Starting with fresh ingredients cuts down on prep time and leaves more time for whatever. Dealing with frozen meat is ok if you are the type to plan ahead, or know how your day is going to play out. That doesn’t happen with us so much lately.
Sometimes it’s just nicer to start with fresh.
Tonight was one of those days. Technically, it was Greg’s day off, but he had been called in as a butcher couldn’t make it. I was scheduled 6 to 3, and I had planned on picking up the kids after school. However, he managed to get everything done in time and he was able to go get the kids. I was left with the unenviable task of returning home to put together dinner.
Since he normally cooks on his day off, I hadn’t thought as far as dinner yet. Neither of us had thought to pull something out of the freezer. And, to add some fun, we both had somewhere to be at 6:00, so it needed to be something I could make in about an hour.
So, before I left work, I had Carol wrap me up a nice big chuck roast, grabbed some fresh potatoes, roasted potato seasoning mix, frozen corn and fresh baby carrots.
“What?”, you say, “Chuck roast?”
There’s no way I have time to get that ready, right?
Actually I have an Insta pot. It’s my new best friend for nights like this.
So 4 pound chuck goes in, along with some of my usual ingredients, straight into the pot and set the timer for an hour. Then I quickly cut up some potatoes and tossed with the roasted potato seasoning mix and some olive oil and placed that in the oven for about 45 minutes.
I tossed the baby carrots and corn into pots on the stove, ready to cook closer to dinner time.
There. Dinner prep is done, and I can move onto cleaning my kitchen. Or playing a round or two of Luxor.
