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Spice up your holiday with Cook’s Ham

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Ham has long been the traditional holiday centerpiece.
Just take a look at this Double-Glazed Spiral Sliced Bone-In Honey Ham.
Mouth-watering, eh?

There are many brands of ham available, but one quality brand to look for is Cook’s. That’s because Cook’s hams always begin with old-fashioned bone-in hams for a more natural texture and taste. They are slow-cured with natural ingredients like pure cane sugar, real honey, brown sugar and maple syrup. The hams are then smoked for hours using real hickory wood, for the perfect finish. Cook’s branded hams and other smoked meats are sold at leading supermarket chains and independent grocers across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

My favorite part of a holiday meal is the leftovers! I can usually get pretty creative with the bits and pieces of turkey and ham that remain. The Cook’s Ham website has some fun recipes… the ham tortilla Christmas tree caught my eye. 😉 For more information on Cook’s ham and how to prepare the perfect holiday ham, please visit www.cooksham.com/HamTV.

WIN IT!
How does a free ham sound? One reader will win a coupon for a free Cook’s ham, up to $30 in value. To enter, please leave a comment telling me about your worst holiday cooking experience. Don’t fear the ghost of holiday meals past! Martha Stewart doesn’t read my blog, so I can assure you we’ve ALL been there.

For extra entries:

  • Subscribe to my feed by feed reader or email (or let me know if you already do).
  • Follow me on Twitter (@OhMariana) and tweet about this giveaway: I just entered to win a free Cook’s ham (up to $30 in value) from @ohMariana! https://bit.ly/7TUyOq
  • Grab my button (at the bottom of the page) and link to me in your sidebar or blog roll.

Contest ends: December 16th, 2009 11:59 pm EST. US entries only. Leave a separate comment for each entry & a valid email address/blog URL. Winner, chosen at random, has 3 days to claim their prize.

Cook’s Ham provided me with a coupon for myself and one to give away. Other than a free product voucher, no compensation was received for this post.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I can’t think of a real disaster, mainly because I am always in charge of dessert, and while there have been burned treats, I always start way ahead of time to make sure “something” turns out yummy!
    I would love to win the ham! That is what my mom always serves my family for Christmas dinner–all 12 of us!
    .-= joann10´s last blog ..Build and Grow–for free–at Lowes =-.

  4. Well, my worst holiday experience ever was one year when I had to prepare the turkey. It was my first time cooking one and it looked really good when it came outta the oven…UNTIL..lol

    I realized when carving it and getting the stuffing out, that I had cooked it with the bag that had the neck, livers, etc. in it

    roflmao!! I felt sooo dumb lol

    Thanks for the chance to win!
    .-= JoeyfromSC´s last blog ..WIN A MADDISON AVENUE SOY CANDLE FROM LESLIE LOVES VEGGIES BLOG! =-.

  10. On our first Thanksgiving of after we married, I also cooked the turkey with the bag inside. (There should be a rule that Mom’s tell their daughters to remove this!)

  12. A few years back, I invited all the family over for Thanksgiving. I was stupid and tried a new recipe for cooking the Turkey. It was to be wrapped up in Aluminium Foil for the entire baking except the last 30 minutes. The heat was at a higher temperature, so I thought the turkey would cook alright.
    It didn’t. I ended up having to unwrap it at the end and cook it for almost another 2 hours before it got done. All the rest of the food was cooked, but not the turkey. So everyone ate the food that was cooked and then some family members had to leave because they had to go and have dessert with their spouses families. They didn’t get any turkey, not unless they got some leftovers at their spouses families homes.
    It was so embarassing.
    I’m glad I have a rotissiere now and no foil goes over the turkey. This year we had the best turkey because we brined it.
    It cooked thoroughly, but still was moist because of the brining process.

  14. My worst holiday cooking experience – making Karen’s Luncheon Salad.
    I thought it sounded so good.
    But with the jello & eggs it didn’t look so hot.
    People said yewww, what is that?

