QUICK! What's for dinner???? Ground Beef over noodles, Beef Tips, Baked Potatoes

The other day I was supposed to make Meatloaf for dinner and when I got home I found out that hubby had to leave for work a lot earlier than I had thought so I didn't have time to make meatloaf since it cooks for at least an hour. Hmmm what to do...what to do..well, I decided to brown the ground beef, season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder (didn't even have any onions in the house) until fully cooked.

 While the beef was cooking I put on a pot of water and brought that to a boil and cooked some bow tie pasta I had on hand. When that was cooked I drained the noodles and put them on a plate.

I drained off any fat from the beef. I buy the 97% lean so there really isn't much fat to drain.  I took a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup and mixed it in a bowl, with about a half of a can of milk. When that was all mixed up I poured it into the pan with the fully cooked ground beef and mixed it all up. I let that simmer until it was nice and hot. You have to stir it ever so often so you don't scorch the milk in the gravy.

Then I spooned the beef mixture over the noodles and dinner was ready! We had corn with this and I mixed my corn in the beef mixture too but the men folk don't like their food all mixed up...

Whala!! Dinner was ready in no time at all!

Here's another quick dinner. It's what's for dinner tonight. You will need 2 Slow Cookers. The second one just needs to be big enough for the size and quantity of your potatoes.

Beef Tips and Baked Potatoes
Ingredients:
1 pack stew beef (enough for your family)
2 packs of brown gravy mix
1 Tablespoon A-1 sauce if you have it on hand..it's optional
Don't forget your Slow Cooker Liner!


Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes
3 Baking Potatoes
Sea Salt
oil (vegetable or olive or whatever cooking oil you have)
Enough foil wrap to wrap your potatoes in

 

 Mix Brown Gravy according to Package directions. One package only makes about a cup of gravy so get as many packs as you need for your family. I used 2 packs for a little over a pound of stew meat.

 

Place the Stew Beef in the slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Stir the beef around and sprinkle some more. After you make the gravy, pour it over the beef in the slow cooker. I added about a Tablespoon of

A-1 sauce on top of the gravy.

 

 Set the slow cooker on low for around 6 hours. You need more cooking time if you have more meat in your pot.

Wash baking potatoes. One for each family member is what I fix but depending on the size of the potatoes and your family members half a potato might be enough. Cover each potato with a little oil. You need one piece of foil wrap for each potato. Place your potato on the wrap after you put oil on it, then sprinkle with Sea Salt. I use the grinder so the salt went everywhere. If you do this on the foil then the salt that went all over the foil can just get wrapped up in the potato.

Place your potatoes in a second slow cooker. I have 2 that are 6qts each. One (the black one) cooks VERY fast and uneven. (That's why I bought a new one at a yard sale...) I forgot to fix the potatoes at the same time as the meat so they went in with only 4 hours to cook. I set them on high. Normally they would cook for 8 hours on low. We will see how these turn out.

Bonus picture of Socks. Jonathan's bedroom door was open so Socks went in. Socks likes to find Jonathan's hair ties and chew them up. Jonathan came out carrying Socks like this..poor Socks.