If you are in “Like” with Kansas City Mamas on Facebook, then you probably read my apology for the disastrous Corn Cakes recipe I published earlier this week.
I remembered these little corn cakes as a tasty treat – but either my memory is fading in my old age or I totally biffed the recipe, ’cause they were less than desirable. (Actually, DS made gagging noises through dinner, but that is a conversation for another day.)
So, to right my wrong, I am having a giveaway for a $20 gift card to cookware.com which you can buy a Dutch Oven for this no-fail recipe for Dutch Oven Bread. (Because fresh baked bread can solve any problem in my book.)
First, you need to invest in a Dutch Oven. Luckily, cookware.com has a huge selection for every type of budget.
And if you already have a Dutch Oven, you can always check out (or drool) over their Le Creuset section.
Seriously – these Le Creuset 9×9 Bakers are on closeout for $24.95!
So here is how to enter the $20 Gift Card from Cookware.com.
1. Leave a comment about your worst cooking disaster. (We are all friends here – so really, no one will judge.)
2. Check out cookware.com and leave me another comment about which item you would like to have with your $20 gift card.
3. Subscribe to Kansas City Mamas via email and then leave me another comment once you are done. If you already subscribe, leave another comment.
I will pick a comment at random at end of day, Tuesday, August 24. Good Luck!
PS: If you win and live in Canada, you’ll have to pay international shipping charges.
PPS: I was given a $20 gift card to cookware.com for my review. However, my opinion about my disastrous corn cakes or wonderful dutch oven bread are all mine. Also, I’m buying that Le Creuset Baker with my $20 gift card. So don’t buy them all, okay?
I got a new bundt pan from pampered chef and couldn’t wait to try it out on my favorite choco chip choco bundt cake recipe….Long story short didn’t let it rest and cool long enough and didn’t cook it long enough and had a runny mess all over my kitchen cabinet and floor …no good. I would love to use the 20 giftcard on dutch oven…I have a small one but would love a bigger one. Food tastes so good from the dutch oven!
The first time I ever made macaroni and cheese (in the blue box!) I never drained the noodles. I poured the cheese mix, butter and milk into the boiling water….YUK!
I forgot to tell you what I’d buy. I REALLY need some good mixing bowls. There is a Paula Dean 2 piece enamel set for $24.95! Definitely my pick.
I would buy the Le Creuset Bakers!!
ok, i used to be a HORRIBLE cook! luckily i married someone who loves to cook, and over the years i’ve learned and actually now enjoy it! my worst? i can think of two – the ‘low carb’ meatloaf that ended up being this disgusting oily ‘meatloaf soup’ that it’s now lovingly referred to, or the time i tried making rice krispies treats and they were hard as a rock and i couldn’t press them out into a pan. seriously, who messes up rice krispies treats??
i am in desperate need of some new baking sheets!
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Oh, I have so many! One of the worst was trying to duplicate my m-i-l’s Meatloaf recipe. It turned out so bad and mushy that we had to throw it away!!
I would get this Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker in Brushed Stainless – WMR-CA. Our waffle iron broke and I am missing having waffles and syrup!
My worst cooking disaster – one night, while on a special diet, I tried to cook tilapia in a frying pan. I found a recipe for a breading and thought it would be delicious. Although the first two pieces looked bad, I decided to cook two more. I tried to use Pam instead of oil for a healthier option but the Pam didn’t get the breading crispy – just made it soggy and fall off. Then I tried to add oil but it didn’t help. I tasted the fish and it tasted awful so I took it all and threw it in the trash and made a “breakfast” dinner of french toast instead! My kids were super happy at that! I haven’t tried to cook fish since!
If I won the gift card I would seriously consider the dutch oven. I don’t have one and have wanted one for a long time. The other thing I saw that I really want is the Fox Run Craftsmen Eight Cup Flour Sifter. I do a lot of baking and an eight cup flour sifter would come in handy! It’d be hard to choose which one I’d buy! But it would be such a nice treat.
