chicken romaine wraps with vegetable stew

So finger sandwiches are one of my daughter's favorite snacks.  In order to consider it a "meal", I added the stew, and made sure the wraps had protein and vegetable.  That, I feel, elevated this from "appetizers" to "dinner".  

There was some beef left over from last week's beef roast.  I had frozen it, and with this meal in mind I pulled it out last night.  Then, because I knew I needed some wheat tortillas to make the wraps, I went to the grocery store with the kids right after work.  

We found some crazy cheap chicken, coincidentally on sale; this pack was $3.34.  We also got this can of mixed veggies for 69 cents, this "romaine lettuce head" for 98 cents (yeah!) 2 lbs of onions for 88 cents (yeah!) and the tortillas for $2 (not so yeah...)  Salad dressing is $2 a bottle this week - not a fantastic price, but not bad.)

I put two pots of water on the stove.  In one, for the stew, I put 3 bullion cubes, about 2/3 of the beef, the can of veggies (which was almost ALL carrots, so I added these peas.  Then, because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I added onions (diced the smallest one out of the bag)  and corn.)



In the other pot, I put 2 of the 3 chicken breasts (third in the freezer) and set the timer so they could boil.  Then I diced the onion, mentioned above, and put half of it in the stew, saving the other half for the wraps.

To make the wraps, I put down a tortilla, some dressing, a single leaf (they were big), more dressing, and some meat, mixed with dressing and diced onions.

Then, I wrapped it up and sliced it into "snails",
turning them on their side and "displaying" them.  I made four wraps: One beef and honey mustard, one chicken and ranch, one chicken and thousand island, and one chicken and ranch with no onion, for my youngest.









Instead of putting each wrap on a plate for each one of us, because I knew that was too big of a serving for my kids, I put some of each wrap on a serving platter and had each kid pick 3 "snails" to go with their soup.  (It might not seem like much, but each full sized wrap made 6 snails, so 3 was half of a wrap, or a kids' serving).  Emily took four, "because they're delicious."

And she's right.

The soup was good but my oldest just does not photograph well.

Dessert was full-sized candy bars, purchased on sale (50 cents each) the day after Halloween and masterfully hidden for a full week, but eventually discovered when I pulled them out to get one for myself.

Our total for tonight is: 2/3 of $3.34 chicken, or $2.23.  4 leaves off a 98 cent head of lettuce, lets call it 10 cents, a few Tbsp of different salad dressings, which cost $2 a bottle, so 50 cents, max, 1 onion out of an 88 cent bag (of six) = 15 cents, 69 cent can veggies, a little bit of frozen peas/corn to fill out the stew, call it 50 cents max, 3 out of 25 boullion cubes, which cost $1.59 a container, or 19 cents, and 50 cent candy bars x family of 4 = $2 dessert, bringing our total to: $6.36

This is good mom! Bunnies LOVE carrots!

split chicken breasts and candied carrots

So in all fairness I didn't make this dish tonight.  As I said in Monday's post, I'm running out of recipes, and tonight for dinner I made us deep fried dinner.  This was one that I had made several weeks ago when my ex was in town, so I made enough for 5 that night.

First, I pulled out this crazy cheap chicken: 4 split breasts (translation: LOTS of white meat, a little bone and skin.  Made MORE than enough to feed us all.) for $5.03.  I thawed it in the microwave, and seasoned it.

Because I knew my ex would prefer bbq sauce to butter and seasonings, I did it in two separate dishes.

 I just poured 1/2 a bottle of BBQ on one, and sprayed the other with "butter flavored cooking spray" [generic Pam] and shook on "Italian Seasonings"




I then cooked it in the oven at 375 for an hour.  While it was cooking, I got out the rest of these carrots (roughly 65 cents worth) and washed, peeled, and sliced them, then put them in the pot.  Since dessert that night was store-bought cookies (on sale, the large, soft cookies were 8 for $1) I didn't need to do anything else, so I just relaxed for half an hour.  When there was 20 minutes left on the chicken, I turned the heat on the carrots: to make "candied" carrots, all you really need to add is a little bit of butter and a lot of sugar to the water that you boil the carrots in.


