Women at work and their tips, challenges, advice, complaints, and experiences

Remember the fast and easy gyros recipe I posted last week?  Shop big if you want to try that one out, and you'll have dinner for two nights.

We did our grocery shopping on Saturday and had the gyros that night.  When we bought our ingredients, my husband picked up a package of stir-fry beef that had about twice as much meat as we needed.  Yesterday we used up the rest of the meat, along with the extra mushrooms, tomatoes, feta, and ranch dressing.  How?  Simple.

Buy two or more pounds of meat, instead of the one pound called for in the gyro ingredient list.  Separate the meat and cook half of it one night for the gyros; keep the other half refridgerated until the next evening's dinner. 

Toss a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil into a large skillet along with some oregano and garlic powder; cook up the meat as you did with the gyros.  While the meat is sizzling - trust me, it will smell loooovely - slice up mushrooms, tomatoes, and a cucumber, along with any other veggies you enjoy.  Put together salads for each diner.  Drizzle the salad with Ranch dressing to taste.

When the meat is cooked through, place strips of stir-fry meat across the top of each salad.  Voila - you've got "steak" salad.  We tested this idea out after a long day of work, homeschool group Park Day, a library trip, and ballet class.  Everybody was starving and the meal was on the table in about 15 minutes.  Quick, easy, and ohhh was it tasty!  I'll be putting this on my menu plan again in the future - I love how fast and easy both meals were after a long day, and using up ingredients bought for one recipe meant less time in the grocery store too!

Do you have a dual-purpose shopping list that gets you two (or more) meals in a jiffy?  What recipes do you rely on after you've had a busy day of work and other activities?  Be sure to share so other Workerettes can glean tips from what works for you!