I may not be Einstein but I feel like it today! Yeah, I made dinner in 5 minutes and it's all because I did one awesome thing yesterday...
Here's a tip for those of you who sometimes need to be able to get dinner on the table in a hurry and don't want to mess around with all the steps.
Before I went grocery shopping yesterday, I made a list of the meals I'd be making and the ingredients. Of course that's how I knew what to buy. I'm not a haphazard shopper - not enough money for that!
This is how I knew I'd need 6 lbs. of ground beef for the next two weeks. Now remember that nearly every recipe you make with ground beef requires that you brown it first! With the exception of a few recipes like meatloaf, they all want it cooked before you do anything with it!
So, I threw 5 lbs. of hamburger into a big pot and browned it all first. After draining the fat, and letting it cool, I divided it into 5 freezer baggies and threw it in the freezer - ready to go!
When I got ready to make dinner this afternoon, I took one baggie out and threw it into a sinkful of warm water and by the time all of the other ingredients had been mixed, the ground beef was defrosted enough to add it to my mixture. I was making a little casserole but this would work for tacos, taco salad, spaghetti, sloppy joe's, hamburger soup, taco soup or whatever else you're cooking! And it only took me about 5 minutes to mix the ingredients.
At this point, the little casserole was all prepared. I put my oven on delay for two hours to cook for 40 minutes, put the casserole in the oven and at 5:30 - dinner will be done! It was only 2:30 when I did this. This particular method works great on days you might be gone all day especially if you have a kick-butt oven like mine that has the delay feature. I LOVE that part of my oven. Then, after it cooks the food, it will hold it on warm for another 90 minutes in case you're not home exactly when it's supposed to be finished.
I'm the queen of getting out of 5:00 dinner cooking. Don't fence me in!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
I Made Dinner in About 5 Minutes Flat!
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2 backward glances:
That's a lot of browned meat. Can I borrow some? I'm currently out of hamburger meat and can't go to Costco for another week. I guess it's chicken for us. Do you freeze cooked chicken too?
I do! I roast the chicken first. Put all your chicken on a cookie sheet or roasting pan. Rub it with olive oil, salt & pepper and then put it in on 350 for about 20 minutes (if they're breasts). Use a meat thermometer to make sure each piece has reached 160 but be careful not to overcook them! When they're done, take them out, let them cool, shred and freeze! Out of the freezer, they're still moist and delicious! I'm actually doing that tomorrow.
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