Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Saving Time And Money With The Family Sized Packages Of Ground Beef At Costco

As much as we enjoy cooking and eating together, my wife and I both work and when we get home at the end of the day, we want to eat dinner not very long after we get home. One of the strategies my lovely wife came up with that support this is to always have cooked, browned ground beef in the freezer ready to go.

What we do is we buy those big five or six pound packages of ground beef at Costco and then we brown all the beef at once.  Browning one great big package is really not that much more work than browning one or two pounds.  After the meat is browned, we let it cool, put it in containers and freeze it.



This saves us a lot of time in many ways:

  • As previously mentioned, browning a big package of meat is very time efficient
  • We have the meat divided up into easy to use packages
  • There is always cooked meat in the freezer, ready for us to make dinner with
  • Using frozen cooked meat is much faster than taking frozen  raw meat and then cooking it
 So even if you are a couple or just one person, buying the big packages of ground beef makes a lot of sense. It is both economical and a huge time saver.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

A Review Of Skotidakis Jalapeno Greek Yogurt Dip On Sale

The current coupon book ends tomorrow 1/29 and I thought I would make a few comments about this fun dip that is on sale.

It comes in a 24oz container, so there is enough if you want to serve a larger group of people.  As for the dip itself, it is a competent, well made product that I think has a lot of uses. It has a bit of heat that builds but it is not heat only for the sake of heat, it definitely has flavor.

However, it is not an overpowering flavor, so it should be a good crowd pleaser. People that want some "zing" in their dip will like it but those with milder tastes will not find it overpowering.

And I think it is versatile too. We had it with some the Garlic and Black Bean Tostitos that I am fond of and it worked pretty well.

My wife also suggested that it would be great on baked potatoes and I think that would be a excellent thing to do to a spud.

I also see this as a garnish on Mexican style dishes.

While not the most amazing dip on the planet it is a good product and being yogurt based, it is probably healthier for you than something based on sour cream.

I recommend the product and the next time it is on sale, we will probably buy it again

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Been Gone And Now I Am Back With: Peroggies With Spinach & Crumbled Black Bean Burger

It has been a long time since I posted and a lot has happened. The Holidays came and went and I got a great gift for Christmas:  A New Job!  That and a few other things have been a distraction but it is time to return to blogging.


As time goes buy, I will probably be posting a few things that I have not gotten around to over the past few months but I do hope to keep more current with what we are cooking and eating.


As for this dish: my wife and I are very fond of those lovely  black bean burgers we get from Costco.   They are great being served as burgers, but for a long time, I have wondered how they would work as an ingredient in a recipe.  One night, I came home from work and my wonderful wife answered the question for me.


She took some of that wonderful spinach we get from Costco and mixed it with some of the crumbled black bean burgers.  Then, she tossed them with some pierogies.  She was thinking the dish would either be a disaster or a big success and guess what, we both thought it was a big success. And it was interesting to look at too.




The flavors really worked well together.  The black bean burger gave a bit of zing without being heat for the sake of heat. The spinach gave a lively, fresh vegetable flavor to the dish. Finally, the pierogies added some nice heartiness to the meal. And all this came from what we had on hand, so the dish went together in minutes.

I am sure we will do more with the black bean burgers and we will probably do this particular variation again.