Yesterday’s dish of Mexicali Pie fits into this month’s theme of time savers, because it can be easily made ahead of time, and then just popped into the oven when you are ready to eat dinner.

How about a tip that will save you even more time?

How about a tip that will cut your preparation time for most baked dishes in half?

Interested?

I figured you would be...

Here’s this week’s fairly easy and straightforward Tuesday’s Tip:

When you make a baked dish or casserole, double the recipe and make two batches.

Sauteing twice the amount of onions or meat, boiling double the amount of pasta or roasting extra vegetables takes virtually no extra time.  You are already in the kitchen, doing all the work, and the incremental increase in time spent chopping extra onions will pay off in rich dividends when you not only have dinner ready for that day, but an extra bake to place in the freezer for a future meal.

Let me encourage you even further:  think of a time when you’ve been sick, crazy busy or when your energy is bottoming out.  Now envision what it would feel like if you could reach into your freezer, turn on the oven and have a healthful, hearty and warm dinner on your table with little to no effort?  Heck, doing this is easier than getting carry-out, making simple PB&J sandwiches or having to make yourself semi-presentable to the pizza delivery person!

My mom calls this concept “cook once, eat twice,” and whenever I am able to do this, I am so thankful when I use the extra meal in the freezer to help dinner come to the table with ease.  Just try it, I am guessing you will be hooked on doing this too!

Tonight I will be doing this very thing, with this recipe:

Italian Stuffed Shells

Life is sweet,
SPC