Day 3 Meal Plan

So here we are on day 3.  I learned my lesson from the frozen chicken fiasco yesterday and pulled out the beef for stew yesterday for today (at the same time I took out the chicken).  It was ready to go this morning, and since I knew I'd be out of the house from 10am-6pm I got to work while still sipping my first cup of coffee (this is not something I like to do, but it was an unusual circumstance).

I cooked up the beef stew in the pressure cooker and had it cooling around 9am.  Before I left the house I set up the rice in my new rice cooker (my new BFF), and I pulled out the beloved crock pot.
In it I put a bag of frozen french style green beans, 2 Tbsp tomato paste, and all the broth from the meat I just cooked.  I shook in a little garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper, closed the lid, and set it to low.  I put the meat in a bowl in the fridge since it didn't need to be sitting in the crock pot all day.  I popped in the house for about 1 minute around 4:10pm at which time the meat got dumped into the crockpot to warm it up in time for dinner. 

Side note:  my husband went home around lunchtime while I was not there, so I asked him to set the crock pot to "warm" instead of "low" because I know it cooks too hot.  I will probably do that again when I will be gone that many hours with the crock pot since it really doesn't need to be on 'low'.

One glitch in today's dinner.... turns out my rice cooker is on a 24 hour clock and not a 12 hour one.  So when I set the timer to be ready at 6:00, it was thinking AM and I was thinking PM.   Silly rice cooker.....  I got a phone call from my husband who was home (while I was not) asking me what's up with the rice.  It was 6:08 (pm, haha) and it sure didn't look like it was ready.  I was bummed, but we both laughed when we realized the mess-up.  He was able to successfully press the "Cooking" button which activated the rice making magic, and we ate a hot meal eventually, just not at 6:00, or should I say, not at 18:00.

Look at the picture.  Again, notice how un-messy the kitchen is? Nice.  Alhamdullah, the food tasted great, and leftovers will be going to work with my husband tomorrow.  I was able to get a few ingredients prepped for tomorrow night's dinner which I will assemble after breakfast tomorrow and bake once I get home at 4:00 insha'Allah.  Nope, I'm not telling what the dish is (ok, you could scroll down and read my other blog entry), but I will say it won't be in the crock pot.  Are you relieved?