Two new dishes; grocery savings

August 28, 2013

Today was grocery shopping day. My hubby had daytime hours off today so all four of us headed out. We ate at the food court before going into the commissary.

My pre-challenge weekly grocery average was $175. Today I spent $22.86 on toiletries/cleaners. I spent $91.94 on food. I spent $14.28 on impulse items. My hubby asked for refried beans, vegetarian sausage, and some vegetarian frozen lunches. I also grabbed a container of crescent rolls. I spent $7.26 on gossip magazines. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $137.98. That is a savings of $37.02. My pre-challenge restaurant weekly average was $80. We went on a lunch date and also had lunch out today. We spent $52.10 this week. This is a savings of $27.90. This brings our weekly savings to $64.92. Our grand total savings is $4,394.12 in 315 days! I asked my son if he would try the organic version of cinnamon toast crunch cereal. He didn't want to. I told him that I would buy the organic one, but that it would not count as his one item (each kid gets to pick one special item from the store which eliminates them asking for something in each aisle). He agreed. I held a taste test once we got home. First a bite of the organic followed up by one of his regular cinnamon toast crunch. Fooled! He totally guessed wrong. Guess which cereal he'll be getting again next week!

I wanted to try something new for dinner tonight. I found a recipe "Ellie Krieger's Fried Rice with scallions, edamame, and tofu". I scanned it and then figured that I could just wing it. Fried rice isn't that difficult. I started out with garlic, ginger, red onion, green pepper, and julienned carrot. Next I added in cubed tofu (firm, that had been pressed). After a few minutes, I stirred in some leftover corn, edamame, and leftover quinoa. I figured that quinoa was close enough to rice. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and garlic & wine seasoning. I pushed everything to the outside of the pan and added two eggs to the center. I cooked and stirred it all together. I added soy sauce. I served it with green onion, sushi ginger, and teriyaki sauce.

I needed a side dish. I looked in the cupboard and couldn't believe what I saw. Dried seaweed. I totally forgot that my daughter had asked for that a few weeks ago. I thought I would try to make miso soup. Both of the kids love that. I didn't have miso paste. Hmmmm. I thawed out some homemade veggie broth and also stirred in some water. I sliced a few mushrooms very thin. I tore up a sheet of dried seaweed and added it to the broth. After letting it simmer for awhile (very low heat), I stirred in the mushrooms and small pieces of tofu. I served it with green onion.

Fingers crossed. How did dinner turn out? Did I score major brownie points for making some of my daughter's favorites (tofu)? Everyone really liked the fried quinoa with tofu. My son said it was amazing. Nobody could come up with any changes needed for next time. Wohoo! My hubby and I aren't really big on miso soup in general and my attempt tonight was no different. However, I was really hoping the kids would like it. Not so much. The broth wasn't quite right. I'm not sure if the seaweed's strong flavor didn't blend well with the veggie broth. Maybe I should have just used water. Maybe it really does need the miso paste. Oh well. The kids kept coming into the kitchen to steal chunks of tofu as I was cooking. Then they kept coming in to grab seaweed sheets. My son ate three and my daughter ate six. Holy smokes. I guess we're doing something right. Our kids definitely love a wide range of foods. Even though my soup kinda flopped, I'm still calling tonight a success. I cooked tofu and we all liked it. Score!

Creamy stuffed peppers

August 26 & 27, 2013

I wanted a warm melty sandwich for lunch. I sauteed some onion, mushrooms, and green pepper. I also added on arugula, black olives, and mexican cheese. Mmmm. Broiler sandwiches are the way to go.

I was walking around our back yard and looked at our apple tree. It was so loaded. I decided to pick a bunch of apples and see what I could do. The apples are still very small. So small that I was wondering if it was even worth messing with. I peeled and cut up a bunch of apples until I had six cups of apples ready to go. I cooked them with 1/4 cup water. I tried to keep the sugar limited but the apples themselves were tart so I had to add a little more. I probably ended up using about half a cup of sugar. They didn't take too long to cook. The kids loved it. I was so excited that I was able to make something delicious out of those tiny apples!

My hubby had to work through dinner so we had a fend for yourself night. I had leftover pizza. The kids had vegetarian chicken wings and leftover cauliflower.

