I had a near-crap experience with dinner tonight, but it turned out okay.
I bought 2 lbs of mussels, and crafted a dinner menu around that. I decided on cooking the mussels with 'shrooms, garlic, shallots, tomatoes, herbs, etc., then removing them from their shells, and serving over spinach tagliatelle pasta. Plus a few nice sides. I got everything prepped, awaiting my DW to come home, and started the final stages of cooking.
Well, I started inspecting/washing the mussels, and almost all of them were dead! All but about 4 out of ~50 were open and unresponsive. The tag on the mussels bag said that they were processed on 9/18. which, believe it or not, is within the window of acceptability. (Except for the "dead" part!

) Bad timing, but I walked briskly back to the grocery store, expressed my displeasure, and got a fresh(er) replacement, and back home to cooking, which all took about 1/2 hour. Then I discovered that I ruined the 'shooms/shallots part of the dish in all the hubbub, and had to re-prep and re-cook that.
Soooo, finally, I cooked the mussels with sauteed 'shrooms, shallots, garlic, tomatoes, ho-made white wine, ho-made shrimp stock, thyme, basil, and parsley. This was served over spinach tagliatelle, with lots of Grana Padano. Sides included roasted fennel slices, and sauteed/braised purple kale with onions, seasoned with stock and marjoram. A nice side salad with arugula, frisee, and romaine topped things off.
(After dinner, I had to cook the dead mussels to put them into our compost bin. The smell made me retch.

Just imagine what would have ensued if a newbie had bought these mussels as their first attempt!)
