Creating from the Pantry

From the Pantry

Hello again! I know it’s been a while but hopefully the small crises are behind me, and I will be back regularly. In the past I have discussed how making food that you love to eat is a great way to get yourself on track to cook. I want to share my own creative process in the hope that it will inspire you to be fearless in the kitchen.

This weekend I noticed that we had some ground beef that had been in the freezer for a long time. We also had a large container of cremini mushrooms that had needed to be used before they got too old. I was thinking of a cream sauce to go with the mushrooms, but the ground beef in a cream sauce didn’t inspire me. And old ground beef as a hamburger was just a resounding no.

We had shredded mozzarella and parmesan in the fridge and a lot of jars of tomato sauce in the pantry. Add some pasta and, voila, an easy meal. I threw some olive oil in a pan with garlic, marjoram, and thyme. I browned the meat, added the mushrooms to sauté, poured in the sauce and let it simmer to infuse the flavor of the mushrooms into the sauce.

Once the pasta was al dente, I added it to the saucepan, threw on a couple of handfuls of mozzarella and some parmesan. Bam, dinner is served! I added some red pepper flakes and a bit more parmesan to my portion and enjoyed a meal reminiscent of baked ziti.

Now that the suspense is killing you, here is the recipe:

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound of ground beef

½ pound of cremini mushrooms

1 pound of penne regatta

1 tsp of marjoram

1 tsp of thyme

½ a head of garlic, minced

¼ cup of oil

1 32 oz jar of Classico, Spicy Tomato Basil sause

Cooking instructions

On a medium low heat, add ¼ cup of a combination of olive oil and vegetable oil to a large saucepan

Start boiling the water for the pasta

When the oil comes to temperature, add the ½ the minced garlic, the thyme and marjoram

Stir and let them infuse the oil for 30 to 60 seconds

Add the ground beef and break it up as it browns

Add the remaining minced garlic and mushrooms, sprinkle with some salt and sauté the mushrooms

Add a palmful of salt to the pasta water once it has come to a boil, stir and add the pasta

Cook the pasta to al dente (the package directions will tell you how long)

Once the pasta is cooked, add it to the saucepan along with the mozzarella and parmesan cheese

Combine all the ingredients and serve!

I doubt I spent ½ an hour, off and on, thinking this through.

With a few minutes of thought, you can easily take what you have lying around and turn it into a simple, but delicious meal. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to let me know. If you want to follow my blog, please go to the Home page and click on the blue Follow button on the upper right. Thanks for being here! I hope this helps your journey into the culinary world and I look forward to seeing next time.