Lazy woman’s dinner

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I was tired tonight.  I went shopping with my mom.  I came home and looked at what was on my menu for tonight, and nothing looked good.  I was not in the mood to cook.  I have already eaten out my allotted time this week so that was not an option either.

It was 52 degrees today and sunny.  Somehow my backyard grill was calling my name, but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time prepping something and then have all the clean up.  I just was not in the mood to cook at all.

Then I happened to think back to when Steve and I first got married.  This man is not allowed to cook in my kitchen.  He is a danger.  I’m serious.  He is only allowed to cook if someone is supervising him.   He is allowed to make coffee.  He is not allowed to touch any other appliances other than the popcorn maker for the safety of everyone who lives here.  He is allow to use the grill.  It’s outdoors.

He didn’t know how to cook anything when we first got married unless it was on the grill.  He was a Boy Scout.  So he had lots of camp out recipes.  He taught me to make this dinner that they used to make on camp outs a lot.  I love it.  It’s easy, quick, good and kids love it.  It’s not fancy but there is nothing to measure and everyone can make their own.  We have no name for this recipe but call it Camp out dinner.  Tonight, it was a lazy woman’s dinner!

Camp out dinner or Lazy woman’s dinner

You will need:

Ground beef or other meat

Chopped vegetables like onions, carrots, potatoes etc.

sauce (Worcestershire, bbq, hot sauce, ketchup)

Pre-heat your grill or oven.  You can do this in an oven if you don’t have a grill.  I would heat the oven at about 400 degrees.  I use my grill.  My grill has three burners.  I turn all 3 burners on to pre-heat.  Then when I am ready to cook I leave the two outside burners on and turn the middle one off.

Get out a long sheet of heavy duty foil.  About 1 1/2 feet long for each person eating.   You will be making individual foil packets for each person.  In the middle of the foil on each packet lay one serving of meat.  On top of the meat add your vegetables. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic.  Shake on some sauce.  It’s that easy!

Here I started with ground beef.  I added one carrot, a half a potato, half an onion, and a sprinkle of cabbage.  I seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder.   Then I added Worcestershire sauce, and Franks hot sauce.  Then I threw on some ketchup.

When my kids were little, they loved to make this.  I would cut up the vegetables and they could make their own the way they wanted.  This can be done with any meat and any veggies.  You could make chicken with peanut sauce and veggies or salmon with soy sauce and veggies.  You can use frozen veggies, fresh or leftovers.  It’s endless really!

Fold up the foil neatly around it to make a little packet.  Cut a second piece of foil.  Lay the wrapped  packet seam side down on the new piece of foil and wrap it up again.

Double wrapping helps with leaking.  It will still leak a little but not as bad as if you wrapped it once.  If you are doing this in the oven, I would put the packets into a baking dish just in case they do leak.

I grill the packets using indirect heat.  That simply means I lay it on the middle burner that I’ve turned off.  My grill gets to about 500 degrees this way.  I cooked them 20 minutes on each side.  I would cook them for an hour is I did it in the oven.

Clean up is very difficult don’t ya know!

I’m going to leave you with a little shot of spring.  This pussy willow in our back yard is in full bloom.  Spring is here at last!

Happy first day of spring!

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Filed under Grilled Foods, Quick meals

Tags: grill, quick meal, spring