Canned vs. Cans

I am learning all sorts of new things as I learn the art of cooking. Up to this point in our marriage, I have tried to venture out and try new things, expose our pallets to new tastes and sensations. Boy were we in for a treat the other night.

I started making dinner early that morning. It was a crockpot recipe and I wanted to cook it on slow, so that means it takes from 8 to 10 hours. I figured that way it would be even better than if I just cooked it on the fast setting. So I spent an hour that morning chopping and dicing and mixing, etc. I used good, expensive meat. I was SO excited to try this new dish, and I'd been telling John how good it was going to be. It was Beef Chipotle Burritos.

6:30 and it was dinner time. I was so hungry and so excited to eat what I'd been waiting for all day! The kitchen smelled very spicy and yummy. The burritos called for homemade pico de gallo, so I whipped some of that together. This recipe called for some serrano peppers. I have never cooked with those before, so as I was dicing them and adding them to the gallo I thought, "I should try this so I know what it tastes like." I took the smallest crumb of a piece and popped it in my mouth -- BIG MISTAKE! My lips started burning like crazy -- That was mistake #1.

So, with tears in my eyes and lips on fire, I took the lid off the crockpot and took a deep sniff and just about passed out! It was so spicy I nearly choked to death on the fumes! That was my first indiciation something had gone wrong. So now with lips on fire and sinuses completely cleared and stinging, I set the table and we sat down to eat. We made up our burritos and dug in. I took my first bite and WOW -- spicy! I tried to eat more, but with each bite my mouth got even hotter, my face redder, my nose runnier, and the sweat just built on my face. John kept looking at me with a worried expression and asking, "Are you alright?" I only made it 1/3 of the way through my burrito before jumping up and running to the bathroom to dab and blow and cool off. Dinner ended up being Saltines, which I found helped with the intense burning.

So, where had I gone wrong? I thought my sister have given me a faulty recipe, so I called her the next day to explain my dinner fiasco. She took another look at her recipe and asked,

"HOW many chipotle peppers did you put in?"

"What it called for -- 1 to 2 cans, so I added 2 cans to make it go further."

"No," she says, "it says 1 to 2 CANNED peppers."

A slight grammatical error on my part, and dinner was ruined (and my taste buds scarred for life)! So instead of the 1 to 2 canned peppers, I added probably somewhere around 15 peppers. Anyone hungry? -- we have leftovers.