$3 Chicken Dinner for Two!

We all have those weeks. Unexpected bills creep up, hours get cut at work, we're stressed and short of time. Things happen. We feel aggravated and want to hit up the drive through or we scrounge the fridge for leftovers that aren't growing mold yet. But when we have those nights, one of the simplest "cures" in my opinion is to still have a nice meal. Nice doesn't have to mean expensive or complicated.

I was recently at Kroger and I saw chicken drumsticks for $1.52 (with card)! Of course, I had to buy them! And, revelation time, this was the first time I have EVER cooked chicken drumsticks, so I nuked those suckers well beyond done-ness just to err on the safe side. They were so simple to make though! In a glass baking dish, I soaked them in buttermilk (which I had on hand, optional) for about 15 minutes. Then, I used some blackening seasoning, sea salt, and pepper to season them. Finally, I grilled them over medium heat for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes.

While at Kroger, I also happened to find two ears of corn for 33 cents each. Unfortunately, they weren't very good. And I steamed frozen broccoli I had on hand and seasoned with 1 Tbsp of butter, a squirt of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Yum!

Other things you could pair with chicken drumsticks and still stay under the $3 mark:
-Rice
-Canned baked beans
-Frozen vegetables
-Boxed mac-n-cheese
-Dinner rolls

(Picture to come later!)

Thanks for reading, guys! The next time you're counting nickles and tempted between McD's dollar menu and Ramen noodles, remember this as a meal option!

5 Layer Greek Dip

I modified a recipe from a friend who had gotten it from Pinterest. I mixed the ingredients of mine and added a light "dressing". It's fantastic and healthy!

You'll need:

1 container of storebought hummus (or if you feel like it, make your own!)

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 Tbsp dried dill

Salt & pepper to taste (not too much salt though!

2 cuccumbers, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 bulb of fennel, finely diced (you could use red onion instead, but it's too strong for me)

8 oz feta cheese

9x9 glass dish or a plastic container

Wish together the oil, lemon juice, dill, salt and pepper in a large bowl and set aside.

Cut up your vegetables and feta cheese and add to the bowl. Stir to coat. Taste and adjust seasonings if desired.

Spread the hummus around the bottom of your dish. Add vegetable and feta mixture on top. Store with a lid in the refrigerator up to one week. It's great eaten like a salad or with warm toasted pita. Taking my friend's suggestion, I am going to use this for a week's worth of lunches.

Enjoy!

5 Slow Cooker Pork Ideas

No pictures today folks. Just yummy ideas!

Pork loin is my go-to dinner helping love.

The possibilities are endless.

Literally endless.

Pork is very affordable. When I'm grocery shopping for a "cheap week" or a really busy week, I usually buy an unseasoned pork loin from the grocery store for around $10 and I can easily get 4 or 5 meals out of it with the help of seasonings and simple condiments. The trick is to buy unseasoned pork. The minute you choose a Smithfield seasoned pork loin, you have easily doubled your cost of meat. By choosing unseasoned pork, you save money and give yourself more recipe options. Add a simple side salad, some baked beans, couscous, rice, steamed vegetables, or macaroni and cheese and you have an easy, effortless meal in no time. Plus, your house will smell delectable when you come home from work! Here are 5 of my favorite pork recipes.

BBQ Pulled Pork version 1: (milder) Before you leave for work in the morning, put your portioned-out pork in your slow cooker with some chicken stock and pepper. Let it go all day on low. When you come home, drain off the liquid and "pull" the pork apart with two forks (should be tender enough at this point to pull easily). Put the pork back into the crockpot with your favorite BBQ sauce and let it heat through for about 20 minutes. Serve on a kaiser roll with some baked beans or corn on the cob.

BBQ Pulled Pork version 2: (stronger) Instead of cooking your pork in stock, cook it in two bottles worth of your favorite BBQ sauce. I personally like tangy BBQ sauce rather than sweet. I also add some crushed red pepper flakes and a tablespoon of vinegar because it tends to sweeten itself up the longer it cooks.

Porkchops and Applesauce: This one takes less time to cook. Go home for your lunch break and put your portioned pork into the crockpot with a bottle of your favorite cinnamon applesauce and some pepper. Cook on high for 4-5 hours. When you get home, it should still be sturdy enough to slice through like pork chops. Use the applesauce as a sauce over it. Serve with steamed broccoli and garlic bread.

