What was your worst cooking disaster

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I tried making homemade caramel in a non-stick pot once, and I had to throw out the pot after I burned the caramel and destroyed the coating. Plus hot caramel tends to set off the smoke detector.

Tried to make rice pudding for the beau's grandfather recently- he mentioned he liked it, but I had no frame of reference, having never even heard of it prior. I kept adding flour to thicken it up, as the photos I googled all showed a consistency resembling oatmeal. Finally, I just dumped a whole cup in to the pot, which made it taste like oatmeal. It sat in my fridge an entire weekend before my bf finally threw it out. I perused the reviews (was from a recipe site) and I think the recipe was just wonky. Sucks.

The time I put a brown potato in the microwave and let it over cook. I came back after I heard the 'ding', and saw a cloud of smoke rise out of the microwave when I opened the door. It smelled horrible, and the stink lingered in the upper wooden cabinet for months.

At least then I didn't make the ceiling black. Yes, I blackened the ceiling in my other apartment. I brilliantly left a pot of popcorn on the stove, and it made a fire. I have done this at least twice before that round, and this was the second time I took the pot, and shoved it under running water like a complete moron.

That was years ago, and since then, mother has stuck to buying microwaved popcorn instead. The first time it caught fire was when I was in my early teens. I tossed the contents into the plastic green trash can, and set the can outside. My Father wasn't very pleased with the results. -.-;

Never really had a problem with cooking anything myself, until I moved to the UK, those disasters also produced my only complaints about the country.
However, I had been near or slightly involved with more then a few cooking disasters over the years in Canada. I will start with those.

Canada

In one home I lived in the granddaughter of the foster parent decided to make popcorn. She burnt it charcoal black, tossed it into an almost full bin bag, that was attached to wire bag holder, under the kitchen sink. It melted the bag and some chemical containers, which combined to become some sort of weapon of mass destruction. I got blamed for not watching her and helping. She was 6 months younger then me.

Another home, a older girl was supposed to take a roast out of the deep freeze to let it defrost then cook it. When she remembered to do this it was to late to let it defrost, so she just ran out grabbed a roast from the freezer, took the wrapping off it and placed it in the oven on a low temp so it could slowly cook and thaw at the same time.
About an hour later the chihuahua started to growl and bark at the stove. it would not stop looking at the window in the stove, shaking and barking, no matter how much we said shush. The girl went to check on the roast and screamed. A bunch of us came running to see what was going on, some screamed, some of us started to laugh uncontrollably. Inside the stove was not a roast, but a whole pigs head.

One I was partly to blame for was when a friend called me on my mobile, to help her cook a full turkey dinner. That did not end well...

UK

I had been here a couple months and had not done any baking at all, but one day I felt like making a cake, zucchini loaf to be exact.
But before I could make it I had to go shopping. I hate shopping to begin with, but having to shop in a different country gave it a whole new level of hate.
So went to buy the ingredients, first looking for the flour.
There was plain, strong, bread, self-rising, pea and a lot of other types, BUT no all purpose flour. I asked a clerk if they had any all purpose flour, they looked at me oddly and said no, never heard of it. so I asked what flour was used for cakes. I was given a bag of plain. Also grabbed sugar.
Off to get zucchini. Couldn't find any, so again ask a clerk, this time I am looked at like I just landed on the planet and have green skin. I describe it.. he says oh ok,I will go get it for you.. he comes back and hands me 3 cucumbers.. no it is not a cucumber. I tell him what it is used in. He says oh you must mean courgettes.. now he is the one with green skin..
But I follow him and to my amazement, there are zucchini or courgettes.

Anyway, I end up baking the zucchini/courgette loaf/cake.. it was, well wrong. Tasted fine, but the texture was way off. Was heavy, but the odd part was that it was chewy

A couple weeks later, I wanted to make shortbread cookies. Another crazy shopping experience and another weird result.
The shortbread cookies came out chewy.

After that I looked at the sugar packaging. Made from beets, google beet sugar. It has a tendency to make some things chewy.

If anyone ever asks me what I miss about Canada, I will tell them the truth. Good old all purpose flour and double active baking powder!!