Fakeout General Tso's

March 3, 2013

My poor little peanut still didn't feel like eating too much today. Fever is getting better, but she still isn't back to normal. So how do I try to tempt her to eat? By making one of her favorites. Well, kind of.

I had leftover balsamic chicken. I also had leftover rotisserie chicken. There is also leftover rice. Hmmmm. My daughter is always asking for chinese food. One of her favorites is general tso's chicken. I found a recipe on keyingredient.com. We were going to use the sauce on rotisserie chicken so we decided to skip the frying part of the recipe. We'll do that the next time we make this. I got everything all ready for my hubby (yay he was snowblowing the driveway!) so that when he came inside he could get it all started. I chopped up some cabbage, onion, carrot, and broccoli. Woah. What just happened?! My kids always come into the kitchen when I am cutting veggies and sneak bites of whatever I have chopped. For the first time ever, my son snagged some cabbage. He kept coming back for more. I asked him, what are you eating? He says, lettuce. Um, no buddy. That's not lettuce. Ha. Even after I told him what it was, it didn't scare him away from the cutting board. I also got out the ingredients for the sauce. I set out the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, pepper, cornstarch, water, ginger, and garlic. The recipe called for msg but instead we used adobo. I needed some chicken broth so I grabbed one of the small containers of homemade broth that I made yesterday and just thawed it in the microwave. My hubby sauteed the veggies, then added the chicken and sauce. I heated up some leftover rice and we were all set.

The verdict? I LOVED the sauce. I think we may need to use this sauce everytime we make stir fry. It is a very sweet sauce but it is delicious. Everyone really liked it. My son said it was a little thick. There was quite a bit of corn starch in the recipe so we could ease up on that. Next time we could probably cut back on the amount of sauce we make too. Overall, a definite win.

Stocked up for soup-er results

March 2, 2013

Good news: we stayed home for lunch on a Saturday. Bad news: it is because my daughter woke up with yet another fever. Ugh. My hubby made us burgers out of local grass fed beef. Yum. I had american cheese on mine along with sauteed onions and mushrooms. He had pepper jack cheese on his along with bacon, onions, mushrooms, and blue cheese crumbles. My son just had a plain burger. I knew my daughter wouldn't feel like a burger. So what is a mom to do? Make her new favorite soup. Lemon chicken. I made it a few weeks ago and she fell in love with it.

To make it go faster today, I just grabbed the homemade chicken broth out of the freezer. I popped it into a pot and turned it on to get it thawed out. Meanwhile, I chopped some rotisserie chicken, onion, celery, spinach, and carrots. I added them to the broth along with salt, pepper, and a bay leaf and let them simmer for about 5 minutes. Then I added some orzo pasta and the juice from three lemons. Last time I made this soup I only needed two lemons. I must have had a lot more broth today. So then I ended up with a chicken carcass. I grabbed the other one out of the freezer and put them in a big soup pot. I covered them with water and added two stalks of celery, a carrot, salt, pepper, and two bay leaves. After simmering for almost 6 hours, I ended up with 12 cups of delicious homemade chicken broth. I used different sized containers to freeze it in. I did a couple of containers that hold about a cup and a half. Those will be great when a recipe just calls for one can of broth. I did a couple containers with 3 cups and one with almost 4 cups. The bigger ones will get me stocked up for soups.

I wanted to try a new recipe that I found on Sugar-Free Mom's blog. My hubby seasoned some chicken thighs with basil, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper. We added olive oil and chopped garlic to the slow cooker. The chicken went on top of the garlic and then balsamic vinegar was poured over the chicken. After four hours on high, we had flavorful chicken that was really tender. We wanted some quick side dishes so we just went with rice and a side salad. My hubby said he would like to try a pizza topped with this chicken, tomatoes, and some fresh mozzarella. Mmmmm. We may need to make that happen.

Bean redemption

March 1, 2013

I finished the rest of the ragu for lunch today. The kiddos decided to eat school lunch today. How can you not when it's green eggs and ham day? Ha. The week long celebration of Dr. Seuss finished today with a fun lunch.

We decided to have some friends over for dinner tonight. Well, kind of over for dinner. Ha. The guys went and picked up dinner from the American Legion's fish fry. Each plate had fish, french fries or macaroni, cole slaw, and a dinner roll. Want to guess how much each plate cost? $4. Our family ate for only $16. Not bad!

