Burnt my famous chili so bad the smoke alarm went off for 10 minutes straight

I was trying to multitask last night, figured I could let my chili simmer while I took a quick call with a client about her poodle's matting. 45 minutes later I came back to a pot of blackened paste that smelled like a campfire. The smoke detector in my kitchen is still acting weird this morning. Has anyone else ruined a solid meal by stepping away just a little too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_elliot16d ago

Bet your chili might have actually been salvageable if you'd caught it early enough. Smoke detectors going off for ten minutes usually means the smoke was so thick it set off the detector but the food might not have been completely ruined yet. Probably still tasted like ash though. The real lesson here is that poodle mats can wait, chili cannot.

the_emma16d ago

Honestly the exact same thing happened to me last week with my slow cooker carnitas. I put everything in before work, set it on low, and figured I'd be home in 8 hours like normal. But my car got a flat on the way home and I was stuck waiting for roadside assistance for almost two hours. By the time I walked in the door the whole apartment smelled like someone had been smoking meat with a tire fire. The pork was basically charcoal and I had to throw the whole ceramic insert away because it was blackened and cracked. Still haven't replaced my slow cooker yet and I'm honestly not sure I want to relive that trauma anytime soon.