  24. My worst Holiday Cooking experience would have to be the first time I cooked a turkey all by myself! After it was cooked I found out I hadn’t taken out all that yucky stuff that was inside the turkey! This may not be bad to you but for me in front of all my new family (in-laws and all) I was traumatized for life!

  25. I closed the oven door after I put a roast beef if, and locked the door so that it started the Cleaning cycle. We didn’t even realize for about an hour, and had to get out the oven owner manual to figure out how to stop the process and get the darn door open!

  29. Oh boy, this is so easy to write about because it happened just LAST WEEK!!! I bought a very small turkey for my boyfriend and I and stuffed it with a never-before-tried gluten-free bread based stuffing… and tossed it in the oven while he was at work. When he got off and made it over around 6pm, the bird was overcooked and the stuffing was terrible. To make things work though, the gluten-free gravy was delicious and two non-gravy people greatly enjoyed the meal even if the bird was dry to the point of being turkey jerky!!

  32. the worst thing for us has been the rolls wouldn’t rise… the yams got too much brown sugar… or the rolls burnt because of distraction…

  34. The Disaster was that the bird never would get done ! Turns out the oven was on the fritz and we didn’t know it wasn’t as hot as we had it on. So, we ended up having to cook it ALLLLLLL day and we had to eat dinner in reverse . Desert was first …etc. jtrophy at gmail dot com
    .-= Jeanine P´s last blog ..Huggies Enjoy the Rides 21pts Codes =-.

  38. I made the typical newbie Thanksgiving Turkey mistake. I had my whole family coming for my first ever Thanksgiving dinner. I thawed the bird, made the stuffing ,prepared the side dishes so they would be ready to cook when the turkey was close to being finished. I had it all organized and going great. I kept smelling plastic burning but couldn’t figure out what it was. Come to find out I had left the bag of Giblets in the bird and it was in a plastic bag. The bag had melted inside the bird, the bird smelled and tasted like plastic. I was mortified. We ate Hamburgers with all the trimmings.
    iheartsweeping@aol.com

  41. My worst holiday cooking experience was the year I was cooking for a crowd. I put pecan pie in the oven without a cookie sheet underneath it, and the boiled over filling hit the hot oven element causing extreme smoke, a little flame and a burnt smell.

    After the flames died, I finished the pecan pie in the microwave and it turned out okay.

  43. i was making this two layerd pumpkin pie and it seemed like alot for just one pie shell, and i only bought one gramham cracker pie shell, cant make them idont know whats wrong with me but they never turn out right. but any ways i had two different bowls of layered items to put into this one little pie crust i filled it as much as i could it looked like a flying saucer. then i got the idea to put the rest into a baking dish. well it didnt have a crust and it was terribe.

  46. My worst cooking experience was my first year of being married. I thought I could cook home made noodles and home made pie crust for the Holiday Season. I did not try it before hand and I really wish I did. No matter how much i tried the whole night before I could not get them right. We ended up going to my in laws because with trying not to give up I forgot to put all the main items on to cook them. It was horrible. Anyway I practiced at least twice a month till I got it right

  48. My worst holiday cooking experience was several years ago when I invited my husband’s family to our home for Christmas dinner and halfway through cooking the huge 22 lb. turkey and all the trimmings, I realized we ran out of propane gas. We had to transport everything in a snowstorm to his Mom’s house to finish cooking with her electric stove. Needless to say I switched from “call for delivery of propane gas” to the “automatic delivery schedule”. We still laugh about it. 🙂

    P.S. There is a good side to my propane gas stove though. When storms knock out the electric (which happens a lot in winter) those same relatives can come & cook on my stove. 🙂

  50. I cooked beside my Granny since I was a little girl and I really am a good cook because of it but….. the first time I cooked a 12-layer Chocolate Cake, the layers were too thick and when iced the top layers would not stay on because it was too high. The icing sugared and it was like teeth grinding and you ate pure sugar. It wasn’t good and I had a 8 layer and a 4 layer cake that wasn’t very good. My husband bragged on what a good cook I was and we had a few friends from his work over and they all knew I was cooking it. Most of the men had never had it but the ones who had eaten it before had Moms who were great cooks were talking about it all week. I warned them and still all tried it but I was embrassed. I practiced and made it short a layer for us to taste before I got it right. The first good one I sent to work with my husband to share at lunch and he took ribbing about it but everyone again tryed it. There was not a bite left when he came home. 4 men ate the whole cake at lunch and afternoon snack. I still mess up and make the icing like sugar sometimes but the layers are not too thick even if it takes a long time. 2 full tablespoons are just enough to cover the pan bottom and makes a perfect thin layer.

