And The Stuffed Peppers

G is the culinary genius in this relationship. He can take what I would consider to be a fridge that needs groceries and whip up something fancy and tasty. If I undertake "a romantic dinner", it will definitely be hit or miss (though I did roar "BEEF WELLINGTON!" with caveman-who-creates-fire type self-satisfaction when the beef wellie that I made for his birthday dinner came out beautifully), but if he undertakes "a romantic dinner", it turns into something restaurant quality and beautiful. 

He consistently encourages me to "think outside the box", but I am a poor cook for the same reason that I am a poor-lots-of-other-things-in-my-life... lack of patience. It is a virtue with which I was not bestowed naturally. I tend to first not have the foresight to take meat out of the freezer in advance and then not give it enough time to defrost once I have, at the last minute, decided to cook something. Then, I will not have the patience or have allowed myself the time to cook it and cook it on too high of a heat. Or, failing that, get bored waiting around and "just pop onto Facebook for a minute" and end up overcooking, drying out, or burning most everything. 

I am also pretty un-inspired when it comes to food. I generally follow a recipe, and, failing that, revert to the old easy protein-in-a-pan with rice or potatoes and a side of frozen vegetables. G is constantly encouraging me to make something "from scratch" but as he is not exactly forthcoming with praise (it's just a part of his personality), it is daunting to make something that, when asked, will be "okay".

AND, the last little self deprecating fact -- I suck at foresight.

So I found myself, last night, sitting there thinking "I really need to put away that giant pack of lean ground beef that I bought. And I need to make supper, and it's my only defrosted meat... but what can I do with ground beef besides hamburgers or spaghetti?..." and then "Oh, and I need to start to do something with that giant bag of green bell peppers that I bought because it was a good deal, even though nobody has a use for that many green peppers...". I was just about to head to Facebook to ask my faithful friends for a recipe that would use ground beef, when it finally came together in my brain (remember, I am REALLY not creative in the culinary sense. Not even a little bit.). I'm kind of embarrassed about how long it took me to realize I had the two primary ingredients for stuffed peppers.

I perused a few recipes but none of them were really anything that I wanted to get into (read: too intricate and didn't have all the ingredients), so I browned the ground beef with minced onions and mushrooms, cooked up some minute rice, put it all together with some salsa and black beans and slapped all that in a few green peppers and topped with shredded mozzarella (would have been better with a sharp cheddar, and maybe some cottage or ricotta cheese in the mix, I think... never enough cheese in this world!).

The end result was SO TASTY that I insisted on eating it while it was too hot and sloughed off a big patch of skin on the roof of my mouth. See what I said about impatience?

And I am as talented at photography as I am at cooking.