We love to cook out! We haven’t used our grill in about 2 years. We made a firepit in our yard and we cook out as often as we can. We even like to make breakfast over the fire!

We use plastic picnic plates instead of paper plates. I keep them on the top shelf, and there were constantly falling on my head! But I solved that problem with a plastic bin. see…..

I measured, and bought a bin that fit the space and let the door shut completely. As you can see, I also keep the tableclothes (which are fabric remnants) with the dishes. See how nice and neat they dishes are in the bin….

When we’re ready, we take the bin down and carry the whole thing outside. No more kids struggling to carry them all out on trays and dropping the cups everywhere!

This kitchen organizing tip Works for Me!

Well, I posted about my Easy Chicken Parmesan last year. And it still is the very best dish to make with only a handful of ingredients.

but for todays Works For Me Wednesday I’m going to share my Easy Stir Fry Rice.

It’s super easy, and uses left overs! If I know I will have a busy night that I need a quick meal for, I will plan ahead, and make extra rice earlier in the week when we have rice with another meal. I call these planned overs. Leftovers you plan for. 🙂

So here’s what I do:

Easy Stir fry Rice

left over rice
left over meat (beef, chicken, pork)
left over veggies (broccoli, carrots, onions, corn, green beans, peas, etc. what evers left in the fridge)
soy sauce
eggs (if you like eggs in your fried rice)

Amounts will depend on how many you are cooking for.

You just dump it all in a large frying pan, and warm it up. If you like the eggs, you push the rice to one side of the pan, and pour the beaten eggs into the pan to scramble, when cooked stir it into the rice. Season with soy sauce. The amount will depend on how much rice you have. I have a LOT, lol and use about 1/2 cup soy sauce for a large frying pan full of rice.

If I have time, I will saute onions before adding the rest of the ingredients.

My family loves this! You would never know that I’m serving them leftovers!

Hey, it Works For Me!

We seem to go through a lot of belts on our vacuum. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve changed a broken belt just to have that one break as soon as I turn the vacuum on! grrrr! So I like to have a few extras on hand.

Those pesky little bags they come in never seem to stay where I put them and often disappear completely. They are always falling off the shelf! Well, maybe it has something to do with the number of people who are constantly looking for something on the laundry room shelves.

Anyway, as I was putting them away for the millionth time, I spotted the cardboard box/bag that the vacuum cleaner bags come in. aha! I put the belts down inside the box with the bags. tada! No more little agravating plastic bag falling all over the laundry room!

Might be simple, but It Works For Me!

I just finished cleaning our 2 bathrooms. phew I’m glad that’s done for another week! Although I do have to visit the kids bathroom daily to make sure the little messmakers aren’t making too much of a mess.

Anyway, the kids tub was draining very slowly. So I had to clean it. First I pulled out the hair (can we say GROSS!!), then I poured some baking soda down the drain. oh… half to one cup is about how much I used. Then I warmed up a cup or 2 of vinegar on the stove (in a pan of course! lol) Not to boiling, but almost. Then you just dump it down the drain. It will bubble up like crazy! And be prepared for lots of yucky stuff to come floating out of the drain!

It does a great job of cleaning out the drains. I try to do it monthly in the tubs, and as needed in the sinks.

Frugal, non-toxic, and it Works For Me!

We have used cloth napkins for over a year now. The kids were down right shocked when I bought a package of paper napkins a couple of weeks ago. It hasn’t been good weather lately for drying clothes, and since we don’t use the dryer, this can lead to a laundry back-up. So I bought paper to have just in case we run out of cloth.

Anyway, our favorite napkins to use are washcloths. Chicken fingers? no problem… Spilled milk? no problem…Spaghetti face? no problem… try that with a paper napkin! lol

But what to do when the washcloth starts looking a little worse for wear? It gets demoted to a cleaning cloth. But how do you keep those cleaning clothes from ending up in the napkin holder?

I now cut off one of the corners on the “new” cleaning rag. Now if someone else should fold and put away the laundry (???????) it’s clear which cloth is a napkin and which one is a rag.

Hey! It Works For Me!

A few years ago, we started a Thanksgiving table runner. This could be used for any holiday, though. We had everyone who ate dinner with us sign it with a fabric paint pen. We started using a different color for every year, but we ran out of colors! (they need to make more!) So this year, we had to write ’07 under every name.

The kids think long and hard about where to sign their names. You can see a lot of it in the pic. We started this in 1998, i believe, either that, or 1999. I can’t remember at the moment. lol So a few signatures are “scribbles” where the youngest wrote their names. We did write their names under that, so we could tell whose scribbles where whose. lol It’s so fun to sit at the table and look at how the kids signatures have changed over the years.
You could use a tablecloth or a table runner like we did. When our runner is full, I plan on starting over with a tablecloth.

Having a special Thanksgiving tablerunner Works For Me.

hmmmmm……what do I fix for dinner when I’m in a hurry…..

My biggest help is keeping cooked hamburger in the freezer.

I boil my hamburger 5 or 10 pounds at a time, yes, boil. I place the hamburger into a large pan, and add enough water to just cover the hamburger, you can add onions, garlic, and any other seasonings you like. I boil until no longer pink, breaking it apart while it’s cooking. A spaghetti grabber works great for this. Drain. Mo grease splatters on the stove, or you! and less fat in your recipe! (You can save the broth, put it in the fridge, then scoop off the fat after it hardens, and discard. This broth can be used for soup. It’s not a supper strong beef flavored broth, but does make a nice soup with some of the hamburger and veggies.) After the hamburger is cooled, I bag it up in freezer bags. 2 cups of cooked hamburger is equal to 1 pound of hamburger. I put 4 cups in each bag, about 2 pounds, because there are a lot of us. 🙂

Now comes the best part…..
You can use this cooked meat for an endless number of quick meals…

Cheesebruger Macaroni..stir hamburger into mac & cheese along with some diced tomatoes and onions…
Pasta…cook whatever shape you like, elbows, spaghetti, etc. stir hamburger into pasta with your sauce of choice…
Sloppy joes….this takes like 2 minutes if you use the the canned sauce…
Tacos…..stir seasoning, water and meat, and heat. If you have lettuce and tomatoes already chopped in the fridge, it’s really quick.
Crockpot Cheeseburgers….place the hamburger into crockpot with chopped onions and velvetta, this only takes a couple of hours to cook (hamburger is already cooked) But you can put it in the crockpot earlier in the day, too, serve on hamburger buns. It’s like a sloppy joe, only cheesey 🙂
There are tons of different ways you could go with the cooked hamburger, casseroles, soups, etc, etc. But I’ll stop for now. 🙂

If you’ve remembered to take the bag of hamburger out of the freezer that’s good, if not, defrost in the microwave or on the stove top in your sauce of choice, it only takes a few minutes while your getting the rest of the meal ready.
Another tip.. When you bag up the hamburger, smoosh the meat out flat in the bag, instead of having it all in one lump. It defrosts MUCH faster that way!

My Easy Chicken Parmesan that I posted for last weeks WFMW is a fast, easy meal, also.

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas visit Rocks in My Dryer