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The first time I prepared the thanksgiving feast (sophomore year in college) I accidentally put something in place of karo corn syrup and my fudge pie tasted something closer to poo poo pie – to this day I have no idea what I accidentally put in the pie!
As always, I want pretty much everything! I’d love another loaf pan, a pie dish… also a fan of the Nordicware Multi Mini Bundt Pan.
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When I was single, living alone, I made mashed potatoes. I’m embarrassed to say I had no idea how to make them. I thought you had to boil them down! I cooked those things for about 3 hours on the stove top and they were still watery!
I left the sugar out of a chocolate cake and it was horrible.
I’d like a dutch oven.
My most disastrous cooking incident was when I first started making my own bread. I misread how much salt (supposed to put in 2 tsp and I put in 2 tbsp) to put in it and to make matters worse I overcooked it. So needless to say it was really salty and hard as a rock. My DH was game and gave it a try.
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I would use the $20 towards a tart pan. I would love to get one and make more fruit tarts.
My worst cooking disaster involved an attempt to make king cakes. I say, “attempt,” because one of the cakes we (my husband and I) made ended up looking like… well, afterbirth. My husband actually blogged about it if you want to take a look for yourself. It was pretty hilarious. http://brandon.pulpexplosion.com/index.php/2010/02/king-cake/
Still tasted good!
Janelle –
I normally don’t comment while a giveaway is going on….but those pictures made me almost pee my pants.
Yeah, I don’t normally mention the words “cake” and “afterbirth” in the same sentence, but… well you saw. It’s just too funny not to share!
I would totally by a Berndes Tradition 11″ skillet. I love those things! Best non-stick pan there is in my opinion.
I’d gladly subscribe. Your site is a new favorite of mine!
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I love my le Cruset cookware. I would probably get a smaller casserolle size one. I have the larger 9×11 and the large roaster. In Red!
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Not much of a cook. My husband says I must make stuff out of a box. Works for me, right? But baking is the worst. I either get it too done, or too mushy. So I buy my baked goods.
Worst cooking disaster was 2 weeks ago I made tacos with homemade salsa and guac. Only when I seasoned the tacos accidentally used cayenne pepper my 16 month old and 3 year old were guzzling their drinks and had tears in their eyes as I exclaimed to my husband while fixing ours you would think I put hot sauce on their tacos! He said “is that what you used for seasoning”
“yes”
“hon that is cayenne!”
In my defense they are in the same looking container! I felt terrible for my watery eyed kids!
I am loving the Le Creuset Square baking dish in dijion or some new measuring spoons maybe too!
I am a subscriber, love your blog so much!
Since my wife told my king cake story, I’ll tell the story of when I set her kitchen on fire. When we first met, Janelle and I lived in different states: her in Kansas and me in Florida. I made the decision to move up to Florida, and I came and stayed with her while interviewing for a job up here. I think it was my second night up here, and I decided to impress her by baking some cookies. As I was putting the cookie tray in the oven, one lump of cookie dough fell down to the bottom of the oven. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just scoop it up.” No such luck. The oven had some sort of vent at the bottom, and the cookie had fallen into that. Oh well. No use crying over spilled cookie dough.
It wasn’t long before black smoke started pouring out of the oven. I forgot to mention that this entire time, Janelle was on the front porch talking on the phone with one of her out-of-state friends. As she was talking, she saw me walk outside, past her, carrying the smoke alarm from her kitchen.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Don’t freak out, but I think I set your oven on fire.”
Janelle hastily got off the phone and went into the kitchen to find it absolutely filled with black smoke. She had the sense to turn it off. (I was bound and determined to get those cookies baked, so that thought never occurred to me.) The cookies were a little doughy, and had a strong smoky flavor, but were at least edible.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I managed to set her kitchen on fire a second time before we were married. That one wasn’t my fault, though–a loaf of garlic bread spontaneously combusted in her oven. She still married me and lets me cook, and I’m happy to say we’ve been fire-free for over two years now!
If I became the proud winner of the gift card, I would most definitely buy the Deni Automatic Ice Cream Maker, mainly because there’s no chance of me setting it on fire.
