We have a new staff meeting tradition in our department, birthday lunches. It started with my employee’s birthday in February when he mentioned that instead of cake, he would really prefer mac and cheese. My boss’ mac and cheese and fried chicken are legendary, so we elected her to make them. I made dessert and one of the other ladies made candied sweet potatoes and green beans. We had a really good time and decided to continue the trend. Marie’s birthday was next, so she got to pick the menu, she wanted meatballs in brown gravy over mashed potatoes and a huge tossed salad.
I rounded out our meal with brownies and ice cream, sugar-free for Marie (she is diabetic) and the full sugar version for the rest of us. I made the meatballs the day before, brought them in to work in my crock pot, added the gravy and turned them on low to heat through. I added sour cream and some extra butter and cream to the mashed potatoes so they would heat up nicely in the microwave. All in all, it took me four trips to get everything from my car to the office, but only one trip back down at the end of the day – we ate almost everything! The few meatballs and mashed left over, I sent home with Marie for dinner. She also took the brownies home. The ice cream went into the fridge at work and we have been enjoying that all week.
When I bought the meatloaf mix to make my meatballs I bought a little extra so I could have a bag or two of meatballs in our freezer for those nights when you need a quick meal. Always good to plan ahead when making things that freeze well!
Our next staff meeting with birthday lunch isn’t until August, I am wondering what Stephanie will choose for her meal and I look forward to the challenge of creating a meal that can be heated and served with just a microwave and crock pot.
Pickled Sweet 