Community Lunch Lasagne

When it comes to food and cooking for others, running out is NEVER an option. If there is a fault in this category, it is that we tend to over-do it. So, when we volunteered to help out with food for the Community Lunch after church this last week, we aimed high...

... top of this mountain of twenty loaves of garlic bread, high.

Prepare Ahead: buying larger quantities of meat to pre-marinate, spice, dice, and sauce them yourself!

About once every week or two I buy several larger packages of meat and end up spending about 20 or 30 minutes with them.

How do you know what is a good price for meat? Start by looking at the price per pound or the price per kilogram. The price per kilo for regular ground beef will usually be the cheapest; the price per kilo for boneless skinless chicken breasts will be the most. 

With beef, watch the prices per kilo and compare them to other cuts - when I bought these “marinating” steaks, they were $1.20 per kilo cheaper than cubed stewing beef!!

Another important thing to watch is the “best before" date or the “packed on” date. I always want to take home the freshest meat, so next to the price per pound, that is the next most important.

This week, I bought one package of marinating steaks and one package of chicken thighs with the bone in.

In our family, lunch is leftovers from dinner the night before, so when I am packing up meat, I am actually packaging one dinner and one lunch for four. 

This is a wonderful opportunity to plan ahead if you are cooking for one or two or if there are several nights of the week when you need to throw something in the slow cooker or the oven on low before you run out the door for a few hours. This pre-planning has saved us from eating dinner out and spending nearly $40 when the dinner in the oven costs less than $10 and will also feed us lunch tomorrow. 

Pizza... Home Made Pizza

There is something so warm and comforting about the smell of baking bread when it is cold and dark outside. On those days, I find myself scouring cookbooks and food blogs looking for the recipe I will bake. Last night, it was home made pizza from a cookbook my mother-in-law made for Chris when he left home.

Making your own pizza dough is actually quite simple. It involves paying attention for small periods of time, lots of ignoring, a few minutes of baking, then - VOILA! - pizza!!

Yes, it is that simple. Okay, it might take a little longer the first time or two, but after that, it is simple AND quick.