On Monday night, we had friends over for dinner. I made the easiest thing EVER (pulled pork – a recent culinary discovery), and I decided that cheesy potatoes would be the perfect side dish to go with it. Piece of cake, right?
Well, not a piece of cake. I made brownies for dessert.
But I thought that throwing together a pan of cheesy potatoes would be simple. No fail. Or something. I’m sure you can guess where this is going . . .
Sadly, I didn’t cook the potatoes long enough. And as we sat down to eat and scooped mounds of pork and potatoes onto our plates, Mark said, “Ummm, how long did you cook these potatoes?”
Great. “Okay, let’s nuke it. Who wants to go first?”
Our friends insisted the potatoes were great (although Josh did, in fact, nuke his). After they left, I told Mark that I was so sad for them: If they thought THOSE potatoes were good, well, they must have never had GOOD ones!
It reminded me of a time our friend Ben came over for dinner. His wife was living in St. Louis, because they were in the middle of a transfer and move. So we had him over for dinner every week or so. On this particular night, I was back on the Weight Watchers wagon and decided to make a healthier pizza. I used turkey pepperoni and fat-free mozzarella.
It was the worst pizza I’d ever eaten.
The funny part was that Mark and Ben didn’t even notice until I said, “Ugh! That’s awful!” We all laughed. They’d been so busy shoving pizza in their faces that they didn’t even notice how it tasted.
I guess the moral of this story is that if you’re being nice enough to cook for people, they usually don’t care if it’s not perfect. And also, fat-free cheese is disgusting.
That – the friends being nice and even grateful for not-so-great food – is a finer thing, and this post will be linked up with Amy’s Finer Things Friday.
Have you ever had a cooking disaster when cooking for people [other than your family]?
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Why yes. Yes I have. One night I made a meal so awful that we threw it out and purchased pizza before our friends arrived…thankfully I did a taste test first. And, I agree, fat-free cheese is horrible…why do they even sell the stuff? Is it even cheese?
Good thing you didn’t plan to have the food ready right when (or after) they arrived! That’s usually how it ends up at our house (whether by design or by procrastination).
I was still living at home so it has been a few years, well maybe more than a few and decided to bake some cookies. Now, I have baked a lot of cookies before so nit certain what I did differentky this particular tim but the cookies had not been in the oven very long before the smoke detector went odd. And, did I mention we had company too… needless to say, I was a bi embarrassed. I have made cookies since then anhave not set off the smoke detector again. Go figure.
Oh no! I’m trying to think if I’ve set off the fire alarm before. I’ve made MANY a mistake in the kitchen, so it seems likely. :)
I bought prime rib for Christmas dinner one year (when I had a bunch of friends and extended family over).No one has agonized over cooking prime rib like I did. I was so worried about overcooking it I took it out too early. I ended up with a bleeding roast. There was a looooong line at the microwave :-)
Ohhhhh, yeah. A LONG time, I’m sure.
When my oldest was about 4 months old we decided to host Thanksgiving for my husband’s family. I love to cook so I really didn’t take help from anyone else. The day was going fine until it was time to top the sweet potatoes with marshmallows. For some reason I thought when the recipe said to “toast” the marshmallows I should turn on the broiler (blaming new mommy brain here). Well evidently marshmallows are a bit flammable under those conditions. I opened the oven, saw flames and screamed and hopped all over the kitchen. Thankfully my husband grabbed the pan and blew out the fire. Then he proceeded to scrape off the charred bits and everyone ate it anyway (and told me it was good!). Still a funny little story at family gatherings :).
Okay, I do NOT have baby brain right now, but I have to say I wouldn’t have thought that marshmallows would CATCH FIRE like that!
My momma always said food tasted better when someone else cooked it. And she would rather do dishes than cook. :-)
I was a newly wed and wanting to do a grand job of it. We invited a friend over as his wife was out of town. They were newlywed as well and no one had extra money to eat out. I fix an Italian dish and it called for garlic. I just had dehydrated. And did not know the difference between a clove or a bulb. :-)
You guessed it! It is a good thing that his wife was not home. We all smelled like garlic. It was good but woah! The garlic almost stung our eyes!
My husband should have known as he had been pre-warned. I hated cabbage but wanted to show him what a good cook I was. I made boiled cabbage for him and my mom. I would not taste it… and kept adding salt because we all know how bland cabbage is.
The cabbage was almost salty enough to knock them down! My mom fixed a huge pot of soup, adding to the cabbage and did not have to add any salt at all. And that was with throwing some potatoes in. :-)
Thank you for the fun memories! Love you, Grandma Patty Ann
Yep. Seasoning can make or break a dish, that’s for sure!
It’s true what they say that it tastes better when it’s made by somebody else (with love:). Well, true in general. Obviously there are always exceptions. :) Especially when in-laws are involved. ;)
Yes, I’ve had dinners that I have forgotten to put things in a recipe. I did that with a chicken lasagna. I was wondering why it didn’t taste right. Thankfully, our guest was excited that we even asked her over and loved it or so she said. :)
Well, now you have me curious. What did you forget?