DK Canada recently sent me some fantastic cookbooks to check out, and knowing that I am a cookbook fiend, I was happy to oblige.
THE COOK’S BOOK
The Cook’s Book – Techniques and tips from the world’s master chefs is a glorious and HUGE (600+ pages) cookbook that is fantastic for new and curious cooks alike. With contributions from chefs like Charlie Trotter and Rick Bayless, this book is a fantastic guide to help the reader become a better cook at home. The cookbook thoroughly explains various cooking techniques, for every section of the cookbook, which I really like since I’m no Martha. I also LOVE that each recipe has it’s own series of photographs that walk you through the recipe and a photo of the final product as well. ”Taking inspiration from hundreds of recipes, including many of the contributing chefs’ signature dishes, you will develop, improve and hone your culinary skills.” This one is a definite winner.
THE EVERYDAY EASY COLLECTION
First off, anything with easy in the title gets my attention. This is a six book series that includes,
- Cheap Eats
- Freeze Ahead Meals
- 30 Minute Dinners
- One-Pot
- Cakes and Cupcakes
- Chicken
Each of these books contain 90 simple-to-follow recipes, with a dedicated photo and symbols that explain servings, nutritional info, special equipment and even freezing instructions. With sections that outline useful techniques, and recipe planners, these cookbooks are perfect for the family cook.
GIVEAWAY!
One lucky winner is going to win the complete 6 book set of Everyday Easy cookbooks!!!
MANDATORY ENTRY:
1. Leave me a comment below telling me about a time you had a cooking DISASTER.
ADDITIONAL OPTIONAL ENTRIES: (Remember to leave a comment for each additional entry)
2. Follow me on Google Friend Connect, or tell me if you do.
3. Follow my blog on Facebook or tell me if you do.
4. Follow me on Twitter and tweet the following:
Enter to win a @DKCanada Everyday Easy Cookbook collection on @BOREDMommy’s blog – http://bit.ly/fYpPLN #Giveaway
Contest ends March 10th, 2011 and is open to all Canadian residents.
GOOD LUCK!!
*
CONGRATS!!! #3 – Mel Gallant!! You won the 6 cookbook set!!! Thanks to everyone who entered!
{ 63 comments… read them below or add one }
When I first moved out of my parents house, I cleaned the oven in my apartment with Easy-Off oven cleaner. The next day, I baked a pizza and as I was eating it my tongue went numb. Turns out I didn’t get all the cleaner off the inside of the oven!
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Worst cooking disaster would have to be my attempt to make steel cut oats in the slowcooker last month. Terrible…terrible. It looked like the sludge fed to the orphans in Orphan Annie. And the worst part is I doubled the recipe so it was a huge waste. I still shudder thinking back on it.
Just tweeted the contest.
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Thanksgiving was the day I almost burned down the kitchen. Not knowing that grease had spilled into the oven from the turkey, later that evening I placed chestnuts in the oven and they caught fire. My husband got the fire extinguisher and what a mess that made. I did get a new stove though!
Darn Mel, I was going to try the oats too. What went wrong?
Cooking disaster – while still living with my folks I made chili. It grew to 2 huge pots as I kept adding things and was pretty much completely inedible – I kept adding chili powder because I couldn’t taste it, not realizing that it’s one of those spices that ‘develops’ as the dish cooks and simmers. Total loss.
I follow you on twitter and tweeted
http://twitter.com/avalen1/statuses/43330972506271744
I also follow you on Facebook. Thanks for the giveaway.
I once set a picnic table on fire in a campground, not realizing that my cool new camp stove had developed a leak in the fuel line. Oops.
But I come by kitchen screw-ups honestly: my mom tried to bake a cake for my 7th birthday and it was such a disaster she was actually trying to tie it together with string, and my dad once barbecued a chicken and gave the whole family salmonella.
Fun!
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Just last week my husband put a baking dish of potatoes in the oven and forgot them. A while later, my expensive baking dish was burnt black, and there was an inch think layer of burnt potatoes stuck to it. I scrubbed and scrubbed, and now my white dish is a sad looking brownish colour.
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You mean like last week when I was trying to make a quick dinner for my family and I burned the spaghetti noodles??? Like really, who burns spaghetti noodles??
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I would have to say one of my biggest disasters was putting a plastic bowl in the oven without thinking. BIG MESS!
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Where to start?
The time I tried making caramel popcorn balls against my mother’s wishes when she was out. I panicked when it was cooking and wanted to quit. So I ran cold water in the pan and then the liquid solidified on the bottom of the pan. I scrubbed that pan for more than an hour using any cleaner and scubber I could find. Even Comet. Finally got it all out. I thought I had gotten away with it until the next morning when my mom commented on how shiny that pan was. “Do you know anything about how that got so clean?”
