Sunday, July 25, 2010

Calzones

Somewhere in my recipe browsing, I ran into Sandra's blog and her photos of Pizza Cheese Breadsticks inspired me for lunch today. I love that the dough doesn't require any time to rise, and my husband prefers calzones over pizza, so he can control the amount of marinara (a lot!) on his slice. Rather than buy or make a marinara, I was lazy and served it with a jar of spaghetti sauce. lol Even V enjoyed her tiny pieces, and ate the equivalent of 2 pizza slices!
The only problem with making the dough from scratch is that it wrecks out the kitchen. But I'll clean up a mess if it means both my girls chow down.

Organic Valley marinated chops

Organic Valley sent out a newsletter with this recipe for pork chops, and I thought I'd give pork chops one more try tonight. I haven't been a fan of chops in the past, but I keep hoping to find a recipe that helps me appreciate whatever my husband sees in them.

We're serving it with grilled potatoes and broccoli (by E's request).

pizza

Since Thursday is our last day before payday, we're going to have another cheap meal: frozen pizza. Publix has Tombstone BOGO this week, so I'll be nabbing a couple of those for the price of a single cheese pizza from a delivery place. I'll dress up the simple meal with a 2-liter of Publix's Lemon Lime carbonated water (tastes like 7up without any sugar or other sweetener).

$5.79 for 2 pizzas
$0.69 for soda water
=
$6.48 for the meal <--not bad, considering how low effort, and my husband will take leftovers to work for lunch for the price he'd pay to eat out!

Cinnamon chicken

For Wednesday, we'll be trying another recipe from IheartPublix's chicken challenge:

Honey Lemon Cinnamon Chicken

1/2 C. Flour
2 tsp. Salt
3/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Turmeric
1/4 tsp. Pepper
1 Egg
2 Tbsp. Milk
1/3 cup Dried bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. Oil
Chicken cut in strips
Sauce:
1/4 C. melted Butter
1/4 C. Honey
1 Tbsp. fresh Lemon Juice
I personally put the lemon, honey, and butter in a sauce pan. I put it on low low low. So while I work on the chicken, the sauce is going. Heat oil in a separate pan
Next, combine flour with all spices. I then coat all the chicken in the flour coating (I find a ziploc bag easiest.) Then next part is the messy part. Beat egg and milk. Combine breadcrumbs with egg mixture to form a soft moist mixture. Roll floured chicken pieces in moist crumb mixture. I generally put the bread coating on and throw it immediately in the pan. When the pan is full, I flip over the strips until fully cooked. Cook all chicken, plate it, and then make sure the sauce is hot and melted.
It goes AMAZINGLY well with a sweet potatoes.

We'll be trying it out with sweet potatoes and green beans.

Split Pea Soup

For Tuesday, we're making our favorite low-budget meal: split pea soup. This time I'll be substituting a pound of ham for the smoked sausage as it works well with any meat I've tried. Be sure to reduce the cups of water if you prefer a thicker pea soup. I personally prefer 6-7 cups of water for this recipe. You can omit the potatoes, if chopping them sounds like too much work. I might try adding mashed potato flakes this time instead. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Back in the saddle

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. With V. increasingly mobile, I've been so busy chasing her that I'm drained by the end of the day. Like go to bed at 7pm drained.

At any rate, to catch y'all up, here's what we're serving tomorrow:

Monday: Tangy Ranch Chicken, mashed potatoes, canned corn

(from IheartPublix's chicken challenge)
Tangy Ranch Chicken

2/3 C ranch dressing
1/3 C French's yellow mustard
1/4 C brown sugar
4 boneless chicken breasts
Mix dressing, mustard, and sugar (I threw it all into a zippy bag) add chicken, allow to marinate for 30 minutes to an hour. Grill or broil chicken for about 15 minutes or until done or bake at 350 for 25 minutes,we grilled ours…..soooo good and moist!

I plan to use a ranch dressing mix and omit the mayonnaise to avoid egg.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Fruit Smoothies

Smoothies

1 c. milk
1/2 c. yogurt (we prefer Stonyfield Farm Plain whole milk yogurt)
1 c. frozen berries of your choice, divided
1/2 - 1 c. Breyers Extra Creamy Vanilla ice cream (depending on how sweet you prefer)
1 banana (optional)

Place milk, yogurt, and half the berries in a blender and puree. Add ice cream, banana (if desired), and the rest of the berries. Mix until blended, then serve with straws.