We were going to be hanging out for a little while before the guys went to get our dinner so I knew I needed to have snacks. I made a batch of the cookie dough hummus and served it with cinnamon graham crackers. I also made another loaf of sweet potato bread. I wasn't sure if everyone would try it if I told them what it was. So what did I do? I cut it up into bite sized pieces and just set it out on the table. I figured that if it was cut up and in front of them, while everyone sat around talking, the bread would disappear. Score one for me. Remember how my hubby wasn't too thrilled with the taco dip I made out of pink beans? Well, I wanted to redeem myself. I knew that I could get him (along with our friends) to like bean dip. I just had to doctor it up a bit. I put a can of rinsed pink beans and a scoop of sour cream into the food processor. I added a little bit of taco seasoning to it. I wanted to make sure that there was good flavor in the beans itself incase anyone took a bite of just the beans. Next step,  process a block of cream cheese with maybe about 6-8 ounces of sour cream. I added the rest of the taco seasoning to it too. I spread the bean mixture into a pie plate and then topped it with the cream cheese/sour cream mixture. I added some chopped onion. Next I needed to smother it in cheese. If you want a man to eat it, smother it in cheese. First, I covered it with shredded pepper jack cheese. Then I went back around with some shredded mexican cheese. I baked it at 350 for about 15 minutes and then stuck it under the broiler to brown up the cheese. Oh! I almost forgot. I added a little something else to the bean layer. Can you guess? Nutritional yeast. I knew it would hide well in this dish seeing as it has a cheese flavor. So what is the verdict? The boys loved the bean dip. Total redemption for my beans!

A quick meal; grocery savings

February 28, 2013

Once you see the pictures from this morning, you will know that my hubby was around for breakfast. He made my son some french toast with homemade syrup from my father in law. He made my daughter pancakes with banana in them along with some bacon.

My hubby packed a sandwich for lunch. My son also packed a sandwich. I had some of the leftover ragu. Still yum! Then it was time for me to hit up the commissary.

My pre-challenge weekly average was $175. Today I spent $40.20 on toiletries and cleaners. There were quite a few items that I figured I better grab this week so that I wouldn't run out (dishwasher soap, laundry soap, batteries, etc). I spent $104.63 on food. Ugh. However, I got a 9 1/2 pound pork roast to make pulled pork which costed $11.45. That monster roast will make many meals for us. I love pulled pork and it freezes perfectly. I spent $7.98 on gossip magazines. I had a good coupon day and saved $20 with coupons! There were quite a few coupons that were going to expire after today so I ended up buying a few things that I didn't really need this week but figured that I may as well buy them now with the savings instead of paying full price next week. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $140.77 out of pocket. That is a savings of $34.23. Ugh. Disappointing. Our restaurant weekly average is $80. This week we went out to lunch twice and spent $44.05. This is a savings of $35.95. The kiddos packed lunches this week and saved $10. Our savings for this week is $80.18. Our grand total savings is $2,348.20 in 134 days. I feel a little defeated after today but I just need to look in the cupboards and see that I actually did get quite a bit for my money.

I totally forgot that there was a circus tonight. After we got homework done, we rushed to get there in time. By the time we got home, it was 7 p.m. Yikes, an hour to cook, eat dinner, have the kids shower, and tuck them into bed. This calls for a quick meal. I chopped up some romaine lettuce, carrots, mushrooms, cucumber, and broccoli. We topped our salad with rotisserie chicken. I put feta cheese and ranch on mine. My hubby put buffalo sauce on his chicken and used a buffalo blue cheese dressing with blue cheese crumbles.

What kind of bread is that?

February 27, 2013

Both kiddos packed lunches today. My son packed a sandwich (surprise) and my daughter packed some random leftovers (rice, lima beans, yogurt, etc). I finished up the leftover soup.

I wanted to make some goodies today. I started off with wanting to bake. I saw that I had a sweet potato that needed to get used up. Hmmmmm. I did a little search and found that there really is a such thing as sweet potato bread. Kind of like banana bread. Count me in. I had a rather large sweet potato and the recipe only called for one cup of mashed so I have some leftover. I changed a few things in the recipe. I did half regular sugar and half brown. I added double the cinnamon. Pinterest, once again you rock! We had half of the loaf gone in about 20 minutes. I guess I know what I will be doing with the leftover mashed sweet potatoes! The fun part is that I made the kids guess what kind of bread it was. They guessed every veggie and fruit they could think of, except sweet potato. They guessed banana, pepper, pumpkin, carrot, apple, and grapefruit. Ha. They must have some off taste buds. Then my hubby came home, sampled it, and I made him guess. He thought banana.

I also had some kale that needed to be used. So I made some kale chips for the kids to snack on before dinner. Next thing I knew, my daughter ate the entire plate. Ha. Guess she likes them.

