It was Sunday afternoon and I was hungry. I was sick of eating ravioli and baked potatoes. I no longer was craving pancakes and other quick meals. I couldn’t take it anymore — I needed real food, but I didn’t know what to make.
Part of me wanted pigs in a blanket, but I had no desire to eat eight of them because once you opened the can of crescent rolls, I was pretty sure you couldn’t put them back in the refrigerator.
I needed something else, something different and something good.
I took my curiosity to Google and typed in three words: crescent roll meal. I clicked on the third link, which was “Easy Crescent Meals” from Pillsbury. The page opened up to an appetizing slideshow of six quick meals that could be made with crescent rolls and it was a little difficult picking which one to try first.
I settled on the cheeseburger crescent casserole and looked at the ingredients required. Thankfully, I already had the four simple items needed: ground beef, ketchup, cheese and crescent rolls.
Ground beef is one of those things you are supposed to decide you want at the beginning of the day. That way, when it comes time to cook, it’s already thawed and ready to go. However, I made the decision to make this meal in five minutes, so my ground beef was still frozen solid. I ran it under hot water for a few minutes, threw it on the skillet and started breaking up the meat.
After what seemed like forever, it was finally brown and ready for the next step.
Whenever I’m making a meal, I like to pretend I’m on my own cooking show. Most cooks have their own shtick, Emeril with the “BAM!” and Paula Deen with her butter. My shtick is just eyeballing everything and never measuring it. The recipe called for half a cup of ketchup and a cup of cheese. I squeezed the bottle of ketchup a few times and grabbed a handful of cheese and hoped it would be enough.
I mixed all the ingredients together and ran over to my computer to read the next step. I dumped the meat, ketchup and cheese creation in the pie pan and spread it out.
Most people have an addiction to coffee or chocolate. My addiction is cheese. So whenever a recipe requires cheese, I usually put more cheese in than required. I added a step to my recipe and put an extra layer of cheese on top of the meat.
The next step in the recipe was to take the crescent rolls and place them on top. I struggled with opening the can for a few minutes and ended up having to rip it apart. It may not have been the most practical way to open, but it worked. I rolled up the non-pointy end of the crescent triangles about an inch and placed them on the meat. The points of the triangles didn’t exactly come to the middle perfectly, but I was getting hungrier and perfection was not something I was trying to achieve anymore.
I sprinkled some more cheese on top of the crescents and threw it in the oven for 15 minutes. When the timer went off, I took out the meal and it was perfect. The rolls were the perfect golden brown and not even the slightest bit doughy. The ground beef and cheese blended perfectly and there wasn’t too much of any ingredient. My roommate even asked if she could have some and is giving her mom the recipe.
Finally, a true success in the kitchen.
Mesha Baylis-Blalock is a novice chef and a columnist for The Post. What should she cook next? Email her at mb345109@ohiou.edu.
