Worst meal at someone's home - Part 2

[Thanks for the Crepes]

The worst mashed potatoes I've ever had were made at "someone's home". Mine!  

 

When I made them the first time ever, I followed a recipe from the "Betty Crocker Cookbook" from 1969. I just looked up the recipe, and I still blame her for the "beat vigorously until potatoes are light and fluffy" part. No mention of ricer or masher.

 

Boiling the potatoes in their jackets wasn't her fault, though. I must have used my "better judgement"  that all ignorant youth seem to think they possess in abundance, thinking it would be quicker and easier to peel them after cooking. With the cooking the potatoes whole in their peels so excess starch had no opportunity to leach into the cooking water and taking a hand mixer to them, these were by far the gluiest, worst example of mashed potatoes I have ever tried to eat. The dog was happy that night, though. 

 

I've since learned to make nice light, fluffy mashed potatoes the way I like them. It's probably not the way most like them, because I use just a little butter and more milk than most recipes call for. Nothing but my trusty Oxo masher with comfort grip handle ever touches them. It takes some elbow grease and time to get them smooth, and that must be done before adding any milk, but it's worth it to me.

[kayb]

Making mashed potatoes last night, I peeled, diced and boiled my potatoes until soft in heavily salted water; drained off the water, added butter and half-and-half together, and commenced to mash. Mine were not perfectly smooth, but I'm OK with a lump or two. Adds authenticity, don't'cha know.

[pastrygirl]

On August 18, 2016 at 7:43 AM, Porthos said:

 

I steam red potatoes with the skin on, then mash using an Oxo masher starting with just butter. When they are nearly ready I add a dash of milk and some sour cream. 

 

 

I love sour cream in mashed potatoes!

[NWKate]

I have a friend who is fairly notorious for her disasters.  She is one of those folks who sees food as a necessary evil- and her meals reflect that.  The worst Thanksgiving meal I ever had was at her house and the worst part were the potatoes.  She MEANT them to be mashed- after all, she reasoned, how hard could that be? To her credit, she did remember to quarter them.  There was no cooking until tender or peeling involved.  When my sister & I arrived, she was attacking them with a demonic gleam in her eyes and sweat pouring down her brow.  We did our best to salvage them to no avail... Thank G-d for Parker house rolls!

 

The dinner was memorable- as were most at her home.  But the company was congenial and heartwarming and it was truly one of my favorite holiday memories ever!

 

P.S.  This is the same friend who once fed her child compost but that's another story.

 

 

[Okanagancook]

One of our best friends was THE WORST cook.  Her mother was a Home Economist and demanded perfection in the kitchen so I think that put her off cooking.  My brother And I were squatting in their basement while visiting my Mom in the hospital.  She was dying but refused to do so while we could stay in the city.  We ended up staying a lot longer than planned.  Anyway, we didn't want her to cook so we bought groceries we knew she wouldn't cook and then volunteered to make dinner.  Problem was her cupboards were almost void of basic stuff.  Minimal spices, etc.  We could hardly believe it.

 

the one terrible meal I remember as the scalloped potatoes.  I gave her the recipe and she had made it a few times but she decided to put the ingredients together well before dinner time  and cooking time so they were basically black and then she forgot to put the tablespoon of flour in so we had a very ugly and watery dish...there are only four ingredients in the recipe!  I think the accompanying dish was stir fried frozen vegetable with her ubiquitous sweet chilli sauce that I introduced her to on one of our trips to the cheap Asian store.  Do not remember the meat but probably cooked dry chicken breast thrown into the veggies which of course doesn't really go with scalloped potatoes but that's what she knew how to make.  Well, at least she had the courage to ask us for dinner!  Love her to pieces.

[lindag]

I went to the Dinner Bell recently (an Amish family farm run restaurant).  Everything was memorable: a fantastic salad, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, dinner rolls, homemade jam, peach pie, coconut cream pie and homemade vanilla ice cream, coffee.

The food is just amazingly good!  It's about an hour and a half trip from where I live but so worth it.

The family members (young adults) serve dinner in their hall every Thursday evening.  First Thursday of the month it's meat loaf, then the rest of the time it's fried chicken.  And, while all the food was really good, my friends and I couldn't figure out how they made the mashed potatoes taste so good - slightly different, like a slight  gravy flavor was infused into them.  Don't know but I'd like to. 

They have published their own cookbook, so I really should look into that to see if I can find their secret.

BTW, the cost of the dinner is $13.50, what a bargain in today's world.  Approximately  240 people attended.

[Tere]

On 8/20/2016 at 2:08 PM, lindag said:

I went to the Dinner Bell recently (an Amish family farm run restaurant).  Everything was memorable: a fantastic salad, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, dinner rolls, homemade jam, peach pie, coconut cream pie and homemade vanilla ice cream, coffee.

The food is just amazingly good!  It's about an hour and a half trip from where I live but so worth it.

The family members (young adults) serve dinner in their hall every Thursday evening.  First Thursday of the month it's meat loaf, then the rest of the time it's fried chicken.  And, while all the food was really good, my friends and I couldn't figure out how they made the mashed potatoes taste so good - slightly different, like a slight  gravy flavor was infused into them.  Don't know but I'd like to. 

They have published their own cookbook, so I really should look into that to see if I can find their secret.

BTW, the cost of the dinner is $13.50, what a bargain in today's world.  Approximately  240 people attended.

 

Wow, that's a bargain along the lines of my local pub (which I will try to foodblog at some point, but I will need to hide the camera because these people have not grasped the concept of the internet yet :D)

[Tropicalsenior]

This topic is mean, nasty, and one of the most hilarious things that I have read in years. It deserves to be revived.

My experience was a 10-year-long nightmare of meals at my ex-mother-in-law's. In other threads I have written about some of her most notorious failures, liver that you could sole your shoes with and pie dough that could double as eternal road paving but for the others, I could write a book.

One gruesome creation was her refrigerator soup. Once a week she would take all the leftovers in the refrigerator, put them in a huge pot and pour water on them. She then proceeded to cook it for about an hour or two and serve it as soup. Fortunately, the leftovers were served to the dogs. They always had a pack of half starved mongrels that would eat anything.

She did a lot of baking and for that she saved bacon grease in 3 lb coffee cans and stored it on top of her kitchen cabinets. Everything was made with rancid bacon grease. Pie dough, cookies, cakes, you name it. In fact, the whole house smelled of rancid bacon grease.

One Thanksgiving, I gave birth, prematurely, to my youngest daughter and when I was rushed to the hospital early that morning I left the refrigerator full of turkey and all the trimmings ready to be cooked that day. She showed up at our house before I got home and decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner before I got there. She shoved the turkey into the oven, as is, and made her refrigerator soup from the sides that I had ready. The only way to describe that poor bird was unseasoned turkey jerky. And of course, you guessed it. The neck was still in the cavity and the giblets were still in their paper bag in the neck cavity. And the whole time she complained to me that the least that I could have done was to have put the turkey in the oven before I went to the hospital so that her son could have had Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving.

To this day, I have a cast iron stomach. And I think it was all from the training that I got at her table.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[Smithy]

@Tropicalsenior, for you story I'd need a double emoji: "wow" and "laugh" all at the same time!