  51. I subscribe and want the extra entry, Thanks for the chance to win a coupon for a Cooks ham. This is good ham,

    Let me share how to cook my 1/2 ham. SO easy and never had one that didn’t turn out good this way. My Dad was a cook in the Air Force and he taught me this, I use an electric oven. I just drop it with no seasoning into a big brown paper sack, fat side up and put in a throw away deep pan. I tuck up the open end under tightly and the sides tuck under if needed. Make sure the paper can not touch the sides of the oven while it is cooking. Pull out the top rack and put on the bottom rack slot.The sack will obsorb most of the grease. About 8 pm at night I put in the oven, set on 200 or .Forget it until about 8 AM. The ham will be brown but if it is not done you can cook a little more uncovered.I have only had to cook some more one time when it was a really large whole ham.
    I cook turkey the same way but salt and pepper the inside and scrub outside with little butter and salt and pepper. I finish up the same as the ham.

  54. Mine was really my mothers but I felt so bad for her that it was one of my worst. She spent all day making stuffed cabbage for the whole family for Christmas Eve dinner and when we sat down to eat we discovered that the meat was bad. That was a huge shock because it smelled fresh and was a nice color but it tasted horrible. My mom had to throw it all out and I still think about that today.

  58. One year I baked a duck and served it with a dressing that contained nuts. The duck was greasy and my husband stated that nuts were only supposed to be found in desserts. It was back to the traditional turkey and dressing after that.

  60. When I accidentally used sugar instead of salt in all the recipes for my Thanksgiving meal. Hey it can happen, if you decide to super clean your kitchen and clean out the canisters and restock them, just in the wrong sequence.

  64. Worst Holiday experience would have to be when my twins were born prematurely and in the NICU and we had my husbands family from out of town and I was juggling running to the hospital to see the girls and cook and I really overcooked- dryed out the turkey. Normally I am a fair cook but this was definately the dryest meat I have ever tasted. The good news is not many people cared after seeing my beautiful tiny girls.

  65. One year, on Thanksgiving, while cooking the Turkey in the oven and pans ontop of the stove, and guests throughout the house, I had a kitchen towel near the oven go on fire. We got it out, but the smoke alarms were going off, the house was filled with smoke and I was so embarrassed. I still get teased about that day.
    Thanks so much for offering this ham and Happy Holidays.

  67. one year I use the roaster that was given to me my a relative and of course it was broke so dinner was very late

  68. My worst holiday cooking disaster was when I was cooking dinner for my fiance’s parents. Their little dog got right under my feet as I was carrying food to the table. The dog tripped me and I spilled food all over the little dog. Yikes -how embarassing!

  70. I once poached a salmon. When we sat down to eat it, it was so old, it couldn’t be eaten. What a disaster!

    bgcchs(at)yahoo(dot)com

  72. Getting invited to my aunt’s house for ThanksGiving dinner and we all got sick from her stuffing. Thats the last time we let her cook any family dinners.

  74. When I was young, I told my mother I was going to make her graham cracker pudding for dessert. What she got was a few graham crackers dissolved in water with an ice cube on top. I have yet to top that holiday treat 😉 Thanks for this opportunity!

  75. My worst holiday cooking experience was when Christmas was on a Sunday (I don’t shop on Sundays), and I had forgotten to buy the Kielbasa for our traditional breakfast meat trio that we have had since I was a kid. Major bummer!