So, first, add just enough water to your pot to boil the carrots and turn the heat on high.  Once boiling, lower the heat to medium, add about 1 Tbsp butter or margarine (guess which one I use) and about a cup of sugar.  I add 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup sugar (eyeballing and spooning, not actually measuring, folks), stir well, and set your timer for about ten minutes.  If you get a rolling boil on medium heat, lower it to medium-low.  It should be bubbling slowly, like a fetid swamp.   You can leave them simmering at this level indefinitely, as long as they don't dry out and burn to the pan.

 Although the kids were a little suspicious of carrots being passed off as "candied", they believed it when they tasted it.

Our totals for this meal, then, were:  $5.03 chicken, $1 for half a bottle of BBQ sauce, 65 cents for the carrots, and each cup of sugar was previously calculated at 25 cents.  Since this was for granulated sugar, not brown, let's call it 50 cents worth of "mixed sugars" to be on the safe side.  There was $1 for the pack of dessert cookies, and maybe 25 cents for the Pam and "Italian seasonings", bringing the total to 

$8.43  

And that fed an extra person.

The best part about this meal: The kids discovered that carrots can be yummy.

Beef on Weck (not really) with corn chowder

So tonight's dinner was one of my many crockpot recipes: roast beef sandwiches, served with corn chowder on the side.  I wanted to serve Beef on Weck and when I searched the internet, I learned that it's a roast beef sandwich - what makes it "on Weck" is that it's served on a kaiser roll with toasted caraway seeds - known as a kummelweck roll.  It is also traditionally served medium-rare, but I cooked mine thoroughly.  (I, like many people, thought it was beef on wick, but the internet is never wrong.)  

Since these were Pepperidge Farm  seeded sandwich rolls, purchased crazy cheap ($1.00 for a bag of 8 rolls) at Best Buy Foods (across from CCMH) this was technically "roast beef sandwiches" rather than "beef on weck".  

Doesn't matter.  Had meat.

So, since the last few weeks I've made more than enough for two families, I invited some family to join us.  At the other end of the table tonight was my grandmother, uncle, and cousin, so tonight's meal was a dinner for seven, rather than four.

I started this afternoon with a beef roast, 1.74 pounds for $6.06, frozen, but thawed in my microwave using the "defrost" option.  I put it in my slow-cooker on high for 4 hours with nothing but salt, pepper, 3 bullion cubes and enough water to cover.  It actually came out a little too dry, and I would recommend using the low heat setting, or not doing it as long.  The kids used ketchup, and I used spicy mustard, to add some moisture to the sandwiches.  It was still delicious, don't get me wrong, just, as I said, a little too dry.



When we got about 45 minutes from dinner, I started the corn chowder.  I modified this recipe, cutting out the bacon (as my relatives don't eat pork) and using vegetable oil to cook the onions instead of bacon grease.  So here's the recipe, repeated: In a pot (not a pan) cook 1 small diced onion in 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil.  Dice 2 large potatoes and add to the pot with 1/2 cup water.  Cover and cook on low heat for 15 minutes.  Then, add 1 cup of milk (original recipe called for 2 but I found that I prefer a "thicker" chowder), 2 cans of creamed corn, and 1 can of "regular" corn.  Heat through and serve.

For dessert I made pumpkin muffins (not cupcakes - muffins) using the pumpkin meat from our jack-o-lanterns, which most people would just throw out.  Truth be told, you can't use carving pumpkins for pies, (well, you can, but I wouldn't recommend it) but you can use them for muffins or bread.  

What I do is, when carving the pumpkins, I separate the seeds, put them directly on a cookie sheet and roast them, and the "goop", I put in a glass bowl, and microwave it for 5 minutes, then stir (and smush) with a fork, then another five, and so on, until it's the consistency of "stringy applesauce".  Do not add water.  It may not seem like it, but there's "pumpkin juice" in there...

