Aug. 2, 2008 - How I made dinner last night :)

Ok, so I made enchiladas for my family and a big pot of brown rice.   I thought I would share how I made it, hopefully it won't be as hard for your family though. 

Wednesday night, I had Sam preheat the oven to 350* and begin to unwrap the meatloaf he and I mega froze earlier this week.  As he unwrapped the last layer of saran wrap the biggest storm of the week rolled in and knocked our power out for 2 hours. 

So, back in the fridge went to meatloaf and we made roasted potatoes and carrots in foil packs on the grill.  Yum, with lots of garlic, olive oil and salt.

Thursday night another milder storm blew through and the power only went out for 2 minutes and the meatloaf was saved from another night in the fridge. 

Friday night, I knew I wanted something Mexican style for dinner so I decided on enchiladas, kid style.  Only problem was that I was completely out of ground beef!  I usually stock up in 10 #-20 #s so I was shocked that I had run low and didn't even know it.  I spied the leftover meatloaf,ok this is where I have to ask you to keep this quiet from John and the kids , and decided to doctor it up for dinner.  I chopped up the pieces of meatloaf into small ground beefy chunks and added a good shake of taco seasoning to hide the italian flavor of the meatloaf.  I also found a small container of refried beans in the freezer that I thawed and heated through with the meat.

Ok, so I then spooned a generous helping of the meat/bean mixture into a tortilla,sprinkled some cheese on top, added a dash of pureed salsa (because the kids won't eat chunks) and rolled it all up and place it into a big pan.  Don't forget to spread a small amount of salsa in the bottom of the pan so the enchiladas don't stick.

Follow through with this pattern until the pan is full and then cover with more salsa and cheese. I baked it covered until the cheese was melted on top, about 30 minutes.  Serve with brown rice.

I found this link on how to prepare brown rice the healthiest way and I tried it too.  I couldn't taste a huge difference but it didn't hurt anything to try it out.  It involves soaking the rice before you cook it. 

That's my budget conscious way of preparing dinner and working around the mishaps in life.  How do you save the day when cooking or stretching your budget?