  76. This is easy – my very 1st xmas after I was married I made dinner – a ham (my favorite). The ham I bought had the string all around it. I cooked the ham in the oven glazing it every 15 minutes or so – WITH THE STRING ON. I was think I could just put it off before I served it – nope. It was baked into the ham from the glaze at this point so I just had to slice it and everyone had to pick all these small pieces of cooking string off their ham before eating it LOL!
    .-= Robyns Online World´s last blog ..Why Does He Make a Full Pot of Coffee? =-.

  79. I have had a couple of issues with thawing out turkey, but only once did it really screw up my cooking. So, a once 3-4 hour cooking time went all the way up to 6. I’m glad I have patient relatives.

  80. No one will let me forget the time my mashed potatoes were more like potato soup….a little runny! 🙂

  81. I am always the designated person to host all holidays, so I am always stressed out to begin with! On Thanksgiving last year, I got a huge turkey, and it was so big, that when I rinsed it off, it slipped out of my hands, and if that wasen’t bad enough, it slid into the breakfast area, where my entire family saw it from the living room! I was so embarrassed!
    .-= jennifer´s last blog ..Kroger =-.

  82. Probably the worse holiday cooking disaster I can remember is when all of my drains backed up just two hours before serving Christmas dinner…I was in a panic and the smelled, less than holidayish!

    Thank you. 🙂

  83. As a teen, learning to cook,I tried to make a pink heart shaped cake for Valentines Day.

    Probably would have been just fine except for the fact that I tipped the pan as I was trying to put it into the oven.

    Pink batter burns brown just like any other color (on the racks… on the door… on the bottom of the oven) and I never have wanted to make another Valentine cake since… lol
    .-= Iris´s last blog ..circulating: @TinyBelles still trying to find just the right tutu.. :). I think both those grandgirls need one, don’t you…?? =-.

  86. Wondeful…a dead corpse of an slaughtered frightened animal…..maybe it will be dog next week….how about a cruelty free holiday during this season of “peace”!

  87. My one and only cooking job for the extended family dinner was to make fudge but I only had groceries for two batches and I burnt them both!

  88. My worst cooking experience was when I had every one over for Christmas last year. I thought I had set the oven at the correct temperature & had put it on broil instead. It was not good.

  89. My worst was just this past Thanksgiving. I bought a cheap ham from the grocery store due to making all the food for the family and the cost added up quickly. The ham was not good – no flavor – too dry. WE decided we are buying a nice, expensive ham for Christmas this year – we’re not even going to worry about the cost because if it’s good then every one will eat it all. 🙂

    So, I’m game for winning this due to never having tried a Cook’s ham.

  90. I once tried to make my grandma’s recipe homemade yeast rolls. Too bad I forgot the yeast! They were terrible! I was so embarassed but thankfully my family just laughed about it.

  92. I am an email subscriber.
    .-= Andrea H´s last blog ..Battle of Giants Dragons & Battle of Giants Dinosaurs for Nintendo DS =-.

  93. last yr i made a ham and didn’t realize til it was out of the oven that there was a piece of plastic that was covering the bone…i guess during packaging) that also got cooked…

  95. My worst holiday cooking experience. Hubby and I decided we’d try deep frying a turkey. We spent 40 on the fryer, 40? on a bunch of peanut oil.
    We never injected the turkey. We didn’t know.
    Tasted greasy, and not much else. Plus, we missed the stuffing.
    2nd attempt, I did inject, but used just a turkey breast. Timing was wrong, based on weight, because a breast cooks differently than a whole bird.
    Bloody in the middle, had to throw it in the oven.
    Out another 40 dollars in grease.
    Forget this!!!
    I’d love to try a GOOD deep fried turkey someday, but it won’t be something I attempt again.

  98. Trying dropping frozen peanuts into boiling sugar, etc., when making peanut brittle. Instant granite. Takes forever to clean out of the pot.

  100. Trying to put my ham in the oven this year I dropped it and it went all over everything and needless to say it was a mess. Trying to rush is not a good choice.

