What's your worst cooking mistake and how did you learn from it?

Mine was  Making a lovely stock for the gravy at the christmas mealtime, then whilst straining it I absent mindedly  poured it through the sieve, and DOWN THE SINK!!  All that lovely flavour, simmering, wasted!!.

Lesson; make sure you catch the stock in a bowl / pan!   

I was cooking instant noodles and badly picked a bad eggs... When I cooked it I become trauma until now and I hate the instant noodles and very careful with... Eggs... Lol

Misreading 1 teaspoon (tsp) of black peppercorns, ground as 1 tablespoon (Tbsp) of ground black peppercorns; the resulting black pepper sauce could strip paint.

Lesson: Punctuation & capitalisation is important.

In the dead of winter, with a foot or two of snow, my husband and I walked to the nearest  grocery store, which was an Asian market, because, we had no food in the house, no working car, and I was pregnant. We took what little money we had, and I bought chicken, green beans, coconut milk and curry, to make chicken curry of course. Once home,  I started to prepare the food, and noticed something funny about the chicken, as I thawed it out, I realized that I had bought chitlins!! I did not know how to prepare them, and it was before the computer days, so I used them as I would had chicken, which was a big mistake, and something I would never do again,  as we went to bed hungry that night.

I poured water for cup noodle by mistake... Because, in my house, Hot water and water from a line in the neighbor. Noodles were spoiled...

not mine , but my mother in law  a Saturday morning  trying to do two task at the same time

  1- CLEANING 2- COOKING

has bottle of  CLEANER ( light yellow ) on the counter and her SON was requesting BREAKFAST 

  fried eggs   potatoes  and ham ...

.. you see it coming

YES thinking  its OIL  cooked his breakfast with the cleaning product ..  fried the eggs ham and potatoes in pine sol 

   being a NURSE    i have avoided  that  mishap  like carpenters  measure twice cut once

we are taught  drummed into us  READ TWICE  check the label  twice and  even have another person check with you  before administering  or dispensing

When I was a kid, I wanted to surprise my parents for their anniversary, so I took a pot roast out of the freezer.  I thought as long as meat is browned on all sides, that meant it was done.

So I put the frozen roast in a frying pan, turned the flame to the highest, browned the roast on all sides, and considered it cooked, not realizing that the inside was a block of ice.

My parents decided it was best to keep me out of the kitchen.

But when I got married, my husband taught me how to cook meat, poultry, fish, pasta, desserts, sauces, and gravies, all from scratch.

What I learned is that it's never too late to learn your way around the kitchen!

I tried making donuts.  Splashed VERY hot oil on my hand.  Had a blister the size of the base of a tea cup. Lesson:  I still dislike deep frying and rarely do it.and it has been over 50 years. 

Made fudge the first time.  Did not have a thermometer.  Ended up with a brick. So hard it would not cut.  I stood on the counter and dropped it and it would not even break.  Lesson: Do not make candy unless you have a candy thermometer. Or you are very good about checking for stages with a bowl of ice water for the various stages.

Tried to make a blooming onion without a jelly thermometer. Plopped the onion in, was greeted with a plume of smoke. Went to take it back out of the oil-using a Plastic ladle. 

Had to repaint my whole apartment. 

I thought cooking a tin of beans on an open fire without piercing it was a good idea, I thought the flavour would be sealed in. I realised it was wrong when I ended up looking like Simon Weston.