The stovetop was already messed up because all the “dots” on the front left burner had been cooked off but a couple of weeks ago when I burned that pot of gumbo, I branded my stovetop with the “Farberware” logo from the bottom of the pot.
I kept thinking I could scrub it enough and the logo would disappear but that hasn’t happened. Some day I’m either going to have to order a new stovetop or replace that stove anyway but every time I look at this burner, I think BURNED GUMBO!
Next to this incident, my only other real kitchen disaster was about 8 years ago, I put some just a little oil in a pot to heat up so I could saute something and then I wasn’t paying attention and it caught on fire. I knew not to throw water on a grease fire but I had a pitcher of water there and threw it on the fire and fire went everywhere! Lucky for me, I got it all out and only melted a small part of the microwave that was above the stove.
What’s the worst disaster you’ve ever had in the kitchen?
Mary Beth says
That would be the turkey that I left in the over for about 15 hours. We had to get dental records to identify him.
Maria Stahl says
If there was a LIKE button, I’d click it.
Linda in Calif. says
I’d click it too!
Julie says
Me, too!!!
Cindy in NC says
Pretty much everything I make, other than gumbo and biscuits, could be classified as a disaster. I do give fair warning, however. A sign in my kitchen reads:
Welcome to my kitchen
I’m very glad you came
Just don’t expect home cooking
Stitching is my game!
Jerri says
I was cooking a pot of beans, and left the temp turned up, then went to clean out a drawer, and the beans burned dry, and smoked up the house, but I didn’t know it until the smoke reached the other end of the house where I was. It left smoke colored stains on the ceiling and upper walls in the kitchen. It took 3 days of airing out the house for the smell to go away. Unfortunately that has happened more than once. I get engrossed in what I’m doing and forget about what’s on the stove. I’m learning I need to set the timer when I have the burner turned up if I’m trying to multitask.
Susan says
The worst was while I was in high school. I was supposed to start supper for my mother. I started cooking and got distracted by something my brother was watching on TV in the next room. The next time I remembered that I was cooking was when I saw the reflections of the flames on the TV screen……..
Fire department called and the fire was extinguished. We had to move out for a week while the kitchen was rebuilt.
Sandy says
The first year we were married I tried broiling meat. When I opened the oven door, the flames shot out. I panicked and hollered for my DH who calmly closed the oven door and shut off the stove. I do remember we had to wash the kitchen walls because of the smoke. We were in a rented apartment with the landlord living downstairs. It is a wonder she didn’t call the fire department, lol.
Pat in Washington says
When my son was about 8 years old, he “helpfully” super-glued some of my spice jars to the stove top so they would be right there where I needed them. Luckily when I bought the super glue, it came with a little tube of super glue remover.
Maria Stahl says
LOL!
Holly says
When I bought my new stove two years ago it came with a power boil burner on the front right side. My stove butts against my pantry and the first time I used the power boil burner on high I almost set my pantry on fire. The burn marks are still there to remind me to make sure the flames stay under the pot!
Linda says
set the “chip” pan on fire when I lived at my parents still…it was a pan of hot oil to cook french fries in. My parents weren’t home, my brothers were…got them out, called the fire department. My dad was coming home thinking…those fire trucks are near our neighbourhood, those truck are near our street, those trucks are on our street…at our house! I had kept telling the fire men…my dad is going to kill me (of course he wouldn’t….just a figure of speech of how mad he would be), so the firemen wouldn’t let him near me until I told them it was okay and he was just so happy that we were okay. The worst thing, not much was burned but smoke damage was big…and we had big picture windows that went wall to wall in the living room….with brand new drapes!
Linda says
oh…and when the kids were little I don’t know how many baby bottle nipples we burnt dry sterilizing them! It was probably only for the first child! LOL
Karen says
Popped a chicken in to roast and didn’t see the plastic fire engine that had been placed at the bottom of the oven. It melted and stuck to the bottom and the smell was revolting! Had to throw away the chicken as well as I didnt want plastic poisoning! Now I check everytime I turn it on..
