You know it's a good meal when...

...you eat it twice in as many days. Exhibit A: hard-boiled eggs, and cut veggies with hummus. It turns out I like hummus; who knew? It's been my go-to lunch the past couple of days. One of the nicest things about: once you start the egg-boiling process, you usually have to wait about 20 minutes to eat, but this gives you something to do. Peel and chop the veggies, dip them in hummus and munch away until the timer goes.

Exhibit B: Shepherd's pie. This was another surprise. I always hated it growing up and until I got this recipe from my friend Erin, I had never made it before. Something about dry ground beef topped with mashed potatoes never appealed to me. Erin adds corn and BBQ sauce to the beef, and it makes such a difference! My mom told me that I would come to love shepherd's pie because it's easy, fast and hearty fare. I first made it the weeks my in-laws arrived (they are gone now, and we miss them terribly), and then again last night. Hubby and I ate it all up by lunchtime today.

[Not a meal, not even a shepherd, but very cute]

Make your own: it's highly adaptable, although (sorry) short on instructions!

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup BBQ sauce
1 cup corn, cooked
4 potatoes or so
milk
butter

Preheat oven to 375
Brown the ground beef, add onions and soften.
Stir in BBQ sauce and cooked corn. Pour mixture into casserole dish.
Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes; drain, mash, and add milk and butter to desired consistency. Spread potatoes on top of beef mixture.
Bake for 30 minutes or so.

This freezes very well, but if you go this route be prepared for a longer cooking time: about 2 hours.

Post-script to my last entry: we rounded out the day by contracting a nasty stomach flu bug that made its way through all five adults in the house, although the girls were spared. Not the best end to the in-laws' visit. However, we're very grateful that they were there to help with the girls when we were too weak to get out of bed. Also not my favourite way to lose the remaining baby weight, but then neither was cutting out lactose.

[Hey, look who's almost 4 months old!]