I usually make 2 batches, and put the banana in the second batch.

Weekend menu

Saturday lunch: avocado burgers, fruit smoothies

Saturday dinner: Sunflower chicken salad (my hubby requested it AGAIN!) with Publix 5-grain Italian bread

Sunday lunch: chicken in mesquite lime marinade (or whatever you have on hand), rice, veggie (Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers are on sale at Publix this week)

Sunday dinner: Easy Chicken Enchiladas

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Finally went shopping

I spent $43 at Publix today, for a total savings of 40%. $11.56 of that was 8 boxes of cereal, since we were getting low on breakfast supplies.
From my stockpile, I'll be using this week:
hotdogs
baked beans
canned green beans
box of macaroni and cheese
McCormick steak seasoning
2 lb boneless skinless chicken (frozen)
taco seasoning
jar of spaghetti sauce
spaghetti

That's still only about $3.50/person/day, if you add the cost of those items to today's receipt.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Egg allergy

It occurred to me that since I introduce this blog as an allergenic menu, I should clarify my husband's allergy to egg. When he was a little boy, he couldn't have anything with any egg in it. In fact, smelling it cooking could trigger an allergic reaction. Since then, his allergy has lessened. He still cannot eat large amounts of egg, but he can have small amounts (i.e. <1/16 of an egg) when it is cooked in certain ways. He can eat meatloaf or cookies when they are made with a single egg, but he has to limit the quantity he can eat. Other food combinations seem to always trigger an allergic reaction.
So that is way I sometimes serve dishes with egg in it, despite my husband's allergy.

Stockpile menu

I looked at this month's budget over the weekend, and realized I need spend less in groceries over the next few weeks because I need to buy school supplies. E. is starting kindergarten August 5th!

So this week's menu draws heavily from my stockpile.

Monday: beef tips, macaroni and cheese, salad
Tuesday: chicken fajitas with carmelized onion
Wednesday: the creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese I was craving
Thursday: hotdogs, baked beans, french-cut green beans
Friday: chicken parmesan

I'll post my Publix savings when I get back from the store.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Chicken Breasts in Tomato Cream Sauce

For Sunday's dinner, we'll be trying another recipe from IHeartPublix's chicken challenge.

Chicken Breasts in Tomato Cream Sauce
Prep: 5 min, Cook: 20 min.
* 4 boneless chicken breast halves
* salt and pepper (to taste)
* 3 Tbs. unsalted butter
* foil
* 1 shallot, chopped
* 2/3 cup sweet vermouth
* 1-2/3 cups Italian style peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped
* 2 chopped tomatoes
* 1-1/2 cup heavy cream
Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper to taste. Melt butter in a heavy nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Sauté chicken 3-5 minutes per side, or until tender and cooked throughout. Remove to a platter and cover with foil to keep warm. Add shallots to pan and cook 1-2 minutes until soft. Add vermouth and tomatoes and simmer about 7-10 minutes stirring frequently, until sauce reduces by half. If you prefer a creamier sauce, you can pour sauce into a food processor or blender and purée until smooth, but I prefer it chunky. Return to pan. Add cream and simmer 2 minutes. Do not boil. Serve sauce over chicken.

I used grape juice instead of vermouth. I thought it was ok, about 3/5 stars, but my husband had to force himself to eat it, and little V. actually rejected the whole meal! It was pretty easy to make, but high fat, considering how unimpressive it was. It just made me crave cream of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Brunch

I'm in the mood for pancakes, and this one reminds me of IHOP, so that's my choice for Sunday's "lunch":

Whole Grain Pancakes

I like to double the brown sugar and add pumpkin pie spice. We also enjoy substituting grits for the cornmeal. Whichever you have on hand will work. We'll be serving it with sausage and bacon, and eggs for those who can have them.

And if you have any leftovers (make a double batch!), they taste really yummy cold or warm. When it gets hectic during the week, I love being able to quickly grab a couple out of the fridge and eat them plain and cold as I rush around.

