There is a cardinal rule to hosting guests for dinner: Always make something you’ve successfully made at least once before. You might be tempted to get cocky and pick out a seemingly simple recipe to try out. Please, learn from my example.

We had the young missionaries from our church, friends of my husband’s, over for dinner during that few day period I was on bed rest. Usually I’d make dinner, but since I couldn’t, Mark made his own rendition of my black bean and corn soup. It was great (except there was so much garlic that everyone but Mark teared up like we were cutting onions; clearly he was the one real Italian at the table hahaha)!

I’d just received a copy of the recipe for Cafe Rio pork from a friend’s mom. In a burst of, I don’t know, something, I offered to make the missionaries some if they’d come again for dinner and Settlers of Catan the next week. Cade Rio is apparently THE taco restaurant in Utah; I see people raving online about their pork all the time. I have never been there. Turns out one of the guys is FROM Utah, so once I made the offer he was so excited I couldn’t back out.

Thursday night Mark made a grocery store run for the pork (3 lbs) and marinade ingredients. As he prepared the meat to soak in the Coca-Cola overnight something looked off, but I couldn’t quite figure out what. Several hours later, as we were falling asleep, it hit me.

“Those are pork CHOPS! You didn’t buy pork roast, you bought pork CHOPS!” I exclaimed. This was DEFINITELY my fault. I had only put “pork” on the grocery list, not pork roast. But by now, the meat had been sitting in a bowl of 3 cans of Coke for several hours, so there was no going back.

First thing in the morning, I called my mom to get advice on changing cooking times for chops in the crockpot. We had a good laugh about the whole thing, I planned out the meal, and we continued to chat as I brought the Menininho to the kitchen to make breakfast. That’s when I saw it. The bowl of pork and pop. On the kitchen counter, next to the fridge. Where it had apparently been since 10 pm the night before.

“Scratch that, Mom,” I sighed. “It’s going to be a Little Cesar’s night.”

We’ll try this again sometime, on our own, and when I have more time and energy to put all the preparation in.

What’s your favorite kitchen disaster story?