Super Easy Weeknight Dinner Anyone?

If you are anything like me, you are always on the look out for a quick and easy "go to" meal for weeknight dinners.  Since adding another wee baby to our clan, going out to dinner sometimes doesn't come with as much convince as it once did.  That plus trying to get back in shape and eat healthier to loose said baby weight has put cooking dinner every night back up high on the priority list. 

Here's my problem.  I have culinary ADD.  I always want to try something new.  Sure, I have a few go tos in my back pocket, but I find that I only go back to them when the hubs requests them.  Why?  I get bored easily.  I've never been one of those people who can eat the same things over and over again...probably one of the reasons dieting and me don't exactly see eye to eye.  I crave variety and love trying new things.  Would it be too much to ask to find a simple recipe where the ingredients could be easily exchanged so was really never the same thing twice?

For the longest time I thought this would be an impossible thing to find.  In fact when I made dinner last night, I didn't even know I had stumbled upon such a unicorn of a recipe until the hubs said something brilliant in the middle of dinner.  More on that in a minute.  Here's what we started with...

A few weeks back, I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest.  Dear God, what did we do before Pinterest!


From Life in the Lofthouse

I fell in love with the idea behind these wraps.  One of my favorite things in the world is a good burger.  This seemed like a healthier spin on a burger without going to far away from the original.  Quick and easy too...so I decided to make them for dinner last night.

Something happened in our house around 4pm yesterday.  Someone came in, took our two darling girls away and replaced them with a nagging 4 year old and a screaming baby.  This ever happened to you?  I was attempting to get some cupcakes and a cake done for an upcoming order when all hell broke loose.  Combined with the fact that I had been up with the baby since 4:30 that morning, and the temptation to let Papa John rescue dinner was very real.  But I was determined.

The original recipe is super easy and, I'm sure, extremely delicious.  However, in the midst of everything that was going on, I decided to take the idea and "wing" it.  I knew if this dinner was going to happen, everything needed to happen at one time.  So here's what I used.

Crazy Night Cheeseburger Wraps
1 lb hamburger
20ish grape tomatoes; quartered
4ish sandwich dill pickle slices; diced
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 T yellow mustard
salt and pepper
flour tortillas
shredded cheese

1 - Brown hamburger, drain and return to pan.
2 - Add cut up tomatoes, pickles, Worcestershire, mustard, salt and pepper.  Cook over heat until all the ingredients are heated through.

3 - Put about a half a cup of filling onto a flour tortilla.  Sprinkle with cheese.

4 - Roll up into wrap form and grill.  I did it on our George Forman, about 2-3 minutes until nice and browned.  I'm sure this could be done on a real grill or even in a pan on the stove, but I needed something I could walk away from for a few minutes to chase around a cranky toddler.

5 - I served them with tater tots and for a few blissful moments, there was quiet in the house which is always a good sign that the food is good.

In the midst of all of the chaos, I came up with the ingredients simply thinking what I like to what I like to eat on a cheeseburger and throwing that into the pan with the cooked hamburger meat.  Here is where the genius to this recipe comes into play.  Whatever you like on your burger...throw it in with cooked hamburger meat and you have a whole new meal.  Brilliant! 

I fell more in love with this recipe when my husband broke the silence during dinner by saying, "You know this would be good with anything, chicken...steak...pork, I'd eat it every day."  That's when it hit me.  We always have meat...we always have fixins (other stuff) in the fridge...and (in our house at least) we always have tortillas.  Praise heaven above I have found a go to recipe that really CAN be different every time I make it without much forethought or planning.  Hallelujah!

I thought my obsession with this recipe would stop at dinner...but I was wrong.  In my scatterbrained fog, I put all the leftovers (tater tots and all) in the same container after dinner was over.  This morning, after a better night of sleep, I had an epiphany.  In one little Tupperware containers I have potatoes, meat and veggies.  Sounds like all the makings of a good breakfast casserole.  I started by putting some of the meat mixture and tater tots in a saute pan, breaking up the tater tots to be more "hashbrown" like.



After getting a little crisp on the potatoes, I cracked two eggs over the whole thing.

I seasoned this with a little salt and pepper and ended up with a quick, yummy breakfast scramble all in the span of time it took to brew my morning coffee.

Quick and healthy dinner with leftovers that make a quick and healthy breakfast.  Holly from Life in the Lofthouse, I know we've never met, but I love you...and I love this recipe!  Try it, you will love it too!!