How NOT to Cook Dinner – 20 Painful Steps
I think I am a little… off these days. I have nothing else to offer you other than specific instructions on how not to cook dinner.
Expectation
Reality (minus consoling male figure)
*All instructions are direct results of thorough investigation and experimentation by scholars of the 25tofly cooking institute on 11/26/2012 at 6:00pm.*
Nah, actually these instructions result from my lack of fluid motor skills and general cognition without wearing my LJs and consuming alcohol while cooking. If you learn anything from this, it is that you never deviate from standard protocol.
1. Buy all ingredients for a slightly unconventional Thanksgiving meal because you never got to eat any leftovers at your parents house. Include a rotisserie chicken in place of a turkey.
2. Get home and put that chicken (plastic container and all) in the oven just to keep in some of the warmth. Leave oven off.
3. Make candied yams that look like baby food mush because you bought the wrong canned yams. Ignore this and add brown sugar to feel like you are still making it the correct way.
4. Set sweet potato slop aside and cut veggies for stuffing while slicing fingernail in half. Be thankful it wasn’t your entire finger.
5. Begin mixing the stuffing even though you realize you don’t have enough sherry to complete the recipe.
6. Forget about turkey chicken in oven and preheat to 400 degrees.
7. Add way more melted butter to the stuffing than you usually do, because the stuffing is acting like Rain-X to all moisture attempts.
8. Realize you left the chicken in the oven.
9. Panic and spill your apple cider.
10. Pull out mutated, and now surely radioactive plasticken.
11. Turn off oven and try to separate chicken from plastic container.
12. Try a piece, almost choke, and realize you will have to discard all of the chicken skin.
13. Place sides in the oven to bake for twenty minutes, but burn your hand while you are at it.
14. When the timer goes off, pull out your sides being careful not to burn your other hand.
15. You turned the oven off in step 11, dumbass.
16. Preheat oven again after you step in that drink you spilled but forgot to clean up. Your socks are now properly wet and gross and sad.
17. Bake sides for another twenty minutes while you stave off starvation by eating half of the rotisserie chicken.
18. When sides are finished baked (for real this time LOL), make yourself a plate.
19. Top it off with a roll that you smashed while trying to butter with cold butter.
20. Congratulations, you are no longer hungry. Now, put everything in tupperware, and do the dishes in scalding water to make sure you irritate your burn.
I’ll be ordering take-out tonight. You should too.
Related articles
- Make-Ahead Tips for Novice Thanksgiving Cooks (readramble.typepad.com)
- Let Your Kids do the Cooking this Thanksgiving! (cdmfun.wordpress.com)
- Thanksgiving Recap: Sweet Potato Bake (youfoodisnotsogreat.wordpress.com)
Share this:
Posted on November 27, 2012, in Cooking, Humor and tagged 25tofly, Becca Cord, blog, Blogging, Butter, candied yams, Chicken, Cook, Cooking, cooking do's and don'ts, cooking fail, cooking sherry, expectations vs. reality, how not to cook, how to bake chicken, ingredients, kitchen disaster, life, Oven, Recipes, Rotisserie, sherry, Stuffing, Sweet potato, thanksgiving, thanksgiving disaster, thanksgiving leftovers. Bookmark the permalink. 93 Comments.
Not a Red Head 
HAhaha, this cracked me up. I was so pissed my computer was acting up so I wasn’t able to read all the blogs I wanted to and I always wondered which awesome posts I missed. Well clearly this one but I’m glad I still got a chance to read it! 🙂
The good thing is that they do not have an expiration date, you just have to dig a littler ;).
Haha yes, a littler 😛 Hahaha.
Once I offered to make a dish for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to pretend to be an adult and contribute to dinner. I offered to make the green bean casserole since it’s a family favorite and in my culinary wheelhouse. Well, I wound up baking a spoon in the dish for about 45 minutes. I realized the spoon I thought I had put in the sink had slunk down in the dish while I was out of the room watching an awesome monologue in Homeland (that show is riveting).
So I may have slowly poisoned my family with the bi-product of heated metal. But they all ate it and nobody said it tasted tinny. Now they just ask me to bring wine to dinner.
In your honor, I wrote a blog on my recent disaster attempting to make dumplings.
http://thrillseekingbehavior.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/how-not-to-make-dumplings-in-30-harrowing-steps/
Seriously, I read your post and wanted you to know that your Thanksgiving dinner looked pretty good! And for the record, I’m generally a really good cook.
At Step 15, I almost peed myself laughing. Congrats!
Yes! Urination activation!
You may suck at cooking – at least in the kitchen – but you rock at blogging!
At least I have that going for me! Thanks 😉
I wanna come over to dinner just to watch the show! A tip: nachos are way easy and way yummy.
Welcome any time David!
