Culinary Disasters

I had already wrote this one up but decided against posting since it really is just the mac and cheese with ground meat and spices however, it could have ended up saving my life (ok minor exaggeration).  On Thursday night our town got hammered with a nasty ice stom and in keeping with the tradition of the wind blows wrong my house loses power it went out.  Friday night was not to bad I think the house only dropped down to the mid 50s (thank you new windows).  Last night ok different story by 5 o’clock it was pushing low 50s and time to suck up the pride and head to a friend’s house who has power.  This morning when I went back home I was happy I did that since the house is now in the mid 40s and the weather is below zero with windchill.

Last night craving I dinner and in the process of throwing everything out of the fridge/freezer I see cream, cheese, milk, and butter that yes is going to perish and I hate to waste anything.  Hmmm….I remember see a pound package of buffalo in the freezer so sniff test proved that it was all good.

The nice thing about having a gas stove is you can always cook and well the grill in the garage can turn into a makeshift oven so time to get to work.

For this recipe you need:

• 1 lb ground meat (I used buffalo)
• 1 onion finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic finely diced
• 1 TB chili powder (thank you overabundance of ground chili powder because huh spice grinder requires electricity along with oh yeah my coffee grinder).
• 1/2 TB cumin
• 1/2 TB paprika
• 1/2 TB coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• pinch of cayenne
• 2/3 cup of water
• 1 recipe of baked mac and cheese (http://www.culinarydisaster.com/wordpress/21/deep-fried-macaroni-and-cheese/ stop before the deep frying)

In your trusty cast iron skillet brown the ground meat.

Once the meat is browned remove leaving the grease behind and add in the onion and cook till softened (about 5 minutes) and then add in the garlic and cook for another minute.  Add the meat back in along with the water and the spice mixture.  Cook till the water has evaporated out (about 5 minutes) stirring constantly.

Add in the mac and cheese mixture to the cast iron skillet and stir to combine everything.  Cover with breadcrumbs (about 1/2 cup).

If you were in my situation you would fire your grill up to medium (about 350-400) and put the skillet on the grate till everything is bubbly (about 20 minutes) however, if you are lucky and have a functional oven 350 for 20 minutes would be perfect.

Serve and enjoy!

p.s. thank you coffee shops for coffee and most importantly free wifi because you really do not realize how important having a functional coffee maker/coffee grinder and electricity is until it is gone.  I don’t know how the Amish do it.

p.s. 2 I am really to freaking tired/lazy/cold to open up Word to spell check or care about grammar mistakes so I apologize for that.

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