And I’m subscribed!
You had me with the Le Creuset small baker. I love my big one…and all my other Le Creuset stuff, too.
Worst kitchen disaster dates back to high school. Mom worked evenings 5 nights out of every 2 weeks, so sometimes we were on our own to cook dinner. It was my turn and I was tasked with making Turkey Tetrazzini, or Turkey Tet as we called it. Turkey leftovers were in the fridge, but Mom had set out most of what I needed on the counter. You know, the 9×13, all the bowls, the cream of fill-in-the-blank soup, the packs of spaghetti. So, I boiled the water, cooked the spaghetti (which really filled the pot, so it didn’t boil well, but I just noted next time get a bigger pot), mixed up the 3 ingredients (was hard to stir), put it in the 9×13 (filled it to the brim), then baked it (took longer than it was supposed to).
OK, I left enough clues. Who knows already what I did wrong? That’s right, I made too much spaghetti! Mom had put out a partial container (that I was suppose to use up) and an additional box (which I was only suppose to use part of). Hey, I didn’t know how much was the right amount. I still find it hard to calibrate pasta between dry and cooked servings. Anyway, I’m still razzed about my time making Turkey Yet, as in “Did you find any Turkey Yet?” I haven’t made Turkey Tet since, I’ve been so scarred for life.
I remember talking up my chocolate zucchini breads to my family, telling them how awesome they are. I made them and took them to a family get together…. except I totally forgot to put the eggs in. They were SOOOO dry. I don’t think my family was sold on the whole make-your-desserts-healthy-by-hiding-zucchini-in-them concept after that. Too bad… When I do remember the eggs, they’re really good!
Our worst kitchen disaster… we lived in South Africa in a house with a grass roof. We were making fry bread and we got the oil too hot. Not funny, because it started on fire. In a split 2nd we needed to make a decision what to do and we couldn’t remember what stopped an oil fire. In an effort to keep our grass roof from starting on fire, Matt picked up the pan and headed out the door. It was raining outside so he pushed the pan out into the rain. Rain plus oil fire = huge fire ball. It quickly burned all the oil away and everyone was safe and sound.
There have been things that my family has not liked. We have never had to throw anything away because it was so horrible. I guess the worst thing I can remember doing is making cheesy potatoes (you know the ones with frozen hash browns, sour cream and cheddar cheese with buttered cornflake crumbs on top) in my crock pot. The potatoes were crunchy in the middle and there were on the soupy side. I think this is a dish that needs to bake in order for it to taste good. My family scarfed them up despite the crunchy, soupiness.
I would buy the Camp Chef cast iron bread pan! I try to make most of our bread in the winter and I would love a cast iron bread pan to use.
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I used to work at a Japanese Steakhouse in high school, I watched them make enough of their awesome fried rice that I was able to emulate a decent version of it at home. Fast forward about 10 years later, a hankering for fried rice, a new ginger dressing, and next thing I know I probably put 3 or 4 times the amount of ginger in the rice than I should have! Probably why I don’t cook much any more.
I like the blue baking dishes in your photo, mostly because they’re nearly free after the gift certificate.
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I recentlyput something too tall in our toaster oven.. 75% of it was great, the top 25% was BLACK!
http://www.cookware.com/Chefs-Choice-0101500-CCE1117.html I’d love to get a new knife sharpener like this!
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I’ve had so many cooking disasters, it’s hard to pick one (or remember them). The most recent one was when I was trying to stretch the tuna noodle casserole for more guests and didn’t have enough soup/cheese for all the noodles. It was VERY bland and dry!
I would buy a ceramic paring knife if I win.
My worst cooking disaster (that is a repeat offender) is trying to make pie crust from scratch. I have the recipe my most has always used and still to this day cannot get it right. It seems I have a different problem each time. My husband will eat anything and not complain so he doesn’t mind that I keep trying 🙂
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I would love to get 4 BIA Cordon Bleu 4.5 Oz. Ramekin – 900012. I have been wanting some for a long time, but too cheap to get them for myself.