Then there was the time I baked my first chiffon cake for my mother-in-law’s birthday. My mom makes it and I always think it’s special so I wanted to make one. I was timing it so it would be fresh right after birthday dinner. But I forgot the cream of tartar. How important is a half-teaspoon of cream of tartar? Turns out it’s very important. The lump of cake was gross. From then on, I stuck to my cherry chocolate cake that never fails.
There have been melted containers, burned rice, stinky houses due to overboiled scalloped potatoes…but I love cooking anyway. For every failure, there’s a huge accomplishment. Or at least a passable dinner.
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I was hosting Christmas dinner the first year my husband and I were married. The oven didn’t close properly, (we found out) so we kept checking the temperature and it kept needing more time. But the other side was roasting. We broke 7 glasses and 2 plates AND a corningware full of sweet potatoes that were so well mashed you could pour them exploded. It went all into the burner and into the stove. It was spectacular.
Everytime is a cooking disaster that’s why i could use the cookbooks. One time making margaritas and i know your not suppossed to put objects in the blender but i always did. This one time the wooden spoon got caught and i ended up serving Sliver Margartitas.
Did you know that if a turkey is frozen the thawed the frozen again it gets this layer od freezer burn.. I didn’t. My first Thanksgiving with my hubs I bought a turkey that was previously frozen & put it back in the freezer. 3 days later when I went to cook it firstly I had to submerge it in water because it wasn’t fully thawed even though I left it out all night. When I did finally cook it I thought Yeah I can do this cooking stuff no problem…
Wrong…. It was cooked but about 1/4 inch around the whole bird was this pink gummy layer that wasn’t cooked or whatever… We ordered Chinese that thanksgiving….
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Did you know that if you try to thaw frozen bananas in the microwave they will actually catch on fire? And that the paper towel you so cleverly put under them to catch the water as they thawed would then too catch on fire? Resulting in a big melted pile of banana, plastic microwave mess when all you really wanted to do was make banana bread?
That may have been the funniest, worst kitchen disaster I was ever directly responsible for.
Once I thought it would be a good idea to make a casserole. I kept hearing what a great time-saver they are. I put the chicken in raw.
I don’t make casseroles anymore – why would you want to cook twice for one meal?
I could so use these cookbooks! I burnt grill cheese TO A CRISP trying to impress my boyfriend (now husband) with my superior multi-tasking skills in the kitchen… as well, I often mistake tsp. for tbsp. and that consistent mistake leads to lots of garbage-friendly baked goods.
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I was pregnant with my third and I accidentally put am unopened bag of elbow macaroni on the stove burner and apparently turned it on, melting the bag, burning some pasta and spilling the rest all over the floor! Not my finest moment!
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I have had many cooking disasters. One such incident was when I decided I wanted to make brownies. I mixed everything together and put them in the oven. I noticed they were not rising. Took them out and realized I hadn’t added eggs! My DH (then boyfriend) ate them anyway. Another was when I wanted to have buns with our supper and they turned into hockey pucks!
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First time on your blog-nice! I have a cooking disater weekly. I am seriously concerned if we have a real fire nobody will react as they are all so used to hearing me set of the fire alarm!
following you on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ciefsmommy/status/44523722853462017
Daily Tweet:
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you can delete this one sorry
When I was 13 my mom decided that it was time for me to help with the cooking for the huge family fourth of July party. So she assigned me the potato salad. She gave me a list of ingredients but not directions. So I chopped up the potatoes and added all the ingredients on the list. We got to my aunts and everyone started to eat. That was when I found out you are supposed to cook the potatoes before you add them to the potato salad. They still make fun of me to this day. And that was a very long time ago.
First time I ever made bread (did not have breadmaker). They turned out so heavy and hard I could of used them for doorstoppers
I follow you on twitter as sweetmamabrady and I tweeted
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A gift of mercy
I would love these cookbooks for my sister – she’s a newlywed and constantly calls me for cooking help; “Now that the tuna is out of the can what do I do”? or “How can I make hard boiled eggs if all the water has cooked out?”
She needs more help than I can give her.
These books would be a wonderous thing for her.
My worst cooking experience was a lasagna that bubbled ALL OVER the oven and then the awful smell and smoke when having to run the self cleaning later – blah!!
