Jeff Pruitt, if you are reading this, exit out and forget your ever saw it. This post will not reveal a secret gift, just a cooking secret I prefer you not know. Thanks Mr. Love you!
Now that he's gone I can share my secret freely.
A few years ago I learned something very important about my husband. We were having some friends over for dinner before a church softball game. Since the boys would be playing softball, I thought we should eat something kind of light and I already had the ingredients to make Pampered Chef's 3-Cheese Garden Pizza so I thought that would be a good choice. I sliced all my veggies, mixed everything up, spread it on top, popped it in the oven, and pulled it out just as our guest were arriving. I began serving it and Jeff says, "Where's the meat?" to which I replied, "There isn't any. It's a GARDEN pizza." Then he asked, "Well then, what's the main course?" "Ummmm, your eating the main course." "But there's no meat. This is an appetizer. Main courses have meat." Lesson learned: Dinner must have meat.
That was pre-Lucy so we had millions of dollars to buy all the meat we needed for dinner. (Yes, millions!) Well now we have Lucy and 1 income and we lost all of our millions so I'm left to find ways to save on our meaty dinners. One blog I frequent says to eat 1 meatless meal per week to help save money. My 1st thought was, "Yes, that would save us money. I would only need to do that 1 time and the poor hubs would starve to death so then I'm just left feeding Lucy and myself. Cha-ching!" But then I realized that if I starve the bread-winner, there would be no more bread so Lucy and I would starve too. Hmmm no meat = no more Pruitts. My sister-in-law once told me about a book she read that said to cut the meat called for in a recipe in half. When she told me this, we both said that would never work in our families. Imagine making meat for tacos. No, no. That will never work.
Buuuuuttttttt, 1 night as I was going to make dinner, I realized I only had half a pound of hamburger meat when I needed a whole pound. What's a girl to do in this situation? I could load up the kid, drive to the store, buy the meat, load up the meat and the kid, drive home, and make dinner an hour later than usual, OR try the half the meat thing and see how it goes. Bet you can't guess which one I chose... Half pound of meat it is! So I made my meal and guess what... no one starved! We all had plenty to eat plus leftovers and no one could tell a difference. I couldn't even tell a difference. So I tried it again the next night, with chicken. It worked again. So I kept trying different recipes using half of the meat called for in the recipe, including with tacos, and we're all still here so I'd say the little experiment was a success. The secret is to cut the meat into small little pieces. When browning hamburger meat, you'll need these 2 things:
The mix in chop helps you get the meat into little tiny pieces. It really doesn't have be used with the micro cooker, but the micro cooker allows you to brown your meat in the microwave (sounds gross, but I promise it tastes exactly like it's been done on the stove) which is great because I hate the smell and sight of cooking meat.
For chicken recipes I use 1 chicken breast cut into about 1/2 cubes or 1/4 inch strips, depending on what I'm making.
Of course, this won't work for everything. If you're making steak or chicken to be served as whole pieces of steak or chicken, then you'll need the whole thing. For this, I give Jeff a whole breast or steak and Lucy and I share 1.
I hope this little secret helps you save some dough. Happy cooking!
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