Saturday, July 29, 2006

The dinner that didn't taste so good...

I don't get it. What went wrong? I had all these great ingredients (aside from the pre-formed, packaged beef patties from the grocery store - last time I do that!), a great concept for dinner, and it flopped!


Decided to take the low maintenance route for dinner, and use a bunch of stuff from the garden and potted plants out back for dinner last nite. Had two leftover patties leftover from a cheat-attempt two nites before to use up as well - I'll never buy them again. I much prefer home-formed hamburgers - the ones from the store were too dense and didn't have very good flavor. Anyhow, sprayed two large sheets of heavy duty tin aluminum foil, lightly sprayed them with non-stick spray, and put down herbs (parsley, oregano, chives) and thin slices of a couple huge garlic cloves. Topped that with the two burger patties. Sprinkled the patties with a dried tomato/herb mix mom gave me awhile back, plus some freshly crushed black pepper. Topped each of those with the potatoes, which I sliced thin with the Cuisinate. Each foil packet also got what I called the "lucky potato" (see the two little baby spuds? Hey - had to use 'em up somehow!)

And then things differed. Brett's packet got the one baby carrot I'd pulled, stemmed and cleaned. Mine got sliced okra, sliced zucchini, sliced yellow squash and dragon tongue beans snipped into about 1/2 inch pieces. Then I topped both of our piles with torn basil, a pat of butter, a sprinkle of salt, and a glug of white wine. Folded 'em up, assured they were sealed, and baked at 400F for an hour.

Talk about bland! I'm wondering if I should've sprinkled in some beef bouillon? More salt throughout the middle? I don't know. I really had high hopes for these! And I should've tossed in some of those orange SunGold cherry tomatoes you see peeking out of the bowl in the pictures. The tough of red behind the parlsey is raspberries - those didn't get added. Neither did the freshly cut dahlias.

Sure makes for a pretty picture! Just not a very tastey dinner! :(

1 comment:

Stunned Donor said...

A little boullion would have helped,b ut you would have been better off doing the veggies in the packets and doing the ground beef in a pan.

There's not a heck of a lot of flavor in ground beef to start with and steaming it isn't going to bring anything to the party.

Sory dinner didn't live up to your expectations. :-(