Cooking Hall of Shame

OK, we all have kitchen disasters, and I had a particularly spectacular one tonight. Just thought I'd share. Well, actually my KIDS thought I should share. I don't always agree with their sense of humor. (And it'd sure help my ego if some of YOU posted your disasters too!)

I made a new seitan ("gluten") recipe that I hadn't tried before. I'm not going to say what recipe, because others might like it, or get discouraged by my horrible efforts...

Anyway, it seemed alright after steaming it. (It looks OK, don't you think?) except maybe a little tasteless... well, in fact, VERY tasteles - definitely more bland than many I've made. And I did follow the recipe to the letter. (Hey - usually I make GOOD seitan!)

I should have stopped here, with the tasteless stuff... but I didn't let that phase me, because, I reasoned, seitan is usually perked up by whatever you cook it in, or with...

So I forged ahead - decided to try a sweet and sour recipe that I'd heard was soo-oo-oo good. It calls for covering the slices of seitan in sauce and baking at 375° for 45 min until sauce is thick and flavorful... should have been pretty good...

So, I whipped up the sweet and sour sauce, poured it over the seitan slices, and baked it.

Only I'd accidentally set my oven at 475°!! So, yeah, you all know what happened. Hard, dry char-blackened seitan slices greeted me when I opened the oven door. They were completely unsalvagable. Totally blackened, dried out beyond recognition... and we tried the un-burned parts... they STILL didn't taste like anything inside. Even the dog wouldn't touch them, and she'll eat ANYTHING!

Ugh... so depressing... I need to go eat chocolate.

Enjoy a laugh at my expense... :D