Freezer Death: Ground Goat Patties, and Stuffed Peppers

Ground goat patties

Last Thursday (a week ago) I came home from work, and decided to be pro-active with regards to Friday night’s dinner, since I was going to be home late from work on Friday, and no doubt stuck in weekend traffic for awhile.  So, I went down to the freezer in the basement, and foraged for supper there.

Except, it was no longer working.  Hmmm.  Things were quite cold, and large objects still solid, but…

Punt.  I grabbed everything out (except tubs of water that were still in there prior to the hurricane — they probably helped things stay cold), and after several trips up and down (tripping over Obi-Wan the cat), I had everything up in the kitchen.  I emptied out the regular freezer (over the fridge) to re-arrange it, dumped the ice cube trays, and took out freezer packs, and jammed in all the large chunks of meat.  Skinny things went into the fridge, as did any burger meat, and cheeses.  And anything that had been on the top shelf of the freezer down stairs, which was mostly tomato sauce or soups.  Since I had collard greens for the ham hock, it also went in the fridge.

Thursday and Friday night I ate flank steak and  some other thin cut.

Saturday I did a LOT of cooking.  During the week I’ve eaten a LOT of burger/ground meat:  goat burger (my favorite), lamb burger, and mystery burger (the label wiped off, I suspect it was beef).  I cooked up all those really heavy, fatty — but thin — breakfast beef patties, and re-froze those; I just couldn’t face eating all of them.  I’m tired of burger, by the way.

Saturday I also made food for friends of mine:  the wife is dying of cancer, and is hoping to have hospice at home soon.  (I’d actually planned to do this before the freezer died:  but it was going to be cooking leisurely during the week, with the food to be frozen and then brought over oh, sometime this current weekend.)  I made them a batch of beef barley stew with veggies, chicken breasts with once-frozen tomato sauce and fresh broccolini, and roast pork with apple butter.

And I did hit up the local farmer’s market Saturday, anyway

Note tomatillos and variety of peppers

Okay, for the main attraction:

GROUND GOAT STUFFED PEPPERS AND GROUND GOAT PATTIES

1 pound ground goat meat
A few thin slices of purple cabbage, diced small
1 larger tomatillo
1 pepper, diced – I used a very mildly “hot” pepper, and de-seeded it
Garlic powder.  (I would normally use a couple cloves of fresh, but I had a lot of cooking to do that day)
Ground pepper to taste
However many bell peppers you want to stuff

Ground Goat, good stuff

Put in bowl, add the chopped veggies and seasonings.

Mix with your hands.

Form some portion into patties, about slider sized, and set aside.  You can add a small raw egg to keep the patty portion together while cooking them.

Keep the rest of the ground meat broken up, and add to skillet, mixing often with spatula.

Drain off grease .

Add to however many bell peppers you want; the bell peppers should be split in half and de-seeded.   Bake for about 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees F.  You can re-heat for consumption later.

While they’re baking, grill the patties (on the skillet, or on a real grill).  In the interests of time, I opted for the skillet.  These can also be re-heated later, or frozen for a future meal, if your remaining freezer has the space.

(Yes, I know aluminum shouldn’t be cooked on.  Saturday a week ago was an example of triage.  You do what you need to do.)

Leftovers are Great! (even though I'm tired of burger, goat burger may well be the exception)