Tuesday: Banana Bread, Vacation Freezer Prep & Finally Dealing with All That Ground Beef

This morning I made one of my 11-year-old’s favorite breakfasts: a baked potato with bacon.

She loves baked potatoes, so why not? I microwaved the potato, added butter and seasoning, and she ate it with some of the bacon I made yesterday. A couple of the other kiddos finished more of the bagels my mom sent home with us.

Then we got into what was a very busy morning.

We did schoolwork, one kiddo had a makeup piano lesson, another had a reading call, and another had a violin lesson. Daphne spent some time giving me a new hairstyle!

And in between all of that, I started working on food.

Banana Bread with Daphne

First up: banana bread.

Daphne loves a kitchen project, and banana bread is perfect because you can give a little kid three bananas and let her mash them for as long as she wants.

My trick is to put a folded kitchen towel underneath the bowl so it doesn’t slide all over the counter. Then I handed her the bananas and let her go to town.

Mash those bananas into oblivion. Make the fun last.

I use an egg-free banana bread recipe, but my bigger tip here works with whatever quick bread recipe you already love:

Stop baking your quick breads in loaf pans.

I almost always use a quarter sheet pan.

I know loaf pans have their place. I use them all the time for things like my loaf-pan chicken. But quick breads? Give me the quarter sheet pan.

A traditional loaf takes forever to bake, the top can get too dark before the middle is done, and sometimes you cut into it only to discover that slightly gooey center.

Instead, I line a quarter sheet pan with parchment, spread the batter into it, and bake it at the same temperature the recipe calls for. I start checking it at about half the original baking time.

I’m looking for three things: the center springs back when gently pressed, a toothpick comes out clean, and the edges are beginning to pull away from the pan.

Plus, once it’s cooled, you can just cut the whole thing into squares.

This batch is actually headed to the freezer because we’re going to bring it along on our lake trip in a couple of weeks.

Another Thing for the Vacation Freezer

While I was already working in the kitchen, I made a batch of my sweet milk dinner roll dough.

Again, we’re not eating those today.

I’m planning to make dinner rolls when I cook dinner for our extended family at the lake, and there’s no reason I need to be starting the dough from scratch while we’re on vacation.

So I made the dough today, let it start rising for about 10–15 minutes, transferred it to a freezer bag, and put it into the freezer.

One more job Future Me doesn’t have to do on vacation.

Chick-fil-A Tuesday

Lunch was the easy button.

During the summer, my mom takes my daughter to violin, and they happen to drive right past Chick-fil-A. So she very sweetly picks up lunch for the kids.

They had Chick-fil-A, and I reheated some of last night’s meatloaf and vegetables for myself.

Everyone fed, almost no work from me.

Then I had a list of errands to tackle with a couple of the kids.

Our fishing poles somehow got all messed up last year, and I am not the person you want untangling fishing line and diagnosing fishing pole problems. Since we’re taking them to the lake, I found someone who could fix them and dropped those off.

We also picked up library books and grabbed a retainer from the orthodontist.

Meanwhile, back at home, Fiona made chocolate chip cookie bars.

Those are also going into the freezer for the lake trip.

So between the banana bread and cookie bars, we’ve already got some easy homemade treats ready to bring with us.

I Finally Cooked the Ground Beef

Yesterday I told you I was going to cook the two packages of ground beef from Costco.

And then I didn’t.

Today I finally did.

This is the kind of prep that looks like a massive undertaking when I list everything I made, but the whole thing took me around 40 minutes of active work.

From that big batch of ground beef, I made two meatloaves that are now chilling in the refrigerator. Tomorrow, once they’re completely cold, I’ll slice and package them for the freezer. Those will come with us to the lake for an easy dinner.

I also prepped another batch of my homemade beef summer sausage, but I’m trying another variation on the shape.

I’ve been experimenting with making it more portable so I don’t always have to bring a whole log and slice it. This time I rolled the mixture out into a thinner sheet and cut it into larger rectangular strips.

Those are curing in the refrigerator overnight, and I’ll cook them tomorrow. I’m very curious to see how this version turns out.

Then I browned the rest of the ground beef. Some will stay in the refrigerator for us to use this week, and the rest is going into the freezer.

While I was at it, I cooked a big batch of pork breakfast sausage too.

Again, some for now, some for the trip.

This is what I mean when I talk about prepping ingredients instead of necessarily prepping entire meals. I don’t need to know exactly what every bit of ground beef or sausage is becoming yet. I just know that having it cooked gives me options.

Dijon Grilled Chicken

And because apparently I hadn’t cooked enough meat today, I also grilled chicken for dinner.

I’ve been making this Dijon marinade constantly lately because the mustard makes such a difference in helping all the seasoning actually cling to the chicken.

For the marinade, I used:

• Olive oil
• A generous amount of Dijon mustard
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Smoked paprika
• Italian seasoning

I let the chicken sit in that, then grilled it, pulling individual pieces as they reached temperature rather than waiting for every piece to finish at the same time.

For dinner, I kept everything else very simple: grilled chicken, rice, sautéed vegetables, and fresh watermelon.

Easy breezy dinner after a day with a lot happening in the kitchen.

The Three-Day Rule

Now I can look at my refrigerator tonight and know we’re completely set on cooked protein for at least the next three days.

We’ve got grilled chicken. Cooked ground beef. Pork sausage. Meatloaf. And tomorrow I’ll cook the summer sausage.

Plus, I’ve started building the vacation freezer with banana bread, cookie bars, dinner roll dough and meatloaf.

That’s the kind of prep I love because I didn’t spend an entire day “meal prepping.” I fit little jobs around school, lessons and errands, and now both this week’s food and some of our vacation food are handled.

As for Costco, we’ll see.

We have a busy weekend coming up, so I either need to sneak in a trip Thursday or Friday, or we’re going to stretch what we have until Monday.

We’ll see what the next three days tell me.