The best dinner that Isobel didn’t eat, ever.
Yes, I like to cook. I just hate cleaning up afterward, and invariably ending up yelling at Isobel to get out of the kitchen because my oven (circa 1970 something) gets very hot and she’s not one of those scald her hand and learn kind of kids. I also love to bake, but, same issue.
Additionally, I have this problem wherein if something at the grocery store that we might eat/use is on sale, I will buy it. I am addicted to grocery shopping.
This is great, from a stocking up perspective - can you say save $0.30 on a carton of rice milk, times 10? - but not so great when you think of produce. Because then, you have to use it before it goes nasty. My grade in that area?
Fail.
Tonight, I cleaned out the crisper a bit, giving you the following to reenact:
- Take 13 previously cooked italian-style meatballs from the freezer and throw em in a 400 degree oven for about 13 minutes.
- While those are heating and becoming all meaty-good, boil a large pot of water. Super boil, I mean, not just that pansy-ass barely-rolling boil.
- Throw in about a insert-your-favourite-sized __________’s girth of vermicelli, broken in half - I use brown rice pasta, but you know, whatever. Cook at a slightly less abusive boil for around 7 minutes.
- By the time that’s al dente, the meatballs should be good to go so take them out of the oven, dammit.
- Then super fast, throw some fresh baby leaf spinach in the pot - I used about 5 ounces - and immerse it in the pasta-water. Note: the pasta’s still in there, yo.
- After another minute-or-two, when the spinach has gone pretty dark green, add in about 3 ounces of grape tomatoes and allow that to roll around for another minute. Drain.
- Over the cooling element, melt 2 tbsp of butter.
- Add to that some sprinklings of black pepper, garlic powder and cayenne, to taste. Then add back in the pasta-spin-tom combo, tossing it so that it’s covered in buttery goodness.
- Add the meatballs and some pre-made spicy tomato sauce.
Voila.
It’s the awesome, it has some kick, would go so well with some herbed/garlicy yeast bread, and it saved about $4 from going into the dumpster in the next couple of days.
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