Well, I have been busy in the kitchen!!

I love to cook this way….

Make lots of meals all at once, using common ingredients. Right now I have a Chili in the crock pot, spaghetti sauce on the back burner, a meatloaf in the oven, and just finished off a wonderfully delicious hamburger w/ sautéed onions and mushrooms!!

Here is the grocery list:

1 pound of hamburger
1 pound of Italian sausage
1 medium yellow onion
1 bulb of garlic
1 green pepper
1 carrot
1 stalk of celery
6 mushrooms
1 large egg

Breadcrumbs
1 can of cheapest spaghetti sauce you can find (gonna fix it up later)
1 can Hunts Chili Beans
1 small can tomato paste
1 small can Kidney Beans
1 package spaghetti noodles

To complete the meals:

1 Kaiser roll
1 small can green beans
1 small can corn
1 large Russet potato
Smallest container of sour cream you can find
Caesar Salad in a bag

Preparations:

Drain and soak kidney beans
Have crock pot, medium sauce pan and skillet ready
Chop onion, green pepper, celery, carrot, 5 cloves of garlic, mushrooms (save one for hamburger)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

First up -- Chili

Into Crock Pot
Empty cans of Chili beans, tomato paste, kidney beans.

Toss in 1/3 of chopped onion, 3 garlic cloves

Season with pepper, salt and Cumin (yummy Cumin)

Put lid on crock pot, and set it to Low.

Start Spaghetti Sauce:
In a medium sized pot,

Just a touch of olive oil, add onions, 1 clove garlic, green pepper and mushrooms.

Sautee on medium heat until onions are translucent.

Add half the can of spaghetti sauce (put the rest into Tupperware and put in fridge)

Put lid on pot and set heat to Medium Low

Meat load and hamburger and completing the chili will be posted later.

My fingers are on strike right now....

JJT

Okay. Now is the time to mix up the meatloaf and finish everything off.

Division of the hamburger. It would really cool if I could say, cut the pound of hamburger into 4 equal parts. But that would not work, as you would end up with a gigantic burger and very little meat in the chili.

Here is how I cut the hamburger up (and introduced the Italian sausage)

1/3 - spaghetti with same amount of Italian sausage
1/3 - meatloaf with 1/2 of that size in Italian sausage
1/2 of 1/3 - chili (ya got all those beans to fill up the crock pot and the tummy)
1/2 of 1/3 - fry it up for the burger

(save the rest of the Itallian sausage for other uses)

Now.
Set aside meat for hamburger. That will be the last thing you cook.

Put meat for meatloaf into the biggest bowl you have, because if you are like me, your are not very graceful and need the extra room.

In skillet, add just a drizzle of olive oil or a tad of butter, whatever you have or prefer.

Throw all the veggies into the skillet (carrots, green pepper, onion, celery, mushroom, saving one whole mushroom for later)

Sautee until onions are translucent.

Remove from skillet, place on paper towel to drain. Cool.

In the skillet, add the meat for the chili, fry until just done, drain and add to the crock pot. Replace lid on crock pot and turn the sucker off to start cooling down.

In the skillet, add the meat combination for the spaghetti, cook until just done, drain, and add to the pot with the spaghetti sause. Replace lid on pan, and turn burner off to start cooling down.

Take the skillet off the burner, and turn off. Ya gotta assemble the meatloaf before you can eat the hamburger!!

The meatloaf.

I have combined several recipes to make the worlds best meatloaf, IMHO. But this isn't one of them, as I was short some ingredients. Had to go with what was available and affordable....

To the meat mixture in the bowl:

Add the cooled off sauteed veggies
Add one egg
Add a squirt or two of ketchup
Add bread crumbs
Season to taste, pepper, salt, cumin, whatever... open up your cupboard and experiment.

Get your hands in there are really mix it well!!

Realize that you added too much liquidy things, and ran out of bread crumbs, so steal some meat reserved for the burger.

Now it is too dry, so open up the fridge and grab whatever hits your fancy... I added a touch of yellow mustard.

To test if the meatloaf is the right consitency.... there isn't one. Whatever you like! Some like it dry for sandwiches, some like to moist enough to fall apart at the touch of a fork.

Shape the meatloaf into square or rectangle or whatever baking pan you have. Stick in a 350 degree oven for about 30 to 45 minutes (depending on how tall the loaf is).

For the hamburger. Whatever. I was tired. I sauteed a slice of onion, the remaining mushroom in butter. Fried up the meat patty. Toasted the kaiser roll. And ate it.

Took the meatloaf out of the oven when it was done. Sat it on the stove to cool down, and took a quick nap.

After waking up........ divided all the food into single serving plastic bowls. Put half in the freezer, half in the fridge.

I know what I will be eating for the next two weeks!!

JJT

JJT,
YOu wanna job being my nanny?

ONE

Now there is an idea!!

JJT

lol jjt who do you cook all of these meals for??? they all sound really good! ;)

Mmmm... I can practically smell all that tasty goodness cooking!!!

I'm starved right now...I'm drooling!!! :p