Ever had a Thanksgiving cooking disaster?

Actually, that stuffing probably could have been saved. I would have tried to bring it up to par. I've never had anything that could be termed a "disaster" on Thanksgiving. My first major Thanksgiving dinner had one or two small glitches, but things got ironed out, and everyone loved the meal. I generally have tofurkey for Thanksgiving, so the actual cooking time isn't that terribly long. With roasting the tofurkey and veggies and doing some other things, I think that prep and cook time for yesterday's dinner was about 1 1/2 hours--not bad for a major holiday meal.

I was young and a newlywed and wanted to impress my husband. I made a cake that turned out pretty good. However, when it came to the icing, it was a disaster. I wanted to make a pretty lemon flavored frosting. It never turned very yellow and I added the lemon zest and more juice. I don't need to explain that everyone scraped the icing off the cake because it was too tart to be eaten. I have never tried to make icing from scratch again. I consider the market icing a really good bargain!

Years ago, when my mom was alive and we all got together for these things, my sisters took turns doing the turkey (I was living in Vancouver so was excused). This one year, the turkey just wasn't defrosting. We ended up having a bucket of KFC. Just not the same.

I still haven't made an entire Thanksgiving meal on my own yet. We never even considered doing it when we lived at the apartments . . . the oven was never "right". When I cooked chicken pieces, it would never cook evenly even if I turned the pan every now and then . . . so could you imagine trying to cook a whole gigantic turkey in our oven? No way - I didn't even want to try. I remember my mom's concern for her turkeys is "is it cooked all the way - it looks a little pink" - and she'd keep saying that over and over - thank goodness it was just our family. But one year my sister invited a couple friends - and she said that - and they just got turned off by the meal. Fresh cranberries - oh, I guess it requires tons of sugar liquid to make it less sour. I recall my mom doing that one year . . . and although it was "ok", most of the family didn't like the texture and still it was too tart for their taste. The good thing is you have experience in the kitchen, and you were able to save the meal. Whipping out a remake probably wasn't that big of a deal as long as you had all the ingredients there. Thank goodness!! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, marie2052!

As the saying goes "Every master was once a disaster". I'm glad you were able to make a comeback after that ordeal. Otherwise, it would have ruined your Thanksgiving. Gladly, no mishaps yet for me for Thanksgiving since I don't know how to either bake or cook. Reading the dishes you cooked makes my mouth water and crave for them. Happy Thanksgiving!