New Trick and a Good Deal

Years ago we had a lady come to our ward and talk about freezer meals. It was very good and I bought one of her cookbooks. I tried it out and found that cooking all day long was too much for me. I did find one trick I loved and continued to use it. She said that she cooked all her ground beef ahead of time so she didn't have to defrost it and brown it when she wanted to cook something using ground beef. She said to put the beef in cake pans, cover them with foil and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring it up every once in awhile. Well, tonight I remembered that I bought some ground beef last Saturday! I had forgotten all about it, so I hurriedly put 2 pans in the oven at 10:00 at night. "Great," I thought. "I'll be up all night." Then I remembered going over to a friends house a few years ago and seeing that she put hers in a big stock pot to cook. At the time, it seemed like she had to cook and stir it, just like you usually do when you brown hamburger, too much work! But, tonight, I decided to put the rest of my ground beef in a stock pot so I wouldn't have to do another batch in 45 minutes. I put the lid on, turned the heat to just above medium and left the room. I checked on it every 5-10 minutes. It was wonderful! It cooked more evenly and got done much faster than in the oven! Yay! I'm doing it this way from now on. For those of you who haven't done this before, I then drain the hamburger, rinse it, put it in a big bowl and then put just less than 3 cups in a ziploc freezer bag, that's the amount the lady said to use for 1 pound. I write on the bag with what's inside and the date.

Okay, now for the good deal. I saw Target's ad sitting on the table, and happened to glance at it. They had a Fisher Price nativity set for $12.99. I had just seen this on the internet and thought it was such a cute thing and wondered if they still made it.

When I got to Target, they were all gone, but I could get a rain check. They were also substituting the barn which is regularly $34.99 for $17.49! What a deal! I had to buy one for Brockton and my future grandkids.