Being Prepared Day 2

Yesterday I posted about how I had prepared as much of our supper as I could before I left for work and it was a great success. When I got home everything was ready to go and I had supper finished by 6:00 P.M. I get off work at 5:00 and have a 20 minute drive, so that's pretty good! It's especially nice this week with the change back to standard time. I would like to continue doing this especially during these shorter fall and winter days and while we are adjusting to the time change.

So this morning I have done as much toward tonight's meal as possible too!

Tonight I am making "Baked Pizza Mac" from the 2007 Fall Kraft's Food and Family magazine. We have plenty of salad fixins left over from last night's meal or I can open a can of green beans.

Here's the recipe:

Baked Pizza Mac

1 can (8oz) pizza sauce, divided
1 pkg (7 1/4 oz) macaroni and cheese dinner, prepared as directed on package
1 lb ground beef, cooked, divided
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp dried basil leaves
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove and set aside 1/4 cup of the pizza sauce for later use. Combine prepared dinner, two-thirds of the meat, the remaining pizza sauce, egg and seasonings.

Spoon evenly into 9-inch pie plate. Top with the remaining meat and reserved 1/4 cup pizza sauce; sprinkle with cheese.

Bake 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings, 1 1/2 cups each.

This morning's work:

I made my own pizza sauce using an 8 oz can of tomato sauce with seasonings. I stored this in the fridge in a covered plastic container. Its good that the seasonings get to know each other today anyway.
This is the pizza sauce recipe I use. I got this from Hillbilly Housewife:

Pizza sauce (for one pizza if you are making pizza)

1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp Italian seasonings
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp olive oil

Just put in a bowl and mix well. It does not have to be cooked.

Then I got out the macaroni and cheese box, the basil and garlic powder and placed on the counter. I got out the pot for making the macaroni and cheese, the frying pan for browning the ground beef and the pie plate. The magazine with the recipe is also open to the correct page on the counter.

I checked my milk to make sure it was still fresh and made sure I had plenty of margarine for the macaroni and cheese dinner. The milk I am using is the milk I bought on sale at Walgreens a couple of weeks ago and froze. It is working out great. I took it out of the freezer and placed it in the fridge to thaw out. The milk contained shivers of ice and was delicious. You do have to shake it after it thaws to mix it back up because it tends to separate when frozen. It is staying fresh just as many days after being thawed as it would have been when first purchased. (so far)

My hamburger was frozen so it is in the fridge thawing. It should be thawed by the time I get home. If not I can finish thawing it in the microwave.

I also want to note that the original recipe specifies all "Kraft" products. I didn't use Kraft products unless I had bought them on sale with coupons, etc. Cheese is cheese to me. My store brand mozzarella cheese will do just fine. The Kraft brand macaroni and cheese dinner is probably better than the store brand that I bought, but by the time I mix all this other good stuff into it, I don't think it will matter!

One last note: I use store brand spices. Most of mine were 2 for a dollar, and no more than a dollar. These can be purchased at Dollar General, Walmart and on sale at drug store chains.