Tomorrow's job is grocery shopping. That makes today's job using up stuff out of the fridge. For lunch, I grabbed the container of black beans that were processed with homemade salsa. I put some of it on a Hawaiian roll. I had containers of chopped up onion, mushroom, and green pepper leftover from when we made pudgy pies. I sauteed the veggies and put them on my roll. I added arugula and mexican cheese. Back to the broiler!

I wanted to make a dinner that would use up more of the stuff in the fridge. I had three big green peppers. Aha. Stuffed peppers it is. I decided to try altering how I made them last time and just go with whatever ingredients I had to use. I sauteed some red onion, carrots, turnips, green pepper, and fresh garlic in a little olive oil and butter. I added in kale and local white wine. I seasoned it with garlic & wine seasoning and salt. At the last minute, I stirred in corn and cooked quinoa. I found a container of cream cheese and processed black beans in the fridge. It was leftover from when I made lasagna. Perfect. I spread some of the cream cheese in the bottom of the peppers. I stuffed them with the quinoa veggie mix. I topped them with a sauce made from tomato sauce, brown sugar, and worcestershire sauce. I had also put a thin layer of sauce under the peppers. I put habanero pepper slices on top of my hubby's peppers. I topped the peppers with cheese. A few peppers had mozzarella. A couple had mexican cheese. One pepper had cheddar cheese. The baked at 400 for about 25 minutes. For a quick side, I chopped up carrots, red onion, and cucumber. I also grabbed the green onion, arugula, lettuce, and peas for a salad. There was just a small amount of homemade applesauce left so we each had a scoop. My daughter made us a batch of her deviled eggs.

How was dinner? Everyone really liked the stuffed peppers. We agreed that we liked this recipe even better than the last time I made stuffed peppers. I love stuffed peppers. It is such a versatile dish. You can alter it and throw just about any veggie you have into the filling. Out of mushrooms? No big deal. Just add more of something else. Have leftover rice in the fridge? Use that instead of quinoa. You get the idea.

The garlic & wine seasoning really makes the deviled eggs pop. My son who really isn't a fan of eggs (in any form) asked me to buy two "boxes" of eggs tomorrow and to make them all into deviled eggs. Ha!

Guess what I made today

August 25, 2013

Today was a fun food day. My hubby made us all breakfast today. He made us omelets out of sauteed onion, mushroom, green peppers, and kale. The meat eaters had ham. He also added in american cheese. We topped it with green onion and avocado. He seasoned the omelets with kosher salt, garlic & wine seasoning, and basil. Oh! I almost forgot. I was busy in the kitchen before everyone woke up. I made a loaf of bread. Very special bread. Bread that I made one of my guests (the lucky one who slept in the latest) try and guess what kind of bread it was. It took 12 guesses!

1. Zucchini- no
2. Maple- no
3. Brown sugar-(yes it was an ingredient, but no)
4. Peach- no
5. Apple- no
6. Cucumber- no
7. Nuts- no
8. Orange- no
9. "Well, I know it's not potato". At this point, we gave him a hint. I said it is a vegetable that your wife likes.
10. Avocado- no. Then we gave him another hint that he had eaten it in the past few days.
11. Guacamole- no. Then his wife gave him the hint that he had eaten it on the way to my house.
12. Aha! Sweet potato!

Ha. I'm not sure if I have ever laughed so hard eating breakfast.

My hubby and I went out on a date this afternoon. Yay! We went to TGIF for a light lunch of skillet nachos and spinach artichoke flatbread. Then we went to the movie theater.

We made a campfire and had pizza pudgy pies for dinner. We had onion, mushroom, green pepper, arugula, black olives, mozzarella cheese, and my homemade pizza sauce. The meat eaters also added in ham and pepperoni. My hubby decided that he didn't want pizza pudgy pies so he had a sauteed onion/mushroom and a buffalo hot sauce cheese sandwich.

Dessert. Oh, dessert. I may have ended up with two plates in front of me! It is the recipe for "wave your flag cake" from Kraft. You top angel food cake with jello and berries. The frosting is made out of cream cheese, cool whip, and sugar. We used raspberry jello and raspberries from the farmer's market. We also topped it with some blueberries. Yum. It is so light.....you know, so you can keep filling your face without getting too full. Ha! My kind of dessert.

