It's Top 10 Time!

Hello, and welcome to another addition of Top 10 Most....

EMBARRASSING HOLIDAY MEAL DISASTERS

1) When I was about 12 or so, I had just started to make yeast bread. We were going to my grandparents for Thanksgiving and I was making the rolls. They never raised. They were hard little hockey pucks. I remember everyone say "Oh, these are just fine!" and then watching them open them up and only eat the top because it was the least disgusting part.

2) I cooked a turkey with the packet of "stuff" still inside. Not my first turkey, or second or third. My FOURTH turkey.

3) I undercooked the potatoes one year and they wouldn't mash. There were hard lumpy bits all through it.

4) Then there was the Thanksgiving without potatoes. I set them on the burner that is the vent for my oven in their water until it was time for them to cook. When I turned them on and cooked them, they wouldn't get soft. I boiled them for almost an hour.

5) I forgot the stuffing in the oven when I put a pie in to broil the crunchy topping on top of it. It was burnt to a criiiiiisp.

6) Lumpy gravy. For years I made lumpy gravy. Gravy and I seem to be on better terms now.

7) I am a weird person who doesn't like moist turkey. I usually ask for the first slice so that it is drier than the rest. (Not that I bake it to be dry, everyone else here likes it to be moist, so I make it for them, not me). But one year we had this turkey that was almost like the one on Christmas Vacation. I swear it looks absolutely perfect on the outside, but it was like turkey jerky on the inside.

8) My pie crust fell apart in the pan while it was cooking and all of the pumpkin pie filling ended up under the pie crust. It was like pumpkin custard with added pie pieces.

9) I made green bean casserole with frozen green beans. There is no such thing as a good frozen green bean. They stayed kind of hard and yet chewy at the same time. Definitely NOT good eats.

And the last most embarrassing Holiday meal disaster is (drum roll please):

10) I made my "famous" baked beans to take to my husband's families Thanksgiving and the beans didn't cook. Also, I didn't try them before I took them, so I had no idea how bad they were until I heard one of his cousins say how nasty and hard they were.

I shared these with you today to show you that bad things happen to good people and we keep cooking anyway. If you never fail, you never gain humility and you never gain appreciation for when you do something really, really well.

Please, leave your worst holiday cooking disaster in the comments. I'm sure everyone will appreciate that they are not alone :)