We get about 2-3 cups of goop per pumpkin, and we carved four this year.  I freeze the extra in Ziploc baggies for easy access.  To make pumpkin bread (or muffins) in the fastest, easiest way ever, mix one spice cake mix (no eggs, water, or oil, just the powdered mix) with 2 cups of fresh pumpkin puree.  (You can also use 1 can of pumpkin puree, or thaw frozen in a glass dish in the microwave) .  Cook the bread or muffins in the oven at 350F for 20 to 25 minutes, until a fork poked in comes out clean.  I got 17 muffins out of this mix.  We ate 7 for dessert tonight, leaving 10 for breakfast the next few days...

So despite the fact that 1.74 pounds of meat divided among 7 people is only 4 ounces each, the sandwiches were still filling.  

Which was good, because none of my kids wanted the chowder (although we somehow managed to polish off the entire pot)





Before I calculate the total, I'd like to reiterate that we fed 7 people tonight instead of 4, so my budget becomes $17.50.  Totals for tonight were: $6.06 beef roast, $1 for 8 rolls, 1 small diced onion (14 cents) 2 large potatoes (10 cents) 1 cup of milk (23 cents), 2 cans of creamed corn (on sale a few weeks ago for 39 cents each), 1 can of "regular" corn (not part of the sale, 89 cents), 1 cake mix ($1.33) and 2 cups pumpkin (calling it "free" but if you want to get picky you could say $2 since that's the price of one "pie pumpkin" at Jones' produce stand) making our total either $10.53 or $12.53, depending on how picky you're being.

And there's leftover muffins.  Yay!

Apple-roasted pork steaks with orzo

So I opened up my fridge and found that I had two apples with a couple of bruises, but still usable.  Now, two apples is not enough for a pie, and I was not about to go to the trouble of homemade applesauce with only two, but I remembered this recipe, a traditional fall dinner, and even though I've never cooked it before, I decided to go for it.  Rather than look up a recipe, I just kind of invented one.  I have no idea if this is how you actually make apple-roasted pork, but the result was quite delicious.  That's probably from all the sugar.


First, I got out the leftover pork steaks from this recipe, put them in a glass roasting pan, and set the oven to 400F.  Then, I added some flavor that goes well with apples: I didn't measure any of it, just eyeballed it: 1/4 cup cider vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar, sprinkled on top of the frozen chops, and 1/2 cup water (in the pan to keep them moist but not on the chops themselves). I then sliced the two apples (skins and all) and put them on the pork in a layer.




I set the timer for 45 minutes (I figured it would actually take about an hour) and went upstairs to sew the last of my kids' Halloween costumes.  The other two have been done for over a week now but my oldest child's costume still had a ways to go...  When the timer went off, I went back down and began the side dish: "rice".

I thought that rice would go well with this meal.  Only, since I can't eat rice, I made orzo, which is a rice substitute made from wheat.  It costs $1.50 - $2.50 a box, depending on price fluctuations.  I've had this box in my cupboard for a while, so I can't be completely sure, but I think it was $1.79.  To be safe, we'll call it $2.  I put a few cups of water in a pot and set it on high, then added my seasonings: 2 chicken bullion cubes, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, thyme, basil, rosemary, and just a dash of cayenne pepper.  When the water was at a rolling boil, I added half the box of orzo and turned down the heat.  Orzo only takes a few minutes, and you don't want to overcook it, so even though the box says 9 minutes, I set my timer for 5 minutes.  Sure enough, it was done, and I removed it from the heat, and checked on the pork.  It, too was done, and dinner was served.

We all had root beer to drink with dinner, and though two of us had seconds, nobody wanted dessert.  I'm going to call the root beer dessert, so I can factor in some cost, and because it's certainly got enough sugar in it to qualify.

