Dash and Flash Meals for the Farmer

If you know me at all, then you probably know that I’m not a big plan-ahead person. My daughter (#1) enlightened me on the reason recently, by reminding me that I was born on the biggest procrastinating day in US history—April 15 (tax day, in case you live under a rock). At any rate, this gift of procrastination is manifested in just about every area of my life, but the most noticeable area would be in supper preparation.

The Farmer gets home around 4:30 every evening (for the past 35+ years), and being the hard working, over achieving, workaholic that he is, he’s usually starving by the time he hits the door, wraps me in his arms, and tells me what a great wife I am! (hee, hee)

Of course, being the perfect wife, I have supper timed so that he still has just enough time to check cows, move them to another paddock, and feed the bull (which I’m sure he doesn’t give a thought to how much effort I put into this notable achievement).

So, you may be wondering how the queen of procrastination can accomplish such a feat (maybe not, but read on anyway).

First of all I have a freezer full of frozen beef—frozen being a key word here. I keep staples aplenty like potatoes, canned vegetables, flour, and seasonings. And that’s really all I need; oh, and soda.

The procrastinating attribute comes to light when the Farmer calls to let me know he is on his way home from work, which gives me a full 40 minutes to prepare supper. Not too bad, if he calls when he leaves work, but more often than I like, he gets busy on the phone with someone else before he can call me. Often I have received a 20-minute warning, or worse yet, a 10-minute warning! (yeah, well supper isn’t always on the table).

Well, I have become a master of Dash and Flash Meals.

Translated—putting together a delicious meal super fast!

Hamburgers and fries are probably the easiest, because when we get our beef processed I have alot of my hamburger made into patties. So, I scrub a few potatoes, cut them into steak fries, and soak them in vegetable oil that's been brought to a boil (saw this on FoodNetwork). Then I get the hamburger patties out of the freezer, throw them into the microwave for 2 minutes, break them apart, and throw them into the skillet. (I’m about 10 minutes in at this point) When the hamburgers are almost done, I turn the fries on high temp. And magically my hamburgers and fries get finished right before the Farmer comes in for supper.

Spaghetti is another really quick meal. I again start with frozen hamburger, peel off the outside plastic, and throw it into the microwave for 3-4 minutes. It comes out ready to crumble into a skillet. It only takes about 5 minutes to brown at a high temp, so I put my water on to boil during this process. After the hamburger is browned and drained, I add seasonings, tomato sauce and parmesan, and simmer this until the spaghetti noodles are cooked. I usually fix biscuits (canned of course), garlic bread, or just butter bread with this.

Both of these meals can be cooked in about 20 minutes. As I was writing this, I thought of other Dash and Flash dishes that I make.

  1.       Beef and noodles

  2.       Chili (made from left-over pinto beans) 

  3.       Cowboy Supper (made with beef, beans, and bbq sauce) 

  4.       Tacos 

  5.       Chicken Quesadillas 

  6.       Sausage hash 

  7.       Steak and baked potatoes (baked meaning microwaved) 

  8.       Swiss steak burgers 

  9.       Chef’s salad

10.       Frozen pizza J

What about you? Do you have any Dash and Flash meals that you make? Share it with the rest of us and maybe we can exchange recipes.