I enjoy looking in my fridge or for that matter other people’s too! I have a friend who likes me to cook with her. So when I am at her house we look in her fridge and pantry and create something from what we find. We have a lot of fun in the kitchen pounding chicken breasts and cutting up veggies. I have been creating meals using whatever was on hand since childhood. It helped that I grew up on a mini farm and we had a lot of choices. Although sometimes too many cucumbers 🙂 We didn’t run to the store all the time either. I love to cook and sometimes I get in my head a certain thing I want to cook. It may not make sense at the time if I have a fridge full of food and meals which have been planned. I try to practice self-control. This year we have been blessed to meet Farmer John! He is new to farming and has tried several things. We take some of whatever he has. As the season is nearing an end I was looking at what we had purchased from Farmer John and decided to create some meals using those things.
I did not write down a recipe but I will share what I did do. I did NOT measure anything.
First I will share the ingredients I had. Mini eggplants, zucchini, onions, green peppers, fresh basil, store-bought pasta sauce, ground beef, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, rice, etc.
Preheat the oven 350°. I cooked the ground beef with onions, green peppers, and mushrooms and drained it after it was done. I placed pasta sauce in the bottom of two pans. Then to one pan I added a layers of slice baby eggplants, zuchini, meat mixture, sauce and cheese. On the top I spread sauce and mozarella and sprinkled the top with paremsan. I baked it in the oven for a while and then took it out and covered it with foil. I cooked it for about an hour total. I wish I had covered it from the beginning and taken the foil off for the last 15 minutes. I also wish I had added more sweet basil. It turned out YUMMY!!
For the second pan. I cut the tops off of the green peppers I had and cleaned them out. I placed them in the bottom of the second pan. I added some cooked rice to the leftover meat mixture and stuffed the peppers with the mixture. I then covered them with sauce and sprinkled with parmesan. I baked it in the oven at 350° for almost an hour. Remove the foil. (See I learned something !) Sprinkle more parmesan on top! Enjoy!