  101. My worse holiday cooking experience would be when I cooked my first turkey an didnt know it had:”stuff” inside,yuck,I washed the thing off an cooked it,an my Dad cut into the turkey,an just looked at me an said”Sister?”Did you not take the bag out of the inside of the bird?I said what bag?soooooooo,uh NO i didnt,the bird was c oooked okay anyway,we ate it but I NEVER lived that down!
    vlbelk(at)hotmail.com

  104. I know I’m not the only one, but the first time I hosted Thanksgiving I cooked the turkey with the “stuff” inside. It was so gross. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to serve, and I was worried that the middle wasn’t cooked. It was so many years ago, I don’t even remember what we did about it!

  106. Our BIL made his 1st turkey last yr and left the giblets inside by accident in the plastic bag. We teased him most the night!

  107. Had to be my first attempt at making gravy. It was all big lumps. My MIL suggested bringing out the blender, which we did.

  110. Worst holiday cooking experience – the turkey was dry, the mashed potatoes burned in the crockpot and the steamed broccoli turned soggy; all because the dinner guests were 2 hours late! There was also the time I cooked a turkey on Celsius instead of Farenheit! Ug. the stories I could tell.

  112. I guess my worst was the year my Mom bought a huge Turkey (there were 12 of us) and had been thawing it for 2 days. When we went to start cooking it, yep you guessed it, It was still frozen. We ended up eating take out and having Turkey the next day. Good think there are lots of stuff open in Houston on the holiday.

  116. I was making a beef roast when I was a young married woman who didn’t know how to cook. I found a recipe that called for Onion soup mix sprinkled on the roast-wrap in foil and bake. The recipe (I swear) didn’t say anything about putting the thing in a pan! Needless to say, the foil wasn’t sealed well-what a mess! I vaguely remember something about a fire in the oven-I make excellent beef roast now! Thanks!

  119. One year we got one of those “everything included” dinners from a local restaurant – not a big success! The things that were supposed to be hot were either luke warm or cold – we just couldn’t seem to coordinate anything!

  121. I have hosted Thanksgiving dinner for some 30+ years. I couple of years ago my husband decided that he was going to take over and try something new. He deboned the turkey before cooking it and rolled it. I must say that it tasted Ok but it looked so sad on the dining room table.

  122. My worst holiday cooking experience was the time my pies decided to all run over and the drippings started smoking and made the smoke alarm go off.

  123. Mine was the year we lost power. We had 20 people over for dinner and no food. We had to load everything up in car and go somewhere else to cook it. Thanks for the chance.
    mogrill@comcast.net

  124. The only thing I can think of is the mashed potatoes collapsed one time, because the potatoes contained too much water.

  125. Worst holiday cooking experience was when I was too sick to cook and had something out of a box

  126. My worst cooking experience would be the time I forgot to take the package of giblets and organs from the cavity of the bird. It was ruined. Disgusting smell. Blech.
    .-= Cindy´s last blog ..Marx Foods Giveaway =-.

  128. The worst thing that happened to me was I was in the middle of cooking bread for Thanksgiving and the power went out. My husband had to take it to the fire hall to finish baking it!
    .-= Kristie´s last blog ..Advent Calendars =-.

  129. I have your button in my scrolling blogs section.
    .-= Cindy´s last blog ..Marx Foods Giveaway =-.

  130. It happened just this year. I bought a small turkey and my boyfriend worked late… I put the turkey in too early and by the time he made it over after work the turkey was overcooked and as we called it, turkey jerky. 🙁

  134. I made a beautiful Coconut Cream Pie from scratch. I was out of dry beans and cheese cloth to put in the crust while it baked to keep it from getting bubbles in it. I figured I would compromise, I used several coffee filters and dry rice. It worked great.

    I removed the coffee filters(or so I thought) and the rice and filled the crust with the coconut cream and then topped it with the fluffy cream topping and toasted coconut.

    The pie was pretty enough to post a picture in a magazine. My husband went to cut into it and something just wasn’t right. He says “Look there is something in here” He pulled on the something and the whole pie insides came with it! He was like “WTH” Yep you guessed it I left one of the coffee filters in the pie.

    I still to this day have not lived that one down.

