It's Not Thanksgiving Until the Smoke Detectors Go Off

I originally published this post on 11/28/2014.  Enjoy this blast from the past!

It's a tradition in our family.  Burning stuff on Thanksgiving Day.

Before the advent of smoke detectors, a smoky kitchen was just that - a smoky kitchen- the neighbors didn't know, and if you acted fast enough, you could turn on enough fans and open enough windows that nobody else would know.   Now, everybody knows when you have a cooking disaster on your hands.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we begin to take bets as to when the smoke detectors will go off. Since I start much of the prep on Wednesday, that is the day that we decide that we are most likely to experience a kitchen disaster of some kind.  The person who guesses the correct 2 hour window for the advent of the smoke detectors is excused from washing the dishes after dinner.

Since we were eating at home this year, I decided that I was going to make the pies on Wednesday.

Pies have always been a weak spot for me.  Actually anything with a fruit filling has been a problem for me.  A particularly memorable occasion comes to mind when I attempted a pineapple upside down cake that ended up setting my oven on fire, as well as setting off the smoke detectors in the apartment building and summoning the fire department bright and early one Thanksgiving morning 25 years ago.

Wednesday afternoon, I started on my favorite pie.  It's just not Thanksgiving without a pecan pie.
I mixed the pecans, Karo syrup, eggs, and sugar, and poured it into my carefully prepared pie crust.  I slid the pie into the oven.  As the smell of toasty pecans began to fill the house, I knew that Thanksgiving was finally here.

Special, isn't it?

With 15 minutes left on the timer, I checked the pie.  Imagine my horror as I discovered a pie that was as black as a cinder.  As I hastily pulled the ruined pie out of the oven, the smoke detector began wailing away.

As the pie heaved up and down with a life of it's own, I reflected that this might very well be my most spectacular failure yet.


I still had more pecans, so I decided to give another shot at the pie.  Unfortunately, I had no more gluten free pie crust mix.  So, I decided to make a pecan pie without the crust.

The custard and pecan mix looked beautiful in it's pan.  Even without the crust, it looked fantastic.

While the pecan mix cooled, I began on an Apple Crisp.  I filled the pan with apples, sugar, and cinnamon, and mixed up the crisp part -  with the gluten free oatmeal, gf flour, and vegan butter.  (Good heavens, do we know how to live it up or what?)
 
Remember when I mentioned I have an incredibly bad record with anything involving fruit filling?

15 minutes into the bake time, the smoke detector began wailing away as a thick, black smoke began issuing forth from the oven.

As I was pulling the crisp out of the oven, my next door neighbor came running across the yard, phone in hand, shouting "Do I need to call the fire department, or are you just cooking?"

An aside here, how sad is it, that after 10 years, my neighbors know to come and check when there's black smoke and the sound of smoke detectors before calling 9-1-1?

Somehow, for the 10th year in a row, I was excused from having to wash dishes after Thanksgiving dinner.  Purely coincidence, I assure you.