Penne Rigate with Spicy Tomato and Beef

I've been doing a lot of experimentation with cooking recently and am slowly figuring out meals that I enjoy both cooking and eating. These early early food posts won't contain "recipes", per se, as I am experimenting and won't cook the same meal the same way twice. But they will give an insight to my process.

Today's meal is:
Penne Rigate with Beef and Vegetables in a Spicy Tomato sauce
or (in bachelor words)
"pasta with meat, veggies, and hot red stuff"

One of my ideas with "fancy" cooking is to cook in large quantities so I can eat it again during lunch without spending most of my free time in the kitchen. This meal (and its variances) is enough to last 4+ meals and tastes great even after reheating.

Basically, I begin with lean ground beef (1 lb), and boil eggs in a pan starting at room temperature. The hard-boiled eggs are not part of the recipe, I just figure if I am going to be boiling water for pasta I might as well make easy-to-grab protein snacks as well.

I also begin grilling the vegetables at this time, for this meal I choose broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and yellow carrots.


My meat pan only holds 1/2 lb of beef at a time so by the time the eggs are done and the pasta, Penne Ziti Rigata in this case, enters the boiling water the first batch of meat is ready to go into the mixing bowl along with the vegetables. If I was cooking all the meat at once I would start boiling the water first (add salt!) and only begin the meat once the pasta was in the pan, then start the vegetables on the grill. After beginning the second batch of meat and veggies I also make my fruit drink while I wait for everything to cook.

Next I drain the pasta, add final batch of beef and vegetables into the mixing bowl, and add a single serving of sauce to a low heat on the pan.



I mix the pasta into the mixing bowl, toss it, then dish out my serving. The mixing bowl is sealed and placed in the fridge for future lunches.

Finally I add the tomato sauce, some oregano, a little Tabasco (the title is "spicy" afterall), and garnish it with pepper jack shavings:

I then add my drink: today's was a mix a fresh raspberries, yogurt, dried blueberries/cherries/acai berries, flax seeds, and a touch of pineapple juice.

Delicious!