Two Bean Chili and corn

Last night I felt tired and lazy enough to make another easy meal. So I put on a pot of Basmati Rice and browned about 3/4 pound of ground chuck with fresh chopped garlic. When the burger turned half brown, I stirred in a few tablespoons of teriyaki marinade. 

Medium hot chili beans were mixed with the fat-drained hamburger. I use all the juice in the can. Then sprinkle chili powder in the mixture until satisfied with the heat of the taste. 

Ooops! Then I thought how good the chili beans would taste when mixed with black beans. Nummy. So the beans got mixed, the remaining garlic sprinkled, and the tomatoes sliced and spread around.

Double whoops when I recalled the cooked corn waiting in the refrigerator. Now it started to look good - taste good. Covered it and let it simmer for a few minutes until all was ready.

A glass of beer went down very easily. Even if I haven't shown you the shredded chedder cheese shot which comes after this view. A crisp salad provided an excellent accompaniment. Toidy, toidy and Toodle Lou!

Rotini Ground Chuck

I prefer to use ground chuck for my burger dishes because there's less fat for my conscience and more taste for my buds. 

This dinner used only two stovetop pans and a side bowl to rest ingredients in for short periods ... Hurray! speaketh the dishwasher.

Ground chuck patiently awaiting the fire.

   This time (it's always different!) I put the chuck fire on Low and brought a pasta pan to boil while I was chopping the veggies. 

A half box of Rotini tends to give up two meals worth of pasta for us two. 

9 - 11 minutes of boiling time for the Rotini is plenty of time to prep vegetables and brown the ground chuck. 

Multi-tasking is great kitchen fun!!!

The half-browned chuck goes to visit a holding bowl. Thereafter, red peppers and jalapeno dance in butter with half of the aldente pasta. Brown a few rotini on Med-High, then back to Low. After a few minutes of saute, I add chopped fresh spinach to the pan and generously drip extra virgin olive oil over the greens. Salt. Pepper. Stir until spinach turns limp.

Next, I loaded on some tomatoes that I had roasted with onion and garlic and shallot. (Use that store bought stuff if you must. I do when the price of fresh tomatoes is sky high.) 

Piling the spinach and pasta into the center of the pan, the ground chuck made its reentry into pan space, nicely encircling the good stuff.

Of course it's fun mixing the ingredients.

Kinetics and aesthetics offer us cooks too much pleasure!

Not!

You must click on this post-mixing view to appreciate the gorgeous cheese.

Sprinkled with shredded parmesan cheese, this looks good enough to eat!

And it was tasty.

Next time I get the hankering for this dish, I will undoubtedly use slightly different ingredients and processes. But that, for me, is the fun of cooking.

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