one should look back on those moments with shame or embarrassment.
After all, a good time was had by all, and that's what your 20s were for.
Not everyone wins the parent lottery.
It's a hard road when you have parents who don't support you or are openly hostile to you.
And the nonsense and cruelty can be subtle.
Sometimes it's the subtlety that's worse.
Redditorsnoofle-sciencewanted to discuss the ways we can all tell how others we're brought up by people who maybe should've rethought breeding. They asked:
"What is a sign you grew up with shi**y parents?"
I got lucky with my parent but I feel others who got the opposite.
Center of...
"You are in your 40s and still crave attention and validation from anyone at all because you were ignored all the time."
JBLBEBthree
Protection
"Even at 31, feeling like if I get close to anyone they'll find a way to take advantage of me."
NoticeWhenUAreHappy
"I’m not even sure my parents are wholly to blame there, they taught me love is kinda conditionally based on being a success and family means never being comfortable directly opening up. And that truly dealing with things is best done by ignoring or shouting about them. It was other folks who took advantage."
cewumu
I want nothing...
"The last time I got new tires, my mom made me let her pay for them for me because I didn't have a job and she doesn't want me spending money. Within an hour after, she was already using it as leverage like a, 'I did this for you, now do this for me!' kind of thing. My dad let me reimburse them without her knowing, but still. My parents have caused me to not be comfortable with accepting anything from anyone anymore. Not even a Christmas gift from a close friend."
SilverLugia1992
Do X
"Not being able to recognize affection or how to show it healthily."
TwoLaysea
"Affection gives me panic attacks. I know I'm going to get in deep crap because they're going to follow up with 'since I'm so loving you need to do X' with X being something i know I don't want to do. Haven't lived at home in decades but I still don't trust when people are being genuinely kind and loving. I know the other shoe is going to drop with a whole foot in it."
digitalwyrm
Worth
"You feel intimidated by everyone around you, you feel like you're never good enough for anyone, no matter how much they tell you that you don't need to try so hard, and you generally have low self-worth."
mR-gray42
Some childhoods really are a tragedy.
Sorry
"Being surprised people will apologize and want to talk out and deal with an issue instead of screaming and pretending everything is fine and never mentioning why there was a fight or argument at all."
ToastedMaple
Lies
"You remember being severely neglected yet you were told 'you are spoiled.'"
Embarrassed-Swan3568
"Lots of these hit close to home, but this one hits closest. Especially because my parents use money as a way of trying to keep me around for narcissistic supply."
"'Oh, they're such nice people, look at all they do for you!' Literally all I want in life right now is to not have to depend on them, I'd give every penny I have to not have to spend time with them and just constantly keep my mouth shut about my childhood abuse."
emueller5251
The Crave
"I once had one of my good friends tell me about how his dad never hugged him or said he loved him and this fantasy he had about his dad holding is head in his hands and telling him he loves him. I promised myself I would do everything I can to make sure my kids feel loved and are used to affection. And it's clear they crave it."
TheGlenrothes
I Remember
"When you really don’t remember any good times you spent with them."
AverageLegoGameFan
"My family was mad when I didn't attend my grandfather's funeral last year. I thought about it for a minute... then realized I could not come up with a single positive memory of him or anything nice he ever said to me in my life (I'm 44)."
"I could, however, come up with a very long list of really shi**y things he did and said. So I realized, why would I want to go? Don't want to see anyone else that will be attending anyhow so, nope. I am an adult and I don't have to so I didn't and I am glad for my choice."
Business_Loquat5658
peace out...
"You don't talk to them anymore or want them in your life otherwise as an adult (e.g., not inviting them to your wedding, or want them around any potential children you may have)."
Cuish
People really should have to be licensed to become parents.
Life is fragile.
We're reminded of that every single day.
In a split second, anything and everything can change.
You never know when you may end up in an ER.
RedditorSpinalPrizonwanted to hear about the times life took a sudden unexpected turn. They asked:
"People who were fine one minute, then woke up in the hospital, what happened?"
Thankfully I've only ever fainted. Blackouts and hospital stays give me anxiety.
Knock Out
"I was walking to a birthday party. Next thing I knew, I woke up in an ambulance. I had been struck over the head and was knocked unconscious. I never found out who it was, or what they wanted (they didn't take anything from me)."
nome_king
The Van
"On a business trip in Texas. Me and two co-workers were driving to work, I was in the back passenger seat. Woke up in an ambulance. Got hit by a sprinter van at 50mph and slammed into a guard rail according to the police report. I don't remember any of it. Broke 7 ribs, collar bone, concussion, and fractured two bones in my neck. Took like 7 months to recover, but my neck and shoulder still bother me daily."
RemarkableWafer
Psycho
"When I was around 8 or 9, my parents went to have dinner at a fancy restaurant. My younger brother was at a friends house and I had a babysitter. When I finally fell asleep I woke up in an ambulance. Turns out my babysitter overdosed me with pills so I wouldn’t wake up whilst she threw a party at my house. She gave me so many I passed out and had a reaction."
