Thursday, January 6, 2011

Tonight's Dinner Experiment

In my unending search for easy-to-fix but yummy meals, I stumbled across Hamburger Helper's Double Cheesy Quesadilla mix.

Now, before you have a conniption about it being Hamburger Helper and therefore weird, let me tell you: it's good.  Not only that, but they give you this nifty little tip at the bottom of the box's back about how to add a little to make it more than just, well, straight Hamburger Helper.

Their suggestion is to add a cup of corn when there's five minutes left on the simmer time.

The last time I made it, I not only added a cup of frozen corn, but also a half-cup of chopped onions and a half-cup of chopped green peppers.

Oops.  That diluted the seasonings quite a bit, and made it rather bland.

But I liked the idea of more veggies being added.

Tonight, I cooked the hamburger with the chopped onions.  Then I (sort of) followed the directions on the back of the box.  However, I added an extra packet of taco seasoning to make up for the extra fluid from the frozen veggies I was going to add.  When it was about five minutes from the end of the simmering timeframe, I added a little more than a cup of frozen corn, about 2/3 cup of diced green peppers, and a drained can of mild Rotel.

Wow.

I'm good.

Large Fry loved it.  The twins found it to be too spicy, and kept complaining that their tongues were too hot.

Next time, what I think I'll do is mix a can of the mild Rotel with an equal-sized can of finely diced tomatoes, and dump half of the mixture in, and freeze the rest for next time.

Top it with grated sharp cheddar and a dollop of sour cream, and serve with tortilla chips.  Good stuff.

1 comment:

  1. You know you're a cook when...after you've followed the instructions once you begin to "tinker and improve"--and make the dish your own.

    ReplyDelete

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