Potato soup in a bread bowl

Saturday's dinner is a craving of my husband's. He hasn't been to a Panera or Atlanta Bread Company for awhile, since the one in our town closed. We always used to get their potato soup in a bread bowl, so I'm going to try my hand at making my own version.

Potato Soup
Bear Creek Creamy Potato soup mix
6 c. Milk OR (6 c. water + 1 c. sour cream)
2 c. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Make soup per mix directions. Add cheese and sour cream and stir long enough for cheese to melt, then serve in the bread bowls.

Bread Bowl
round loaves from a bakery OR
frozen bread dough OR
if all else fails, from scratch bread bowls

I am cheating and buying the soup mix, just in case I have to make the bread bowls from scratch. I don't want to spend the entire weekend peeling potatoes AND baking bread from scratch. Lazy, I know. :P

Well, Publix did not have any fresh sourdough in the bakery when I went shopping and their frozen bread dough was full of trans fats (the soup mix already has plenty!), so I tried out the from scratch recipe. While not as yummy as sourdough, it certainly did the job. I added 1 T. sugar to the yeast proofing, and skipped the first eggwash, and only used water for the second washing, so that way little V. could enjoy the fresh bread. She gobbled up the bread, but the soup had too much onion/garlic for her taste (although just fine for an adult), so she only ate about 1/4 cup. E. was very excited about the bread bowls, but also abandoned her soup partway through, so I guess I have to say the soup mix is not kid-friendly. My husband and I both went back for seconds though (since the bread bowl doesn't hold much soup).

Sauteed Chicken and Veggies with Orzo Pasta

This dish comes from IHeartPublix's chicken challenge:

Sauteed Chicken and Veggies with Orzo Pasta
4 medium boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped into chunks
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup scallions, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
2 cups broccoli, chopped
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 cup matchstick-style carrots
1 cup asparagus, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil (+ 2 teaspoons for sauteing)
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds
3/4 cup crumbled bleu cheese
1 pound box orzo pasta
-Saute chicken, garlic, and scallions in 1 teaspoon of olive oil until chicken cooked through. Remove from heat and allow to cool. While chicken cools, saute the remainder of vegetables (broccoli, bell pepper, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus) in 1 teaspoon olive oil for approximately 5-7 minutes (I prefer the veggies to be a little crunchy rather that cooked through). Allow vegetables to cool for 15 minutes and mix with chicken.
-Cook orzo pasta in boiling, salted water until al dente. Drain pasta and rinse with cold water. Set aside.
-Mix remaining olive oil and rice wine vinegar, pour over chicken and vegetable mixture, and toss to combine.
-Add cooked orzo pasta to chicken and vegetable mixture and toss to combine.
-When ready to serve, add almonds and bleu cheese, stir, and enjoy!
This dish is easy to store in the refrigerator, and is great for left-overs since the flavors keep developing. I have also found myself substituting other types of pasta, if it’s on sale (like this past week!), or changing up the veggies to what I have on hand.

I used asparagus, colored pepper, and carrots for my veggies. Since I don't like blue cheese, I served mine with parmesan cheese. My husband tried it both ways and assures me that it tasted MUCH better with the blue cheese. "The vinegar shows off the sweetness of the blue cheese." If I make this again, I'll try using half as much vinegar. I think it's a very flexible recipe and would work well with whichever veggies you like/are on sale. Certainly if you have leftover raw veggies from something else or your garden, this would be a great way to use them up with stockpile foods.

We'll see how my husband likes the leftovers later this week when the flavors have "developed".

Easy Lemon Chicken and Rice

I finally figured out my meal plans for the weekend.

For Friday's dinner, I'll be serving Allrecipe's Easy Lemon Chicken and Rice.

I love that this cooks in a microwave, so my kitchen will stay nice and cool. The last time I made this recipe, E. was still intolerant of rice, so I omitted it. I'm curious how it will turn out with the rice this time.

I doubled the recipe, but I only had chicken broth in 1-cup servings, so I used one and added 1/2 c. water to make up the difference. The recipe was definitely better with rice. The rice absorbed all the yummy chicken broth and lemon juice. I thought it was a nice balance of protein, carb and veggie, and I loved the lemon with the rice. I could happily eat this once or twice a month.

