I’ve been having a hard time deciding what’s for dinner that fits into my budget and time constraints. I’ve tried making dinner from scratch, and I mean scratch. In fact I used to do this every single day, back when there were kids still in the house. I’ve tried frozen entrees, I’ve tried pre-cooking ground beef and freezing it, I’ve tried pre-cooking chicken breasts and freezing them, I’ve even tried OAMC (Once a month cooking). None of them worked for me.

The frozen cooked ground beef tastes just as long to cook as the frozen uncooked. Same with the frozen pre-cooked chicken breasts. The OAMC was a disaster! The frozen potato dishes (of which there were several) didn’t freeze/thaw/cook well.

The other day I bought an already marinated turkey tenderloin and put it in the freezer until I was ready to cook it. It came out for dinner one day last week and I was surprised to learn that it had to bake an hour and a half. Who has an hour and a half on a weekday?

I thought about digging out the crockpot, but I really don’t like to leave it cooking all day long. What if I get tied up and can’t get back on time? So, I saved it for a weekend…

Tonight, I’ve got some frozen pre-cooked meatballs simmering in some store bought spaghetti sauce. In another pan I’ve got some salted water starting to boil. I’ll put some dried pre-made raviolies in it in a few minutes AND I’m in here writing on my blog…. Where does the time go???