Normally when I cook I use a recipe, I tend to follow the recipe quite diligently because I suck at cooking and I am not good at winging it, at least not when it comes to cooking.
Well for some reason I decided to create my own dish, mostly because I was sick of googling recipes lol but also because I had some random things in the fridge I wanted to use up.
When I was growing up my mom would make this thing called Mom’s Amazing Mixed Up Mess…basically it was her version of what I did, or I should say what I did was my version of what she perfected. My mom can look at a bunch of random ingredients and somehow make something that tastes good. I look at a bunch of ingredients and see nothing except the individual ingredients, sigh.
The only thing I bought was some ground turkey, which I proceeded to brown in a frying pan along with some garlic and chopped up white onion. I then added a whole lot of mixed frozen veggies, they are from a stir fry blend that I have had in my freezer for over a year, yes, I know that is ridiculous. They were starting to not taste as good as they used to, I’m thinking because of the freezer burn, so I wanted a way to cook a lot of them at one time. I then moved everything in to a large pot, added 1 cup of pasta sauce (it was how much I had left over in the jar), 1/2 cup of salsa (it was how much I had left over in the jar), 1/2 a jalapeno chopped up (because it was how much I had left…detecting a theme yet? lol). Once it was all mixed together and cooked I put it in to a casserole dish, spread it out, sprinkled some shredded cheese on top and tossed it in the oven until the cheese melted.
It was originally meant to be a sort of stew/casserole type of thing but there wasn’t that much liquid in it so I don’t know what I should label it as, not a stew though…
Whatever it is called, I liked it! It was a good ratio of meat to veggie, it was just spicy enough, the veggies cooked up well and bonus points because it is healthy! Woohoo!
When it was still in the pot
Just out of the oven with the cheese melted on top.
My first bowlful.
In the land of Weight Watchers Points Plus, if you split the entire dish in to 8 portions each portion is 3 points, if you split it in to 6 portions each portion is 4 points.
Even if I wanted to I don’t think I’d be able to recreate it perfectly since it was basically a dish I created specifically to use up what I had in the fridge and freezer lol Oh! I forgot! I put in a bunch of Mrs. Dash Seasoning as well, I didn’t measure it though, just shook the shaker thing until what came out looked about right…something else I won’t be able to duplicate.
I know it is a ridiculously easy meal to make, not fancy, not all that inspired or impressive, but I am proud of it anyways. It is the first time I cooked without either following a recipe or the instructions on the packaging my food came in. This is, weirdly enough, a big step for me cooking wise. 🙂
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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