Lemon-Pepper Pork: The trick with this is using just enough liquid to conduct heat and leave your pork moist, but not so much that it saturates the pork. Add just enough chicken stock to your crockpot to come 1/3 of the way up the porkloin. Add a liberal amount of pepper, some salt, the zest of one lemon, and 1/4 c. lemon juice. Cook all day on low. This is great with mashed potatoes.

Mustard Crusted Pork: Stir 2 Tbsp of pepper, 2 tsp of salt, 3 Tbsp of dijon mustard, 3 Tbsp of olive oil, 2 tsp of garlic powder together and rub onto a pork loin. Marinate overnight. Come home for lunch the next day and put it in the crockpot on high with just enough liquid (chicken stock, broth, water, or even white wine) to keep the bottom of the pork wet. Cook 5 hours or so. Serve with roasted asparagus, couscous, applesauce, crescent rolls, etc.

And with all of these recipes, the leftovers make for a fantastic lunch the next day!

Enjoy a week of easy cooking!

Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry

I have never been a fan of Asian food. When I read in a book and on several websites two years ago that consumption of soy products could worsen Endometriosis pain, I swore it away completely. But recently, I endure pain from my condition almost all the time, so I don't think staying away from soy is worth my effort anymore.I watched an episode of "Hungry Girl" last Sunday that was centered around Asian food. I got a hankering for it, so I decided to try a few recipes. Of the two we made this week, this was the better. It's delicious. It has a nice variety of textures and flavors, it isn't greasy, and it feeds 4-6 people. We ate it for two nights + lunches. I will say though that it is definitely better tasting the first day, so if you don't have to feed so many people, scale back the recipe to feed 2. 

Beef & Broccoli Stir-Fry, served with store-bought sushi and rice.
I didn't finish my plate.

This recipe has two things going on: the stir fry and the rice. I'll go over instructions and feedback for each seperately.

For the rice: this is going to be the bulk of the meal. You can learn about the nutritional content of rice here. I chose to use long grain brown rice because a large bag was only 79 cents versus half as much at over $3/box for white Minute Rice. It takes 40-45 minutes to cook, but it's cheaper and healthier. To supplement flavor, I also used a pack of pre-seasoned saffron yellow rice for 75cents. The flavor spread to all the rice and it was a delicious complement to the stir-fry.

1 cup long grain brown rice

1 packet saffron yellow rice

Cook the rice according to the packet instructions.

For the stir fry: protein, fiber, vitamins, flavor. You can use frozen vegetables (not canned!) to cut down on cost. Use the leanest stir fry beef you can locate.

3 Tbsp cornstarch, divided

1/2 c. water + 2 Tbsp water (divided)

1 tsp garlic powder

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/4 c. reduced sodium soy sauce

1 tsp freshly grated ginger root

1 lb. lean stir fry beef, cut into small strips

4 cups broccoli florets (I used frozen)

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1 small onion, diced

Start by mixing 2 Tbsp cornstarch and 2 tbsp water until smooth. Add garlic powder and pepper. This should be about the texture of school glue. Place beef in a large zipper bag with mixture and manually smush around to coat. The beef should be coated and there should be no excess paste. Heat wok or large skillet with 1 Tbsp of oil (canola or olive); stir-fry beef until browned and fully cooked.

While that is doing its thing, make the stir-fry sauce. Wisk soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and remaining cornstarch and water together until smooth. Set aside.

Once beef is done, remove from pan. Add onions, bell pepper, and broccoli and stir-fry for 5-7 min. Add beef back to pan along with the stir-fry sauce. Simmer about 5 min.

 We added alfalfa sprouts to ours. And picked them out. They're much better raw in my opinion.

Serve over rice.

French Onion Soup

Ok Readers, I am SO sorry I haven't been keeping up with posting recipes. My life has been chaotic lately, but tonight I have time. =)

I made this recipe last week. Yum. All I can say is yum.

I appreciate a good bowl of French Onion Soup. As simple as it looks, it has such a rich, robust flavor. Leftovers keep well, and it can be transformed into an easy side dish (as I will show later).

This was a spin on a Tyler Florence recipe. Even though cut in half, this made enough for both of us + leftovers.

(As pictured, this soup has mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, and couscous in it. Aaron doesn't like runny, brothy soups, so I added literally 1/2 c. of couscous to the entire dish and it kept multiplying. I love couscous.)

