2-Step Skillet Chicken Broccoli Divan

I have been trying to add a few new recipes to our list of dinner ideas.

2-Step Skillet Chicken Broccoli Divan

• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut up with scissors
  
• 3 cups fresh or frozen broccoli
  
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can Cream of Chicken Soup
  
• 1 soup can full of milk
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
  

1. Preheat oven to 375*F
   
2. Melt butter in skillet.
3. Add chicken and cook until browned, stirring often.
4. Add broccoli, soup and milk. Cover and simmer 5 min.
   
5. Poured into a 9 x 13 baking pan.
   
6. Sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs
7. Bake for 30+ to nicely brown casserole.

**Served it over Rice everyone loved it will be a keeper

Deals

• Fry's Grocery store has boneless chicken breast on sale for $1.67 lbs I purchased 6 packages for dinners been surfing the net for new recipes
  

• Clearance Product 20 cans of pumpkin for 10 cents each

• Clearance Product 4 cans of Bushes chili w/ beef 50 cent each
  

• Walgreen's has on sale Butterball Chicken broth 2 cans for $1.00.

Divine Spaghetti Sauce

I used it to make Lasagna!!



From AR http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Divine-Spaghetti-Sauce/Detail.aspx
I made the following recipe using what I had on hand in the house so here are the changes I made..

• No Mushrooms
• No Green Peppers
  
• No Bay Leaf
• Substituted Roasted Red Peppers & Piquin Peppers from jar about 3 huge Tbspfuls
• Added Ground Turkey with Italian seasoning

1. Use crushed tomatoes ran with celery/onion in food processor to smooth is out (Fiance's hates tomato/veggie chunks)
   
2. Fried the turkey dropped in Crockpot with remaining ingredients
3. Cooked in Crockpot for 5 hours.
   
4. Cooled sauce fridged over night layered Lasagna today baked for 1 hour as items were cold.

THIS WAS THE BEST SAUCE EVERYONE LOVED IT AND SUGGESTED TO USE IT AGAIN FOR DINNERS.

SALSA VERDE

I decided to make my own Salsa Verde using Tomatillo's.
Mind you I have watched video's online and read at least 10 -50 recipes and decided to on this one..
AllRecipes.com. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tomatillo-Salsa-Verde/Detail.aspx

1. First I needed to broil them to bring out flavor I had never broiled before so I turned the oven on to broil. (Checking to make sure nothing was hiding in the oven to burn ie. pans that I store in there)
   
2. Pull out the food processor and set it up & a large skillet with deep sides.
   
3. Washed my 12 tomatillos to remove the sticky stuff & 3 jalapenos as well
4. I was not sure how to use cilantro so I just grabbed the leaves and pulled removed the long stems. Drop in processor with 3 cloves of garlic and blended.
   
5. Chopped 1 onion into 1/2 rings placed all on a foil lined cookie sheet and placed under the broil and closed the door..( Going crazy cause I can't see anything) but I kept in closed for 3 mins opened and turned the items over to char the other side for 3 more mins. Pulled sheet out turned oven off.
6. Didn't cool broiler items just cut in half and dropped in 3 batches into the food processor after each I poured in to waiting large skillet on oven.
7. Once all was in the Large skillet I heated to boiling over low/med heat for 15-20 mins tasted (No real flavor it needed HELP) so I had a 1/2 -3/4 jar of Marinated Sweet Hot Piquante & Red Peppers diced in jar left over from another recipe I made today.)So what the heck I poured the whole jar in. Let simmer for 10 mins more and WOW is it hot and spicey just what it needed.
8. Yielded 8 cups of sauce

Here is the Finished Product in the Skillet Cooling

Budget Stretchers

• Leftovers get frozen into small portion control containers for another meal night currently I have about 10-20 containers or Ziplock bags in freezer for what I will later in the month call Mix and Match dinners lol.
• I use salads /Rice side /Beans sides to stretch meals
• I make homemade Salad Dressings and Salsa to help as well.
  

Cooking Dry Beans Tips

I decide to buy more bags of dried beans a local store here.

The beans are 16 oz (1 lbs) for 49 cents a bag I saved 51 cents per bag as I usually buy them at the dollar store. I am the only one in the family that really loves beans:) It takes a lot of time to cook regular beans usually 12-24 hours. So I decided to surf the net and I located a few tips/trick along the way to assist me in pre-cooking beans to freeze for my OAMC meals plus have small amounts for my mini meals for lunches. I wanted to share a few tips with you...

• The quickest way to cook bean and not have to babysit them is to use a crockpot
• One bag 16 oz = 3 regular (15 oz) cans of beans = (1 2/3 cup per ziplock bag total of 3 bags)
• Rise under water in a strainer toss broken or yucky ones
• Pour into crockpot then cover with with enough water to be 2-3 inches over the top soak overnight pour liquid out rise and pour fresh into pot and return beans
• Cook in crockpot for 6-8 hours on low until bite tender.
• Drain beans and allow to cool
• Pour 1 2/3 per ziplock seal remove excess air /dated & labeled freeze flat

If you are going to be eating alot of beans do several bags at a time:) to save time/money/free's up the crockpot for later use...