Guacamole is another great one, but still involves knives. Eeeep!
How my grandmother cooked huge holiday meals is beyond me. She’d always say, “Oh, anyone can do it.” REALLY? Is that why the fire department always shows up at my house when I cook? SHUTUP GRANDMA YOU LIAR.
Grandmas always lie. Always.
Very funny, Becca. You cook like I do!
In that case, be careful!
I usually am… I try not to cook! 😉
step 15 is brilliant.
Brilliantly dumb.
brilliantly written. wait. i’m assuming this is an exaggeration of a semi-bad day. this can’t all be true. if so, then i need to upgrade the cameras i planted so i can pitch this to NBC. or comedy central.
Actually, I can say it all really did happen. I guess I can’t bitch though, it did wonders for my blog post.
so would me in tights.
that’s damn funny. when that kid grows up, i hope his boyfriend never sees that gif.
That gif will be HOW he gets his boyfriend.
yep. when he dances at his rectal.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you properly banter in the comment section.
two shows saturday. take care of your bartenders and waitresses. cd’s for sale in the lobby.
Private interviews in Rich’s room after the show.
“gonna need towels in here!” someone was heard saying on the way out.
That sounds scarily familiar…
One cooking disaster I’ve heard of is when a person is cooking on an aga (a range type cooker that’s always on). You put the potatoes in to bake, or the stuffing, or the garlic bread, and remember the item in question at least 24 hours later, when said items will no longer resemble food, but a charcoal briquette.
Oh yikes. I have done that before in a regular oven, but I am sure after this post, that doesn’t surprise you.
I’m guessing you’ve also done the “forget the pan of boiling water” trick as well. Or the “forget the bread under the grill” trick?
There was one night when I was on supper duty here when I was supposed to be making toast for about 14, but I got called away from the grill at least twice. I think I had to scrape every single darned slice of toast to get the really burnt bits off… *headdesk*
Yep and yep. I have also been known to severly burn popcorn. It’s almost sad.
My socks are sad, my funny bone is tickled, and my finger is jealous it’s never been sawed in half. I just don’t know what to do with myself, Becca.
Stare into a brass monkey’s chocolate starfish.. I have heard it has an oddly placating effect. Well, according to my mom apparently.
Becca,
Take this comment as +5 Klout points for “cooking”.
Le Clown
JACKPOT
This just reminded me of:
I did what she did with the ice cream with the butter, but I didn’t mention it in the post. Boiling butter doesn’t feel good on the hands even with the stuffing to soak it up. Or not soak it up in my case!
Following this word for word.
I can always count on you!
I think you’ve been spying on me.
Shit, I was trying to be discrete!
I once bought powdered gravy mix and the instructions said to add 2/3 of a glass of water. Only I read it as 2-3. I ended up with a gloppy mess. I ran out and bought a load more packs and kept adding powder which then came out too thick. Add water powder lather rinse repeat. I ended up with a giant bowlful of brown cement. Lovely. I am banned from most kitchens except my own. Unfortunately
Haaaaaaaaaaaaa! I can laugh that obnoxiously because I am in the same boat, right?
Hey! You have Blog Bling on the side there! 😀 😀
Oh hey! I do. Thanks again 🙂
NO! Not the fingernail! Oh the horror! Which one was it? Was it….the little one?
Oh and you and I should never cook together. We might end up destroying the world.
Twas the pointer! You and I will be take-out queens for life.
Betty Crocker, off her rocker.
If I met her, I would sock her.
That’s a poem for you, because you warmed my heart like a plasticken.
Plasticken, you were loved by the one and only Sara. RIP.
“15. You turned the oven off in step 11, dumbass.”
I laughed pretty hard at this.
Recently, a girl I’m dating showed me her burn from the oven when cooking for Thanksgiving. I responded by showing her the scar at least twice the size on my bicep from drunkenly cooking pizza one night long ago at a sleepover party (I had a girlfriend at the time and I was less Red Pill). I heard the sizzle of my skin at the time, but I never lost focus, the pizza came out perfectly and was worth it. My relationship did/was not.
I saw the ex-gf’s hot friend (also a dancer) in Vegas for a bachelor party after the relationship had ended, got the friend’s number, then failed at meeting up. This was also when I managed to fall asleep mid-steak dinner while a stripper was sitting on my lap. Still one of my best Vegas trips yet even though I barely had the Red Pill starting to eek through at the time.
Becca, I think someone misspelled “cocksoling male” up there. You might want to fix it.
The more and more I hear from you the more and more you make sense. You say exactly what I think you might say. You have achieve the best kind of predictability.
I want to go to Vegas now. Dammit.
LA/OC resident: “Vegas is only about 3 hours away from here!”