Doe in Mi says
I was baking a ham, got it in a little late for dinner, so thought I’d turn the oven on to 400 to get it started faster. Went outdoors to check on kids, got involved with their fun and forgot the ham. By the time I remembered I was supposed to turn that down in a few minutes it was an hour later. The ham was totally black but, got to tell you, that was the best ham I ever made. It was perfect inside.
quilterbee says
I was cooking dinner for my Grandma and Mom and as I was removing the meat loaf from the oven I dropped the pan upside down onto the oven door. I can still remember what a mess that was trying to get that meatloaf off of the oven door. We went out to eat.
Laurie Stone says
Thirty-five? years ago I put a pot of beans on the stove to bring to a boil, on high, for a few minutes and then to turn them off to soak, forgot them, on high. Left the house for a couple hours….worse even instead of a lid I’d put a thick melmac plate on top. Luckily when smoke started billowing out the window a neighbor went in and turned off the heat. The beans were burned throughout, about 6 inches thick. The plate was burned. The aluminum pan had an area of flakiness, but still works.
ida says
My worst kitchen experience was when I was in high school. I was my usual self … doing everything ….
One evening I decided that I wanted egg salad to eat, so I started to boil eggs. STARTED. I sat down on the loveseat (which was in the kitchen about 4 feet from the stove). It was only a minute or two. I swear. 🙂
The next thing I know I wake up and look over at the stove where the pan is glowing orange. I run across the kitchen, turn on the sink … back across the kitchen grab the pan, and run back to the sink to quick cool the metal. [The sink was an old porcelain covered steel sink w/ a built in drying board.]
THEN … I had the pleasure of cleaning up exploded eggs. The hardest part was to get them off the drop-ceiling tiles directly over the stove. My Mom saw the clean spots right away when she got home (about 15 minutes after I finished cleaning). It took my Aunt several months before she saw it.
ANOTHER disaster wasn’t mine, but I got to experience it …. we had a mouse. Mice are cute, right? Well, they stink HORRIBLY when they crawl into the stove, get caught and die in the inch-wide area between the ‘oven’ and the outside .. you know … the side of the oven! OH … and of course, it has to happen at the holidays when you’re using the stove and oven constantly. Oranges studded with cloves boiling in water can only cover so much stench. 😉 You eventually need to tear the stove apart to get out the carcass.
Judy C in NC says
Can’t lay claim to any kitchen disasters – but your situation sure would be a very good push for a new stove and I would play it up if I were you. Judy C
Happy Room Diana says
My stove has gas rings and an electric oven [ all in one] and there is a glass lid fits over the top and stands as a splash back while cooking. A few years ago I put the lid down before the gas rings were cold and glass exploded all over the kitchen.. it was weeks before I found it all!
pdudgeon says
thankfully no fires in my kitchens, but i can remember when i was first married making a pot of chili with an onion that was so old that even the dog wouldn’t eat the chili.
Pam in KC says
Shortly after my husband and I were married I tried to make Tuna Helper. I ‘m not sure why I burned it, but to this day my husband won’t eat tuna – cold or hot. This may not be my ‘worst’ disaster, but it is the most memorable even 25 years later.
Cathi Harry says
Several years ago, my oldest daughter & her 4 kids were visiting us from out of state. We used the oven to store extra stuff as my kitchen small. Well, one day I put the oven on pre-heat for pizza. I then left the house to go next door to take care of my other daughter’s cats..she was out of town. I came home to see smoke billowing out of the back door & my husband standing in the garage holding his arm. Obviously, the chips in the oven caught fire, hubby grabbed the oven rack, with burning chips, headed out to the garage. Tripped over the threshhold & fell, breaking his shoulder & a few burns. Needless to say, even tho I know there’s nothing in the oven, I check each & every time I turn it on. Hubby recovered & oldest daughter cleaned the mess up whilst we were at the ER.
julie says
Ok…I blew up a pressure cooker and glass, peaches and muck went everywhere!!! Ceiling was a total loss!
