TLC in the Kitchen

As a working mother of six children, I have learned a few things over time. One of the most important being the fact that I need organization when it comes to meals. Especially dinner. My husband is a great cook, but until the last few years, his schedule didn’t allow him to participate in a lot of the dinners being prepared in our kitchen. (He’s the Weekend Breakfast Chef!) I found that many days after working, picking up kids and finally dragging myself home, that I didn’t have a lot of time, energy or desire to cook a real meal. The solution? Organization!

Having been on a fairly tight budget for the first few years of your marriage, I got used to planning what meals we would be eating for the week. I would make a shopping list, grab my calculator and off to the grocery store I would go. So the problem wasn’t what to cook, but where to find the time and energy to do it? I came up with a few BIG time-saving strategies that really work for me. The first, being to prepare some of the meal components ahead of time.

When I go shopping on Saturday morning I come home and get several things going at once. I get the oven preheating to 350°F. I grab my huge cast iron skillet. It is 16 inches wide. Very big, very heavy. I throw three pounds of ground beef into the skillet and break it up with a spatula. I take a large baking sheet and coat it with cooking spray and spread out a family pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Salt, pepper, garlic powder – flip – salt, pepper, garlic powder and into the oven they go! As the ground beef starts to brown I continue to stir and breakup the large pieces. I chop up three large onions. One for each pound of beef I am using. I drain off the fat and water in the pan and add the onions. Now a bulb of garlic. Yes, the whole bulb. I peel and chop it finely and into the pan it goes. Now – salt, pepper and a big handful of dried oregano.

The chicken is flipped after about 30 minutes. I let it go for another 30 minutes and then allow it to cool off on the top of the stove. When the ground beef is well browned and the onions are soft, I let it cool and then portion it into six zipper bags. I use small sandwich bags and then stuff all six of them into a large freezer bag. I do the same thing with the cooled chicken. One breast per bag and into a larger freezer bag. This strategy allows me to pick the amount of meat needed for any particular meal.

I have also been known to throw a london broil or pork loin into the crock pot with a bunch of onions, garlic, carrots and celery and let it cook for hours until it just falls apart with a fork. Divide into smaller portions, bag and freeze. Another trick is when I make meatloaf or meatballs, I make a huge batch (3 pound of ground beef) and make half meatballs and half meatloaf. I freeze whichever one is not for dinner that night.

I have an arsenal of recipes that I use the prepared foods in. I call them my Quick Fix Meals. They are usually my regular recipes, but some of the preparation steps are already done. I can get a stir-fry chicken dinner on the table in the length of time it takes to make rice. Spaghetti in the time it takes to cook the pasta. This works so well, that my husband is now on board and helps with the Saturday preparation and often the makes dinner.