Fast Dinner Friday - Cooking Meat Ahead of Time

One of my secrets in the kitchen is to cook meat in bulk.

If I have a family pack of chicken breasts, you will find me putting them all in the slow cooker or marinating them and baking them. Five pound package of ground beef? You won't always see me cutting it into one pound packages. Brown it all at once.

You're going to be cooking at least some of it then so why not all?

This is a HUGE time savor.

Tonight our family is having chicken enchiladas. With already having the chicken cooked, the prep time is cut in about half to three-quarters. Here is my "go to" chicken enchilada recipe.

Creamy Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
2 cups cooked chicken
pepper
cumin
garlic powder
10 wheat tortilla shells
2 cups cheese (I use white cheddar)
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 can (4 oz) diced chiles

Preheat oven to 350 and great a 9x13 baking dish.

In bowl, mix chicken with a pinch of cumin, pepper and garlic powder. Then add one cup of cheese and mix. Fill tortillas with one-fourth to one-half of the chicken and cheese mixture. Place side by side in baking dish.

In a saucepan, melt butter and add flour. Cook on medium-low until mixture is bubbly. Slowly stir in chicken broth. Whisk over medium - high heat  until thick and bubbly. Turn down or take off heat.

Add sour cream and green chiles (I always puree my chiles). Be careful not to have on full or high heat. You don't want the sour cream to curdle.

Pour sour cream and chile mixture over enchiladas and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese on top is browned.

This meal is really easy to do all the prep work and stick in the fridge until you're ready to bake. Just add a couple extra minutes and dinner will be a super Fast Dinner!

But I Don't Wanna... and a Quick "Throw Together" Dinner !!

Put I really don't want to cook...

That seems to be a continual thought going through my mind lately. I will not beat myself up about this because I know I cannot be the only mama in the world who is run down and just doesn't want to think about preparing dinner.

Can I get a witness?! :)

Today, I rose above. I made breakfast, lunch, bread AND dinner!

Above is my quick, easy and thrown together dinner...

Chicken - I butterflied it, put it in a pan and dumped BBQ sauce on it. Put in the a 350 degree over for an hour and there it was!

Potatoes - in a large zip loc bag, I added three pounds of red potatoes (halved and quartered), 1/3 cup of olive oil and a package of oil soup mix. Shake it baby, shake it! Put in a greased baking pan and put inside the oven (next to the chicken) for 40 to 45 minutes.

Peas - pull them out of the freezer (you know, you are good and put them up from your garden last year! :) ). Warm them with 2 tablespoons of butter.

Voila! Done and dinner is at the table!

Next step, I need to revisit the series on FINDING the kitchen table! :)