The tale of two pies

August 24, 2013

My mom taught me well. I in turn, taught my kiddos well. To do what? Garage sales! My son scored baseball cleats and talked the lady down to a quarter. My daughter talked another lady down to a quarter for a magnetic mirror (brand new) to go in her locker. They found deals left and right but I left empty handed. It was still a lot of fun to see how excited they would get when they would find a bargain.

In the midst of our rummage sale run, we headed out for lunch. Our company treated us to a delicious lunch at Moe's. I stuffed everything I could into my burrito: rice, black beans, tofu, grilled onion/pepper/mushrooms, queso, guacamole, cilantro, and pico de gallo. Yum! We finished up our day out by stopping by our local apple cider mill. We got a few bags of apples, warm cider donuts, and a gallon of apple cider.

My hubby and I got to work on dinner. He made up another batch of his amazing caramelized onions. We duplicated the best pizza (pie) we ever had (the one he made a few nights ago) and added a few items to it. We had grilled green pepper and mushrooms. I sauteed corn and fresh garlic in butter (seasoned with salt and pepper). We also used arugula, black olives, mozzarella cheese, provolone cheese, feta cheese, and a little bit of muenster. Of course we used my homemade pizza sauce. What did our company think? "This pizza could be served in a pizzeria"! She also said that from now on onions will be caramelized in many of her recipes. Score!

Next up was dessert. We made an apple pie with the apples that we got from the cider mill today. I'm not sure where this recipe originated from but I got it from a friend about 14 years ago. 3/4 cup sugar (I do half brown and half white), 2 TBsp flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp lemon juice, 6-7 cups apples (peeled and sliced), and 1 TB butter. Mix sugar with next five ingredients. Place bottom pie crust into pie plate. Place half of the apples into your pie plate. Sprinkle with half of sugar. Add rest of apples and then the rest of the sugar. Dot with butter. Top with other crust and cut some vent slits. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes. What did our company think of dessert? "This pie is better than the pie we bought at an apple store". Double score!

Coconut sauce

August 23, 2013

What a great food day! We started off by trying out a new pancake mix. I found a package of apple cinnamon pancake mix at a small local store. My hubby mixed them up (using apple juice) and cooked us up a batch. I used our juicer and made fresh tangelo (cross between grapefruit and tangerine) juice. We used my father in law's homemade maple syrup. The pancakes were delicious! I will definitely be heading back to buy some more!

We hit up the farmer's market and got our next job for the day: corn. I bought 7 dozen. We had a quick lunch of sandwiches, homemade pickles, and chips. I was thankful for my company today. It made the work go much faster with six hands pitching in. We peeled the corn, blanched it for five minutes, dunked it in a sink of cold water/ice, cut it off the cobs, bagged it, and froze it. Whew. My freezer is happy....and so is my dog. He was thrilled with having to "clean up" all the corn that flew off the counter!

Dinner rolled around and we decided to make one of our favorite sauces. The copycat recipe for Red Lobster's Parrot Bay coconut sauce (found at cdkitchen.com). My hubby grilled some chicken thighs with teriyaki sauce for the meat eaters. I baked some vegetarian chicken tenders for the non-meat eaters. I cooked up some jasmine rice figuring that it would soak up the sauce nicely. I steamed some green beans and set out all the veggies/greens for a salad. We used up the rest of the loaf of Italian bread too.

I had  our meat eater company try a bite of the vegetarian chicken tenders. The reply? "So that's just a chicken strip"? Ha. Close. Just not chicken. The sauce was delicious as usual. We were talking after dinner and mentioned how it would be good used as a dessert sauce too. We could put it with pound cake or even over ice cream. Mmmm.

I bet by now you thought I would leave you hanging and you would have to go search for the sauce recipe. Wrong! 1 cup pina colada mix, 1/4 cup water, 2 TBsp crushed pineapple (I used fresh pineapple), 1 TBsp and 1 tsp sweetened coconut flakes, 3 TBsp and 1 tsp powdered sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch, and 3 tsp cold water. Mix the first five ingredients in a sauce pan. Heat on medium low temperature until it simmers. Stir frequently. Simmer slowly for 10-12 minutes. Mix corn starch and water and add to sauce. Simmer 3-5 more minutes, stirring occasionally. You're welcome!