Chicken Costoletta

Because no food blog of mine would be complete without this recipe! I was drooling over this earlier, wishing it was cool enough to make this, and thought I should add it while I was thinking about it. It is worth the effort, trust me!

Crispy Chicken Costolleta

(Copycat of the Cheesecake Factory's Crispy Chicken Costolleta)

Serves 4

Crispy Chicken
4 chicken breasts, cut horizontally, and pounded to about 1/4 inch thick, or use chicken cutlets.
Lemon zest of 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups plain bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons Freshly grated Parmesan (optional)
2 eggs, whisked with 2 T water
3 Tablespoons flour
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Zest two lemons. Bake zest for about 5 minutes until dry. On one paper plate combine flour, pepper and salt. On another paper plate combine eggs and water, whisk until combined. On another paper plate combine dry lemon zest, bread crumbs and cheese. Place pounded chicken in the flour, coating well, followed by the egg mixture and the bread crumbs. Heat 2 Tablespoons olive oil and 1 Tablespoon butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Place chicken in pan and cook on each side about 5 minutes until middle is no longer pink. You will need to work in batches, adding more oil and butter as needed. Keep chicken warm in oven at 250 degrees.

Lemon Sauce

2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup plus 1 T fresh lemon juice
1/8 cup chicken stock
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Over medium heat in a fairly large saucepan heat canola oil. Add minced garlic and saute about 3 minutes. Add whipping cream and boil until reduced by one-third. Add Dijon, lemon juice, chicken stock and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted.

