The Official Thanksgiving Kitchen Train Wreck Thread

[Montauk6]

OK, for us it was the dressing (we don't believe in stuffing the turkey).

We tried a gluten-free method with the cornbread, substituting garbanzo bean flour for the typical wheat flour.

Not a good choice in hindsight, we let it sit out since early morning to dry out but I should've seen the red flag with the odd odor as I was adding it to the mix (I'd sampled a piece but didn't notice anything weird, so I figured maybe that smell would bake out).

Nope, after it had cooked, I spooned a sample and ARGH, NASTY!

Very heartbreaking having to throw this whole pan of fresh dressing in the garbage but live-n-learn, I guess.

[fortyfeetunder]

1. Sorry to hear that....

if there is anything positive about this, is that I won't try using garbanzo bean flour in my cornmeal dressing recipe! :hi:

[fizzgig]

2. my pecan pie came out half soup....again

second year in a row x(

i'm not doing anything different, so i have no idea what's going on

[jberryhill]

4. Next year, try doing something different

[Connonym]

5. Mine did too

and I roasted the turkey upside down. I make that mistake with chicken a lot too. I guess I'm fowl dyslexic or something because when it's raw I can never tell which end is which.

[SeattleGirl]

6. I did that one year, and it was the best turkey I ever cooked.

Instead of all the juices running to the bottom of the turkey, they ended up running to the top.

YUM!

[crispini]

8. They used to do that with me.

I think you have to preheat the oven and make sure it's hot, hot, hot. Don't check on it while it's cooking. Leave the frozen pie crust frozen until the last minute. And -- I think this is what does the trick -- preheat the baking sheet on which you will put the pie. I haven't had a half-soup pecan pie in YEARS.

[XemaSab]

3. Our smoke alarm went off AT LEAST 7 times today in three different spurts

The worst part is that this old wall heater we have behind the bookshelf somehow switched on, and we almost had a REAL FIRE. Had the smoke alarm gone off for the 8th time, we probably would have switched on the house fan (again) and ignored it. :o

[LiberalEsto]

7. My gas oven broke the night before.

Talk about timing!

We considered buying a plug-in roaster, taking everything to my daughter's tiny apartment, and a few other options. My daughter's boyfriend saved the day when he brought over his huge old convection microwave oven. We cooked the turkey in that --it came out beautifully cooked and tasted great.

I did the side dishes and the Quorn Turk'y with my little toaster oven, small microwave, and stove top, but the problem was how to keep everything warm for the meal.

It turned out the oven's broiler still worked, so I used it to heat up the oven, shut it off, and put the side dishes in there until serving time.

If there's a moral to the tale, it's this: avoid Maytag appliances. They used to be very well made, but not in the past decade or so. We replaced a Maytag refrigerator last year because it was a piece of crap that broke down over and over.