Meal Planning: Plan C

I have been reading Flylady.net, and fluttering along, and this month's habit is Meal Planning. I like this idea, but really suck at it! But, I do have one standby meal that's easy to do on a moment's notice. It involves boxes and cans and jars and frozen food, gasp! But, when your plan A meal didn't get thawed out enough, for whatever reason, and your plan B plan needs an ingredient that you just used up last night.... well, that's when you pull out plan C.

Take any number of preformed, frozen hamburger patties. The number varies based on how many you're feeding, what you're using it for, etc. I use two for my 3-4 person table. Use a spoon to scrape them and chop them into pieces while you brown them on reasonably high heat. Viola, you've got ground beef. See where this is heading?

Hamburger helper, spaghetti with meat sauce, I even can use this to make squaw corn, which involves draining a can of corn niblets and tossing it in with the meat and a can of undiluted tomato soup. Serve with corn bread muffins if you have time to throw together a box of them.

Yes, it's prepackaged, but it's fast. Serve it with a salad, rolls, or a veggie, and you've got a reasonably balanced meal. You can also buy those prefrozen hamburger patties cheap during the cookout season and store them in your freezer until you need them.

I have two young kids, so meat noodles and a veggie are a staple in our house. I've always said that toddlers can eat their weight in noodles.

I now have two big leftover containers filled with penne and meat sauce, ready for lunch this week. Looking forward to THAT, hugely. And the bath for the toddler, afterwards.

-Vat

Use for the Melon Baller!

In the wake of the Halloween festivities, I must share something profound. Really. All right, not really. But, when presented with having to gut and carve pumpkins for my two young'uns, I discovered a neat tool: the melon baller. Not only good for watermelon and canteloupe... it also can be a useful tool to de-seed all sorts of squash including pumpkins.

Gone for me are the days of an ice cream paddle or tablespoons... the melon baller made quick work of my pumpkins' pumpkins. Watch and see, you'll soon see an infomercial from that OxyClean guy selling a melon baller with a fancy name. It'll probably rhyme too.

Another tool worth the expense: a hand battery powered jigsaw. I used my black and decker for years before scoring a small version designed especially for Halloween. Much easier for the grunt work of carving and you also can get very nice looking details.

I also enjoy using staples... as in carpentry staples from a staple gun. Power tools rule for pumpkin decoration!

Don't forget to stock up now on those little battery run tealights. Safe for kids and long lasting. Some, you can even replace the batteries.

Happy Halloween!

And thank goodness, almost done with all the election nonsense.

--Vat