Serve chicken with lemon sauce and mashed garlic potatoes.

~~~~

I like the sauce better with the mustard decreased to 1/2 t. and only 1/8 c. lemon juice. We serve it with asparagus and mashed potatoes covered in the lemon sauce. Darn it, I'm drooling again!

Anyway you make it, it's absolutely wonderful, and a fine tribute to the Cheesecake Factory's version. Thank you Jules for creating and posting this wonderful dish on the internet!

If you have time, browse around Jules' blog, as she has some other yummy recipes posted there. The peach-blackberry cobbler sounds good right now.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

This week's menu

Well, my in-laws didn't end up staying for a meal on July 4th, so I had too much steak. And the weather report says it's going to be hot this week (up to 99 on Thursday!), so I'm trying to stay out of the kitchen.

Anyway, here's this week's dinners:

Monday=leftover steak, mac and cheese, watermelon (we had a huge salad for lunch, so my hubby wanted to skip a veggie-naughty man!)

Tuesday=sandwiches with deli meat, sliced cheese, tomato, lettuce (leftover from the salad) and condiments. Sometimes I put alfalfa sprouts or cucumber slices on the sandwiches, which makes it feel more summery to me.

Wednesday=finally trying those sweet potato burritos! I try to plan at least one meal a week with no perishable items, so if life gets in the way, I can push that meal back indefinitely, and this week I needed it.

Thursday=with a high of 99 degrees, my husband has offered to pick up some takeout on the way home. Our AC bill will be outrageous enough without making the poor AC unit fight the heat of the kitchen.

I'll be going back to Publix on Friday to get ingredients for the weekend meals. If it ever cools off, I'm tempted to make fresh peach crisp. Maybe I'll look around online for a microwave version.

ETA: I'll try this one sometime this weekend, once I buy peaches on Friday.
Microwave Peach Crisp It sounds like it'd be really yummy with a small scoop of Breyer's Extra Creamy Vanilla ice cream.
Unfortunately, V. won't be able to try this treat. As many of you probably saw on my Facebook page. V. had a reaction to cinnamon a few days ago. :(

Monday, July 5, 2010

intro to couponing

I started learning how to coupon by exploring Coupon Mom. That site has a lot of free info. If you create a free account, she posts weekly ads for grocers around the country each week, with a list of coupons that match what's on sale. The basic premise is that if you buy a lot of stuff you normally buy when it's on sale with a coupon, stockpiling enough to make it til the next time it goes on sale, you'll save over the long-term. If your house doesn't have a lot of storage, I've heard some ladies make room by taking food out of the packaging, like removing Eggo waffles from the cardboard box, so they're still wrapped in plastic.
Anyway, here's a blog I found about Nebraska sales, like deals at SuperSaver:
Chicks Dig Deals
I found some more coupon blogs for Nebraska, for those of you who live up there:

Bakers: Saving Creatively

Hyvee: Little People Wealth
Penny Pinchin Mom
For those in the south, there's:
Southern Savers
I Heart Publix
To get coupons, I make sure I:
1) am on mailing lists for all the grocers
2) request coupons online from my favorite manufacturers (couponmom has a great list of websites to check out on her forum)
3) buy the Sunday paper, as I get back way more than $2 in coupons every week
4) attend a monthly coupon exchange group in my area, trading baby formula coupons for diaper coupons and that kind of thing
5) print out online coupons from coupons.com, smartsource.com, redplum.com and other sites

It does take a couple hours every week to clip and sort coupons, plan a menu based on sale items and make my shopping list, but I've figured the amount I save on groceries now is about the same as if I worked a part-time job, and it doesn't take as many hours, plus no need for daycare. I cut/sort coupons after the kids are in bed while I'm watching tv, and plan meals/lists during naptime or while I'm feeding Victoria.
I know it's a lot of info to process. Feel free to ask me more questions. I'm happy to share what I've learned.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Back from Publix

To make all of the meals mentioned for this Sat-Mon weekend, I spent $69.38. I know I could have saved more, but I accidentally left a couple coupons at home, and V. only took a 30 minute nap this morning, so she howled through the entire shopping trip, which, let's face it, is more than a little distracting. So by the end of the trip, I was just dumping things in the cart, barely checking for allergens, let alone price. Since I started couponing, my semiweekly grocery trips are usually $40-60 and saving 33-50% off full price. I still saved $28.64 today, buying on sale with coupons, giving me a savings total of 29%.
My best deal of the day was 90-count Chinet napkins for $1.08 -$1 Chinet coupon = $0.08 (thanks to Michelle)!
Anyone want to share their grocery savings story?

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Sweet Potato Burritos

For Monday's dinner, we'll be trying out Allrecipe's vegetarian Sweet Potato Burritos. Per the reviews, I'll be trying it with black beans instead of kidney beans.

Come back Monday to see our review.

BBQ Chicken Salad

After buying Longhorn's BBQ Chicken Salad for the umpteenth time off the menu, I determined there had to be a way to make something that delicious at home.

1 head of green leaf or romaine lettuce
2 on the vine tomatoes
1 cucumber
1-1.5 c. cooked chicken (BBQ rotisserie chicken works well here)
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
a couple T. Almond Accents Honey sliced almonds (sold in the produce section)
a couple T. fried onions
BBQ sauce (about 1 t. per serving-just lightly drizzle it)

Toss together and serve with a loaf of Publix's multigrain Italian bread (yummy with a little butter or even add garlic powder if you're in the mood for garlic bread). This doesn't take long to throw together and it tastes just like a steakhouse salad.