I’m in need of a new set of steak knives. So I would put it toward a quality set of knives.
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I’ve had a lot of cooking disasters of the years. I tend to improvise a lot, so as you could imagine, it still happens frequently. Usually, it’s edible though.
Recently, we received some greens from my CSA and I failed to find out what they were while I was picking up. So I decided to saute them and cook them up like I’d been preparing swiss chard. I still don’t know what those greens were, but I obviously should have cooked them up a different way. We sat down at the table and I took a bite and immediately ordered my son ( who has been unusually willing to try new foods lately) to NOT eat his vegetables! Then he told me in a rather serious voice, that I really need to start cooking food the RIGHT way.
We made carrot cake for a birthday cake and SOMEHOW ended up giving everyone in the neighborhood ummm “backend issues” 🙂
I would get a new taller stockpot. I found out too late that my current stockpot isnt tall enough to jar up my current batch of salsa 🙁
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Well, I have had quite a few, but probably the worst was luckily when I was only cooking for me. My mom makes her own spaghetti sauce, so I use her recipe. This will sound weird but it has a tablespoon of brown sugar in it – a fantastic complement to the chili powder. Anyway, I had put everything in the pan and realized I’d forgotten to put the sugar in. And then I remembered, I didn’t have any brown sugar. Or white sugar. I should have just had spicy spaghetti sauce, but I really wanted it the way my mom makes it, so I thought I’d try to substitute a little pancake syrup. Worst….idea….ever…. It tasted like – shocker – spaghetti sauce mixed with pancake syrup. I about died laughing when I saw “Elf” and he put syrup on his spaghetti.
My worst cooking experience was a comedy of errors. Right before my senior year in college, my baby sister came to stay with me for a week before classes started. I set out to fix dinner for us one night (at that point, my roommate was the sole cook in our apartment, and I was suddenly faced with having to feed a picky 15-year-old all week without my roommate’s help) and it ended with us going out to a restaurant. First, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. Somehow, this caught on fire. Now scared of the stove, I decided we were going to make s’mores over the toaster. I rested the marshmallows over the openings…within a minute, the entire toaster was on fire, causing a hilarious reaction from me that my little sister still likes to reenact at family functions. Unsure about how to work the fire extenguisher, and having enough sense not to throw water on an electrical appliance, I just stood there and watched helplessly until the fire died out on his own. I then tossed the toaster in the trash can and announced I was treating my sister to a dinner out.
Thankfully, I’ve gotten a little better since then, and as part of my new blog, I’m learning how to cook frugal, healthy meals for myself. Some new gear from cookware.com would be amazing!
Cooking disaster would be the itme I made blackened chicken and set of the smoke alrams:)
Le creuset…..enough said. I have one piece and I so love it and want more.
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My worst disaster was when I made Bar B-Q Chicken. Well, it turned out to be stuck on burnt chicken. When I pulled out the chicken only the bone came and the meat stayed 🙁 Good thing We had done Carne Asada so that replaced the chicken 🙂
I made a pecan pie for my boyfriend (now husband) and something went wrong and it was more like pecan soup. He was nice enough to go ahead and eat it which I am sure he would not do now.
I’m a new subscriber to your fantastic website….keep up the great work.
Le Creuset Baker
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I’m still “learning” to cook so everything seems to have some sort of disaster! The most recent would be salt instead of sugar in the Pioneer Woman’s “World’s Best Chocoloate Sheet Cake.” Ooopsie!
Along with learning to cook, I’m also still building my kitchen utensil supply! So I’d definitely probably put the giftcard towards a skillet or some spatulas! 🙂
I made potato salad for a family holiday get together and the relatives thought it was mashed potatoes. :{
Worst cooking disaster was when I tried to make a pecan pie for my husband (his fave) and it was pecan soup in a pie crust.
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If I were to win, I think I’d put the giftcard toward some pyrex storage w/ lids. I’ve broken a couple in the last few years and have yet to replace them.
