Meal Time

I know the best plan for dinner time is to be prepared. Write up a list of the meals your family likes, write down all the ingredients to make those meals, go to the store and buy those items. And life is really easier when I do this, but somehow I often don't. But the past two weeks I have tried really really hard.

Nachos/Taco Salad

(mine)

(Jason's)

Ingredients:

• tortilla chips
• black beans
• ground beef with taco seasoning
• tomatoes
• shredded cheese
• velvetta or nacho cheese
• black olives
• shredded lettuce
• salsa
• sour cream
• onions

I dont know why we dont make this all the time. It was SO SO good. I generally tend to stray away from meals that involve lots of little things (cutting, separating items into little dishes etc) but I ended up doing a lot of the prep work on my lunch break. I cooked up the ground beef with taco seasoning, and cut the tomatoes and onions. I saved myself a big step by buying the pre-shredded lettuce in the grocery store and I buy canned sliced black olives. There was plenty left over for lunches the next day and I only used 1/2 of the lb package of meat.

Foldovers/Calzones

With the other half of the ground beef, I cooked it up (again, on my lunch hour) and seperated it into two containers for two different meals.

For the calzones:

• pillsbury pizza dough in a can
• shredded pizza cheese
• garlic
• onions
• canned diced tomatoes seasoned with basil and oregano
• black olives
• meat for Jason

If you use one of their 33% more cans of dough, you will get two HUGE calzones. You could easily cut yours in half (see above) and save the other half for lunch the next day. (Jason and I rarely do this. We prefer to cut it in half, pretend we will save the other half and then stuff our selves silly by eating it all)

About half way thru cooking (15 minutes or so) Jason spreads melted butter and garlic on the tops to give them a nice golden brown glow.

SO GOOD

Spaghetti

I dont need to tell you how to make spaghetti, but it was  great dish to make the following night and Jason could throw the other portion of ground beef into his sauce.

Enchilada Casserole

               

It's pretty much impossible to cook a decent meal when I am home alone with Emma, so if we are going to eat decently, I have to do a lot of prep work on my lunch break. (Thank GOD I work a mile from home).

• tortillas
• shredded mexican cheese
• black beans
• onions
• fresh tomatoes
• enchilada sauce
• (not used in this example but I've previously used: corn, black olives)
• sour cream for garnishing
• yellow safron rice for a side dish

This was pretty easy to put together in about 10 minutes and then stick in the fridge until dinner time. Took about 45 minutes to cook. In the above example, I used too much enchilada sauce (way too much) and Jason didnt care for the onions, he said they were too strong- whatever.

What was great about these 3 meals is that they all had a lot of the same ingredients so if I chopped some extra tomato or onion one day, I could use it for the next day.

Tonight? Angel Biscuits and eggs.

Comments

[Magnolia Sun]

All the meals look really good and good idea to cut extra to use for other dishes. What time is dinner tonight, I love angel biscuits?

:) We're eating early tonight (5pm) because we plan to go to the town Christmas Parade tonight! So bundle up!

[girlville]

"we prefer to cut it in half, pretend we will save the other half and then stuff our selves silly by eating it all" - i practically spewed coffee all over my computer! nice looking meals you've had this week. it's amazing how much time a little planning can save. i try to chop all veggies for the coming week on sunday afternoon, you can also brown ground beef and freeze individual size amounts in zip-locs when you find it on sale for a good price. oh, i forgot it was christmasville this weekend...i'm jealous...have fun!!!

[Wendy]

yummy meals:) Thanks for some new ideas! We are sick of the same things over here!!

[Punchbugpug]

Wow, great ideas and perfect as I hate to eat the meat and P loves it!

[Jamie]

Umm, that enchilada casserole looks AMAZING. I wanted to jump into my computer and eat it all up.

[Dooneybug]

Oh man, all that looks so yummy (while I sit here eating my boring chicken sandwich). One of my mom groups made a similar taco salad once and the calzones. They are both so easy yet I very rarely make them. I'm hoping to cook a little more now that Ladybug is getting into a somewhat predictable routine so I know I'll be able to finish what I start. You've inspired me!!

[Dooneybug]

p.s. Jason's my kind of man - I LOVE sour cream!

[Mrs. D]

I love this post! Love to see pictures of what other people eat (strange, I know) and I like how everything is made with similiar ingredients.

[sandy]

OH, Hello to all that food. Yummy....I must try some of these soon.

[pam]

All of those look really yummy! I think I may be revisiting the photos of the nachos many times this weekend until I give in a get the ingredients to make some. They looks SO GOOD right now!

[Greg]

Your calzone's look WONDERFULL!! K and I will have to try those one night for dinner!

[Laura McIntyre]

They all look so yum, going to be stealing some of the ideas

[Lisanne]

What are "angel biscuits"? Those sound like delicious meals that are also really quick. I'm going to try fixing some of those this week, maybe. Quick is good! I *love* those nachos ... OMG, I'm drooling!

[twirly the pug]

Hi,

I couldn't find any email around, so I decided to bark :) within a comment. I am resident in the Pug Community at www.pugslife.org and I want to invite you to join, too. If you don't have the time, maybe you can just grab one of our Pugslife badges to put on your website. Thanks.

Twirly the Pug