  135. I once made a wonderful roasted red pepper dressing for a birthday party. As I was carrying it out to the table, the bowl fliped off the plate and covered everyone and everything with bright red goo. It was horrid. I still had stains on the ceiling when I moved out.

  136. I made Thanksgiving dinner once where the turkey was not thawed in time so didn’t taste great after being cooked frozen, the rolls didn’t rise (bad yeast I suppose) and ended up like little rocks, and the pecans all sank to the bottom of the pecan pie (but that still tasted okay). Gave us a good laugh, though!

  138. My worst holiday experience was when me and our 2 kids were sick last Christmas:(

    mscoffee77(AT)juno(DOT)com

  139. My worst holiday cooking experience came not longer after I moved south to VA. I had a client give me a southern ham. I had no idea that they needed to be soaked for a day or two in water to remove the salt before you cook them. Needless to say, the ham was very salty and not really edible. Lesson learned:)

  142. I decided to make my granny’s tea cakes for our family Christmas party and somewhere along the line, I didn’t follow the recipe correctly and they came out hard as golf balls..lol. Thank goodness, I had time to make them again. Second times a charm! 🙂 TY for the giveaway!

  147. I tried preparing fryed bananas like i saw in this cooking show?
    Well, if the clouds of smoke in the kitchen didn’t tell me i did something the wrong~the smell of burnt oil lasting 3 weeks throughout our home did.
    =P

  157. I suspect I have been pretty lucky overall, since the worst thing I can remember is a new pecan pie filling recipe that I tried rather than the tried and true, that did NOT turn out well. It was pretty well inedible!

  159. its wasnt that I did anything wrong but no one liked yams and I made a huge casserole and I was the only one who ate any

  160. I was about 13 and making my first ever cake. Well, I forgot the flour. What a mess in the oven I had to clean up!

  161. My worst holiday cooking disaster was when my mom asked me to cook the rolls for Christmas dinner. Well, I guess that I killed the yeast by mixing it with water that was too hot. I had made two batches of crescent rolls – about 64 of them – and they were so concentrated that all of the rolls just covered the bottom of a grocery sack. They were used as toys instead of being eaten.

    Thank you,

    Christine
    womackcm@sbcglobal.net

  166. *hangs head* I don’t really cook, so I don’t have any holiday cooking disaster stories. I may after this year though. My husband is intent on recreating a duck dish from our favorite restaurant for Christmas dinner!
    .-= Emily E.´s last blog ..kebhouse: @LEprAmanda q3- I do most of the shopping, but we work together to decide what to get everybody. #landsend =-.

  167. I subscribe to your feed.
    .-= Emily E.´s last blog ..kebhouse: @LEprAmanda usually we travel, this year we are staying home and my husband will be doing most of hte cooking. I’m the sous chef. #landsend =-.

  168. I remember offering to bring dessert, and I decided I would bake my first apple pie. Oh I should really say that I tried to make an apple pie. It came out so bad that the crust wasn’t edible. It literally needed an ice pick to break it apart. Everyone was so polite – they ate the inside like it was apple sauce.

  169. I love to cook and am darn good at it if I do say so myself. I don’t think I have ever had a holiday disaster… I am too controlling for that. The first time I ever baked a cake, I was about 9, I broiled it instead. Ugh..

  172. My worst holiday cooking experience was when I was first married and I cooked the turkey for Christmas. I forgot to take the heart and all that stuff out of the turkey before I cooked it, and I got laughed at by my family.. It was embarrassing..lol
    Thanks for hosting..
    emeraldrose63@yahoo.com

  176. My worst holiday cooking experience was the year that I was helping my mom prepare the meal. The turkey was far from thoroughly cooked when mealtime came and we ended up having a picnic ham instead.

  178. Once we had the turkey in the oven for two hours before we realized the oven had shut off…we ate a little late that night!

  179. Pretty commom boo-boo, I think. I left the bag of “innards” in the turkey when I cooked it. Twice!

  184. My worst was when my greyhound stole the roast off the counter – it’s very funny now but not at the time. He had a good meal though

  189. I was transporting the cooked turkey and gravy to a friend’s house and the gravy spilled all over the trunk. What a mess and we had to use jarred gravy as a replacement.

