Saturday night we did hamburgers. The per person cost was a little less than normal, as I turned the pound of beef into 6 burgers instead of our normal 4; I was planning leftovers for Monday, and wanted one burger for me and two for Jeff for each night. The fact that the burgers were a little smaller than normal wasn’t terribly noticeable, something I should remember the next time we’re doing burgers.

The dough for the hamburger buns was a surprise - I had originally run it up on the previous Thursday, but we ended up getting invited out that night. I had gotten the dough up to the part where it would be split into buns, so I threw it into a bowl with a plate over it and into the fridge. If it kept, great, and if not, I would run up another batch. Saturday, the dough looked fine, if a little stiff, so I pulled it out and let it sit on the counter while I ran the oven at 200 degrees for about five minutes. I turned the oven off and let the dough rest on a metal cookie sheet for about half an hour. It loosened up perfectly, and from there I just followed the recipe for forming the buns, letting them rise, and baking them. It’s good to know the dough will keep for several days.

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Dinner Sunday night was tacos, something that I’ve posted about several times already, so there’s no need to go into details again there. However, I would like to add that we had about a cup of leftover taco meat and three leftover tortillas, which I turned to my advantage for lunch today. Half the taco meat got heated up, and went into a bowl with a little shredded cheese, a bunch of lettuce (we’ve been getting local hydroponic lettuce from our farmer’s market, two huge heads for $5. They’re gorgeous, and the greeens keep for weeks, though I think we’ll eat both heads this week), and a bit of chopped up tomato (we’re lucky enough to have hothouse tomatoes at our farmer’s market). Two tortillas went into the toaster oven, and after they were toasted, got crumbled up on top of the salad, and the whole thing got finished off with about a tablespoon of blue cheese dressing that we had lying around. It took about five minutes to put together, and scratched my taco salad itch nicely. This is a great example of how leftovers can make excellent lunches, and can be transformed to prevent boredom.

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However, Monday night, I wasn’t worried about boredom. I got in from class, and my leftover burger went straight into the microwave and the bun into the toaster oven. Less than five minutes later, I had dinner, with almost no effort from me. After being at school almost 8 hours, this was a good thing.