General Chat

not a cooking disaster but as we had snow from the 18th of december andit was blooming cold then, our heating decided that now was the time it was going to pack in, it started of with us only being able to have hot water if the heating was on, so we had that on low all the time, by new year when the parts finally turned up, the lumber came to fix it and left us with no heating and no hot water at all for 3 days while he got some extra parts that decided to give way while putting inthe orginal fault, thankfully by this point in time husband and i was away for new year in our caravan with friends, but our kids, older ones, decided to come down to see mum and dad and have dinner with us inthe awning and they got a wash and warm there! all fixed when we got home tho.

its better than nothing

I complained to the manufacturer about the puff pastry that was the cause of my Christmas disaster - finally heard back from them today with a cheque for £3.

I'm not very impressed - what does anyone else think?

Our dinner was yummy, except I forgot the swede that I had put in the microwave to reheat but hey.

It was later in the afternoon when the dining table caught fire! thank goodness for smoke alarm and fire blanket

Kim

Liz - I had that problem with bought puff pastry a couple of weeks ago. It was J*s R*ll.

Stuck to the blue plastic sheet like glue and my recipe looked a mess.

I emailed and complained. They sent me a £5 cheque or voucher (can't remember) and said all the usual stuff about how proud they are of their pastry etc.

This was 'ready rolled'.

Birdi

Watching these food programmes instead of just doing what I normally do......never overcooked a turkey yet....

Gary Rhodes and his blimming boned and stuffed turkey legs.....

First remove the legs........slice down legs and take out bones and sinews......make stuffing and roll the meat like a swiss roll, cover with butter and bacon and roll in foil like a christmas cracker......in oven at 180 degrees for an hour.....

Result, tough turkey legs only fit for the birds......they loved them......left with a hacked about turkey crown which took less time to cook, but tasted fine......

Grandchildren & daughter came to my house - daughter cooked dinner - which was perfect.
Unfortunately she left the crackers at home, (I'd offered to buy them, but she insisted she was bringing them) so she drove to the very posh hotel her hubby was working in and snaffled 5! Bonus was grandson fell asleep in the car!
I thought they weren't as good as they should have been!! LOl

LOL Amanda - we bought a turkey crown this year (and a bit of beef 'cos I'm not keen on roast turkey) and there was no waste at all, tender as anything (I did try a bit) and really lovely cold with pickles and bubble and squeak. Finally finished it the other evening in a curry.

And, it didn't take that long to cook which was good as I was on the Buck's Fizz from first thing!

Jill

Our Turkey was tough as an old boot : ( That will learn him for buying a frozen one........lol

our mushy peas refused to go mushy
so we fed them to the dogs

and opened a tin
so no matter

No none aprt from new years eve and me nevres were hanging out...timing is everything Grumpy...lol

NO...........................thanks goodness not last year but the one before we had 14 for dinner and the over packed in, i had to use my convection oven and get daughters round what a bleeding nightmare but got there in the end, mind you a few hours late but hey ho they could always have went home hungry.

GG.xx

Jill.
We should have swapped spuds... ours was only half cooked so we all suffered in silence when she said something wrong with my cooker its not hot enough !!

Daughter in Law discovered a sheet of foil had escaped from a previous dish and landed on the back of her cooker ...hence it stopped the cooking process.

Turkey OK as I cooked it day before ....LOL

I do a veggie dinner, the main bit being a puff pastry tart thing with onions, mushrooms and cheese, using bought ready rolled puff pastry.

The pastry was a bit sticky when I got it out - and stuck to everything except what it should do so the tarty things were not a good shape but put them in the oven assuming they'd look better when cooked - but they failed to puff up at all!

We ate them although they looked odd - but I'm convinced that it was sweet shortcrust pastry not puff pastry in the packet. I've used it loads of times in the past with no problems. I kept getting the packet out of the bin to check I'd bought the right stuff.

I'm going to ring the supermarket and the manufacturer tomorrow to complain - and see what they have to say.

Our only disaster were the roast potatoes that were really roast mash! I'd par-boiled the spuds, then OH came out to the kitchen to "help" and I thought he'd strained the spuds, but no, he'd left them in the hot water so they went all mushy.

I salvaged what I could but they were not brilliant.

That was the only thing that went wrong over Christmas though so at least that was some comfort.

Anyone have a proper disaster?

Jill