Remember "plan-overs"?

Those lovely frozen dinners I make from what some folks call leftovers?

We never have any leftovers around here. No bits and pieces to put in the 'fridge and forget about, or wonder what to do with for days so we don't feel guilty wasting perfectly good food. Usually, I plan to make more than enough at a few meals during a week; ... then divvy up the remainder after supper to make perfect plan-over meals. This week, after wrecking my back lifting my end of a bathtub in and out of its slot one too many times .... it is absolutely wonderful to just hobble to the freezer and choose supper from the stack of containers. Thaw in microwave until it can be turned out onto a plate and then cover with a lid and nuke some more til hot and enjoy !! No mess, no pots, no clean up....no lurching around the kitchen, trying to cook something when I can hardly sit, stand or walk.



and look .... how inviting is this for a lovely little chicken dinner from that amazingly moist chicken we had a few weeks ago!

Today, while blog hopping, I found a great recipe!
It was for chicken...but I had pork thawed..so just adapted it to suit me. Oh, was it yummy!

"Blog hopping"... what fun! Of course, it can take hours of your day if you let it, but, every so often it can be very rewarding.

Remember "plan-overs"??.... here it is in action. A lovely meal... and plenty of meat and sauce left over. Also..the two smaller containers..one had some rice and the other a bit of mashed spuds.... they were sitting in the fridge. Waste not... want not.. There was enough sauce to add some to those as well and they can be lunches for me, while the larger containers will be lunch for "you-know-who"....

"Plan-overs"

Tip for making sure you always have something good to eat in emergency situations: .... make what I call "plan-overs". Some people call them leftovers...not me. At my house.... these things are planned.

I make and freeze lunches on a regular basis because Greg takes them to work. It is so simple...just toss in an extra spud.. make an extra chop or enough chicken to have a few pieces left for making up a great lunch. Instead of putting leftovers in the fridge.. put them into a lunch size Rubbermaid container... meat, potatoes...peas, beans or carrots...whatever you have left over and add some more veggies if necessary, then freeze them. I label them and stack them on one side of my freezer on a little shelf... I like to have about half a dozen or so in there at any one time so that I can pick and choose what to send in his backpack.

The guys at his office call them Greg's Envy Lunches. They always comment on the aromas wafting from the microwave at lunchtime...even stop by to see what he is heating up... some of the guys thought it was a great idea and have now begun to bring their own lunches. They hate eating out every day...not to mention how expensive it can get. .. and don't like bringing sandwiches.

I also love to have some great things in the freezer for days like today. If I get outside in the good weather...and/or, especially if Greg is finding us things to keep us busy for too many hours....it is imperative. Who wants to come in the house ... late in the afternoon.. dirty, tired and feeling not the least bit like cooking and try to whip up a gourmet meal? Well, not me anyway.....

For lunch or snacks to keep us going... it is whatever I find in the fridge when we get hungry. Today it was a Jamaican meat patty, a cinnamon bagel that I toasted and slathered with peanut butter, a banana and more juice. You would think after about 5 glasses of juice we would feel "juice logged"..but we must have been working it off as fast as we drank it. Matter of fact I worked off a pound.... I know that because I weighed myself in the morning... what a slave driver that guy is.

Supper today ended up being turkey chili that we found in the freezer and heated while getting cleaned up. We had fresh whole wheat Kaiser buns too...yum! I was so sore and tired I didn't care what I ate really..but that was wonderful.

Days are absolutely flying by; I want to test a few more recipes before posting them. I need to feel they are pretty much perfect in my own eyes before I expect you to try them. No point in
having you try one...finding it not great and then.... leery of trying another. Nope...can't have
that.