On Wednesday I mentioned how I often use dairy as a filler for when I’m in a hurry, feeling lazy, or am too tired to cook anything. Let’s face it, there are some days when I come home from work and anything that does not resemble a pillow and blanket can suck it. Those are the days when meals like this happen.

They are really quite simple to make and they take very little time and effort. Granted, if I come home feeling tempted to start chopping off my own fingers and cannibalizing them because I’m so hungry, I’ll probably eat some cheese instead. Short of that state, these are my fallback for a great meal that’s both healthy and leaves me feeling satisfied.

A few weeks ago I had this really great idea to make a healthy version of a bleu cheese bacon burger. My idea was to take lean ground beef, uncured bacon, and organic bleu cheese, wrap them in a cabbage leaf, bake them so that the cabbage leaf is soft and creates an outer shell that stays together, and then drizzle them with a homemade (no sugar added) Thousand Island dressing. I would then slice up a tomato and serve them on the tomato slices to be eaten with a fork and knife.

I still think that it’s a pretty genius idea. No preservatives, no bread, no sugar; all delicious.

Well, that brilliance fell apart when I forgot that I didn’t have a pot big enough to boil the cabbage leaves to soften them enough to do this. Oh, and I also got lazy.

So, I had this mixture of ground beef (I buy grass fed either because I read that it’s healthier and it tastes better or because I like being pretentious) and uncured bacon (which is SO much more flavorful than regular bacon) in a Tupperware container that I knew was going to go bad shortly if I didn’t get my act together and do something with it. Not wanting to waste it, I tossed it in a pot one night and decided to make… something.

No photo of the ground beef and bacon mixture is available because it was objectively not pretty. Like, worse than oatmeal kind of not pretty.

Searching through my fridge to figure out what in the world I should add to make this a real meal, I saw a jar of this.

Mezzetta Napa Valley Bistro sauces are AMAZING. They don’t add any sugar and use lots of seasonings. Their sauces are some of the few I’ve found that actually satisfy all parts of the palate.

So, I dumped some of this in. That makes it a meal, right? I’m done.

Well, it could probably use more vegetables. MUSHROOMS!

I love mushrooms.

Still, it didn’t feel quite complete yet. Not really knowing what else to put in, I grabbed a handful of spinach and some olives and dumped them in as well.

Yup, those are pretty much the three ingredients I add to everything.

Let’s pretend that you can’t see how dirty my stove is.

After letting all of that heat for about five minutes, stirring periodically because it feels like something my mother would tell me to do; I put it all in a bowl and sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top.

This way, if it tastes like crap, at least I can still enjoy some cheese.

Confession: I licked the sides of the bowl to try to make the photo pretty. Actually, I do this pretty much every time I post a photo of food.

It still isn’t very pretty, is it…

Well, let’s try putting it here.

No, that didn’t help. Though, it does give me a chance to show off my pretty little tray where I keep my keys. Look at those pretty marbles! Guess who doesn’t lose her keys anymore. Seriously, though, everyone needs a key spot. If I had a dollar for every time I couldn’t find my keys as I was running out of the house I’d be able to take a week of unpaid vacation time at work.

Wait, I know how to make anything look better!

I mean, doesn’t everything look better when tequila is involved?

Oh well, it may not have looked terribly pretty but it was delicious, satisfying, nutrient dense, and easy.

Next Friday: The Lazy Chef – More Beef and More Stuff (A really delicious one pan meal)

 

 

*** No tequila was consumed in the making or eating of this meal.