From the site, I’d choose The Memory Company Kansas City Royals Melamine Serving Bowl Set – MLB-KCR-308!
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My worst cooking disaster is rather funny now. It was Thanksgiving and I was 20, invited friends over since my family was out of town, so I was on my own. Everything was going ok and then I opened the over to check on the turkey (which I had been doing all day), carefully pulled the oven rack out and the turkey slid off, across the kitchen floor and into the living room. There was turkey, grease and stuffing everywhere!
Worst disaster definitely involved burning something to the bottom of some pan… probably the soup that completely crustified to the bottom of the pot. How I did that, I’ll never know!
I’m loving the turquoise creuset baking dish you pictured. I also like their set of four nesting prep bowls. Very cheery.
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My worst disaster was cabbage soup. A neighbor had made it for me once and it was wonderful. My husband still gets a great laugh, he was upset because he was hungry and all he remember is “floating cabbage”.
Range Kleen 3-piece double boiler. I don’t have one, but want one really bad.
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My worst cooking disaster was when I was newly married. I made a very simple dish which called for grated potatoes. I should have bought frozen! I grated them and when it all baked up (I think chicken and dijon mustard and one other ingredient were a part of the recipe), the potatoes looked gray. It was so gross! We both laughed and agreed that it looked and tasted disgusting.
I love the 9×9 Le Creuset Baker! I LOVE that turquoise color. I don’t have many bakers, and I don’t have any square ones. There are many recipes that I have looked over that call for this size and I have to adjust what I use, so it’d be great to have this.
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My worst cooking disaster was trying to make gluten free bread for my daughter. I could have played football with it or maybe frisbee as it was fairly flat and quite hard. No where near edible!
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Worst cooking disaster? A shrimp casserole. I’ll spare you the details, but it was during our first year of marriage. My husband still talks about it, 10 years later.
Le Creust baker 9×9 for sure…but I can’t decide on a color. I’d feel like Julia Child baking in that thing!
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My worst cooking disaster is whenever I try to bake cookies.No matter what I try,I always burn the bottoms,and even if I cook in less time,they always have a bit of crispiness to them..I ususally just buy store-bought…
I LOVE the casa moda cuddly kitties dinnerware.It is really cute and I am a sucker for stuff like that..
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My worst cooking disaster was trying to salt-brine some chicken breast, except I added salt after the chicken was in the water and let it sit overnight. I served it for a dinner party and everyone was puckering up while eating the too-salty chicken main entree! Needless to say, they drank A LOT of water that night!
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I just dropped and broke my butter dish 🙁 So I’d love to get the Pfaltzgraff covered butter dish.
My DH and I had just moved into our new home, which we had built, so I decided to make a lemon cake in the oven. Somehow the cake overflowed the pan, and when I opened the oven to check on how it was doing, it caught on fire! Like an idiot, I kept the oven door cracked until I realized that the door being open was actually fueling the fire! It did put itself out and my cake had a smokey flavor… (It’s hard to throw out something yummy like lemon cake!)
Probably burning my husband’s deer steak in the crockpot (How do you burn something in a crockpot?). It isn’t like I can go to the local store and pick up deer tenderloin!
I once made cookies and mixed up the sugar vs salt in the recipe! It was terrible.
my worst cooking disaster…I was newly married and living in OKC. It was a brisk fall day so I decided to make chili for my husband to enjoy after class. I got everything prepared and let it simmer on the stove while I did laundry in the basement of our apartment building. Since I wasn’t brought up cooking on an electric stovetop, I guesstimated wrong on how hot it would get and the chili on the bottom burned to the pan. And once that happens, the burnt flavor ruins the whole pot. To say it was horrible would be an understatement. But my dear husband said it look great, thanked me for the warm meal and ate every bite he put in his bowl. After 20 years, we still laugh every time I make chili. Ãœ
If I won, I’d buy 2 quarter baking sheets with lids for those small batches of brownies. And I think my kids would love to have their “own” cookie sheets for our gingerbread baking marathon each November. Ãœ
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