Sandra Neel Hutchins says
I haven’t had any kitchen gaffs yet. But as my husband and I get older I do worry that one of us might forget to turn off a burner. I double check every time we leave the kitchen.
Judy, you really need a new stove!!!! Today the plumber comes to install my new gas cook stove in my second little kitchen that we’ve made in a corner of the sunroom. I will be using a cast iron skillet for the first time in the seven years that we’ve had this new house. I love my glass top electric stove, it’s so easy to keep clean, but I’m going to enjoy a gas one also!
Brita says
See? that’s why I’m afraid of getting a pressure cooker. Judy, you almost had me convinced I really need one. But the explosions I’ve heard about are scary! I think my Mom must have blown one when I was a kid because that’s all I can think of. Knock wood, I haven’t had any real kitchen disasters, just some smoke from the oven when it had burned spills in the botton. My grandson tossed a paper towel onto the stove once when he was little, not paying attention. When it caught fire, he sure noticed! But it was good because there was no harm done, and he learned a lesson early.
Kari in UT says
Three years ago, I just bought my beautiful gas stove that I had my eye on for quite some time. It was strawberry season and I wanted to make jam. As I was in the process of boiling the fruit and sugar it boiled over causing a big mess around the burner. Not wanting to stop my jam making frenzy I continued on. Once the stove was cool enough to clean, the sugar had been burnt to the stove top. To this day I am still trying to safely clean off what is left of the sugar specs without scratching or damaging the stove top. (Those Mr Clean Magic Erasers have helped a lot!)
Linda in Calif. says
I actually have two funny stories.
I was living in Italy and we had the tiniest little oven. A new American wife had just flown in to be with her husband and they came to visit. We had four pizza in boxes and she said let’s heat them up in the oven (it was a tight squeeze but she got them to fit in there). I didn’t think it was a good idea and she assured me it was. Yep, they caught fire! We were laughing and she burned my only dish towel as she batted the flames down. I figured any gal that could come to a strangers house and almost burn it down was a keeper. That started the best friendship.
My next kitchen disaster was when my husband and I were making caramel corn, the popcorn bag slipped from my hands and kernels went everywhere!! Including into that little vent at the back of the stove/oven. We laughed as we vacuumed them out – when was the last time you vacuumed your stove? When we turned the oven on – we heard Pop…Pop…Pop Pop Pop. All those kernels we didn’t see were popping!! I opened the oven door to see my oven was full of popcorn!
swooze says
I love using those oven roasting bags that are plastic. They say do NOT let the bag touch the side of the oven and they are not kidding. I lit the turkey on fire. Had to use a fire extinguisher to put it out. Was no fun trying to salvage dinner after that.
Angie says
That area of the burner looks bad Judy—I think you need that new stove, now.
My worst Kitchen disaster is Redenbacher Kettle Corn popcorn in the brand new microwave. I used the “popcorn setting”, and that was too long for the Kettle Corn, and the corn got so hot the bag caught on fire and scorched the back of the new microwave. Thank goodness the interior was metal with enamel, but we were never able to get the discoloration off the interior. So our new microwave had brown streaks all down the back panel and up on top. We replaced it last year with a new microwave after 12 yrs.
I’ve never cooked Kettle Corn in the microwave since that happened! I buy it ready made if I get a craving for it. :o)
Lynne says
Won’t baking soda take that up?? I almost burned the house down while making hot cocoa. At least that’s what my mom always likes to claim. Truthfully I just burned (melted) a hole in the pan. I forgot about it and finally noticed when my eyes started watering from all the smoke.
