Mission: 15 minutes to cook a casserole for two using Leggo’s Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce.

Accomplice: Alivicwil

Materials:

• Leggo’s Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce
• 300g Diced Beef
• 1 cup of sliced Zucchini

That’s it.  Unless you want to serve it with mash potatoes, rice or bread.  If you want it to be accompanied by some complex carbohydrates you’ll need to acquire the needed materials and prepare to your liking. I’ve chosen to go with a simple mash.

Obsticles: George & Tyson

Time starts now…

When Alivicwil arrives get her straight on to kitchen duty.  A word to the wise, you’ll need to keep a close eye on her as she gets easily distracted by shiny things and the internet! To help keep her focused, and us amused, we decided to put VH1’s Karaoke on in the background.  Everything in life is better with sing-a-long to Abba!

To give you a little taste of the magic that Leggo’s inspires in our house – I give you the gnome and Alivicwil performing to Abba…

Ok, so that might have been from Muriel’s Wedding, but it was very close to that in our kitchen! (Minus the cat fight.)

Back to the task at hand.  As Alivicwil had purchased rump steak it needed be diced.  Lucky for us Alivicwil is skilled with a knife… and a fork?!?!

It’s at this point that I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine catches her boss eating a Snickers with a knife and fork. It’s also at this point that George and Tyson decided they would try and wear Alivicwil down and get some steak love.

What they hadn’t counted on was Alivicwil’s skill at knife throwing.  (Well she’s not so much throwing as “dancing”.)

Once everything is prepped it’s really simple.  You just brown the meat and throw together the vegetables with the Leggo’s Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce.

We made mash potato at the same time that our casserole was simmering.  Once it was all done and ready Alivicwil then gave it the old Master Chef touch and plated it up.

The meal was surprisingly tasty.  Given that one of the best things about a casserole is the amount of time the flavours have to soak into the meat and become one with the sauce.  The Leggo’s Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce seems to come with that goodness already in the packet.  We added carrots to the mix as it’s a bit light on the vegetable side of things, and they were a yummy addition.  Good thinking, Alivicwil

The real question is did we succeed in making it all in under 15 minutes.  No, end-to-end it took 30 minutes.  With the mash potato side dish we needed the extra time, and really you couldn’t have this meal without some type of accompaniment.  I think the extra simmer time also came in handy, it just gives the zucchini and carrot time to soften up.

We may have flunked on the time component of the mission, but we ended up with a really yummy meal that I would happily make again.  Even George ended up with a little Leggo’s Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce magic of her own…

♣ This post was sponsored by NuffNang.