Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Case of the Mystery Meat

We're pretty fastidious about marking freezer packages around here, so we were rather chagrined this morning, pulling out a half-gallon bag of frozen leftovers to toss in the crockpot for a hot weekend supper, to discover no label on the bag. We had no idea -- no idea -- what was inside. Except that it was orange, and lumpy.

We sniffed. No clue. We gingerly tasted icy flecks of whatever it was. Couldn't tell.

So in an act of faith we emptied the bag into the crockpot anyway, added a package of hamburger and a can of Progresso tomato bisque, and turned the thing on.

Several hours later, it smells pretty good. And we can now discern meatballs floating in the sauce. We added a splash of red wine and some herbs.

Ah, sweet mystery of life.

3 comments:

LutherPunk said...

THAT is a true act of faith!!!

Auntie Knickers said...

That was, indeed, brave of you. I'm also curious about the hamburger -- did you actually just throw it in the crockpot raw, or did you brown it first? I buy ground chuck and I think it would still throw off too much fat to make an appetizing crockpot dish if not browned first. The real reason I think you are brave, though, is that we sometimes put garbage in the freezer -- in summer -- if we generate something smelly early in the week.

Anonymous said...

Crock pots are the greatest thing to happen to mystery meat. (And people that can't cook and/or don't want to throw out unidentified food).

Just today I did the same thing. Put 2 bags of unlabeled freezer-burned meat in the crock pot. Turn it on low, and 8 hours later have tender, juicy meal that's good enough to be served in a restaurant.