Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Tuesday's Tip

Schedules can be busy with two or ten in your family. Tips and ideas that can help me spend more time doing what I want are always welcome. One thing I am trying to incorporate into my weekly meal plan is what I dub "Two for Tuesday."

What that means is what I prepare for Tuesday will be enough to make a second meal later in the week. That is where the two comes into play. For example, tonight will be beef post roast. I will place enough roast in my crockpot so that we may eat tonight, and that I have enough for a later meal. This week I will shred the extra beef needed for the Beefy-Vegetable Soup on Sunday. I found I have to freeze the extra meat as my family will eat it if I do not. I season my pot roast with onion soup as well as salt and pepper as needed so that I can use the meat in other dishes. From a roast I can also make barbeque sandwiches, beef burritos, shredded beef chalupas, Italian beef, beef and cheddar rolls and more.

The same can be done for chicken, turkey, ham, and pork loin or roast. I cook once and save time. I also do this on Tuesday because I can use my roaster or crockpot to cook. It frees my time which is good as Tuesday is usually my shopping day. I also have meetings or like to take a night off to go out and relax.

It does not have to be Tuesday (that just works for me and had a cool ring to the name). It can be any day that you find you are gone most of the day. It is easy to put a meal in to cook all day and serve with a couple of 5 minute sides at dinner time. Having the meat already cooked for a second meal is a nice bonus. It is a tip and idea that saves time and money. Who couldn't use a little of both of those?

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