Grilled Cheese Gone Wrong

I left the children (and lunch responsibilities) with Ryan the other day to run some errands.  When I pulled into the garage I immediately detected the smell of something burnt.  Upon entering the house my suspicion was confirmed: burnt grilled cheese.  And the pan it had been made in was looking like this:

Needless to say, it did not scrub clean.  I thought I remembered that boiling apple cider vinegar in a pan would remove the burnt mark.  With none on hand I resorted to red wine vinegar.

I put about 1 cup of red wine vinegar (I am sure regular vinegar would work, too) into the pan and boiled it for a good 5 minutes, gently scrubbing it with a spatula.  Then I removed it from the heat and gave it a good scrub.  And...it came out like this:

About 99% of the burnt marking came off.  I'd say it was pretty successful!

PS - I highly recommend lighting a candle (or 10) if you need to resort to this.  Or your 5 year-old will ask what is making that stinky smell.

Ed. note - I left Ryan home with 4 kids and lunchtime pending and returned to find them all feed, kitchen clean, and baby happy.