Even my pickiest eater cleaned his plate.  I was astonished.

So the totals for tonight are: $2.95 worth of pork (I looked up the price from the other recipe), 88 cents apples (the bag was $3.50 and contained 8 apples, I think.  I'm sure about the $3.50, just not so sure whether there were 8 or 9 apples in the bag.) I'm guessing $1 for half a container of orzo, and maybe $1 for the vinegar and brown sugar.  The root beer was generic, $3 for a 12-pack, or 25 cents each.  We had 4, so that's $1, making our extremely-estimated total $6.83.  And in case I haven't said it already, it was delicious.

The Dark Side does not have cookies.

Power Outage Dinner for 4

Our power has been out for roughly 28 hours.  Last night, we drove to my father's house - he has a generator - and cooked a hot meal there.  Today, with no end to the outage in sight, we had an extremely interesting dinner for four....

It began with an ice cream feast.  I got home from work today at 2:45, and found that the three half-full cartons of ice cream in our freezer had not yet melted.  As I said, we were all expecting the outage to continue. So I got all the kids at the table with bowls and spoons, got our large camping cooler ready, and pulled out the ice cream, placing everything else in the camping cooler.  Then, while the kids were gorging themselves on sugar, I cleaned the interior of the freezer with soapy water.  (Multitasking QUEEN)

The rest of dinner began by examining the cupboards.  Lots of hamburger helper, cake mixes, cornbread mixes, pasta, pasta sauces, and much, much more that required electricity to cook.  I suppose I should add that I have an electric stove.  Yes, not much foresight there.  But it is very nice-looking.  When it's functional.

So our dinner tonight consisted of fluffernutter sandwiches, dry cereal, kool-aid, and ice cream.  With the serving order slightly skewed due to external conditions.  I am more than certain that I stayed within my $10 limit.  I did not take pics of the process tonight, but if anyone needs instructions on how to make fluffernutter sandwiches... well, you can just Google it:  the power is back!

Toasted cheese and chili

Back in June, I made a VERY large pot of chili.  I froze the leftovers in quart baggies, which are the perfect size for my family of four.  It fills us up with no leftovers.  I calculated at the time that each baggie cost $2.90.  Tonight I wanted something fast and easy, so I pulled a baggie out of my freezer and thawed it in the microwave.  Since I had already done the chili as a main course, with cornbread as a side, I "officially" served the chili as a side dish tonight, with the main course being toasted cheese sandwhiches.



Also as a re-purposed leftover, the last time I posted about pizza, I said I was going to try adding seasonings to the dough.  A few days ago I did just that (it was delicious) and used the excess dough to make sandwich rolls.  They didn't rise enough, and resulted in a very flat, but tasty bread.  So, if you're wondering what those dark flecks on the sandwiches are, it's generic italian seasoning baked into the bread.







 Each of these sandwiches with shredded mozzerella cheese cost about 43 cents.  I arrived at the calculation by dividing the cost of pizza + mozz ($2.55) by two, since my recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas and the rolls are made from excess dough, then by 3, since I was able to bake one large (10-inch) and one small (5-inch) and these two sandwiches were from the one large roll. These two halves were heated in the microwave.  Only my youngest opted for a "traditional" sandwich (with storebought bread and american cheese).  This sandwich cost $0.21. I counted 26 slices of bread in a loaf which cost $1.69, and right now you can buy 16 slices of Sure Saving American cheese slices for 99 cents, so you have the materials to make 13 sandwiches for $2.68.  That makes each one about 20.6 cents.


I didn't have any cheese on bread, because, honestly, that's a lot of calories right there, and I weigh more than I would like to, so for the rest of my meal I had a plum and a very large glass of ice water with lemon juice.