  190. It was probably last year when I put my husband in charge of the ham. I have to try and remember. He reads the directions and follows to a T. He doesn’t ever check on things. He just waits for the timer to go off. Well the ham was so overcooked that it was a complete waste. Thank goodness there was plenty of other stuff to eat. He’s also been banned this year from the kitchen.

  191. We’ve done just about everything there is to do over the years — forgot to turn on the oven, forgot to take the gizzards out of the turkey, overbaked the pies — but it’s all getting better! The last big dinner we made actually came out perfect!
    johnezo@sbcglobal.net

  193. Well, this takes no thought at all. My worst Christmas Eve dinner was the time we had an ice storm and had no electricity. I couldn’t cook and couldn’t wash dishes, so we ate sandwiches on paper plates. For CHRISTMAS EVE!! And then to top off a perfect day, we went to the mall so we could all use their bathroom (we have a well, so when we don’t have electricity, we don’t have water!). So all these people left after Christmas and I had TONS of uncooked food because I couldn’t cook any of the great stuff I had planned.

  197. We’ve got the wrong oven racks in our oven – they are a tad too small, so if we bake anything we’ve got to carefully put things in the oven so the racks don’t fall. We learned that when we first moved in here and was cooking a big turkey for Christmas – the turkey ended up falling a few times while it was cooking!

  198. I didn’t make this holiday mess, my sister in law did. She once served a Thanksgiving dinner with plain chicken broth for gravy and dressing mix from a box.

  200. Made dinner rolls from scratch, that never rose, so I took the dough, wrapped it around the ham, baked it that way, and ended up being delicious

  201. Made Garlic Cheese Grits at Thanksgiving. Overdid the garlic and cayene pepper, would have killed rodents.

  202. Think it was the year we HAD to have wild turkey. That was bad enough (dry and gamey), but I broke a tooth on the pellet some hunter missed while cleaning said bird!

  203. My mother was sick, so I was cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner. We always had devilled eggs as an appetizer, so I set in to make them. My mother always sprinkled them with something red, so I searched thru her spices and sprinkled the first red item I came to, which happened to be red pepper. It was way too hot for everyone to eat, and I didn’t find out till later that you’re supposed to use paprika.

  204. I let my 6 year Nephew help me make cookies and instead of putting sugar in the mixture he put in salt without me noticing. We the baked all the cookies but it wasnt until we were done and we went to try our creations together that I realized what had happened. Never the less we spent another 2 hours making them again and enjoying a tall glass of milk afterwards with our new cookies, delicious!

  208. A few years ago, just before Christmas we had a bad ice storm here in Columbus, followed by a power outtage that lasted several days. We had no heat, no way to cook, and Christmas was coming. We didn’t get power back until Christmas Eve, so our “cooking disaster” was that we couldn’t cook at all. We had Asian carryout for our our Christmas Eve dinner, but at least we were together!

  210. When I made my very first Turkey, it was for my neighbors that didn’t have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving. I didn’t know anything about cooking a turkey and had no business trying! It turned out tough, tasteless, and terrible. It was so bad, the color was even a little gray. Ew! I was so embarrassed! I had to do some research, then invite them back for a turkey they would remember. And it worked!
    .-= Cori Westphal´s last blog ..Win a SpringFree Trampoline from Barefoot Mommies!!! =-.

  211. I’m a subscriber.
    .-= Cori Westphal´s last blog ..Win a SpringFree Trampoline from Barefoot Mommies!!! =-.

  215. happily to say I can’t remember a holiday meal that was my worst holiday cooking experience.
    but this thanksgiving we went to our oldest daughters house for thanksgiving and since I had driven over 1200 miles one way she insisted on doing all the cooking. She had a 22lb turkey which was still partially frozen that morning well she had to work half a day so she went and stuffed the turkey put in oven. later as I’m removing the stuffing and putting in bowl out comes the bag that contained the neck, heart etc. She had forgotten to remove it a head of time which I should have asked her if she had done so when earier as turkey cooked she complained that all the stuffing wouldn’t fit.
    She was so upset but I had to laugh because her husband says thats the second time she’s done that

