Sunday: Daylight Saving Time, Twelve Pounds of Ground Beef & a Whole Lot of Dinner Insurance

Well, good morning to everyone who thought they were going to get an extra hour of sleep today.

Apparently, nobody told my younger children.

We were up super early, thanks to daylight saving time.

And can somebody please explain why we’re still doing this?

Because combining Halloween, a house full of candy, and a time change seems like a particularly cruel joke for parents.

The kids were up early, everybody was excited about their Halloween candy, and we were apparently just going to get started with the day.

At least I had plenty of coffee.

Our Halloween Candy Philosophy

And yes, there was candy being eaten first thing this morning.

Here’s my philosophy on Halloween candy.

For the first couple of days after Halloween, I pretty much let the kids enjoy it.

They’ve been looking forward to trick-or-treating, they have all this candy, and I don’t really want to spend the entire weekend policing every piece.

So we let them enjoy it for a couple of days.

And then?

Out of sight, out of mind.

We put most of it away, and it becomes an occasional treat.

A piece after lunch.

A little something after dinner.

That sort of thing.

And it works really well for our family.

I know that approach wouldn’t work for every child or every household, but it works for us.

I find that if I make the candy a huge issue, it just becomes a bigger deal.

So we enjoy the excitement for a couple of days, and then we move on.

Although I will say that Halloween candy combined with daylight saving time is quite the parenting experience.

Breakfast and the Halloween Aftermath

For breakfast, we kept things simple.

Costco bagels, bacon, and our usual assortment of breakfast options.

Nothing complicated.

Because we had some cleaning up to do.

When we got home from trick-or-treating last night, I wasn’t particularly interested in organizing everything.

We had costumes everywhere.

Glow sticks.

Candy piles.

Random Halloween accessories.

All the things that somehow end up scattered around the house after a big night.

So this morning, we got everything sorted.

Costumes put away.

Candy organized.

Glow sticks collected.

And then I tackled the bathrooms.

Because apparently, even after Halloween, bathrooms still need to be cleaned.

Very inconsiderate of them.

But it felt good to get the house back in order.

Especially because I had a big kitchen project planned for the afternoon.

Leftover Burgers for Lunch

For lunch, we did a repeat of Saturday night’s dinner.

Burgers!

I’d made a big batch of burger patties yesterday from the first six-pound package of ground beef I bought at Costco.

We grilled them before trick-or-treating, and thankfully, we had leftovers.

So today I pulled those burgers out and reheated them.

We served them with chips and made a simple lunch out of it.

And I took exactly zero pictures.

Not one.

Because sometimes I’m too busy cooking and eating to remember that I’m supposed to be documenting all of this.

But I promise we ate lunch.

And it was delicious.

I love having leftover burgers.

They’re such an easy lunch, especially when everybody is home and hungry.

Time to Finish Processing Twelve Pounds of Ground Beef

Remember Friday’s Costco trip?

I bought two of those big six-pound packages of ground beef.

Twelve pounds total.

And I had a plan.

Yesterday, I worked through the first package.

I used about four pounds to make burger patties for Halloween dinner.

Then I used the remaining ground beef to make two logs of homemade teriyaki beef summer sausage.

I mixed the summer sausage, formed the logs, and put them into the refrigerator to cure overnight.

So today, I needed to finish that project.

And then tackle the second six-pound package.

Plus, I wanted to make meatloaf.

And restock my freezer with cooked ground beef and pork sausage.

Sounds like a lot, right?

But here’s the thing.

The actual hands-on work took less than twenty minutes.

And that’s what I want to show people.

You don’t necessarily need to spend an entire Sunday standing in the kitchen to get a lot of food prepared.

Sometimes you just need a plan, a couple of pans, and a little pocket of time.

First: Homemade Teriyaki Beef Summer Sausage

I started by pulling the two logs of homemade beef summer sausage out of the refrigerator.

They’d been curing overnight according to my recipe.

So they were ready to cook.

I preheated the oven to 275°F and put the summer sausage in.

My recipe takes approximately two hours at that temperature.

And I always check the internal temperature with a thermometer.

Today, I cooked the logs until they reached 165°F.

Then I pulled them out and let them cool.

That’s it.

The actual hands-on time to get the summer sausage into the oven was maybe two minutes.

And while it cooked, I could move on to everything else.

Next: The Second Six-Pound Package of Ground Beef

Once the summer sausage was in the oven, I pulled out the other six-pound package of ground beef.

And here’s how I divided it.

I put approximately 2½ pounds of raw ground beef into a large mixing bowl.

That was going to become meatloaf.

The rest went into my large sauté pan.

That beef was going to be cooked, cooled, portioned, and frozen.

Because after this past week, my freezer stash of cooked ground beef was getting pretty low.

And I wanted to replenish it.

I love having cooked ground beef ready to go.

And While I’m Cooking Beef, Why Not Cook Sausage?

I also opened a package of pork sausage.

I divided that in half.

Half went into the mixing bowl with the raw ground beef for my meatloaf.