"Look, Mom, I ate it all! But I don't want applesauce, I want Lucky Charms!"  And that's exactly what he got.  The box cost $3.50 (on sale right now at Dollar General) and the side of the box says it contains 12 servings.  Andrew and Emily both had Lucky Charms for dessert, so $3.50 divided by 12 servings times 2 kids = 58 cents.  Lucas had applesauce, $2.65 for 48 ounces; I poured his applesauce into a used yogurt cup (6 ounces), which is 1/8 of 48, so $2.65 divided by 8 = 34 cents. 

I had no dessert.  Again, watching my figure.  But Lucas ended up eating two cups of applesauce, so the cost of dessert for the family was 58 + 34 + 34 = $1.26.  So, our total for tonight was... $2.90 leftover chili + 43 cents x 2 homemade sanwiches + 21 cents "traditional" cheese sandwich + $1.26 dessert = $5.23.  And I almost forgot.  That single plum cost 56 cents.  Ridiculous, isn't it? 

So the total was actually

$5.79

Now y'all are gonna start eating cereal for dessert.  I've started the weirdest trend ever.

Chicken quesadillas

This is one of my favorite "fast and easy" meals: Chicken and cheese quesadillas.

First, I assembled all the ingredients for dessert: Pumpkin Spice Cake with cream cheese icing:

I only used a half a brick of cream cheese this time.  The cake mix cost $1.33 (I haven't seen a 99 cent mix since winter, actually, but the can of pumpkin was on sale for 99 cents.  I just prepared the cake mix as directed, but added a can of pumpkin to the mix.  I like walnuts but the kids don't, so I poured a little more than half the mix into a 9x9 brownie pan, added a cup of nuts to the remaining half, and poured that into an 8x8 pan.  I baked at 350 for 25 minutes.  The one with nuts ended up taking longer (maybe because it was thicker - you would think less actual batter in the pan would lead to a lower baking time but even physics surprises me from time to time).  While it was baking, I began work on the quesadillas....




Normally, I make these one at a time and microwave them to melt the cheese.  This time, though, I already had the oven on, so I just made four of them and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven to melt the cheese.  I mixed some cheddar cheese with taco seasoning.  I bought this jumbo jar over half a decade ago and it's still half full.  But it hasn't grown sentient life, so I guess we're good.






I had some extra chicken left over from making a whole chicken once upon a time, and some chives from my garden that I'd just tossed in the freezer.  The tortillas were $1.50 for a ten-pack.  The cheese was $4 a pound, and I used a little more than half the bag, so we'll call it $2.50 worth of cheese.  I'm the only one who used the salsa and it was only a Tbsp or so, so we're calling the price on that negligable.  



I put them in the oven for 5 minutes to melt the cheese, and microwaved a bag of peas ($1.70) then pressed the quesadillas (that's fancy chef-like talk for I smushed them down with the palm of my hand) and put them on a plate to serve. 

It turns out I had two 10-inch tortillas left over from a previous meal, so the kids got 8-inch "kid sized" ones and I got a larger one.  It kind of worked out pretty well.





When the cake was done, I mixed up some cream cheese icing using a half a brick of cream cheese (50 cents - I ONLY buy cream cheese when it's $1 a brick, usually around Thanksgiving) and about 2 cups of powdered sugar, a tsp of vanilla, and enough milk to make it the right consistency.  Since the cake was still warm, it kind of melted the icing, which is why it looks thin in the middle and thick at the edges of the cake.  But that's OK.  It's delicious enough that we don't care what it looks like.

So, our total for tonight is: 

$1.33 mix, $0.99 pumpkin, $0.50 cream cheese, $0.63 powdered sugar,

 $1.50 tortillas, $2.50 cheese, $1.70 peas

= $9.15 

(And that's counting much, much cake that we haven't yet eaten)

Mmmmm...   Delicious, it is.

.

"Chef Boyardee" (but not really)

Occasionally, you just want something fast and easy.  Earlier this week, I made pork steaks for my family, and had three 9-ounce steaks left.  Two of the steaks we ate heated up with some vegetables, which left me with one steak.  It was too little to make it the entree, and I had a few ideas but wasn't quite sure, so I just went with what sounded the tastiest. 