Ingredients in order of use:

1/4 c. butter

2 large vidallia onions, julienned 

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 bay leaf

2 fresh thyme sprigs

sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper

1/2 c. red wine (see wine tip below)

2 Tbsp all purpose flour

1 qt. beef broth

Toppings of your choice: baguette, cheese, couscous, croutons, etc.

First, melt butter, then add onions and cook until almost caramelized. Add garlic and bay leaf, continue to cook, stirring constantly so garlic doesn't burn (maybe 8 min total for this step):

 

Red wine tip: this is a great way to control the sweetness or boldness of the dish. I am not a wine connoisseur by any means and I really hate wine to drink (except sparkling moscato- mmm). But for this dish, I used Marsala wine. It has a sweet, plummy flavor. The bottle I got was $3.99 at Kroger. I am certain it will be in our fridge for a while.

Add wine and thyme and continue to cook until wine is reduced by half.

Once the wine has reduced, sprinkle the onions with flour, stir to avoid clumps, and cook another minute or so. Finally, add beef stock.

Simmer for 20 minutes.

At this point, remove herbs:

Taste test here and see how much pepper or salt it needs.

I added 1/2 c. of couscous to that whole thing and it turned into this:

Unexpected, but nice.

I also made roasted asparagus. Easy enough! Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over asparagus. Sprinkle with sea salt & fresh pepper. Roast about 10-15 minutes until desired texture. I like mine with a bite to it.

Final dish:

 I hope you give it a try! It's especially great for cold evenings or evenings when everyone gets home at a different time. Just keep the pot warm on the stove. Enjoy!

Salmon Two Ways

TGIF!!! It's been a very long day and I cannot wait to go to bed in a few minutes. On days like this, we usually find ourselves tempted to go out to dinner. Then we spend $30+ on one meal with innumerable calories and feel miserable for the rest of the evening. Tonight, I wanted to make something easy that was also going to be completely satisfying and relatively healthy. Aaron took a picture with his tablet, but it didn't do the meal justice.

Basically, I purchased a large (4-5 serving) salmon fillet from Kroger. It was in the frozen seafood section. Wild-caught, as always :)  I lined a cookie sheet with tin foil and then greased it lightly with olive oil so that the salmon wouldn't break apart when I served it. I put the whole salmon (frozen) on the cookie sheet and drizzled it with a little extra olive oil. I seasoned each half differently. On one half, I caked it with lemon pepper seasoning and extra lemon pepper. On the other half, I sprinkled it with fresh thyme, herbs de provence, pepper, and garlic powder. I roasted that at 450 for about 35 min. The whole thing was delicious, but especially the lemon pepper side. Looking forward to leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

I also made herbed mashed potatoes. I HATE instant potatoes. Mashed potatoes are so easy to make and there are like 100 ways to make them. Tonight, I used organic russet potatoes (5), washed and cut in fourths. Boiled them for about 15-17 min (from room temp water). While that was going, I heated a small egg skillet over very low heat (3 out of 10) and melted 3 Tbsp butter with the leaves of 3 thyme sprigs, 1 tsp rosemary (dried), lots of pepper, a little salt, and garlic powder. When the potatoes were done, I drained them, added the butter and herb mixture, and started mashing. I added 2% milk until I got the consistency I was looking for.

It was so good! =)

Tomato Gnocci Dish

Six years ago today, my husband asked me to be his girlfriend. =)  I remembered a few days ago, but I was very busy at work today and completely forgot. He cleaned the house, went grocery shopping, and made dinner (tasks that fall to me 95% of the time).  He made this yummy meal tonight that doesn't really have a name:

 He's not one for measuring, so it was just eyeballed. Here's my best estimate:

1 1/4 c. gnocci (measured dried)
1/2 pint of grape tomatoes
1/4 c. sundried tomatoes (in oil), sliced
1/4 c. mozzarella & prosciutto, chopped (he bought a "loaf" of mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto at Wal-mart)
3 Tbsp dried basil (*fresh would be better)
Good extra virgin olive oil

Boil gnocci until they float to the top of the water, about 3 minutes, then drain and rinse with cool water. Add remaining ingredients to medium size mixing bowl. Coat with olive oil. Refrigerate. Serve cold.

This serves two people with no leftovers, which is much more economical for us because we usually let our leftovers go bad...

It was good and the best part was I didn't have to make it or clean up after it! =)

Enjoy!