What Do You Do with Ten Pounds of Defrosted Ground Beef? Cook Ahead!

Alright--so I didn't PLAN to cook ahead. But that doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea. Right? If I had a nickel for every time we have defrosted meat and then decided we didn't feel like cooking it after all, I'd be rich.  That's the 'catch 22' of having meat stocked up in the freezer. If you are going to cook it, you first have to defrost it. And once it's been frozen, you aren't supposed to re-freeze it. So you HAVE to cook it all at once--yes--all TEN POUNDS of it.

Truth be told, when I was a young homemaker, who didn't have to cart teenagers all over kingdom come, I did plan and cook ahead all of my meat for the week. It was so nice to  see all that chicken and beef simmering, roasting, frying and slow-cooking at once. It helped tremendously to have the biggest part of the dinner job already done when I was nursing a baby, training a toddler, and home-schooling a couple of kiddos all simultaneously.

I have to give credit where it is due though. I learned that great idea from Denise Schofield's book Confessions of an Organized Homemaker.  Her book was my homemaking 'bible' at one time.  She had great mottos that really stuck in my mind and helped me to become more disciplined in my work.  My favorite was "Do it Daily".

But the principle she taught,  that I applied here, was to get as much out of one 'get ready and clean up' as possible. If you cook all of your meat at once, you make a pretty big mess, but you only have to get ready to cook and clean up afterward ONCE instead of seven times. She challenged me to 'get off of KST-- Kitchen Standard Time'.

So, it was only natural , when I realized that the ten pound package of ground beef from Sam's Club was still sitting in the fridge a few days ago, that I would want to spend the evening cooking ahead instead of watching a movie or reading a book. I didn't mind because I knew it would pay off big time over the next few days.  I had company coming on two of those days and would be sewing  that whole time on a banner.

After a hard day of sewing, desk work, or chasing after toddlers, there's nothing like pulling a bag of meatballs or cooked taco meat out of the freezer and putting dinner together in 20 minutes. And the cleanup is a cinch! 

Happy Homemaking!