Time Saving Pasta Tip

Here's a great time-saving tip for pasta for salads & packed lunches. A full pound of pasta makes far too much pasta salad for my family of three, but when I cook the pasta I cook the entire pound. I pour the pasta into a colander and rinse with cold water until the pasta is room temp then I make half of the pasta into salad. The second half I store in a zip-lock bag in the refrigerator. The pasta keeps in the fridge this way for a week or more. This enables me to make a quick pasta salad, a different flavor if desired, later in the week or the following weekend.

I've also found having cooked pasta in the fridge terribly handy for packed lunches. You can quickly mix up a single serving of pasta with salad dressing, or some frozen veggies and diced cold cuts, or make a quick homemade mac & cheese by whipping up a cream sauce in a skillet with a bit of cream and shredded cheese.

Pasta Mix-in Ideas - Mix and match:
salad dressing (creamy or vinegar based)
shredded (or cubed) cheese (consider Parmesan)
diced or finely sliced cold cuts (salami & ham are favorites)
frozen/canned corn
frozen green peas
grated carrots
snap peas
halved grape tomtoes
fresh herbs such as basil
cubed avocado
cheese sauce

Meal Plan Monday

This week I've planned meals for specific days as dictated by use-by dates of the meat I purchased & which nights I have very little cooking time. Tuesday I will pre-cook the taco items that need cooking & heat them up when we return home from appointments.
 
Five Spice Chicken recipe

I'm on Menu Plan Monday at http://orgjunkie.com/blog

More Meal Planning - WorkFlowy & Recipe Listing

Sometimes I try a new recipe & really like it, then after time passes, I forget which magazine, cookbook or website the recipe is in.  So now when I decide to add a recipe to my regular repertoire I add the name & source on my workflowy recipe listing.

Here's how it looks in the collapsed list
Here's how it looks when I open the Recipe bullet on it's own page.

I'm Making Progress

I've broken my goal into small increments so I can focus on the daily progress & I'm making progress. (at the time of original posting this showed that I had lost 5 pounds)

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