In reality, it’s 4 to 4.5 hours, or in the case of hitting traffic like I did on my way back on this most recent trip, 7.5 hours before I was home.
Fuck you traffic accident gawkers, fuck you so, so much.
Okay, I’m up for Vegas again. Meet there?
Your compliment still sounds backhanded. Hussy.
Not after you call me a hussy! Penis breath!
haha, really funny post Becca! When we hit step 6 you we just KNOW it ain’t gonna end well — but we have to wait a few steps in great suspense in order to learn the fate of the chicken! Step 15 was also a highlight!
Thanks Derek, although now looking back, I realize I could have made it a little more suspenseful in #6 by not even mentioning the chicken at all. Live and learn! Glad you got a kick out of it.
no, mentioning the chicken was definitely a good thing…
Now I understand why I spent so much time retraining new cooks we hired.
They all had B25TF Institute listed on their resumes.
On the bright side, you can always tell this story to get out of cooking!
But they were all at least a little bit promising! I swear.
UGH! I hate gross wet socks… But seriously, this may be why I saute the heck out of everything.I hate baking.
Don’t worry you’ll get em next year (as well as the consoling male figure) 🙂
My very own consoling male?!? I can hardly wait!
It’s you, isn’t it?
ME? Um no, I don’t live anywhere near Louisiana. (not that the thought didn’t cross my mind when I read that lol)
You poor thing. The mommy in me wants to make you some dinner!
Aw! Emily, I would love to eat your supper 🙂
My cooking skills are about on the same scale, thanks for making me laugh after a long day, I needed it.
Wayne
Glad I could help with the laughs!
Oh, Becca! Don’t forget to add drops of your blood to #4. Yes!
Then I would have to add sweat and tears too, right?
That wouldn’t hurt if they’re there to add. Sure, throw those in, too!
I was once making gravy for a Thanksgiving meal and kept adding flour (back when I still ate wheat) to thicken it up, but it wasn’t working. No matter how much we put in, the damn gravy was still watery. Then we tasted it. Turns out we’d been putting in powdered sugar.
Still, your meal sounds like it would have been a blast to be around.
Candied stuffing… now that’s a new one! I used to eat powdered sugar straight, so who knows, I may have liked that.
Each bite came with its own cavity!
Oh Becca! I hate when my socks get sad! That sucks. But seriously, can you drink a gallon of castor oil to ward off the plastic intake corroding your insides? Sooner or later we are meeting for a drink and I need you healthy!
Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, let alone a little plasticken in my tummy.
You are awesome! I can relate to so much of this. We even had the sweet potato slop this year because of the wrong canned yams. Your dressing had to be way better than mine though because I never knew I was supposed to use sherry!
You can use any kind of white wine and it will give it some incredible flavor. I only had sherry cooking wine. But it came out awesome besides being a bit too dry. Fixed that with some gravy!
Gravy fixes everything!
We’re attempting a late Thanksgiving in Thailand on Friday–I imagine we’ll be eating chicken, hot sauce, and some sort of unidentifiable root veggie instead of mashed tatters. Good work, just have another drink and forget about it!
Thanks, I think I will. Hope your belated Thanksgiving turns out better than mine!
Sloan, did you donate to the Movember page or just join? I don’t see a donation for you. That is a requirement to be entered in the contest. Just want to double check before I post the list of contestants.
I donated!!!!
Haha, this was hilarious! It made me queef.
It reminded me of a joke we have down here, a recipe for Drunk Duck. It’s too long to translate but it involves stuff like:
“Fill a longdrink glass with whisky,
Drink the glass of whiskey while your preheating the oven.”
And as the joke goes on you’re supposed to get more drunk… Anyway, it’s really funny.
Exsqueeze me for boring you…
Sounds like my kind of duck recipe. Get drunk… forget you are cooking… successful!
I almost choked on my gum when you said you queefed. You are so colorful!
It looked so promising in that first picture. Too bad it went down hill like that. I can see why you ate Wendy’s today too.
I opened the fridge this morning and thought, NOPE. Not even going to go there. Wendy is my girl.
I’ve done that many times.
As soon as you put the chicken in the oven, I felt the foreshadowing of melted chicken. And am sorry to say, went into gales of laughter as soon as you turned the oven on. It’s not really laughing at you, more laughing because I’d do most of the same things? =D
Also, go for pizza. It’s neither chicken nor turkey related!
Just not pizza you pick up and bake yourself. I’d probably leave the plastic on and end up with a plasza. I am normally a wizard in the kitchen though, so I don’t know what happened last night.
Laugh away! That’s why I shared this.
Oh no!
I was super-unreasonably-proud of my inherent adultness this year when I DIDN’T cut myself preparing potatoes (both sweet and regular varieties).
You are officially a woman. Have a golden spatula.
Yessss! Validation at last!