Preparing Simple Food Ahead of Time....

(I've been trying to post this for four days now, hope it works this time!)

This week I've been very busy browning 20 pounds of ground beef! Our local Food 4 Less grocery store usually has great deals on meat! I get ground beef for $1.78/lb when I buy it in a 10 lb. roll. It's a ton of meat but it's so worth it!

We used to take the meat and cut it into about one pound sections, wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it that way. It worked well but I still had to defrost it and cook it when I wanted to use it. We did that for about a year and now we make it just a little bit easier! I take half of the meat and make "spaghetti meat" with it. I brown it with some garlic and chopped onions and seasonings. It's seasoned for things like shepherd's pie, spaghetti, strogenoff (sp?), and anything else that uses meat like that. The other half I do as taco meat. I use the taco seasoning packets and it comes out great! After I've drained all the grease from it and it's cooled down a bit I put the meat in ziplock sandwich baggies. Some bags I fill rather full and others I put like 1/2 a pound in. Zip them up and then they go in the freezer.

It takes a little bit of time but it's not hard at all and then when I'm running late it helps my meals cook faster! I can make a shepherd's pie in under 10 minutes plus the time to bake it as opposed to like 30-40 minutes plus baking time!

Another good thing to cook and freeze is chicken. We get the boneless skinless chicken breast when they're on sale (this week at Food 4 Less I found them for $1.75/lb!) and we grill it, slice it, and freeze it. We have a George Forman grill so it makes it pretty easy. Daniel likes to marinade it but I don't know the recipe for how he does it...I don't think he does either, it's just a little of this and a little of that. We put it in little sandwich baggies like the beef so it's perfect for one meal. We use it in chicken pastas, casseroles, lots of salads, tortilla wraps, pizza, or whatever else we feel like throwing chicken into.

As I posted in an earlier post I LOVE cookie dough! So this week I made a batch of cookie dough, rolled it into balls, and froze them on a cookie sheet. When they were hard I put them into sandwich baggies and froze them together. Freezing them separately first helps them not stick together. Now I have a snack whenever I want them!! :

Super Sturdy Table Cloth

Does your table ever look like this? If you have toddlers that are aspiring artists like mine you probably do! Our poor table has taken some hits lately. One of the first projects when we move into a house is to refinish the table and make it look like new again....as for now we have to find a way to cover it up and protect it from more "characteristic marks."

I owe this solution to my Dad. Thanks Dad! :)

We love vinyl tablecloths with the flannel backing at our house! They protect the table and wipe off easily and they're cheap enough that if they do get ruined you don't feel bad about throwing it away. They make them in some really pretty designs or very festive for the holidays so you don't have to settle for anything boring. But have you ever tried keeping one in place on a table??? Good grief! It's not an easy task, especially with children sitting at the table. We tried putting heavy things on the table to keep it in place but it just got in the way and never worked well.

So, here's what we found. One day when I was little we went to a restaurant and they had vinyl table cloths on the tables, only theirs didn't move! My dad, being the inquisitive person that he is, peeked under the table cloth to see how they kept it in place. All it was was another tablecloth only upside-down! The flannel against flannel made it very hard to move. So he went home and tried it, he taped one upside-down to the table and placed one right side up on top and we've stuck to it ever since.

Try it it works GREAT!!!

(this is the upside-down one taped to the table. I just used packing tape.)

Here is my everyday tablecloth. I found this one at Walmart for $5 and it's nice but they only had a couple to choose from. Yesterday I went to Big Lots and found a TON of them for $3.50! They had a whole bunch of styles and sizes. They had a bunch for Easter too so that was fun.

Definitely a Great Help!

Thanks everyone for sharing their ideas about their ways of doing laundry. My sweet husband reminded me that our system is that HE HELPS!! Am I lucky or what? :) I didn't realize this was our system but this is how it seems to be working for us lately. We have baskets lining the laundry room, whites, lights, darks, and towels so they're all ready separated. I start the washer most of the time and he will put them in the dryer and take them out when they're dry and then lay them on the couch. He lays out every thing that needs to be hung up in a pile and folds everything that needs folding, I come behind him and put hangers in the hang up pile and put all the clothes away. He informed me sweetly that he has the hardest time actually hanging up the clothes and putting them away where as for me it's the opposite! I hate to fold them but I don't mind putting them away! He also folds all of the socks because if it were up to me they'd all just be in bucket!! I'd probably have one bucket per person but they wouldn't be matched, when you own all the same kind, style, color, and size of a sock it seems kind of pointless to me to match them. :)

My Grandma in TN, a nurse and mother of 3 boys, sent me an email that really made me grateful for the way we do laundry, just thought I'd share it with you:

"When your Dad was little, Brad 18 months behind, doing clothes was awful. I worked over 50 hours a week in surgery and was on call one evening plus weekend call each week. My washer was always in a dark, damp basement. I had to fill the washer with a hose, sort and put in clothes then time it to wash. While it was washing, I filled two tubs of rinse water. I had to put the clothes through a wringer (and becareful not to catch fingers) from the washer into the first rinse. I would stir it around in there then send it through the wringer into the second tub of water. Next it was time to wring it out and take it outside or on lines in the basement and hang it up. Grandpa didn't like for the boys to wear teeshirts so all of their shirts were little cotton ones with collars. I had to make starch, dip, wring and hang all of them.....and there was a lot. After it dried, I had to "sprinkle down" all of the starch pieces, roll them individually and put them into a basket In about 12 hours, the water was all even through them and it was time to iron them. By then I was back at work and sometimes they mildewed and I had to start all over. I ironed each little shirt and pairs of pants, pillow cases, tablechothes as well as mine and Dannnie's stuff. Everything was cotton and there was no "Downey " to make them soft and easier to iron. It was the same when I was pregnant for Brad............the clothes was just a little bigger. I think I got an automatic washer and a dryer when we moved to North Carolina.....Your Dad was starting the first grade. I only wish I could have had it sooo much sooner."

Thanks Grandma for reminding me how lucky and blessed I am to have a washing machine AND a dryer! :)

Someone Save My Sanity!!!

I'm curious, how do YOU stay on top of your laundry?