Wednesday: Trip Bacon, Summer Sausage Experiments & a Unicorn Dinner

This morning the kids finished off the last of the bacon from yesterday, which means tomorrow is obviously a bacon day.

And actually, I’m going to start doubling my bacon batches from here on out because we’re getting closer to our lake trip.

Starting the Vacation Bacon Stash

If you’ve been reading the Kitchen Log for a while, you know I do this before trips.

Anytime I’m already making bacon over the couple of weeks leading up to vacation, I make twice as much. I don’t cook the extra bacon completely crisp. I par-bake it, let it cool, portion it into bags, and freeze it.

Then on vacation, I can pull out a bag in the morning and finish reheating it. We get hot, crispy bacon without me standing in the kitchen cooking package after package for seven people.

So tomorrow: more bacon, and we’re officially starting the vacation stash.

The kids also finished the bagels my mom had given us, and then we got into our school morning. One of my kiddos actually teaches a piano lesson, so we had someone over for that today too.

Costco Steak for an Easy Lunch

I picked raspberries with Daphne before lunch and she managed to even bring some inside without eating all of them!

For lunch, I pulled out a package of prepared steak from Costco that I had defrosted earlier this week.

I believe it’s Kevin’s brand, and it’s one of their already-cooked sous vide steak options. I bought it when Costco had it on sale and tucked it into the freezer.

This is exactly why.

I get a pan searing hot and put the pieces of steak directly into the pan for literally about a minute. It’s already cooked, so I’m not trying to cook the steak again. I just want to heat it and get a little sear on the outside.

Most of the kids really like it.

My 7-year-old absolutely does not.

So he had a hot dog.

I served the steak with the last of the pasta I had cooked earlier this week, plus fruit, vegetables and avocado salsa for dipping.

Another easy lunch, and the pasta is officially gone.

Another Not-Pretty Salad

I made myself another version of my current not-pretty, non-salad salad.

I didn’t buy my usual box of lettuce this week, so I’ve been making these bowls with whatever vegetables I have around instead.

Today I added a little of the Costco steak and some of the grilled chicken from last night.

Then I made the dressing I’ve been eating constantly this summer:

Avocado Salsa Dressing

Mix avocado salsa with a little regular salsa, rice wine vinegar, honey, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I don’t really measure it. I just mix and taste until I like the balance.

No olive oil needed, and it is so good on these bowls.

Beef Summer Sausage Experiment, Round Two and Granola

Back home, it was time to cook yesterday’s beef summer sausage experiment.

I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to make my homemade beef summer sausage into individual, portable portions for the cooler.

Last week, I rolled individual sticks. They worked, but forming every single one took too long.

This time, I rolled the entire mixture out thin on a sheet pan and scored it into large rectangular strips. Then I let it cure overnight in the refrigerator.

Today I baked it.

And we’re getting closer.

The shape: I really liked it. It’s much faster than rolling individual sticks, and I think I’d actually roll the meat even thinner next time.

The cooking time: This surprised me. It still took about 75 minutes. But it makes sense because even though I scored it, I was essentially cooking one large, flat piece of meat rather than separate sticks.

The flavor: I experimented with reducing the Morton Tender Quick to 1½ teaspoons this time because people have asked me about using less. I found this batch wasn’t salty enough for my preference.

Next time, rather than changing that again, I think I’m going to swap the garlic powder for garlic salt and see if that gets the flavor where I want it.

I think we need one more iteration, and then hopefully I’ll have a version I’m ready to share.

But I’m really happy with the direction this is going. The shape is much more practical, and the prep was significantly faster.

I also cooked granola. I haven’t made it all summer…in my mind granola is just a fall/winter/cold month food…but my 13 year old son has been asking to make it so we did! I posted it as a reel. Here is the recipe we use:

Maple Almond Granola

4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup almond flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

Mix everything together, spread it onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, and bake at 300°F for 35–45 minutes, gently stirring around the 20-minute mark.

Then let it cool completely before breaking it apart. It will crisp up as it cools, so don’t judge it straight out of the oven!

Meatloaf for 17 People

I also dealt with the two meatloaves I cooked yesterday.

I purposely waited until today to package them because cold meatloaf is so much easier to slice cleanly.

I sliced everything, portioned it into my FoodSaver bags, vacuum sealed it, and put it straight into the freezer.

That’s going to be one of the dinners I serve on our lake trip when I’m feeding 17 people.

When I’m cooking for a crowd, I’m not looking for an opportunity to experiment. I want food I’ve made a hundred times, that I know people like, and that I know I can execute without spending my entire vacation in the kitchen.

Dinner Insurance Meatloaf absolutely fits that category.

The meatloaf is cooked. The dinner roll dough is frozen. We’re slowly building that dinner now so that when we get to the lake, most of my work is already done.

A Unicorn Dinner

I spent more time working in the basement this afternoon, and I’m hoping to share an update on that project tomorrow because we’ve made a lot of progress.

By dinnertime, I wanted easy.

So I made what I call a unicorn dinner around here: a meal that essentially everyone likes.

Burger bowls.

And because I cooked all that ground beef yesterday, dinner was incredibly fast.

I put the cooked ground beef into a pot with a splash of water, a little fat, garlic powder and salt and warmed it through.

For the potato component, sometimes I’ll do shredded potatoes or French fries. Tonight I made roasted potatoes.

Then I put out all the burger toppings: lettuce, pickles, onion, cheese, ketchup, mustard, whatever everyone wanted.

The adults and my teen like to layer everything into an actual burger bowl.

A lot of my younger kids want absolutely nothing touching anything else, so theirs becomes ground beef here, potatoes there, toppings somewhere else.

Same dinner. Same components. Eat it however you want.

And there were zero leftovers.

That’s a unicorn dinner.