Three Beautiful Things 09-14-2023: Breakfast at Sam's, Beer from The Dalles, No Recipe Cooking with Gravy

1. I was going through my morning routine this morning when a text message flew in from Don K. He and Jake had a round of golf planned and were going to have breakfast at Sam's beforehand. Don invited me to join them. I did. We had a good time together, talking about golf, the humbling experience of aging, and other stuff. I ordered half an order of biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs on the side and, as you'll see (if you keep reading), my order inspired how I cooked dinner for Debbie and me. 

2. Debbie arrived home from school and we cracked open the two beers from Freebridge Brewing in The Dalles. Debbie enjoyed her pint of Dirty Juicy IPA and I was impressed with my Pulpit Rock Pilsner, a fun German style beer that also featured some Oregon hops. Debbie and I yakked about the possibility of future travel -- and, if nothing else, thinking about going on a trip in a year or so got our imaginations stirred up.

3. I had dinner ready when Debbie walked in the door. I cooked it knowing that she was driving to Spokane this evening and spending the night at the Ramada Inn at the airport and catching a 6 a.m. flight to Salt Lake City and then Detroit. 

I took out a chunk of frozen ground beef and thawed and browned it in the cast iron skillet. While it cooked, I chopped onion, celery, and garlic and got out another pan, cooked these ingredients, added about 4/5s of the ground beef and added a shake or two of frozen green beans out of the bag. 

I kept some ground beef in the cast iron pan because I decided to make a ground beef gravy (inspired by having eaten gravy for breakfast). I used ground beef from Costco and it is lean, so I added olive oil and butter to the pan along with flour, stirred it up and cooked it and then added milk and, in a moment of inspiration, added sour cream to the gravy, giving this meal a hint of stroganoff (if only I'd had mushrooms on hand). 

I also made a pot of jasmine rice. 

So, for each of us, I put rice on the bottom of a bowl, added the ground beef and vegetable mixture, and topped it with gravy. 

If I do this dish again, I'll fry an egg for my bowl and plop it on top of the gravy and ask Debbie if she'd like the same.

I'm also thinking it's high time I tried cooking loco moco -- I'd say tonight's meal was a distant shirt tail cousin of loco moco -- and would have been even more closely related had I included a fried egg. 

We were both very happy with this dinner.

We agreed.

It worked!