I've been going through the recipes that we tried during the past 6 1/2 weeks (while my hubby was gone) and finding ones that we want to remake so he can try them. Tonight's recipe was beef ragu. Once again made with local grass fed beef and local red wine. Yum. I figured seeing as there are carrots in the meat sauce that I didn't need to bother with a veggie side. I made some quick garlic bread to help use up some bread seeing as tomorrow is probably grocery shopping day.

Re-side-cled

February 26, 2013

Today worked out pretty well, challenge wise. My son packed his lunch. My daughter didn't want to but made a deal that she would pack tomorrow. My hubby didn't pack his lunch. Uh oh. However, I came to the rescue. After running some errands, I stopped to pick up the free pizza I won (guessing correctly for the coin toss of the Super Bowl). I brought the pizza and had lunch with my hubby at work.

The kids ate up the leftover brownie dip after school. I had my hubby grill up some local lamb chops for dinner. I sauteed some zucchini, yellow squash, onion, and mushrooms. Normally we add a tomato to this sautee but I didn't have any. Oh! I found 1/4 pint of home canned tomatoes in the fridge. That'll work. We also normally finish it off with parmesan cheese but tonight we tried it with feta. It was good but didn't look too pretty because it didn't melt all the way. The sautee was seasoned with salt, pepper, and basil. I was about to grab either some rice or pasta to make as a side. However, good thing I looked into the fridge first. Geez. There was leftover quinoa with corn. Leftover plain white rice. Leftover black beans and rice. Leftover egg noodles. Uh yeah. Time for a side dish buffet of leftovers. Everyone picked what side they wanted. Also, the kids aren't big fans of the zucchini dish so instead they had some of the leftover chopped veggies from salmon tacos (carrots, celery, and cucumber). I guess one way to use up leftovers without feeling like you had "leftovers" is to make a new dinner but one part of the dinner is a recycled side. No one complained about having rice/pasta that needed to be used up.

We finally checked the mail tonight on our way home from the kids' activities. Score! I got a coupon in the mail for a free 2 liter of Pepsi Next. A good challenge day indeed!

Food reinvention

February 25, 2013

Today was a total challenge success. We started our day by my hubby and kiddos packing leftovers for lunch. My hubby brought beef roast to make a sandwich out of. My daughter brought tacos. My son brought a sandwich.

I wanted to make soup out of the leftover beef broth and some of the beef from the slow cooker yesterday. I looked in the fridge to find other ingredients for the soup. Hmmmmm. Today is going to be a day of reinvention of food. Why do I always put the same veggies (onion, celery, carrot, corn) in soup? I had some leftover red potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower from when we had fondue. Why do I always use pasta or rice in soup? I had leftover quinoa with corn. This was the easiest soup ever. I put the broth in a pot. I added the container of cooked veggies. I added half of the container of quinoa and corn. I added a little bit of chopped beef. Simmered until heated through. It was actually pretty good! I really liked the cauliflower in soup. I will have to keep that in mind next time I make some.

I saw that I had three bananas that needed to get used up. I decided to make the kids some smoothies for after school. I normally start with some milk but today I used orange juice instead. I added spinach and bananas to the orange juice. After blending, I added strawberries and ground flaxseed. The kids really liked it (my daughter had 2 1/2 glasses) but they prefer it made with milk.

Time to plan dinner. I knew I was going to make salmon. There are leftover taco shells. Ok, so salmon tacos it is. What side dish would go with that? Ah! Black beans and rice. I have leftover rice. Perfect. I used half a can of black beans and sauteed them with some red onion. I added a bunch of the rice and 3/4 of a pint of home canned tomatoes. I seasoned it with cumin, oregano, thyme, and salt. For the tacos, I seasoned the salmon with oregano, salt, and cumin. As my hubby grilled the salmon, I got to work on the toppings. Why do taco toppings always consist of lettuce, onion, tomato, and cheese? I cut matchsticks of cucumber, celery, and carrots. I also cut up some red onion and lettuce. My daughter mixed together some guacamole and sour cream. Oh man. Dinner turned out even better than it did in my head. Ha. I will definitely make this again. The guacamole/sour cream really complimented the salmon. My hubby used leftover hard shells. The kids and I used tortillas. My daughter went back for seconds and made it in a lettuce wrap.

Who can let that extra half a can of black beans go to waste? I'm sure you know where I'm headed. Yep, dessert. I made half a batch of the brownie dip. I can't wait to dig into that tonight after our evening activities.