RSS
 

Archive for the ‘Food/Recipes’ Category

Tasty Tuesday — Slow Cooker Spinach Chicken Alfredo

07 Sep

This easy and inexpensive meal is something I’ve been working on perfecting for a while and tonight I think I finally figured out the right balance for my family’s taste.  Even my super picky boys liked it!

  • 3-4 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 15oz jar alfredo sauce (I used Classico Roasted Garlic Alfredo tonight)
  • 10oz package frozen spinach
  • 2 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1lb box of pasta (I like bowties best, but penne or piccolini work well too.)

Put the frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of your slow cooker and cover with the jar of alfredo.  Add pepper and lemon juice.  Cook on low setting for 4-6 hours.  About an hour before you plan to eat, add the frozen spinach and cook your pasta.  You can shred the chicken at this time, too.  Top the cooked pasta with the chicken/spinach/alfredo mixture and serve with garlic bread and a salad.

I think that this would be delicious topped with sundried tomatoes, but I never seem to have any in the house.  If you try this one, let me know how it turns out for you.  It’s a nice change of pace from the typical spaghetti pasta dinners!

 
No Comments

Posted in Food/Recipes, Tasty Tuesday

 

Thwarted!

09 Aug

Remember how I said I was taking dinner back?  Yeah…not so much.  Yesterday we came home from church and I was getting ready to start dinner when I realized that the box of pasta I was planning to use was no longer in the pantry.  I opened the refrigerator and saw a huge bowl of pasta salad, all ready to go for dinner.  I felt so loved in that moment!  I was home alone all day Saturday with the kids and again all day yesterday and I guess he just wanted to give me a break.  I did take out some ground beef for tonight (though I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it yet) and am outlining a meal plan for the week in my head, so I’m definitely still working on getting back in the kitchen.

If you’re curious, here’s the pasta salad recipe:

  • 1 lb box of pasta.  Tri-color is great, but we used a box of piccolini we got free with coupons.  Not as pretty, but just as tasty.
  • 1 package of grape tomatoes, quartered
  • 3-4 carrots, sliced in small pieces
  • 1 cucumber, quartered and sliced
  • 8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
  • 16 oz. bottle of Italian dressing
  • chopped leftover chicken from the whole chicken we made Friday (about 1lb)

Dump all but the chicken into a large bowl and mix well.  Refrigerate for 3-4 hours before eating.  When dishing out servings, top with the cold chicken.  It’s a super summer meal and best of all, I still have a lot of pasta salad left over to eat with lunches this week!

 
1 Comment

Posted in Food/Recipes

 

Taking Dinner Back

08 Aug

God bless my husband.  He has been the head chef in the household for a very long time.  When he lost his job two years ago, I was pregnant and cooking was out of the question most nights.  Until then, we’d been going out to eat 3-4 nights a week so even before that I wasn’t doing a whole lot in the kitchen.  With the job loss came a need to save money and the dinners out were severely cut back.  He had ample free time and I was so nauseated most days that just looking at uncooked food could induce vomiting.  It just made sense for him to take over.

Then the baby came and I was nursing in the evenings.  And I was tired. And when I did cook, my oldest son complained about the things I chose to make.  And I had night classes.  And frankly, my husband is just better at making dinner.  He can pull out 4-5 seemingly random ingredients and make a delicious and healthy meal.  I’m definitely a plan-ahead meal-planning recipe follower.  Except I don’t plan ahead very effectively and I throw up my hands and give up.

No more.  Starting now, I’m taking dinner back.  I will take this chore off his plate (ha, pun intended!) and maybe I won’t have to do the dishes…

Last night was the first night I took over the dinner making and it was great to be in the kitchen again.  I started simply with oven fried pork chops, a favorite of mine that I’ve been thinking about for weeks.  I found this recipe a while back when we were getting boneless pork chops in our Angel Food boxes regularly.  We haven’t gotten any recently and I’d been craving them but the cost of pork chops kept me from making it.  Lowes Foods had them on sale this week, so I gave into my craving and bought some.

I did make a change to the recipe.  Instead of stuffing mix, I used Italian style bread crumbs.  We’ve had it both ways and I don’t think one is any better than the other…I just utilized what I had in the house.  I had gotten several boxes of Betty Crocker mashed potatoes for free with coupons a while back, so I put together some of those and threw some frozen mixed veggies (less than $1 a bag at Walmart) in the microwave and we were all set!

Cheap and easy, but delicious!  Two of the three kids loved it, so that was a win as far as I’m concerned.  Best of all, I satisfied my craving without blowing the budget and feeling guilty.  The entire meal cost less than $8 and fed all 5 of us, so I feel pretty good about splurging on the pork chops.  And I feel good about taking back dinner.  There will still be days when I ask my husband to take over and work his magic, but the kitchen is mine again.  Now if I could just get someone to clean it up and wash all of those dishes…

 
No Comments

Posted in Family, Food/Recipes, House/Home, Money/Finances

 

Tasty Tuesday — Easy & Affordable Chicken Chili

22 Jun

The new WIC foods have been a huge blessing to us.  We can now get fruits and veggies, canned beans, bread or tortillas, and several other things.  I have figured out how to get the most bang for our buck with it, but I can’t always use it all!  So I came up with this one day when I was contemplating all of my stored food.