V. ate a plate of finely diced cucumber, tomato, chicken and grated cheese, with a piece of bread torn into little pieces. I love meals that only require an extra minute of dicing to make them toddler-compatible. She's so much happier when she can eat the same things as the rest of us.

One Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs

We tried out The Fairhope Foodie's One Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs.

I'm not sure this will be a fair review, since I ended up making so many substitutions. First of all, it appears E. was sneaking carrot sticks (I guess if she's gonna steal something, it might as well be veggies), so I only had about 1/3 c. chopped carrot to add. Then, it appears the girls rearranged my pantry, so I couldn't find my tomato sauce. Instead I used a can of diced tomato and a can of tomato paste. And I forgot to add salt/pepper to the meatballs. After the pasta was in for the 12 minutes, we only let it simmer another 5 minutes, as my husband was finishing up a level in a video game. My husband ate while I fed the baby, and his serving of pasta was still chewy (we don't like our pasta al dente). I served myself up after another 5 minutes of simmering and my pasta was just fine, so adjust your cooking time accordingly.

My husband thought it tasted like just another spaghetti and meatballs. E. ate her serving, but didn't want any more. V. skipped this meal due to the egg in the meatballs, as we're not sure if she inherited my husband's egg allergy or not. I thought the sauce had a richer taste than normal, and I actually went back for seconds, which I never do for spaghetti. The meatballs were rather bland, but I think if I'd remembered the salt, they would have been just fine. Compared to regular spaghetti, I dirtied a cutting board and a mixing bowl instead of a saucepan, so my dishwasher didn't notice a difference. Overall, I'm not sure if my palate is worth an extra $3 (the estimated cost difference between this recipe and my standard spaghetti), certainly not every time, but maybe I'll use this again when I can't face serving plain old spaghetti one more time.

Holiday grilling

Steak and salad:

Steak Marinade (for 2lbs of meat):
1 packet or 2 T. McCormick GrillMates Montreal Steak
1/4 c. oil -I use EVOO
1/4 c. water
2 T. red wine vinegar

15 minutes of marination will transform a hunk of meat into utter deliciousness. McCormick is well worth the money.

Salad:
head of green leaf or romaine lettuce
2 on the vine tomatoes
1 English cucumber (my MIL is intolerant of the "normal" variety)
Italian vinaigrette

We also served whole grain Italian bread and watermelon.

We introduced V. to tomatoes today. I finely diced half a tomato and put it on a plate while the rest of us ate salad. She not only ate all the pieces, she tried to lick the plate clean!

Sunflower Chicken Salad

This chicken salad recipe is adapted from one on Allrecipes.

2 c. cooked chicken (shredded, cubed, whatever you have on hand-I like to buy rotisserie chickens and pull the meat, then chop into pieces small enough for the baby)
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 c. quartered red grapes (or just halved, if you don't have kids in the choking age range)
mayo or Miracle Whip or whatever you like on your chicken salad

Combine the above in a bowl and serve on sandwiches or with a carby side dish. In my family, I divide the first 4 ingredients in half. Half gets mayo, and the other half gets Miracle Whip, as my egg-allergic husband claims it's less likely to provoke an allergic reaction.

This form of chicken salad was received favorably by the ever picky E. and my husband and I. This time little V. will only be getting a bowl of chicken, cheese, and grapes with a side of bread doled out in bird-size pieces, to avoid a possible egg reaction with the mayo or seeds.
I just love the contrast of the sweet grapes and salty sunflower seeds. It gives plain old chicken salad sandwiches an extra depth. It makes for a nice cool lunch on a hot summer day.

Corn and Potato Chowder

Tonight's recipe is courtesy of Amanda at A Few Shortcuts. She posted a ham corn and potato chowder, and I had all the ingredients on hand except for the ham. Enjoy!

I accidently threw in a can of creamed corn, as that's what E. handed to me, and I didn't check until it was already in the pot. :O

I mashed up the potatoes in about 2/3 c. of the chowder, and V. ate it all. She probably would have demanded more, but a little piece of her leftover birthday chocolate cake (egg-free) was offered so I could escape upstairs and finally take my shower for the day-yes, post-dinner. It's amazing what you learn to live with when you become a parent.

Anyway, picky E. ate a serving without too much of a fuss so she could also get her hands on a bit of the cake.

My husband didn't complain or make any suggestions for improvement, so that's about 3 stars for him.

I thought it was surprisingly creamy and not a bad version of potato soup, considering how easy it was. I left my pot gurgling for almost 2 hours and the potatoes were still quite firm, so I might try throwing this in the crockpot next time or using mashed potato flakes instead of diced potatoes, as I prefer a smoother texture.

Foraying into the world of blogdom

I'm starting this blog because it seems to take forever to plan a meal every week. Due to multiple food allergies/intolerances in my family, I can't just cheat and copy someone else's menu. And with the recession, I have the added restraint of needing to stick to sale/stockpiled ingredients. Since I started couponing 5 months ago, I've found myself mostly getting my groceries at Publix, since they have such a generous coupon policy and those lovely BOGO sales.
Even if no one else ever reads this, I'll be happy to one day look back through my archives for inspiration.
Eating these meals are:
me
my husband-allergic to eggs, strawberries, basil, and anything that comes out of the water
picky 5yo E. -she's finally outgrown her intolerance to rice
little 1yo foodie V. -outgrowing an intolerance to dairy and soy