Kitchen Lesson Learned. Chili in the Trash

[autococker04]

Every so often I take all the random ingredients in the fridge and pantry and make chili. It always turns out good and there’s no food waste.

So today I go out to the garden and get all the ripe tomatoes, we have a couple onions and some green peppers in the fridge, a can of corn and beans in the closet, and some ground beef.

I chop everything up, brown the beef, and stir everything together. Lookin pretty good, add some random seasonings and check the fridge for anything I missed.

There’s a long opened container of vegetable broth with an expiration date of 11/23, I give it the sniff test and it passes, so in she goes.

PLOP

Big chunk of sludge plops out and onto the top of my chili after all the liquid. I think it’s no big deal, probably just some sediment, so I poke it with a spoon. Nope, there’s a funky blue mold in there. The broth has flowed through all of my chili, and normally I’d scoop out the bad bits and give it a shot if it was just for me, but my wife doesn’t play my style of food roulette.

What a waste. Lesson learned - questionable ingredients go in first or get a closer screening.

[Hellion360]

This is why (before I had my own chickens) I used to always crack eggs into a bowl first.
Bad eggs are the worst. I feel your dinner pain.

[Rusty Brass]

Farm egg surprise can ruin meals you haven't even thought of yet.

[Jonnydread]

Dude that's brutal, sorry for your lost chili.

I have had a similar experience when I was making an omelet a while back and cream that smelled fine came out... chunky. Now I pour all my ingredients into a bowl before pouring them into the main pot to save myself the potential crying episode.

[autococker04]

It was a tough lesson to learn. I’d rather do more dishes than be left chililess though. I’ll probably adopt the bowl method.

[Jonnydread]

autococker04 Random, but if you don't have designated bowls I have found that Target has varied sized mixing bowls in their marked-down area for a wicked good price. I got a whole set for like $3.

[autococker04]

I might have to look into that. We have a set but all the big ones keep getting used for giant salads.

[BrickHaus]

So, I assume your wife saw the polp?? I'm thinking you could rolled the dice on this one.

[autococker04]

She heard the swearing and came to investigate. I was forced to come clean.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Tonight we toast to your chilly that never was.

[autococker04]

Tonight’s menu is now can of soup on rice. Big time downgrade.

[Grendel]

My wife and I learned this same lesson. The dates on "boxed" broths is based on still being unopened and sealed. Any more if we open up some broth and do not use all of it in the next couple of days we pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it then put the cubes in freezer bags. When needed we just pull out the equivalent in weight of cubes for the next dish.

[autococker04]

That’s an awesome idea. Going to implement it.