Lorraine says
Oh my! Someone needs to write a book! I learned long ago the value of the kitchen timer…it has saved me many a time when I was distracted, or in the midst of a multitasking overload!!
bcinindy says
Tthe first year we were married (1970) I burned my cookbook.
Debbie Harmon says
My Better Homes and Gardens cookbook has a scorch on the outside!
Linda P in IL says
OH my, you win the prize, good chuckle.
Linda in Calif. says
LOL!! Too funny!
Marla says
I think you might win the contest! LOL
Ava Crotinger says
I’m not very patient with cooking, so I usually want to do something else at the same time. Like this morning, the eggs were in the frying pan, but I was considering running down to the basement to water plants while the eggs finished. I caught myself, realizing that the 2 or 3 minutes wouldn’t be sufficient time.
I came up with a new recipe called “Blackened Beef” or you might know it better as burned pot roast.
Sally says
I have a flat top stove and haven’t enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. The heat is difficult to regulate – I’m seriously considering having it replaced with a gas stove. My main dislike about the flat top is that folks tend to use like additional countertop space and I’m scared to death someone will get burned, not realizing that the surface is still hot. And it is difficult to clean. I do like the convection oven part of the appliance, though.
Patty says
I put eggs on to boil forgot about them and went out to work in my garden. I could hear a faint but consistent beeping, went to find out what the noise was, found my kitchen filled with smoke, the pan burnt, eggs burnt beyond recognition, later I realized that they had exploded and ended up in several places including the ceiling!
Emma says
I melted the bacon package onto the burner of our flat-top stove because I turned on the wrong burner…had to clean it up after going to work that day. 🙁
Tracy says
I’ve got so many stories I’m starting to forget them all. But everyone else’s memories are bringing them back! I caught a papertowel on fire when I was about 12 and trying to fry bacon. I put it out with my Pepsi…waste of good soda if you ask me! Dropped some sticky buns on the floor that were to be my senior year demonstration speech in speech class. I used them anyway! Cooked a pan of rice dry while on the computer-scared my future DIL half to death when I jumped out of the chair for the kitchen! Scorched the counter on one side of my stove while canning…it’s level with the stove and the heat was too much for the formica! Countless cast iron skillets have gotten overheated while drying over the flames. My husband burnt a hole in the microwave heating up a container of honey with an unknown particle of metal in it. He wanted to keep on using the micro but I said no way!
I guess I have a lot of little disasters that could add up to a great big one…if you added them all together…which we won’t!
Diann Smith says
The first reply is the award winner. I’ve laughed all day on that one and my husband is thinking I’m nuts because I offer no explanation amd just keep giggling.
The only cooking that I’ve done was not really a disaster..more of an embarassment..I was newly wed and made potato salad for my inlaws and they kept saying how tasty it was and unusual and I thought it’s just potato salad and then I looked. I had cooked the potatoes and had forgotten to put in all the celery, pickles, mayo, cheese and whatever else I had tossed in the bowl. I never told them what I had done.
Evelyn says
Funny stories – my disaster(s) involve my 1st 2 Thanksgivings, newly married. No-one told me it took 3 days to defrost a 25 lb frozen bird (for 2 people, mind you!). We went to friends. The next year I bought a young, fresh Tom, read the directions, rinsed out the cavity and when the gizzard, neck, etc. came out – I promptly threw up over the entire thing – was the grossest thing I had even seen. We went to friends. Hard to believe the amount of cooking I do now! Another funny thing – I bought my Dad a brand new microwave and within a month he had exploded the inside plate. When I asked him what happened he told me that he was microwaving a meteorite… he wanted to see what would happen. Too funny, that man.
Marla says
I had such fun reading these! They could be put in a book! I have to decide which one I want to fess up to. I guess when I was 14, I was home alone and decided to make “lace cookies” from my Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook. I don’t know what I did wrong but could not remove the cookies from the cookie sheets. Something about overcooked corn syrup I guess. I was scared of what my Mom would say so I took the cookie sheets out and buried them out behind the garden. She never found out and I never told her. I guess if someone goes out to the old homeplace someday and uses a metal detector, they will find a surprise!
