Another Cooking Success Story

by Ron
(Stuart, FL)

Here's another cooking success story. After my near fiasco with the one dish dinner last week (melted plastic lid in the oven), I felt ready to try again. So I threw a frozen Lb of Ground Beef in the fridge last night to thaw - having NO idea what I was going to do with it.

Today I found 1/2 an onion, one clove of garlic, and 3 mushrooms in the fridge, along with a 1/3 box of Penne in the cupboard.

I set water to boil, diced and sliced the "veggies", browned the ground beef and drained it. I then sauteed the veggies, and put the ground beef back in.

Then, stealing the idea from the "Tomato Cream Pasta" post earlier, I added a can of tomato sauce, some oregano and basil, and a little Half & Half I had left.

I turned the heat down and let it simmer (gentle bubbles!) until it got thick, tossed a little parsley in it, poured it over the penne and added a liberal dose of Parmesan cheese.
It was pretty darn good, if I say so my self!
Plus I used - I think - several cooking methods this time.

Oh, did I mention I'm now making Smoothies in the morning? What a time I had trying to peel a frozen banana!

Ron in Florida


Ron -
Cheers to you! The only way to fail at cooking is to give up entirely. I'm glad you've now learned that plastic melts in the oven, and that you can create great dishes on a moments notice based on creativity and cooking methods.

Your dish sounds great. I'm glad you defrosted the ground beef correctly, and only knew that you were having ground beef the next day. You still didn't know exactly what you were going to make!

Now's the time to take what you've learned and the methods you've used to expand on it. Use different proteins, change ingredients, but duplicate the method you used. It sounds like it's working for you. Congratulations!

BTW- Peel and slice bananas into plastic bags, THEN freeze them. You've seen how tough they are to skin when frozen.

Chef Todd.