Menu for this week

Fri- Teriyaki Chichen Thighs/White Rice/Garlic Cheese Bread

Saturday- Fried Chicken Breast Bites/Mashed Potatoes with Cheese

Sunday- Chili for me/ Leftovers for everyone else

Monday- Taco Meat/Lentil Tacos/ Mexican Rice

Tuesday- Boxed Cheese Burger Mac/French Bread and Salad

Wed- Spaghitti with meat sauce/ salad

Thur-

Friday- Leftovers/find your own dinner night

• I had leftover spahitti with sauce
• Kid had leftover mexican rice and her take out dinner
• Fiance had chili cheese hot dogs with no buns

Tips & Tricks for Simple Sugar Syrups

Basically I have been trying to make it easier to make Sweetened Tea with out pouring a cup or more or sugar into a 2qt container of tea. So I hit the locala stores for this product man $4.00-$10.00 per bottle for like 10 oz was alot more then I wanted to pay to "TRY SOMETHING" So I hit the net and found this:)

Most Recipes say

1 cup of water

1 cup of sugar

• Use a 2 cup glass measuring pour measured water and sugar into it
• Place measuring cup in Microwave
• Make sure all sugar is dissolved you may need to stir to assist dissolving.
• Allow to cool , using funnel pour into glass container the refrig indefinitely
• 1-2 Tablespoon per use or more for sweeter drinks.

What can I pour this into you may be asking yourself?

As well as I could make this up in nice mason jars for a quick last minute gift

• Tea
• Kool-aid
• Lemonade
• Flavored Coffee Drinks
• Alcoholic Beverages
• And More :)

Menu This Week

Went shopping for odds and ends to use to make meals but still trying very hard to stick to a budget meal plan. As of late I still hate cooking and planning...Maybe it is the summer heat being that AZ is getting HOT..

1. Saturday- Spaghitti/Noodles
2. Sunday-Mandrain Chick w/ Rice
3. Monday-Taco Salad
4. Tuesday-Grilled Cheese Sandwich/Soup
5. Wednesday-Lasagna/Garlic Cheese Bread
6. Thursday-Skillet Enchilada & Salad
7. Friday- Chicken Thighs

Life Sucks

I have for weeks decided I hate

• Dirty Dishes
• Dirty Laundry
• What is for Dinner?
• What is for Dessert?

I am sure there is more that drives me crazy but today is these:)

Muffin Tin Meals for Lunch

Muffin Tin Meals for Lunch idea started a few months ago when I first started making Oamc meals because I have to take breakfast & lunch to work M-F and also stay on budget by not purchasing meals out everyday that usually would cost say $5-$8 a day which can quickly be near $40 a week just for lunch.

Remember just last week when you have a little rice leftover enough for 1 but not a family of 4.

I would take that one amount of rice and muffin freeze it then slide into a ziplock bag for use later that week or maybe the next. I have a one gallon Freezer ziplock bag full with 1 of this or that meals:)in cheap sandwich ziplock bags. Or when you had Tacos and had only enough for maybe 2 tacos for a family of 6? I do the same thing freeze in muffin freeze and slide into zi

What is for lunch tomorrow you ask? Example of items that could be in my Gallon Ziplock bag

2 BBQ Chichen cups

2 Mexican Rice cups

4 Refried Beans cups

4 Taco Meat cups

4 Spaghitti cups

4 Lentil Taco cups

4 Meatloaf cups

4 Mashed potatoes

4 Precooked hamburgers

Lunchs could be

1. Taco Salad use 1 Rice cup/1 Taco Meat/1 refried bean (House items some tortilla chips and salsa)
2. Meatloaf cup and Mashed potatoe cup
3. Hamburger/Frozen bun and condiments (House item Potato chips)
4. BBQ chicken cup /Frozen bun
5. Spaghitti cup with Salad ((House item salad and dressing)

Well I hope this helps give some one a few ideas to saving $$ on lunch..

Staying on a budget & Menu is hard

I have been doing very well on only shopping this week for small cost items bread and milk.

Yes it has been very hard to not pick up ice cream/ snacks/ food I have seen on clearance just to stay on budget plus help to clean out the freezer.

Dinner Menu for the week

1. Pizza Potatoes for Fiance' -Grilled Cheese Sandwich with fries- Daughter- Mexican Rice for me with Salad
2. Turkey Burgers and Fries
3. Chicken with something :) Still undecided Update Sesame Ginger Baked Chicken with Velvetta Mac and Cheese homemade and veggies.
4. Turkey Burgers w/ Mexican Rice
5. Leftover Chicken Quesadilla :)

Menu

As previously stated I played clean the cabinets and freezer of food:)

So this is the dinner meals we have had since Sunday.

My family likes repeat food items like Mexican rice & Salads

1. Ground Turkey Velvetta Dip/Mexican Rice/Can of Refried beans
2. Skillet Enchiladas with left over Mexican Rice/ Salad
3. BBQ Chicken Tacos with left over Mexican Rice/ Salad
4. Spiced Baked Chicken/Mac and Cheese /canned Veggies
5. Jambalaya/Leftover Chicken and salad
6. Crockpot Lasagna with Meat Sauce/ Garlic Bread/Salad
7. Leftover Lasagna with Cheese Bread

Organization Food Plan

Recently I was surfing the internet and come across a few people who doing food budgets with a limit. (Example annual budget of $ 800 or $1200) I am still researching this alot as well as some of their ideas.

Decided to use up all the meat in freezer & Leftover OAMC Meals from my first batch in March.

1. Food inventory (deep freezer, House Freezer/Refrig and cabinets/shelves) Time: 3 hours
2. Meal Plan Time : 1 hour
3. Shopping Time : 2 hour (Daughter still in wheelchair)
4. Spend total $77.00 on clearance items, items need for meals and household items

Currently have planned 10 of the 14 meals for 2 weeks have 4 more to figure out with the food we have  in the house. I also have to pick up a few more items from Bulk Store and Misc non-food items. May will need to spend $25-$50 but this will last 2 weeks. I will have to pick up bread/bagels/Milk

Clearance Deal

At Fry's this am I purchased

Turkey Burgers for $1.69 per pack x 4 Total $6.76 reg each $4.49 saved $11.20

I plan to make 2 packages  for dinner to allow for leftovers for my lunch for 2 days:)