A few months after the birth of our first son, my mother-in-law traveled from Hungary to visit us for a while. She doesn’t speak much English so our communication (when my husband wasn’t around to translate) wasn’t always clear. One day, I turned the oven on to preheat for baking a casserole. Within 10 minutes the kitchen and family room were filled with a smoky haze and a horrible burnt smell. I opened the oven and discovered… my mother-in-law had stored the Hungarian pastry (my husband’s favorite, of course! lol) IN THE OVEN the night before. Oops…
Needless to say, when she came to visit after the birth of our second son, I ALWAYS checked inside the oven before I turned it on.
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Whoops, just now saw that this is for Canadian residents. Maybe I could pay for shipping? lol
My big disaster put me in tears twice – it was the cake disaster year of 2009.
First it was my dad’s birthday and I was making the same cake he gets EVERY year. Devils Food with that fluffy white frosting. I have made it before so no clue what happened. The frosting did not hold up and the top layer slide off on to the counter while we ate dinner.
Then it was my mom’s birthday a few months later. She wanted this Martha Stewart cake she saw online. It used three of those small and tall cake pans. I had to buy them special for it. Put the cake together – all 6 layers of it – and when I went to cut it in to fourths, it opened like a flower. Plopping on the counter.
2009 was not a cake year.
Cooking disasters. Good lordy. What about the time I thought I could just throw together random ingredients to make a cake (brick). Or when I was so pumped to make sticky wings but didn’t have time to do it in the oven so I used my slow cooker. I can’t believe my husband ate them. He’s a trooper.
I serve raw chicken on occasion as well. ha!
(I tweeted the contest @theamberness)
I made blue mashed potatoes. I was making mashed potatoes and put the sliced potatoes into the wrong pot and so I quickly drained them and put them in the right -sized one. When they were done, they had a blue tinge to them.. my hubby of 2 weeks (at that time), laughed. Still can’t explain why they had the blue tinge…
Great
The first time I ever tried cooking (I was 7, I think?) I decided to make my parents proud by keeping the kitchen clean while I did it. I started putting the cheese sauce for the macaroni and cheese I was making in the pot, and spilled a bit on the side. Not thinking, I grabbed a napkin to clean it up, which promptly caught fire! I couldn’t believe it. Thankfully, I haven’t done anything that silly in a long time!
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One of my cooking disasters was when I was making Sweet Marie bars (they have peanut butter, crisp rice etc. bottom and chocolate icing on top). Anyway, for some reason they turned out rock hard. They were incredibly difficult to cut throught with a knife. I had made them for my parents to take to a potluck and needless to say the pan came back with only one square gone. One brave soul tried them!
Tweet:http://twitter.com/glogirl3/status/45326044378570752
I don’t have a good cooking failure story because I hardly ever cook. And when I do cook, I follow the recipe to the letter because I am hopeless at improvising. I am lucky that I married my husband who likes to cook though, and I am very good at doing dishes.
If I have to say one thing that I cannot ever make, it is muffins. I always overstir them…or understir them, it’s hard to tell. They never ever turn out.
did you know it was possible to screw up a “just add water sauce” from a package? well, it wouldn’t thicken so I thought I would add more flour…and more flour…and even more flour and finally it thickened. My friends were ever so polite, telling me it was good and then I took a bite. Needless to say, I know buy sauce in a jar.
I was making Chicken Curry for my future inlaws – the first time I was to cook for them. We were at the cottage and I had forgotten the Indian Curry Paste. So… went to the nearest town, with a small grocery. They didn’t have Indian curry paste, but they had Thai. I didn’t realize the difference. But there was one – turns out Thai paste is VERY VERY hot. My FIL took one bite, got up from the table and sat on the couch. Disaster…
I made terrible mashed potatoes along time ago. More to the episode of that to embarrasing to share. Just say you should not flush somethings down the toilet.
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I made a new recipe that called for paprika. I added the paprika to the crockpot with the other ingredients and a few hours later my house smelled like someone had thrown up everywhere. Apparently there are 2 types of paprika and the one I used was not the right one! I salvaged the recipe by shredding the pork chops, pouring in a jar of bbq sauce and letting it simmer for another few hours.
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I’m a morning coffee drinker and one day I didn’t have milk or coffee-mate, so I tried to make it creamy by adding a spoonful of Slim Fast.
It didn’t work at all, the Slim Fast clumped up. I had to throw the coffee out and then made a quick run to the store to get milk.
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Every time I cook is a cooking disaster. No, not really. I am just not very good about reading the full recipe before I start cooking so I find out about 2 hours before a party that the dessert was supposed to, oh, chill over night.
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Just logged on to Twitter after being offline since Sunday – worst bout of stomach flu ever! – and saw the awesome news that I won this prize. Yay! Thank you so much!
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You’re so welcome! CONGRATS!!