When the ingredients fail

Did you ever have one of those days where nothing about a recipe went right?

I had one of those days the other day, but the result was so delicious that I decided to share.

I was out walking Fenway and was craving tomatoes and cheese, but I needed something healthier that pizza (again!). I'd bought some zucchini and heirloom tomatoes at the farmers' market, so I figured I'd cook them and some chicken breasts and serve it with pasta.

Except when I took out the zucchini, it had shriveled up to nothing.

And one of the tomatoes had turned totally black.

But the chicken was already cooking when I noticed this. (There goes the pizza excuse.)

Hmmmmmm.

I grabbed a bag of frozen green beans from the freezer and dumped them in the pan with a healthy helping of my favorite freeze-dried garlic.

Then I put on water for the angel hair pasta.

At the last minute, I chopped and added the other tomato - a tiny one so you'll note there's not much red).

I chopped the chicken and tossed that in as well. Somewhere along the line I'd added some olive oil.

Once I cooked the angel hair, I added some mozzarella and then poured the garlicky veggies on top.

It was delicious!

I may also have poured in way too many green beans for one person, so I had tons of leftovers.

The next night, I cooked some potatoes in garlic water, smashed them, slathered in butter, and poured the heated leftovers on top.

This was even better than with the pasta and cheese!

The moral of the story - if there has to be one - is, as my mother would say, necessity is the mother of invention - and sometimes it even tastes good!

Have you ever started out with one meal in mind and ended up with something totally different?