Wednesday, February 22, 2006

What's for Dinner Wednesday!

Ah, two posts in one day. What IS for dinner?

Well, I'll tell you--my sister has been spreading rumors about the way I cook, so I better just set the record straight. The truth is, I NEVER know what's for dinner. My family has been known to eat day-old microwave popcorn on occasion. But when I feel like cooking, I cook a LOT--some kind of Mormon big-family gene, I think. And that leads to LEFTOVERS. Yuk. So I came up with a new system. Actually, my mom helped me stock my freezer like this once when I was expecting a baby. I cook once every month or two in a kind of manic way. I make 2-6 batches of 3-4 meals. All in one day. I invite my sister over and we chat it up and freeze everything.

So here's one recipe we made yesterday:
Shepherd's Pie
for each serving you need:
1 lb ground beef
1 c. of frozen mixed veggies
1 can of tomato sauce (the little cans)
1 T. worchestire sauce
salt and pepper, herbs and spices (I like garlic, and basil or thyme, but you can be creative!)
1/4 c. fresh chopped onion or 2 T. dried chopped onion or 1/2 t. onion powder
2 c. of mashed potatos (I use instant)
maybe some cheese for the top

So you do a little math, and it's not exact--for 3 family-sized servings, I used 4 lbs of ground beef, and 2 cups of veggies, and 1 large can of tomato sauce...

First, brown all the ground beef and split it between your containers. 1.5 qt. casserole dishes work best for this--you can use gladware type, like I do, or the foil disposable kind, like my sis. So you brown the ground beef, then put it in your containers. Add the veggies, tomato sauce, onions, worchestire sauce, salt, pepper, herbs, etc. Mix it all up. You should still have some room at the top for the potatoes. Slap the potatoes on top, sprinkle it with cheese if you like, and cover it. Then mark and freeze. When you don't feel like cooking, pull it out (hopefully in the next month or so) and pop it in the microwave or oven for an hour or so. Don't bake plastic containers.

There's a bunch of recipes out there especially for this--and tips and stuff. Google Once a Month Cooking or Freezer Cooking. It's fun!

PS Report on yesterday's cooking: I made 14 meals (3 shepherd's pies, 4 pork chop meals, 2 cheesy potato casseroles and 4 hamburger meals--I'll post the other recipes later). I have 2 pizzas and a pork loin from last night still in there. So the pork loin will probably be tonight. With wild rice, mmmm. And yes, the kitchen is a wreck:

Posted by Sarah Jean :: 10:41 AM :: 2 Comments:

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