Dinner "How To's" for Lazy Mommies

I'll start off by saying that I'm really not what one could call "domestic" in the kitchen.

Sure, I like to bake.. and by "bake," I mean I've never met a cake mix I didn't like... but when I cook real food, well, it can be hit or miss.

Tuesday night, for example, was a little of both.

A little background:
I made tacos on Monday night while the kids went to the library and the park with Grandma.  The tacos were delicious of course (because I can't mess up when it comes to browning hamburger *and* because John heated up the tortillas.  I've learned that he can't bear to watch me burn his them so he edges me away from the stove so he can take over.)

So, anyway.  Monday night tacos?  Delicious.  Now on to Tuesday night...

Lately I've been seeing a lot of blog posts of meal plans and prepping meals for the freezer, lots of kitcheny-domesticy stuff, and one recipe stuck out.  Breakfast muffins.  Muffins with meat, cheese, and something else that I can't remember.  But I remember that it sounded good. 

Now, you might say "Hey! Why don't you check out the blog you saw the delicious recipe on?!" and I would if I could, but you know what else I can't remember?  The blog name.  Which means I can't find the post.  Which means I don't have a recipe.  Which means I can't make these delicious sounding breakfast muffins.  And they sounded good... and by "good," I mean really yummy.  And I remember thinking that these sounded pretty easy to make... I could totally whip some up, even without the recipe!

Well, I decided to test my theory on Tuesday night.  When I remembered that I had about half a pound of taco meat left.  Normally, we would have eaten tacos until they were coming out of our ears but that night I had an epiphany.  I realized that I shouldn't *not* do something because of my *need* for a recipe to make something delicious!  I could just wing it!

So I did.  I made Savory Muffins (these were going to be muffins till I realized I didn't have any normal muffin tins.  Only the ones that make a big fluffy top.  I didn't know how well that would work when I added other ingredients so I decided to forgo the muffin tins and go with a more... free form approach and ended up with these) Logs.

Savory Logs are made with a box of Jiffy Mix (follow the directions on the box for muffins), some meat, cheese, and onion, raw.  That was all I added for this go-round.

I mixed up the Jiffy mix before noticing my muffin tin dilemma, of course.  That was when I decided that I didn't need those silly muffin tins... I would use one of my favorite tools in my kitchen "arsenal"...

Tin Foil.

I laid a sheet of tin foil on a pan, sprayed it with some non-stick spray, and dumped about 5 spoon fulls of Jiffy onto the tin foil in a log-like shape, pulling up the sides of tin foil when it looked like the log was about to form a river.  It wasn't too pretty, but it stayed there pretty well.  Then I dumped what seemed like a massive amount of hamburger meat onto this log.  Um, not getting any prettier.  Then I added cheese and diced onion and covered it with another layer of Jiffy mix.  Still not too pretty but at least it didn't look as unappetizing anymore.

I made two of these and sprung them on my unsuspecting family.

Bonus: It only took me about 9 minutes to throw everything together and about 20 to bake them (check out the Jiffy box for an official time, unless you make logs and not muffins.)

John thought there was too much "muffin" and not enough meat.  I kind of agreed with John because... he was right, they were a little "muffiney" but I didn't think that was a bad thing.  And the kids loved them!  Katie ate a whole serving (and then some!) and Jake ate almost a whole serving by himself.

I was really surprised because usually they are so picky I get a turned up nose and an "I not hungry, can I be excused" from Katie.  Not that night!  I was really happy it turned out so well and I'm going to make them again, I'll just need to plan ahead and find some muffin tins... and search for that blog... because I *really* want to try those breakfast muffins!