Zucchini and Squash Pasta (and some misses)

I must have been very hungry when I went through the latest issue of Simple and Delicious magazine. I usually find maybe one new recipe to try, but this time I found five or six to try. Strangely, many of the recipes involved beef. Perhaps I was having some kind of a protein deficiency and my body was screaming "BEEF!" just hoping my brain would hear. I cannot remember the last time I bought beef.

The first recipe was a roast beef, mushroom, and onion open faced sandwich. Anyone who knows me well is probably wondering how in the world this ended up on the menu. In addition to the beef abstinence, I dislike mushrooms and sandwiches. This recipe was doomed from the beginning. Brett however did not veto (as he usually would when it is so glaringly obvious that I will not like it) because he loves sandwiches and mushrooms, and does not have as strong of an aversion to beef as I do. It turned out ok. I ate a few bites before I had to start picking mushrooms off, and a few more before the sandwich aspect got to me. I'm crazy, I know. I can't even really explain why I don't like sandwiches, they just make me feel sick. The cheese was, predictably, the best part. The recipe went in the recycling.

The second recipe we tried was pizza hamburgers. This was only the second time I have ever made hamburgers and they completely fell apart on the grill pan. It was a disaster. They were so ugly that I didn't even bother taking a picture. They were edible, but not worth trying again. That recipe went in the recycling too.

They do say, "Third time's a charm," but it started off badly. The leftover ground beef from the burgers smelled and looked weird, but I decided to cook it anyway. After a few minutes, the smell of the beef had only worsened. Brett and I agreed that the best thing to do was get it out of the apartment. It's quite common to leave a certain spice or an insignificant ingredient out, but this time we left the beef out and... it was wonderful! I had some roasted zucchini, yellow squash, onion, and garlic that I mixed with a can of tomato sauce and some Italian seasoning. We poured it over some penne pasta and scarfed it down. Thank goodness! A recipe was saved from the recycling bin! I'm sure we'll see this one again sometime soon.

No more beef... for a while at least.