My cooking fiasco & how to clean burnt stainless steel pot or pan

Gahhh! I just can't let myself multitask when I'm cooking! It always results in disaster. Whether its typing up a blog post or texting a friend I always end up burning something! I really am a good cook - I just get distracted and lose track of time; I've had this problem my whole life. I remember getting in trouble as a teenager when I was on morning baking duty at my parents' café because I was trying to prep something else while the cookies where in the oven and wouldn't realise how many minutes had passed, and would ruin 3-4 dozen at a time. Now its my poor pup who pays the price and makes me feel guilty when I burn something: At least he has an excellent instinct about running away from smoke!

So. I was boiling the white beans for my chili, thinking I had plenty of time to start the blog post of that recipe, when suddenly I smelled smoke, and poor little Émile started freaking out. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen to see smoke billowing out from under the lid of my 12 quart stainless steel cooking pot. Apparently the lid isn't as tight as I had thought and the water had steamed out a lot faster than I expected.

Quick thinking to the rescue! I grabbed a large pasta strainer, threw it in the sink, grabbed the pot with a towel, and dumped all the beans into the strainer!

Luckily I caught it quick enough that there weren't that many burnt beans and I was able to rescue them and my meal. I rinsed the beans with tepid water then painstakingly picked out the burnt ones.

But before I could return to cooking my meal, I had to rescue my now burnt stainless steel pot. Here is what works great when I have to do this:

Cleaning a Burnt Stainless Steel Pot or Pan

1. Sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda (its gentle enough to not scratch your stainless steel, and not toxic either) on the inside burnt bottom of the pot or pan. Add about  a 1/2 inch of water.
2. Place pot/pan over low heat for a few minutes until water is warm. WATCH IT! Don't re-burn your pan by letting the water evaporate!
3. Using a heat resistant spatula/turner, gently scrape the bottom of the pan helping to dislodge the burn residue. When the water becomes black and scraping isn't helping anymore, drain the water and rinse the pan. (If you have a very thick layer of burn residue you may need to use more water and extend this step.)
4. Repeat step 3, but use half the water. Use the flat bottom of the spatula/turner to scrub the bottom with the baking soda mixture, using a circular motion. When water becomes black again, drain and rinse.
5. Repeat step 4. By the end of this step, most of the burn residue should be removed.

PS - A paste of baking soda and water works great on the bottoms of stainless steel too, but it takes more time and elbow grease since you can't use heat to aid in the process.