                                      When the kids were younger, and both my spouse and I were working, we would often eat food from a can, or a box, or delivery, or drive through.  As much as I enjoyed cooking, I think I only cooked for my family once a week.  Now that I'm divorced, and can't really afford that much drive-through, I cook most of our meals from scratch.  One of the kids' favorites from those days, though, was Chef Boyardee.  So, when I saw that Mama Rosie's (not to be confused with the actual brand name Mama Rosa) ravioli was on sale last week for $1.50 a bag, I bought some. 

First, I boiled the whole bag of ravioli (serves 3, supposedly) in my deep skillet.  While it was boiling, I finely diced the remaining pork chop.  It looked like a lot of meat when it was all chopped up.  My plan was to make a "meat sauce", and sneak the meat in.  There was so much here, though, that I put some of it in a salad.  Think, "grilled chicken salad".  Kinda like that. 

When the ravioli finished boiling, I strained them and put them back in the skillet with about 3/4 of the pork meat and a whole jar of Franceso Rinaldi spaghetti sauce.  This is my favorite brand, and comes closest to my mom's homemade sauce of childhood memory.  I always buy several jars when it's on sale, so I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but usually when it's on sale it's 3 jars for $5 or 3 jars for $4.  Only rarely can I get it for $1 a jar, and since I only had 2 jars in my cupboard, it was probably more expensive when I bought it.  I'm going to assume this was 3 jars for $5, or $1.67/jar. 

So anyway, I added the diced pork to the ravioli/sauce and also put some on the salad, which was just lettuce and pork until each member of the family added their "salad favorites": Green olives for one, banana peppers and olives for me, diced apple for another, and diced onion for the fourth.  Those who know us can guess who had what.

I had to make cupcakes last week for my daughter's class, then again this week for my oldest son's class, so the kids have been in a cupcake mood.  Since they're easy, we baked a batch from a box of "strawberry-flavored Sure Fine cake mix", topped with a homemade vanilla glaze (like donut glaze).  To make a glaze, mix about 1 Tbsp melted margarine with (again, I eyeball it, I don't measure unless I absolutely have to) roughly 1/4 cup of warm water, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 cup of powdered sugar in a microwave-safe bowl.  It should be "goopy" but not "runny", similar to frosting/icing.  To get the right consistency without measuring, I put the warm water in a drinking glass, mix the vanilla, margarine, and sugar, then slowly add the water until it's right: an "icing" consistency.  Then, microwave it for just 20 seconds and stir vigorously.  Then, it should be as runny as a liquid.  Pour (or spoon) this liquid onto the cupcakes.  When it hardens, it's a glaze.  Extra frosting/glaze can be saved in the fridge in a sealed container for as much as a month.  It doesn't really go bad.  I never seem to have enough left to warrant saving; maybe a few spoonfuls of glaze left over at the end, so I usually just pitch it.  Or eat it.

I didn't start the cupcakes early this time, though,

so we didn't eat dessert until long after the table was cleared.

Total for tonight's fast and easy dinner was....$1.67 sauce, $1.50 ravioli, $1.18 for one pork steak, and $0.75 salad (since a whole head of lettuce this week was $1.39, and we used less than half, but I'm rounding up for the few olives, onion, and apple bits, and salad dressing).  Now we can't forget the $1.33 cake mix (these ones were 3 for $4) with probably $0.50 glaze, which made 24 cupcakes, making each cupcake 7.625 cents.  We ate six tonight, making tonight's dessert total 46 cents.  This brings our grand total to... $5.56.  To be perfectly honest, I was hoping this would be a "less than $5" night.  Our dinner total was probably a lot more expensive than if I had simply bought 2 or 3 cans of chef boyardee. But it was incredibly tasty, and very quick to make, and we had about 2 servings' worth of leftovers, which we can eat tomorrow.  Along with the other 18 cupcakes.