Smoothing the Way online

I buy 10 pounds of ground beef, and then make the following...

I brown 5 pounds all at once. Actually, instead of "browning" the usual way, I add a couple of cups of water, so I'm actually "boiling" -- it gets rid of a lot of the fat. Then I separate the cooked meat into 5 small baggies and freeze them. These are great for adding to taco seasoning, spaghetti sauce, casseroles.

I take 2.5 pounds and separate into enough hamburger paddies for my family and freeze them in one package.

I make a meatloaf with the other 2.5 pounds, adding ALL the ingredients and shaping it into a loaf; then I freeze it in foil.

Now I have 7 easy meals. I try to take the meat out the night before I want to use it so it has thawed in the refrigerator over night. Just having this part of the work done cuts down on supper prep time immensely!

Another thing I do is make meat balls with them and freeze. Then when teen boy is hungry and I'm way too stressed, I just microwave them, and hand to him with toothpicks and ketchup.

We do the same thing with ground beef, although if I send dh to the store, he comes back with 30 pounds at a time. The best time to get ground beef is in the fall when farmers are cleaning out their herds. Also, going early on Tuesday or Wednesday morning at Sam's when they have beef clearance marked. We buy the patties, just cheaper and easier.

This really cuts down on prep time. I just have the kids get the meat out of the freeze, along with the precut onion and garlic and bell peppers and half the work is done! We can do many dishes with these easy zipped meal starters.

I have found that cooking a double batch of things, then freezing one, is an easy way to do things.... I have several ground beef recipes that I love that I just double, then freeze the excess. I also do the cook 5 lbs. at a time, then freeze in 1 lb. baggies.