    Thank you so much for giving me a chance to be a winner

    camper223[at]live[dot]com

  216. I’m a reader subscriber and a email subscriber

    Thank you so very very much
    camper223[at]live[dot]com

  218. The worst was scorching potatoes that I was boiling for potato salad… made the potato salad anyway and all you could taste was scorched potato ewwwwwwww

  219. One year on Thanksgiving I used one of those cheap aluminum pans to cook the turkey, When I took it out the pan split in half and the turkey fell to the floor.

  220. My worst cooking experience was this Thanksgiving. Everything was WONDERFUL…except the gravy! It NEVER thickened. My mom and I had so much flour and cornstarch in there, we should have been able to walk on it…but, it was like thin water. Ugh.

    Thanks for the chance!

  221. Mine is the dreaded dry turkey. It was so dry and awful, but no one wanted to hurt my feelings. I then learned that online recipes are truly some of the best things in the world. 🙂 Thanks for the chance!

  224. I see I’m not the only person to leave the plastic bag of giblets in the roasting turkey. Damn that stank!

  226. I was having Thanksgiving at my house. I turned the oven on to preheat it and I heard a POP. I opened the oven door and found that my heating element had snapped in two! I had to take everything I was going to bake to my Mom’s and use her oven.

  227. I was 19 years old; it was the year both my parents died. A friend asked me to roast her turkey, and we were having a large group dinner. I did everything beautifully, and even timed service well… except for the separate bowl of dressing I put in a bowl in the oven at the same time as they turkey. It was such a hard block it literally would bounce off a wall… Fortunately the other dressing in the bird was fine and everyone enjoyed that instead.

  228. I made some pudding for a dinner once and didn’t realize that I had burned it untill we were eating it.

  229. We seem to have the same problem time and again — forgetting something in the oven. Last year was rolls, the year before we left a potato dish in the oven at home when we went to the in-laws.

  230. I cooked a turkey once with the gizzards and neck still inside, it was many years ago, but we still laugh about it today. I subscribe to your blog. Thank you!

  231. Well my disaster was the time I was cooking a Holiday Turkey and I forgot to turn the electric roasting pan on for like 2 hours it sat in the cooker not cooking
    skyskyaa11(at)gmail.com

  234. I made my first turkey for thanksgiving this year and it turned out great! No bad experiences come to mind yet. I would love to try a ham. So yummy!

  236. I can’t remember a bad meal experience. Our meals have always been wonderful and I am not Martha Stewart

  237. dreamcleavers@yahoo.com
    my wife made a turkey for her first time on thanksgiving and she had no idea what to do, she defrosted it over night in the bathtub then undercooked it by and hour and a half, needless to say we both had horrible food poisoning

  239. My worst holiday cooking experience was when I didn’t time everything perfectly and the turkey needed another hour to cook when everything else was ready to serve…ugh! It could have been worse but I felt like a horrible hostess.

  241. worst would be last year when everything was done except the turkey it was still pinkish in the middle and we had to put plate by plate in the microwave it was awful 🙁

  246. When I was first married I couldn’t cook at all. My worst cooking disaster was trying to boil water and I left it on the burner and scorched the pan black. Worst of all I didn’t realize what I had done and accused my husband of blowing smoke over our dinner.

  251. My worst experience was trying to cook my first turkey. I thought no problem. I bought the largest turkey that I found out later was some bland offbrand. I didn;t allow enough time for it to defrost. I didn’t know how to stuff it. When my husband came home after work I was sitting down feeling miserable. That was some sad looking turkey mess. We finally started laughing. We wound up eating out. I finally learned how to cook a turkey but we still laugh about our first turkey.

  252. I had to throw away my pumpkin cake roll this year because when I baked it it came out rubbery.. first time ever 🙁

  258. My wors was when I thought I had put the turkey in the Refrigerator but was still in the freezer. In an attempt to defrost it I ended up frozen on the inside and really ugly on the outside.