I just smoked a sheet of Silpat that was hiding the oven. I didn't check and turn the oven broil. What stupid things have you done?

We had just moved into our new house and I wasn't yet used to the -- flamethrower industrial -- power of the stove top. I was browning some hamburger in exactly the same fashion as I always had before at our prior home, and the stuff quickly and totally burned. Black, black, black on the bottom -- so quickly that it was still pink on top! Massive amounts of smoke everywhere. Smoke alarms going off. Frantic running around to find the alarm master box and turn off the noise. Meanwhile, opening all the doors and windows and taking the -- heavily smoking -- offending pan outside and setting it on the deck. Only problem, the deck is made of a synthetic trax type material. When everything had settled down, the pan was melted to the deck...

This is timely because just last night I had guests over for dinner and as I was placing the mushroom lasagna-- a fussy NYT recipe I had spent the better part of the afternoon making--on the table, it slipped from one of my oven mitts and fell directly on top of a Duralex water glass, shattering it and sending shards everywhere. After some discussion of ordering a pizza and careful lasagna inspection, our gracious guests bravely opted for the latter, which turned out great btw and was thankfully shard-free. Phew.

I set a hot cookie sheet on top of a plastic cutting board effectively gluing them together. It gets worse...I put the whole thing BACK IN THE OVEN. the cutting board melted, duh. like cheese strings. It took me hours to get the oven clean.

Sam1148, I am sorry about your Silpat. Ouch. I once started up the heat under a very large pot of beautiful green beans.Unfortunately, instead of steaming, they dry roasted because I forgot to put water in the pan. In addition to imparting the beans with a sickening metallic smokiness, it also roasted the pot to a crisp. To add to the misery, it was just before a Passover Seder and I had a room full of guests in the other room. In horror, I slammed the lid back on the pot and threw the whole thing away when no one was looking. We went without a fresh vegetable at dinner and no one seemed to notice.

One of my favorite videos of Amanda and Merrill was called Burning 101. http://www.food52.com/blog/1876_burning_101 I shared the mistake below, and am sharing it again at the behest of my daughter who was witness to the whole drama and doesn't want me to forget it.

"An advanced technique that includes being a public nuisance is to put a pot of beans on the stove, turn the temp on high for that 3 minute boil before you let them soak and then chase your dog who is chasing the UPS truck and apologize profusely to the UPS driver and the neighbors who couldn't get into their driveway and then hear the fire trucks coming to your house because your burned beans set off the fire alarm which had the alarm company call the fire station and had all the neighbors once again on high alert and then be lectured by said neighbors and firemen and have to throw the pan out and take 10 days to have the smell clear out."

I have a cake that I make all the time--ginger apple torte. It's on this website. The last time I made it (which of course was when my brother-in-law the baker was at my house and I was trying to impress him), I forgot to put the baking soda in the batter. There is very little baking soda in that recipe, but the cake was inedible and we had to throw it away.

I melted my breast pump accessories in my le creuset pot. Twice.

I like to think my sister still holds the family record -- she put a beautifully seasoned cast-iron skillet in the dishwasher. My personal favorite that I still beat myself up for -- I had to throw out my perfectly good, 20+ year old Cuisinart after adding too much water too quickly to too little flour while mixing bread dough, and permanently glued the blade to the spindle. Tried every trick I could find on line to un-stick the blade, which included emptying out half of the freezer so the machine could spend the night in sub-zero temps -- that's when I really felt stupid.

Used wax paper under my cookies instead of parchment paper... Smoked up my entire house and ruined a batch of cookies!

While baking multiple pans of biscotti to give as Christmas presents this year, I set them on my deck to cool off faster so that I could slice them before the second baking. They were attacked by a flock of magpies, who peck, peck, pecked them to bits. A total loss.

I had a cast iron kettle that I let boil dry. For some reason I was inclined to cool it down by running cold water into it. The handle was directly over the opening and I gave myself a bejesus of a steam burn as the water hit the hot, hot iron

My daughter knew to put water in the kettle to make hot water. Then she heated it up in the microwave....

I Inherited a vitamix. One of the big chrome ones..where the lights would dim when you turned it on.

I had some left over Parmigiano-Reggiano rinds. And thought..well, I'll pulverize those to incorporate in a soup.

Apparently, the VHS video that showed the vitamix chopping wood to saw dust, was a bit deceiving.
As, while it's 'safe' to put wood blocks in the vitamix and grind to saw dust. You'll break the blades with very hard cheese.

Lots and lots of stupid things! Isn't that how one is supposed to learn?!? I've done the pour-cold-water-into-hot-glass-pan trick. I've done the make-caramel-in-too-small-a-pan-trick. I've done the leave-plastic-handle-on-hot-burner trick too. And that's just what's at the top of my head!

My stupid ex-boyfriend decided to store my Cuisinart food processor in the oven without letting me know. You can guess what happened...

Many, many stupid things. There was the time I made kasha -- stir the groats over heat with a beaten egg, add boiling water. I was too lazy to boil the water, so when it hit the pan, it crazed the enamel lining on the cast iron. I didn't even realize it until I started eating, and wondered what that crunchy stuff was! Lost a good pot, and I still feel the shame years later. Anyone know how to get enameled cast iron repaired?