for context: my parents didn't teach me anything about cooking, but I did take a single home ec cooking class in high school. mostly it taught me the proper way to wash dishes by hand

I HAVE cooked things before sporadically, usually I bake more because I'm more interested in baking, and that's usually not a total disaster?

so for lunch today I decided that I should go ahead and make beef tacos. simple and easy, right? I had everything to make taco filling.... but I hadn't defrosted the ground meat yet

I did run it under some warm water, but that wasn't going fast enough so clearly the logical thing was to put this frozen meat tube in the pan and let it defrost as it cooks, right??

well

first off I had too much oil in the pan, because I splashed a little too much in by accident, so oil popped everywhere. it's not the first time I had to deal with that so that part wasn't... terrible

however the frozen meat did NOT defrost as fast as I thought it would. I ultimately turned down the heat in the pan and was basically using a knife and a spatula to shave meat off as it cooked/defrosted.

yes it was probably still faster then waiting to water defrost it but it was still about 20 minutes of me... cutting away at a meat-sicle

but finally I got everything cooking in the pan and browning nicely, with only a few parts a little extra burnt, no big deal

but the rest of the taco filling is a spice packet + tomato paste + water

now, I had looked at a few different recipes for basic taco filling online... and I could've sworn one of them said to use a full 8 oz of tomato paste

I had a smaller 6 oz can in the pantry, so in my mind I was like 'cool I'll just use that and it won't be a problem'

WRONG

the actual recipe I was using said two tablespoons. I still have no idea what recipe I got the oz measurement from

so I dumped a whole (small) can of tomato paste in there along with the spices and water, and I quickly realized what I was making looked more like a sloppy joe than any proper taco filling

there was just so much tomato paste in there I had no hope of being able to... actually simmer off any of it, so I basically just let it simmer for a few minutes and took a taste test

it... does sort of taste like an unholy sloppy joe, in that it's tomato-y but bitter because there's no sweetness in it at all

LUCKILY I didn't fuck up the shredded veggies on top because I bought a premade southwestern salad mix instead of chopping up anything myself

and.... it was perfectly edible, somehow, the salad mix came with a chili-lime sauce that was spicy enough to cover up the taste of 'tomato paste meat' pretty well

and since I hate throwing out food I'll probably keep putting spicy sauce on top and eat it for lunches anyway.

tl;dr I don't think I'm going to make myself sick but maybe I shouldn't be trusted with cooking

...oh lord, you almost burned the house down

Yeah, no. Never put frozen meat in a pan full with oil

You have to wait for the meat to defrost halfway before cooking. Sometimes the microwave helps but I always suggest leaving the meat out at least an hour before cooking, preferably in a bowl filled with warm water

I have made that mistake before trying to defrost some ground beef and the meal was terrible

Oh, you used 6 oz of tomato paste!

Listen, everyone messes up sometimes. You’re still a good cook! You just had an off day

I didn't even think about using the microwave... that would've been a lot more convenient lol

I'm not used to cooking regularly, I'm definitely still at beginner level

Seconding that thawing deepfrozen meat in a bowl of water is the fastest way to go. Just leave it in the deep freeze bag so that you won't lose all the delicious meat juices when you drain the water, and it'll cut down the thawing time considerably.

I knew that was a thing because my dad did it so often, but I also.... had no idea how long that would take 😅

Hmm, a thin steak goes from popsicle so hard you could use it as murder tool to fully thawned in 15 mins when I do it.

ahhh that is pretty fast!

With ground beef, it'd take longer depending on how you package it since the temp needs to get to the core, but 1 hour max would be my estimate? Or you could just put it into your fridge the evening before for slower thawing.

the main reason I hadn't already had it thawing was because I picked up something at the grocery store for dinner already so I was like... nah I'm not going to need this for dinner, it can surely stay in the freezer

A lot of cooking is trial & error paired with chemistry. Def only pick one recipe and stick with it if you use one, tho. (I made that mistake once with brownies...)

Lol ground beef is hard mode!

Very unforgiving of small mistakes. And absolutely never eat it if it got too hot, smells funny or went past expiration date. That's what both my parents always taught me, and they're two very different cooking types lol

ffff I didn't know it was that unforgiving.... I already buy premade hamburger patties at least. I would like to make taco filling again but maybe not for a long while rofl

Another tip that helped me a lot with figuring out any new cooking is the rule of thumb that you can always add more of something later, but taking anything out is hard or impossible.

But you probably already knew that one.

yeah today was a reminder of that one.......

Lol yeah practice makes perfect (or at least edible)! I tend to flop all my first tries at a dish hard too, so don't let it discourage you!

You still got food out of it and now know what to avoid next time, that's way better than no food at all!

oh yeah I would've hated to have totally ruined it... I mean, the time I accidentally made short-grain instead of long-grain rice, I did still eat on that gelatinous hockey puck until it got too old and I had to throw it out