Saturday: Halloween Pumpkins, Six Pounds of Ground Beef & Burgers Before Trick-or-Treating

Happy Halloween!

We got up this morning, and I made some eggs for Chris.

And guess what?

We cracked open an egg with two yolks.

A double yolk!

I think that’s supposed to be good luck, right?

So I decided that meant we were going to have a great day.

And actually, we ended up having a really productive one.

The kids had our usual breakfast of Costco bagels and bacon, and then we got to work.

We had yard work to do, pumpkins to carve, six pounds of ground beef to process, and Halloween festivities to enjoy.

Plus, I wanted to get everybody fed before trick-or-treating.

It was a full Saturday, but a really fun one.

Halloween Morning and Pumpkin Carving

We started by getting some yard work done.

Then I cleaned up the kitchen and got everything ready for pumpkin carving.

And of course, my four-year-old had some very ambitious ideas.

Daphne wanted to carve an extremely detailed pumpkin.

Which was adorable.

But I also knew that we were going to be the ones doing most of the actual carving.

So I had an idea.

I told her to look at the design on her shirt.

What if we copied that onto her pumpkin?

And thankfully, she loved that plan.

So we used her shirt as inspiration and carved her pumpkin.

And then, because this is Daphne we’re talking about, we also carved her name into the side.

Because obviously, everybody needs to know which pumpkin belongs to her.

She was thrilled.

Lunch From Last Night’s Grilled Chicken

Once we’d finished our morning projects, it was time for lunch.

And thankfully, I had plenty of grilled chicken left from Friday night’s dinner.

Remember that maple balsamic chicken I made with the big package of Costco chicken thighs?

I deliberately cooked extra because I knew we’d have a busy weekend.

And today, that paid off.

Some of the kids wanted the grilled chicken served separately with their sides.

I also heated up some frozen crispy chicken from Costco.

And a couple of us made big salads with the leftover grilled chicken.

Mine was kind of a Greek-inspired salad with lots of vegetables and that flavorful chicken.

It was delicious.

Time to Tackle Twelve Pounds of Costco Ground Beef

Yesterday, I bought two of those big six-pound packages of ground beef at Costco.

Yes, twelve pounds total.

And I’ve got plans for all of it.

I want to restock my freezer with cooked ground beef.

I want to make more meatloaf Dinner Insurance.

I want to make homemade beef summer sausage.

And I wanted fresh burgers for Halloween dinner.

So today, I tackled the first six-pound package.

I’ll work on the other six pounds tomorrow.

And here’s what I love about this kind of cooking.

You don’t necessarily need an entire afternoon.

Sometimes you just need a little pocket of time.

I had about ten minutes this afternoon, and I used it to get a surprising amount of work done.

Four Pounds of Burger Patties

First, I took approximately four pounds of the ground beef and turned it into burger patties.

Because I had a very specific dinner plan.

Burgers before trick-or-treating.

I think this is such a good Halloween dinner.

It’s substantial.

Everybody likes burgers.

They’re easy to customize.

And I can get them cooked quickly on the grill.

I really wanted the kids to have a good meal before heading out for an evening of collecting candy.

And then I moved on to my next project.

Homemade Teriyaki Beef Summer Sausage

With the remaining ground beef, I made a batch of my homemade beef summer sausage.

This time, I did the teriyaki version.

I love having homemade summer sausage available because it’s such a useful protein for snacks, lunches, and platters.

And it’s one of those things that sounds much more complicated than it actually is.

I mixed up the meat with my seasonings, formed it into two logs, and put them into the refrigerator for the curing step.

That’s it for today.

The logs are now in the refrigerator, ready for the next step in the process.

And now I have dinner ready to grill plus two logs of summer sausage underway.

Six pounds of ground beef, two different uses, and very little hands-on time.

That’s what I call a productive pocket of time.

And I Was Filming the Whole Thing

Now, here’s something else I’ve been working on.

I’m trying to film more long-form content.

I’ve been wanting to expand what I do on YouTube because I think some of my kitchen systems are much easier to explain when I have more than sixty seconds.

And this ground beef project is a perfect example.

It’s one thing for me to tell you that I buy twelve pounds of ground beef at Costco.

It’s another thing to actually show you what happens to all twelve pounds.

How I decide what to cook.

What I freeze.

What I turn into burgers.

How I make summer sausage.

And how I use all of it over the next several weeks.

So I’ve been filming while I work.

Which adds a little bit of extra chaos to the kitchen.

Because now I’m not just making burger patties.

I’m also trying to make sure the camera is recording and that I’m getting the shots I need.

But I think it’ll be worth it.

I’m hoping to put together a longer YouTube video showing the entire process.

And I’m also excited about the possibility of sharing longer videos on Instagram.

Stay tuned.

I think this is going to be a really useful project.

Mass First, Burgers Second

Once I’d finished my afternoon kitchen projects, we headed to Mass.

Then we came home, and it was time to get dinner on the table.

And this is where all that earlier prep really paid off.

The burger patties were already formed.

I didn’t have to pull out the raw meat.

I didn’t have to portion anything.

I just needed to fire up the grill.

And the burgers took about ten minutes to cook.

I grilled them until they were cooked through, with ground beef reaching a safe internal temperature of 160°F.

Then I brought everything inside and got dinner ready.

Our Halloween Burger Dinner

I kept the rest of dinner very simple.

We had:

• Freshly grilled burgers
• Costco hamburger buns
• Chips
• Corn
• Peas
• Lettuce and other burger toppings

Some of the kids had traditional burgers on buns.

I had mine over lettuce.

And everybody could make their meal exactly how they wanted.

This is another one of our family’s unicorn meals.

Everybody likes burgers.

And I love that I don’t have to make separate dinners for different preferences.

Trick-or-Treating!

And off we went!

We had such a fun family night.

The kids were excited, the pumpkins were lit up, and everybody was ready to go trick-or-treating.

I love seeing all the pumpkins glowing outside after spending the morning carving them.

Especially Daphne’s pumpkin with her name on the side.

It was fun to see all that work come together once it got dark.

And of course, the kids had a wonderful time collecting candy.

Lots of walking.

Lots of excitement.

Lots of Halloween fun.

And now we’re home.

With a whole lot of candy.