Homemade baked beans

August 22, 2013

We spent the morning playing with our puppy. Ok. So we spent the day playing with our puppy. Ha. I picked a few goodies from the garden today (green beans and lettuce) while my son picked and snacked on green onions. Crazy kid.

I wanted to make a pot of baked beans for lunch. I got a recipe for semi-homemade beans from my hubby's cousin. The base of it is a can of store bought baked beans and then you add in more beans and some homemade sauce. We made them for my son's birthday and everyone loved them (my son included who normally doesn't like baked beans). Today I wanted to eliminate the store bought beans. I wanted it all homemade so I would know exactly what was in it. I started out by cooking up some onion in olive oil. I added 2 cups each of lima beans, small white beans, and black eyed peas (all cooked from dry beans and then frozen). I decided to double the recipe for sauce seeing as I had eliminated the store bought can. I added in a cup of brown sugar, a cup of water, a cup of ketchup, 4 teaspoons of vinegar, and 2 teaspoons of mustard. They were delicious. There is no need to start out with any store bought variety. I may try to cut back on the brown sugar next time. They weren't too sweet for me; it is just the thought of putting so much sugar in it. I made melty subs to go along with our beans. The meat eaters started out with ham and pepperoni. We all had sauteed onion, mushrooms, garlic, and green peppers. I used provolone and muenster cheese on them. Under the broiler until melty, and then it is time to add on arugula and avocado. I put out four types of homemade pickles for everyone to choose from. Yum. Double Yum. 

I worked on a large pot of black beans today to freeze. I ended up with five bags after my daughter kept stealing from my pot! For dinner, I half way took the easy way out. We heated up the leftover lasagna rolls. I cooked some corn on the cob. We had more of the Italian bread with garlic butter. We had salad again with all of the fixings (lettuce, arugula, baby kale, green onion, carrot, green pepper, peas). My daughter made a batch of her famous deviled eggs. The secret (shhhh don't tell her I told you) is using garlic and wine seasoning from The Melting Pot. Wow. Kind of makes me wish we just had a plateful of deviled eggs for dinner!

Lasagna rolls & grocery savings

August 21, 2013

Divide and conquer. That was today's strategy. My daughter and I ran errands and got groceries. My hubby and son stayed home and finished up our to do list (some cleaning and some man work).

My pre-challenge grocery weekly average was $175. Today I spent $24.39 on cleaners and toiletries (including expensive allergy medicine). I spent $1.49 on impulse items. I saw a loaf of Italian bread and thought it would go great with lasagna tonight. I spent $10.16 on gossip magazines. Now on to food. I spent $113.17 on food. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $152.11 out of pocket. A little higher this week but for a good reason....we are having company stay with us. Yay! This is a savings of $22.89. My pre-challenge weekly restaurant average was $80. This week we ordered in from a local Italian place and went out to Olive Garden. We spent $90.17. Oops. This is over by $10.17. Taking that overage out of our savings brings our weekly total savings to $12.72. Our grand total savings is $4,329.20 in 308 days. It feels like it has been slow moving for the past month or so. Oh well. It will pick up soon!

I decided to alter our lasagna recipe tonight. I knew I could include black beans with the filling and no one would notice it. I put a block of cream cheese, about a cup of black beans, and a few spoonfuls of homemade spaghetti sauce into the food processor. I spread the mixture onto cooked lasagna noodles. Next I added a sauteed mixture of onion, mushrooms, spinach, and garlic that was cooked with white wine. I seasoned the veggies with adobo and garlic/wine seasoning. After the veggies, a little bit of mozzarella cheese went on. I rolled up the lasagna noodles. I put a little sauce in the bottom of a cake pan, set the rolls on top, then put more sauce on them. I topped the rolls with american cheese, pepperoni for the meat eaters, mozzarella cheese, and romano cheese. I baked the lasagna rolls at 400 until warmed then stuck it under the broiler to brown the cheese.

My daughter made her special garlic butter to go on the Italian bread. She added parsley, salt, and pepper. I forgot to get it in the picture though. Tonight was also the first night that we got to eat green beans from my garden as a meal. Delicious. I let everyone build their salads and choose what items they wanted. We chose from lettuce, baby kale, arugula, pea shoots, peas, carrots, green pepper, and green onion.

How did dinner turn out? Everyone said the lasagna was really good and nobody could taste the beans. Score!