About that Meat Loaf...

The meat loaf I mentioned on my last post was a delicious dinner on its own.  The yellow potatoes are one of my best bargain finds -- five pounds for $1.49.  Carrots were the same price (also a five pound bag).  This meal serving was probably around a buck, along with intentional leftovers.  My motto is if it's good enough to eat once, then it's good enough to eat twice... or more!

The half loaf we didn't eat on round one made it into a shepherd's pie of sorts.  Left over mashed potatoes were augmented with a new batch made from four more potatoes out of the bag.  A little bit of cheddar and parm was grated in.

The base of the pie was crumbled meat loaf.  Then I diced up the leftover carrots and mixed in some frozen mixed veggies.  My sauce base started with a flour roux, to which I added home-made beef stock.  I used some of that stock in the pan when the meat loaf was first baked.  Those drippings were also saved and part of this mash-up.  It was set to reduce a bit after I added a small amount of condensed, unsweetened milk.

The leftovers will provide us with two lunches.  The individual portions will heat up in the microwave just fine.  Half of my pile of cheap ground beef will have provided two dinners (four full portion meals), and two lunches (four smaller portions).  Not bad when you consider the whole lot was made for less than ten bucks.

Grinding the meat myself adds time on the front-end when it comes to cooking, but that's the step that saves the most money so it's totally worth it.