How to Batch Prep your Ground Beef in 3 Easy Steps
Let’s do a quick thought exercise…which feels easier to use for dinner tonight? Just imagine you open your freezer to pull out some meat for tonight’s dinner. Are you more likely to choose the prepped taco meat or a frozen 3lb chub of ground beef? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you chose the prepped taco meat, and you would be RIGHT!! One of the biggest mistakes people make while trying to stock their freezer is coming home and sticking their fresh meat straight into the freezer. WHY? Because while it’s easier on the front end of grocery shopping, it’s infinitely harder when you go to actually use it! Now you have to thaw the meat (which, let’s be honest, is where most dinner plans go awry), but you also have to season, shape, and cook it. (Which feels like a lot of work at the end of the day, am I right?!) It’s actually much easier to come home from grocery shopping and assign it a job, then you’ll know just how to use it (which gives it a better shot of not collecting freezer burn in the back of your freezer) but it also helps you feel like dinner is EASY…which is the ultimate goal we’re all going for here.
How to Shape Hamburger & Hot Dog Buns…the Easy Way!
Let’s talk for a quick second why you’d want to make your own hamburger and hot dog buns…because I totally get it…it feels like a lot of work when you can buy super cheap $0.89 cents. AND…I’m totally with you. I don’t always make my own hamburger and hot dog buns, but when I do, they’re about a billion times better.
HOW TO MAKE DONUTS THAT TASTE JUST LIKE KRISPY KREME
Here we are in quarantine week #1,482,398. Am I right? It’s feeling a little like Groundhog Day over here. However, these LIVE meet ups have been keeping me and my kids sane because we LOVE doing these (and they love to eat what I show you how to make ;). This week we’re tackling foods that most people think are too difficult or messy to make at home and outsmarting them. Monday, Kate showed how to make biscuits super easy and today is DONUTS. I mean who can resist a warm, freshly made donut? No one…unless maybe you’re Voldemort…but he wasn’t really human…so….there’s that.
HOW TO MAKE BISCUITS SO EASY YOUR KID CAN MAKE THEM!
If you’re like most people, you’ve afraid to make biscuits. After all, they take a long time to make, make a HUGE mess on your counter….and let’s be real…are they really that much better than the canned biscuits? If that’s you, it’s not your fault. Biscuits CAN be very hard to make, but as Kate showed in the LIVE meet up (if you missed it click HERE) with these tips, biscuits are super easy! Plus, you can also make one/freeze one (you know how I love that) and keep some in the freezer for next time.
TURN YOUR OWN RECIPES INTO FREEZER MEALS
Who doesn’t love the idea of freezer meals? It makes dinner seem SO easy and effortless. However, if you’ve tried doing freezer meals, you’ve probably met up with some frustration as well. Either you didn’t really like the recipe after you made it, or your frozen-flat meal didn’t fit in your slow cooker when it came time to make, or if you’re like me it took so much effort to fill the freezer with freezer meals, you never wanted to eat them!
QUICK & EASY HOMEMADE GNOCCHI
*This post is based on a LIVE Instagram Meet Up I did on April 8, 2020, you can catch the video HERE in the private Outsmart Dinner Facebook group*
Looking for a fun dinner party idea, something to do with your kids while you’re on quarantine, or just a quick 4-ingredient substitute for pasta, this quick and easy gnocchi will knock your socks off.
SUPER EASY BRAIDED BREAD
Okay, if there’s one thing I love, it’s finding simple recipes (that are actually super easy to make) but look like you spent all day…because who doesn’t want to impress someone, or feel like the bomb dot com every once in awhile?! This simple technique can be used with your favorite dough recipe (French bread, cinnamon roll dough, wheat bread…seriously if it’s bread dough you can use it) and any filling you’d like. Personally, I like the 30-minute dough from the Outsmart Dinner Meal Planner because it’s pretty much the best dough to use for absolutely everything (think pizza, breadsticks, rolls, etc.)
EASY HOMEMADE PIZOOKIES
So in today’s LIVE meet up on Instagram, we pulled a lot of other classes together (Freezer Cookie Dough + Other Amazing Cookie Hacks & How to Use Wheat Flour…AND LIKE IT!) to make this yummy treat happen! I mean just because COVID-19 is running around, doesn’t mean you can’t have a fun treat! But seriously, at a restaurant this would cost you close to $6 PER COOKIE. At home you can make it for under $1 a cookie and freeze any extra dough to make it even easier the next time you make it.
FREEZER COOKIE DOUGH + AMAZING COOKIE HACKS
BIG SORRY! Instagram hated us today and quit our live meetup in the middle, so I only have the second half of the video posted in our Facebook Group page. I’ll do my best to write out the tips I shared live below, and to make up for it, I’ll give away a Outsmart Meal Planner next week during one of the LIVE Instagram Meet ups.