Why I Should Never Cook Without Supervision

Saturday, as I was blipping around the channels, I happened upon some woman on the Food Network making chili. I said to myself "That looks good, & easy to boot!" So, last night I attempted to repeat the recipe from memory.

What I remembered:

Ground turkey, browned

Canned tomatoes, squished by hand

Tomato paste (had to use tomato sauce instead)

Black beans

Flour, to thicken the sauce (we didn't have any maza)

What I added to the mix:

Salt

Pepper

Garlic

Red pepper

What I thought was chili powder

Raise your hand if you can tell me where this is going.

As I browned the meat, I added the spices. After I added the tomatoes, I added some more of the spices. At about this time, The Boy came up to me & asked why the chili smelled like cinnamon. I figured it was just that I had the spice cabinet open & he was smelling what was in there. It was then that the startling realization hit me like a fastball to the groin - the bottle that I had thought contained California chili powder instead was filled with - yes - cinnamon.

In an attempt to make the chili taste less like French toast (& determined not to waste a pound of ground turkey), I added more red pepper. This only served to make the chili taste like French toast made with Red Hots. More garlic worked about as well. About the only thing that helped at all was adding cheese to the concoction after I dished some up (Cheese! Is there nothing you can't make taste better?). All in all, it wasn't unedible, but, I strongly suspect that "French chili" won't be found on many dinner (or breakfast) menus anytime soon.

The lesson learned: Label your plain glass spice jars. Barring that, taste the spice before adding copious amounts of it to your dish.