Cooking: Dinner for Jan 14 - part 2

The dinner menu was:

Appetizer - Bacon-rolled enokitake mushrooms
Meat - Beef patties with onions and peppers
Vegetables - Mushroom stroganoff
Carb - Minty courgette linguine

I am glad I prepared some of the dishes the night before. That night we were in a rush and didn't have time to do lots of cooking before heading out.

The bacon rolled enokitake mushrooms was the easiest to make. Because I prepped it the night before, I just had to put it in the oven. The recipe book said to put in their for 10-13 mins. I set the timer for 13 minutes and the bacon wasn't cooked yet. It took about 25 mins in total to cook the bacon. Of course the picture in the recipe book made it look beautiful. When I took it out, the mushroom was wilted but it tasted great.

The beef patties with onion and green pepper recipe was the one recipe that didn't really work out for me. I made the meat into patties. Once I put it in the pan, the meat started falling apart. I think the recipe was missing a 'sticking agent', like flour or egg or something. The recipe called for green peppers but I substituted colored peppers instead. I wanted to add some color. In one of the steps, it says to add seasoning. I added some Chinese flavours like hoisin sauce, sweet Thai chili sauce to the beef. It ended up becoming ground beef with onions and coloured peppers.

I didn't end up making the mushroom stroganoff. I didn't have time. I had to make white wine sauce then add it to the recipe. The dinner was fine without this dish. Maybe next time.

The last dish is minty courgette (zucchini) linguine. This dish had the most substitutions. I asked my dad to get the mint for this dish. I didn't have time to check if my dad bought the mint. There was no mint added to this dish. I used spaghetti instead of linguine. This dish became just zucchini and spaghetti. The night before I cooked the zucchini. I think I overcooked it. The recipe said to cook it until it is brown on one side. By the time it was brown on one side, it was overcooked. Oh well. It still tasted fine.

Overall, dinner was great. Everything tasted fine even with the substitutions. I would make them again.