How to MAKE MAIN MEALS AHEAD OF TIME

Being a mom of 5 sons I had to cook all the time. I found by making some things ahead of time and freezing them it saved me a lot of time when it was time to cook the main meal. When I worked it was hard to come home and make a large meal because of school and homework and other things that needed to be done. By preparing some things ahead of time it was a lot easier to give them this large dinner without a lot of preparation when I was tired. Check back often to find more resources I have used to save time and help with cooking for a full house.

Things You'll Need

• Okay you will need to find things on sale and use them wisely especially if you have a large family. Things are so expensive now days and when we find a deal we want to make sure we take advantage of

Instructions

1. Buy about 20 lbs of Ground Beef ahead of time. Prepare your meatloafs, burgers, meatballs, hamburger steaks or salisbury steaks and any other meals that require us to use Ground Beef. For the meatloaf add all ingredients, work the ingredients until mixed well and then start with separating the meat for different meals. Make about 2-3 meat loafs ahead of time but don't cook them yet. Work your hand in the middle of each one until you have made a deep impression and add your Velveeta. Now fold ends and sides over making sure the cheese is well covered and won't all leak out. Now wrap them, bag them whatever way you choose. Freeze the meatloafs. When you come home from work just pop one in the oven with some water so as not to burn on bottom. Drain water or sometimes it cooks down, now add your sauce on top and you have your fast meatloaf without having to stand there and cut everything up before the meal. Do the same thing with the meatballs and burgers. Prepare them ahead of time and freeze them. Now they are all ready for the stove or oven and you did all the preparation in one sitting ( like on a Saturday after grocery shopping)

2. Once the ingredients are mixed, roll the meatballs and place them in a freezer bag and freeze. When your ready to use them just place them in the oven with a little water and cook. Throw sauce on top and heat. YOUR DONE!

3. Burgers are nice but freezing them and stacking them can be a pain. My kids loved the Wendy's burgers and so do we. How do you get those square burgers. Take a ball of ground beef prepared the way you like with whatever ingredients you wish. Place the ball of meat in center of plastic wrap. Fold sides over and roll with a rolling pin. Fold ends over and roll again with a rolling pin. After making them all evenly flatened to the thickness you like make sure they are wrapped well and either place in freezer like that or place them in a bag and freeze.

4. You can now make your hamburger steaks ahead of time too for that salisbury steak dinner the same way as the meatloaf. Prepare the ingredients. Mix together well. Roll them or use your hands to mold them to the shape you want and wrap and freeze in freezer bags.

Tips & Warnings

• The best part of this is you have taken 20 pounds of ground beef, cut up all the ingredients over the weekend and added them to the meat. You now have your meatloafs, burgers, hamburger steaks, meatballs all ready for a quick meal. Just add condiments and your done. No mixing after the first day it's already to throw in the oven or on the stove and less dirty dishes because you did all the cutting up and ingredients ahead of time. Less work to do on a work or school night. The burgers stack nice in the freezer.

• Another good thing is when you want to store (FREEZE)that uncooked left over ground beef and you don't want to sit it out to thaw or stick in a microwave to thaw it's easy to thaw them by preparation before freezing. Place about 1lb of ground beef in a quart size storage bag. Roll with a rolling pin to even the meat thickness out. Now it will be thinner and thaw faster than it does when you just throw it in a bag in a big lump. The burgers cook the same all the way through because the meat is evenly distributed while cooking. You have the same thickness throughout the burger so you won't be taking a bite out of a burger to find the center is RAW! When the ends are done so is the middle because you have rolled them to a square like you would get at Wendy's.

• Don't be mad at me if your family is tired of eatting ground beef...haha. You can make your meals so fast by preparation before freezing. All those extra dirty dishes from preparation have been washed already and in one sitting while preparing the ground beef ahead of time.