Barbara says
Forgot to take the oven thermometer out when I ran the clean cycle. It got so hot, it exploded and sent a piece of schrapnel through the back oven wall! I’m glad it didn’t come through the glass window on the oven door and kill someone. It might have been a mystery for CSI to solve.
Lori in South Dakota says
hard boiled eggs. Had them on the stove in a corelle pan with a lid. The dreaded yell from outside “the cows are out!” turned the eggs off (I thought) and ran outside to chase and sort cows. Got in the house an hour later–oh the stench! I had turned the pan on HIGH and the eggs had exploded and burned to the bottom of the pan. Well, at least the lid was on and no exploded eggs on the walls. The windows were all open (it was early summer) and most the smell went outside.
Linda in MI says
my worst experience was of my mother…she had been heating oil on the stove for french fries, went to do something and came back to the pan on fire! I must admit my mom was not the brightest but she doused the fire, picked up the pan, and it spilled down her legs. pan landed on floor, she comes running out of the house on fire! my dad got to her before I did…she had the worst kind of burns on her legs. and I have a great respect for hot oil.
Jennifer says
I’ve started three fires in the kitchen…two due to a toaster with a faulty plug and one due to a tv dinner in the oven (before we had a microwave)…all these were before I left home for college. My track record has been much better since then 🙂
Linda in MI says
why
Linda in MI says
oops! brain overload!
Nancy in Nc says
Similar disaster. I had a tea kettle that was so cute. shaped like a fish, and the spout stopper was clear plastic balls that looked like bubbles coming out of its mouth.
Left the tea kettle on and melted the kettle to the burner. At that point, we had the old fashioned burners, so we just replaced it, but have never found another fish tea kettle.
Valarie says
Boiling eggs for egg salad, forgot about them, boiled the pot dry….by the time I finally smelled the burnt eggs and ran to the kitchen the pot was stuck down to my smooth top stove. In a fit of panic I tried to jerk the pot off the eye (rather than turn the eye off and let it cool) and cracked the stove when I pull the pot off. My Magtag double oven smooth top 6 month old computerized $1000.00 stove was ruined. It cost $500.00 to replace the top…very expensive eggs….and it also ruined my Cuisinart pot! My insurance covered the replacement stove top and pot. My deductible was $200.00.
Joyce says
I love cooking, love my smoothtop and how easy it is too just wipe off after cooking. I also have used a pressure cooker with no problems for over 40 years. So I think reading all these has me feeling very lucky! My worst thing would be dropping a jar of oil and the mess that was to clean. Now it seems like nothing after reading these!! I do always set a timer though as I am forgetful. The hardest to clean off the smoothtop was just last week. I was bringing some orange juice/sugar to boil for pouring over a holiday cake. The doorbell rang and I left the pot on the burner and it boiled over. Took lots of scrubbing with a “soft” scrubber and Bar Keeper’s Friend to get it off, after I soaked it under a wet towel about and hour ; )
Kat says
You CAN clean your stovetop!!! The Magic Eraser for Kitchens WILL scrub anything off of a glass stove top! It may take a couple of them & some “elbow grease”, but I’ve removed burnt on everything!!!
PS:Really enjoying your website after discovering about a week ago…oh, and we have an armadillo living under our storage shed,& if you feed them enough cat & dog food, they don’t dig up your yard for grub worms !
Lea says
I am enjoying reading everyone’s kitchen experiences. When I was a teenager I cooked dinner for my Dad. Without thinking I had a roll of paper towels on the stove. They caught on fire and I ever so calmly picked them up and placed them in the sink and turned the water on. My Dad was shocked at how calm I reacted.
Later when I was living in my first apartment I made popcorn, smoked up the place and set off the smoke alarms. It was in February in New England and I had to open all the windows to get the smoke out.