Honey_*itch-
Weeks Later
"My girlfriend had a thyroid related heart attack, where she was revived and put into a medically induced coma for like 2 weeks, and took her another 2 weeks to come out of it. Then she had to go to in-patient physical therapy for a bit. Talking to her after she woke up, I couldn't help but be astounded how much it f**ked with her memory. It was like she remembered events, people, things and places, but any concept of time went out the window."
"For example, she thought she was living at her ex husband's mom's house, driving a car she had before we met, working at her current job, and knew we were dating. And of course, as those were all simultaneously impossible, she was having a lot of trouble figuring out what was right, and what wasn't."
Digital_Utopia
Hero Gramps
"I had a severe asthma attack to the point my entire throat closed up. I turned blue and was lying on the kitchen floor. Woke up in my grandads car with a straw in my throat and him banging on my back. Woke up again in the hospital. I was about seven."
Kaonashi_chlo
I would be a wreck in all of these situations. This is too much.
Erased
"Hit by a van . Woke up about a month later. My last memory before waking up is my 4th period art class in high school. So it completely erased the last half of the day before and the entire morning of the accident itself."
Half_Smashed_Face
A Bad Series
"My dad was driving me to school and suddenly I was in my bed! I get up, open my door, and ask my family what just happened! They all simultaneously scream for me to go back to the bed. Apparently I had already asked them what happened six separate times. I had a series of grand mal seizures during the car ride."
"Went from chatty to seizing all of a sudden. My dad called our pediatrician and I was eventually diagnosed with a form of epilepsy. My dad was told to take me home and put me to bed. It was the most disorienting thing I've ever experienced. It took six months to feel normal again. I had a constant sense of newness with familiar things that was very weird."
Nht2
To Sleep
"I was in elementary school. I stayed home because I had a light fever one day. I took a nap and woke up 3 days later in the hospital with no feeling in my legs. I had contracted viral meningitis, which had cut off the nerves to my lower body. I was bedridden for 3 weeks and spent several more weeks in physical therapy relearning how to walk. The horrors I endured during my stay were traumatic enough, but I still feel lucky. In high school, a fellow classmate had contracted bacterial meningitis, he died two days later."
Tathanor
The Jungle Gym
"I don't know if absolutely plastered counts as being fine one minute, but yeah. I remember being sh**faced sitting on a jungle gym in a park and then waking up the next morning in the hospital with an IV and catheter. Apparently I was found in a coma and had multiple organs shutting down. If I hadn't received medical help I would've died. Am now 3 years sober."
sandenema
The Rupture
"I was at work having a normal day. I went to the toilet and could not get off the floor because I was doubled over in pain."
"I somehow managed to stagger out to where my colleagues were and they called me an ambulance. Got to hospital and had all my clothes and belongings shoved in a bag and was rushed into emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy."
snoozlybar
Well I guess some miracles actually do happen. That is all too crazy.
All of us have something that we tend to "geek out" over.
This could be a book, television show, actor, singer or sports team.
But some shows or celebrities have a considerably wider fanbase than others, as evidenced by the terms "Trekkies" or "Beliebers".
Some times, members of these fan bases are so passionate, that they often come off as obnoxious or aggressive, possibly even hurting the reputation of the people or product they go wild over.
Redditor vejack was curious to learn which fan bases the Reddit community tends to find the most off putting, leading them to ask:
"Which is the most toxic community/fan base that you know?"
Everyone has an opinion...
"Reddit."- tall2022420
Oof, that's bad...
"It's not a big community, but there are items in the dilapidated bowels of the Chernobyl nuclear plant that are less toxic than the Super Smash Brothers Melee fan base."- CorgisDie
When the creators tell you to back off, take a hint!
"'Rick and Morty'."
"Even the show's creators have had to clash with them and their toxicity."- JeremyZenith·
I like it, in small doeses...
"Kpop fans."
"I love really enjoy Kpop and am a fan myself, but damn. I sometimes just can't."- Ok-Enthusiasm-6975
Love the animation, the fans, not so much...
"Some anime community’s."- thomas_da_tra1n
It's just a TV show... tone it down a bit...
"I expected to find this but haven't yet."
"The Supernatural Fandom."
"Other than the whole populous of it are cringe and over the top, getting tattoos of a show detail etc."
"They've literally bullied the show to continue the show past the natural ending, season 5, and for literally half a decade made them try to poop out content that topped the last season, with no where to really go to at that point."
"The consistent push on 'shipping' characters together that make the actors visably uncomfortable."
"The fan base is full of edgy people who gatekeep everything.'- develyn507
All of them!!!
"Are there any non toxic fan bases anymore?"
"The whole idea of people getting together and arguing with anyone that disagrees with them just breeds discontent."- KingGuy420
At least they get them excited about reading...
"YA writers."
"No specific authors, but the community of them."- D-Rez
There's nothing wrong with being passionate about something we love.
But when that passion starts to become competitive, even unsafe, can you even still call it a fanbase "community"?