Learning From Your Experiences

After last week's storm came we still had power. I very gratefully sat down with a sheet of paper and made two columns: What I Did Right and What I Need to Improve. I then broke the need to improves into 3 columns (to buy, to do, and to learn). It looked like this.

Homemade Vanilla - How To

Today I finally bit the bullet and made some homemade vanilla. Before my husband deployed the first time we went on a cruise and visited Mexico and ever since I have been a bit of a vanilla snob!

Meal Time Short Cuts: Breakfast Sausage

Breakfast Sandwiches Ready To Go

     It doesn't matter if you stay home or if you work outside the home we are all very busy! Sometimes I have been gone most of the day and get home within an hour of dinner, sometimes I've had a sick kid and dinner was the last thing on my mind, and other times I was the sick one and my poor husband, mother, or sister was left to cook for my family. In all these instances my meal time short cuts have proven invaluable! Yes they do take some time upfront but the payoff is wonderful!

The Best Way to Avoid the Flu

Or anything contagious for that matter. Are you ready? This is really hard!!!!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

Meal Time Short Cuts: Ground Beef

     It doesn't matter if you stay home or if you work outside the home we are all very busy! Sometimes I have been gone most of the day and get home within an hour of dinner, sometimes I've had a sick kid and dinner was the last thing on my mind, and other times I was the sick one and my poor husband, mother, or sister was left to cook for my family. In all these instances my meal time short cuts have proven invaluable! Yes they do take some time upfront but the payoff is wonderful!
     One of my favorite meal time short cuts involves ground beef. At the beginning of every month I buy all of my meat for the month (we have a large upright freezer). When I get home I take my ground beef and determine how much of it will be used in which ways. I immediately start to brown some of it, allow it to cool and package into freezer bags at one pound per bag and freeze flat. The ground beef that doesn't get browned either goes into freezer bags one pound per bag (frozen flat) or it gets made into meatballs and a meatloaf. I fry the meatballs after I brown the ground beef (in the same pan) and finish cooking them in the oven. After they have cooled I put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer (single layer, not touching) overnight and into a gallon sized freezer bag the following day. The meatloaf is placed in a pan and wrapped well to decrease freezer burn and then placed in the freezer. I put the meatloaf in the refrigerator the night before I will cook it so it will defrost before it goes into the oven.

     I find that it works well to do this all at once as you use many of the same items multiple times. It definitely takes a time investment upfront but I find that it's not a big deal as I'm usually working in the kitchen already, I will use the ground beef in that night's dinner, and the future time payout is huge! Now, when I'm short on time spaghetti and meatballs, tacos, pasta bake, hamburger helper, sloppy joes and many other dinners are quick to get on the table and I'm less likely to throw in a frozen pizza, serve PB&J on a tortilla (because I didn't have time to make bread either), or order take out!
     What do you do for a meal time short cut at your house?


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If you haven't done so already it is not to late to vote! 

Please go and exercise your right to do so, many people have died 

so you could have this and many other freedoms.