Yesterday, I made chili, and of course, the pan had a bunch of chili-gunk left in it when it was all dished up. The best way I’ve found to clean out a pan after something like that is to fill it with water and maybe a little soap, boil for a while, change the water, and repeat. I did that a couple of times yesterday, but the water was still turning brown. So this morning, I figured I’d boil it a bit more before church. Well, after church, I went up to the office, and just came home, over twelve hours after I’d left… And there’s the stove light on.
The bottom of the pan is now completely stripped of its nonstick coating, and the sides have lumps of charcoal all over them. I’d also left the serving spoon in the pan, and there’s nothing left of that but a stick of metal with a particularly big lump of charcoal on the end of it. And the whole apartment smells funny now (I’ve opened up the kitchen window, so it’s airing out, at least).
It was a pretty nice pot, too. I’m pretty pissed at myself right now.
This is true… This past winter, someone in my building managed to trash his entire unit by leaving something on the burner. I suppose the pan is a relatively cheap price to pay, to learn my lesson.
Here’s your chance to buy the best pan in the world, bar none. We do everything in these - stir-fry, fry eggs, boil pasta, rice, casseroles, roasts in the oven - everything. Simply amazing, you really do need no other cookware.
We have two or three of these on the go at any time, and each time there’s a sale we buy a new one and retire the oldest one.
Goodness, if I did that, my husband would blow a gasket. He’s a chef and his pans are like an artist’s favorite brushes. He’s got expensive, fancy pans… and holy cow would it hit the fan if I did that.
Then again, when he messes up the computer, the writer in me freaks out about potentially losing any work I’ve done since my last back-up. I freak about that.
Thanks, I couldn’t remember the specifics and used “PTFE gas” to mean “the gas that comes from PTFE, whatever that is” instead of “gaseous PTFE,” although that was lazy and unclear.
I’m interested that your citation says it’s been known to be toxic to humans (and listed in the Chemical Weapons Convention!) since the 1960s and 1970s. As a bird keeper (PFIB is very lethal to pet birds) I’ve been talking about the dangers of nonstick cookware for years, and officials and manufactures have maintained that there’s no evidence it’s harmful to humans. I’m flabbergasted to read your citation.
You can bury your pot next to my (late) non-stick skillet that was on the stove when I turned the wrong burner on and left it to warm up while I turned my back. We can place bouquet of melted utensils in memory of the departed.
Can we add my ice maker? A couple of hours after the power went out I took it out of the freezer and dumped the ice in the sink. Since my countertops are wood, I put it on top of the stove so the remaining water wouldn’t warp the countertop. When the power came back on I was downstairs. About an hour later I noticed a horrible smell. Turns out hubby was cooking when the power went out and never turned off the burner.
Chronos, if you hear your neighbors talking about how one day everybody’s canaries, budgies, and finches in the whole building just up and died, act like you’re really busy with something and just keep walking…
My mom and I used to boil up a hot chili pepper spray to ward off rabbits in the garden…
…yep. She put on a pot on while I was at school and then took a nap. A long one. I came home to a houseful of burnt pepper aeresolized throughout the house. Ow. My eyes burn just thinking about it!
I boiled two eggs years ago … for about four hours. I have no idea why they didn’t explode. The water was completely gone and the pan boiled dry.
The pan survived. It was an ancient pan from like 1935 my grandmother had given me, though, with a wood handle. It went on to help me destroy other meals until I became a competent cook.
I recall a number of years ago, I was making a baked fruit dish in my favorite Corningware dish. I took the dish out of the oven to serve dessert, but we had company, and by the time dessert was over, the sink was overflowing with dirty dishes. Not wanting to leave the empty casserole out on the counter for my company to have to look at, I popped it back in the oven. Which I’d never turned off. :smack:
Got up the next morning to the smell of gently burning peaches. Opened the oven, discovered the burnt dish. It may have survived had I not made the incredibly hare-brained mistake of popping it in the sink and running water over it. . . :smack::smack:
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of a casserole dish snapping cleanly in half.
How about an exploding glass pie pan! I pulled out the pie pan to get to a pot. I put the pan aside on a burner, filled the pot with water and turned the burner on high. I went to see what was on TV while waiting for the pot to boil. Yep. Turned on the wrong burner. The explosion sent near-molten glass all over the linoleum and carpet of the apartment. :smack:
The chili was, I think, the best I’ve made so far. I’m still learning what my recipe is, but I think that if I just use leaner meat next time, I’ve got it down.
I’ll get pictures some time this evening.
I’m not too worried about toxicity, since I had two windows open for the whole time this was happening, and opened the rest of them as soon as I got home (well, right after I turned off the stove and dumped some water in the pan). There’s a brown haze on the stove in the vicinity of the pan, and on the waffle iron next to the stove, that I’ll want to clean up before using those, though.
And it is rather a comfort to hear that so many other folks have similar stories.
I steam sanitized our kids baby bottles by putting them in a stainless steel pot with a steamer insert on the stove and let it steam for 10 minutes. After we got back to the house 4 hours later :rolleyes:, the smoke was thick and the former bottles were charred and fused to the pans. I managed to scrub them clean…took hours.
I also took a glass lid from a casserole int he oven to allow it to brown on the top. NEVER let the edge rest against a hot burner. After 10-15 minutes the lid exploded sending glass around the kitchen. Fortunately there was no open food around, but it did take a long time to clean and sweep the tiny slivers of corning glass from everywhere.