First of all, you’ll need chicken.  Sadly, this is not available on WIC.  However, I can typically get fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts for under $2/lb.  When I find it at this price, I stock up.  If it’s fresh chicken, I split them into zipper bags of 2 breasts each and freeze.  That is a perfect portion size for this dish.  Individually flash frozen chicken makes it even easier.  You just dump 2 breasts in the bottom of the crockpot.  No thawing, no prep work…just toss them in there.

Next I go for the beans and veggies.  All of these can be purchased on WIC.  (And are relatively inexpensive if you don’t receive WIC.)  I’ve used black beans, navy beans, cannellini…whatever I have on hand that appeals to me.  I use 1-2 cans, depending on what is in the pantry.  Next is a 16 oz frozen bag of corn.  Then a can (or 2) of diced tomatoes.  If you don’t like canned tomatoes, chop up a couple of fresh ones.  You can always substitute red pepper for the tomatoes if you don’t like tomato.  Maybe you’re allergic to corn…try onion and green pepper instead.  Add some jalapeño if you like it hot. There aren’t any rules on this one!

Last is the seasoning.  A cup of salsa.  A dash of chili powder.  Cumin, cilantro, cayenne.  (All of those “C” spices!)  I don’t measure, so I can’t tell you what’s best.  If you like it spicy, add a lot.  If you prefer to taste the food rather than the spice, use a little.  Again, there are no rules here.

Turn the crockpot on low if you managed to get it all in there before lunchtime.  If it’s after noon, go ahead and put it on high.  Once the chicken is cooked (about 4 hours on high, 6 hours on low, but this will depend on your crockpot) you’ll want to either shred it or pull it out and chop it up, then return it to the pot.  At this time you can also taste it and adjust the spices or other ingredients.

At dinner time, top as desired.  We like to serve with a few tortilla chips, cheese (also available on WIC), and some sour cream.  If we have fresh tomatoes, we slice some and top it with those.  Others like to add green onions or olives.  It’s all up to you!

Besides being easy and affordable, this dish is so adaptable.  It can really be a different meal every time you make it.  That also makes it easier to use what you have on hand.  And if you have leftovers, you can have them for lunch, turn it into dip for a party, or use them as a starter for next week’s soup.  I love to take a recipe and play with it and make it mine and this one is perfect for that.  Enjoy!

 
1 Comment

Posted in Food/Recipes, Tasty Tuesday

 

Coffee Talk

13 May

Let’s see how long my computer stays up…it keeps rebooting itself so I’ve had it turned off for a few days in hopes that it would magically fix itself!  I’ve had laptop access since my husband has been in a training class for a part time job, but it doesn’t have PhotoShop or any of my other special programs so it’s not ideal when I need to do anything other than use the internet.

So…coffee.  I am trying desperately to break my Mountain Dew addiction.  The amount of sugar in one can is some ridiculously high number…I think my husband said 14 teaspoons.  He may be off a little bit (one search I did said 11.5 teaspoons) but I know it’s high.  And it’s not real sugar.  It’s high fructose corn syrup which I increasingly believe is really, really bad stuff.  Plus people say it causes kidney stones and it’s making it harder for me to lose weight.

But the caffeine!  I need it.  Popping open that can of Mountain Dew is the only thing that gets me through some days.  I use it like an alcoholic uses booze…when the going gets tough, that caffeine and sugar high is only moments away.  But again, the kidney stones, the HFCS, the fatness.  Yuck.

This morning I found myself using my cute little Senseo to make a cup of coffee, a habit I’m trying to get into so I can break the other one.  I added my white chocolate mocha creamer and sugar (Yes, I know…I’ll work on that after I break the Mtn. Dew addiction.  It’s still nowhere near the amount of sugar as in a soda.) and found myself thinking about our honeymoon.  That was the first time I ever enjoyed coffee.  We were at Sandals Inn in Jamaica and I ordered coffee with my breakfast because I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before (Get your mind out of the gutter!  Our flight in was late!) and really needed to get woken up.  To this day, that is the best coffee I have ever tasted.  It came from the Blue Mountains in Jamaica and was absolutely delicious.  So this morning, I got the bright idea to see if I could find some on the internet.  Maybe for a Father’s Day surprise, since my husband loved it, too.  We can’t afford a second honeymoon or even 1 night away, so I thought it would be an inexpensive way to have a mini vacation every morning.

Haha.  Hahahahahahahahaha!  A quick search told me that it was ridiculously expensive and hard to find.  For the price of a pound of this coffee, I could get several pounds of meat.  And by several, I mean 10+.  Of the most expensive steak in the grocery store.  Really.  When I haven’t had a really good steak in nearly 2 years because it’s an irresponsible waste of money, this seems like a monumentally bad idea.  So much for that idea.  It would almost be cheaper to fly to Jamaica, pay for a night at a hotel just to get coffee, and fly home.  And that would be much more fun, in my opinion.

Back to square one.  At least I have my white chocolate mocha creamer.  And my caramel macchiato creamer, which is delicious in french vanilla flavored coffee.  I’ll have to make do with those splurges for now.  But someday…someday I will go back to Jamaica.  With my husband.  And we’ll drink coffee.  And talk about something other than our children and lack of money while we drink it.  Right now, in this moment, that sounds like the best thing ever.

Hooray!  My computer stayed up!  Do I dare attempt some photo editing?

 
1 Comment

Posted in Family, Food/Recipes, Health, Me Stuff

 
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »