Countdown to Dinner: my new tutorial on organizing your afternoon and meal plan to enable you to tackle multiple components in minimal time, maximizing your family time while preparing a full meal for those you love. I have found that if careful thought goes into the parts of a meal, you can navigate the prep times, down times, and cook times in order to end up with all components of a hot meal complete at the same time.
Have you ever prepared soup, only to be about ready for dinner and then decide that maybe some bread would be nice to include. But, now that it’s almost time to eat, there is no time to prepare it. Or even trying to come up with an appropriate vegetable to go with what you have made can sometimes be difficult to time properly.
Can you start two hours before dinner? In that amount of time, you can prepare Chili Soup, Cinnamon Rolls, and Green Bean Bundles, and have time to tackle some parenting and kitchen clean-up. It’s no 30-minute meal, but if you’re interested in investing a couple hours, this soup, vegetable, and sweet roll dinner will become a requested treat in your repertoire. I will give you step-by-step instructions on when to take each step and how to manage your time so that all of this can be prepared, plus, all kitchen clean-up and even time spent interacting with family members is factored into the timing. Who doesn’t like to return to the kitchen after dinner and find that most of the dishes are already clean?!
Countdown to Dinner (“T” being Time to eat!):
T minus 2 hours: Preheat oven to 350°. Wash and trim green beans. Put them on a stove burner to simmer in a steamer basket. Put strips of bacon on sheet pan.
T minus 1:55 – Bacon to oven. Start dough, putting milk mixture (dough recipe) on low burner to heat to 120-130°.
T minus 1:50 – Turn off green beans and remove pan from hot burner; set aside, covered. Brown ground beef for soup. Better yet, pull a thawed batch-cooked package of ground beef from your fridge.
T minus 1:45 – Uncover green beans and just set aside til later. Check temp of milk mixture, allowing to warm up slowly, so it doesn’t get too hot. While waiting, use your time to wash dishes, unload a drainer or dishwasher, delegate tasks to kids, listen to a story, or give advice. Also open cans of beans, drain pinto and kidney beans. Do not drain chili beans.
Get the Bread Going
T minus 1:40 – Mix bread, set aside, covered in a warm place, to rise for 20 minutes. Now, it’s time to concentrate on the soup. Add flour, sugar, and spices to ground beef. Be sure to let the flour cook for at least one minute before adding liquids. At this time, your bacon is in the oven, bread is rising, and green beans are cooked and ready for a bacon wrap in a while.
T minus 1:35 – Add canned goods (tomatoes, beans) and 2 c water to meat mixture, and your soup is coming together.
T minus 1:30 – Soup is on low, coming up to heat. Stir it every few minutes. Bread is rising. Green beans are waiting. It’s time to flip the strips of bacon and return it to the oven. You also have time to tidy the kitchen, sanitize counter for rolls, and grease a 9×13 pan with Crisco. If desired, you can prepare an area for wrapping your green beans by placing hot pads on the counter and putting a paper towel on a plate for draining the bacon. Give your chili a taste. Does it need extra spice or any salt? This particular time, I used canned beans with no salt added, so my chili needed an additional 1/2 t salt. You can also add chili powder or some red pepper flakes. Cayenne pepper is too much for some in my family.
T minus 1:20 – Bacon is nearly done, so it’s time to pull out of the oven. Let the dough rise a couple more minutes while you tend to that. Place bacon strips on a paper towel, drain the excess grease into an empty can, and wipe the sheet pan with a paper towel. Allow it to cool briefly, then wrap 5-6 green beans inside each piece of bacon. Gloves can help with this job! The hot bacon is handled easily with the protection of gloves. Let the bacon-wrapped beans rest until your rolls are baking, and they can finish their cook and be piping hot at dinnertime.
You’re In the Home Stretch! It’s easy from here on out
T minus 1:10 – Roll out the cinnamon roll dough, spread with butter, sprinkle on brown sugar and cinnamon, roll up, cut, and place in pan. Set them on the back of the oven to rise again.
T minus 1 hour – Chili is done, rolls are rising, green beans are finishing in the oven. You can do another counter clean up and make cinnamon roll icing.
T minus :40 – Rolls into oven for 35-40 minutes. Green beans can sit in a serving dish on the back of the stove to stay warm. Time to clean up, put feet up, and then call the family to dinner.
T minus :20 – Return the wrapped Green Bean Bundles to the oven, along with any extra pieces of bacon that need to finish cooking. Prepare your soup toppings such as oyster crackers, sour cream, and shredded cheddar. Set the table, if you’re a table-sitting family, or prepare a buffet line for everyone to dish up their meal.
T minus :05 – Green Beans and Rolls come out of the oven and icing is spread onto the rolls. Dish up the soup, and it’s dinnertime!
What Do You Think of the Countdown to Dinner?
Would you tackle this two-hour Countdown to Dinner? How much time do you like to spend preparing dinner? Tell me in the comments if you tried it and what meal plan you would like me to do next!
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