And the other half went into another pot on the stove.

Because here’s something I do all the time.

If I’m already cooking ground beef, I might as well cook some sausage too.

I can have two pans going at once.

Ground beef in one.

Pork sausage in the other.

And I just move back and forth between them, stirring and breaking up the meat as it cooks.

Homemade Meatloaf for the Freezer

While the ground beef and sausage were cooking, I mixed up my meatloaf.

I used the approximately 2½ pounds of ground beef I’d set aside, along with the pork sausage and the other ingredients from my usual meatloaf recipe.

I mixed everything together, put it into my loaf pans, and got the meatloaves into the oven.

And then?

I was basically done.

The summer sausage was cooking.

The meatloaves were cooking.

The ground beef and sausage were finishing on the stove.

All of those things were underway.

And I’d spent less than twenty minutes actively working on them.

I know that sounds crazy when you’re talking about that much meat.

But it’s true.

Once you have a system, it goes so quickly.

While Everything Cooked, I Cleaned Bathrooms

And this is the part I think people sometimes miss when I talk about protein prep.

I wasn’t standing in the kitchen for hours.

I got everything started.

And then I went and cleaned bathrooms.

Because the food didn’t need me to stand there staring at it.

The summer sausage needed time in the oven.

The meatloaf needed time in the oven.

And once the ground beef and pork sausage were cooked, they just needed to be cooled and portioned.

So I used that cooking time to get other things done around the house.

That’s what I mean when I talk about cooking in pockets of time.

You don’t necessarily need a completely free afternoon.

You just need to get things started and then let them cook while you do something else.

Cooling and Freezing the Ground Beef and Sausage

Once the ground beef and pork sausage were fully cooked, I drained off the excess liquid and fat.

Then I let them cool.

I don’t want to put steaming-hot meat directly into freezer bags.

So I spread the meat into shallow containers to help it cool quickly, refrigerated it promptly, and then portioned it once it was chilled.

And into the freezer it went.

Now I have cooked ground beef ready for future dinners.

And cooked pork sausage ready for breakfasts or other meals.

That’s a huge win.

My Meatloaf Trick: Chill It Before Slicing

Once the meatloaves were fully cooked, I pulled them out of the oven.

And here’s something I really like to do.

I don’t slice my meatloaf right away.

I let it cool.

Then I cover the whole pan with foil and put it into the refrigerator.

I make sure it gets refrigerated promptly rather than leaving it sitting on the counter for an extended period.

And then I deal with slicing it the next day.

Because I think meatloaf slices so much better when it’s cold.

When you try to slice hot meatloaf, it can crumble and fall apart.

But when it’s chilled?

You can get those beautiful, neat slices.

The Summer Sausage Was a Hit

Meanwhile, the summer sausage finished cooking.

I checked the temperature to make sure it had reached 165°F, then let the logs cool.

And once they were cool enough to handle, the kids started eating.

And eating.

And eating.

They went through more than half of one entire log almost immediately.

Which I suppose is a pretty good endorsement.

I mean, I had just spent the weekend making homemade summer sausage, and apparently they were very happy about that decision.

So now I have about half a log left in the refrigerator.

And I put the second log into the freezer.

Although I suspect that frozen log isn’t going to stay there very long.

I have a feeling it’ll be coming out again in a couple of days.

Which is fine with me.

That’s why I made it.

Let’s Look at What I Accomplished

So between yesterday and today, I worked through both six-pound packages of Costco ground beef.

And here’s what we ended up with:

• Burger patties: About four pounds of ground beef turned into burgers for Halloween dinner, with leftovers for Sunday lunch.
• Teriyaki beef summer sausage: Two homemade logs, one mostly eaten already and the other in the freezer.
• Homemade meatloaf: Made with approximately 2½ pounds of ground beef plus pork sausage, cooked and chilling for slicing tomorrow.
• Cooked ground beef: A fresh supply portioned for the freezer.
• Cooked pork sausage: Another batch ready for future breakfasts and meals.

That’s a lot of food.

And it all came from two big packages of ground beef, one package of pork sausage, and a couple of little pockets of time over the weekend.

This is why I love buying meat in bulk.

I’m not necessarily making twelve pounds of the same thing.

I’m turning it into different components that will make meals easier for weeks.

And that’s exactly what I wanted.

Sunday Dinner at My Parents’ House

After all that kitchen productivity, we headed over to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner.

And I was very happy to let somebody else handle dinner tonight.

One of my favorite things about fall is that my mom always has a puzzle table going.

So before dinner, we spent some time working on a puzzle.

I love that.

There’s something so relaxing about sitting around a table, talking, and working on a puzzle together.

Especially after a busy weekend.

And of course, my mom sent us home with leftovers.

Including steak.

Because apparently, I get free steak every week 🙂

I joke about this, but it’s becoming a pretty reliable part of my Sunday routine.

We go to my parents’ house.

We have a wonderful dinner.

And I come home with steak.

I’m not complaining.