Week 10 Meal

Week 10's meal was Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings. The recipe that I used was:

--3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken (I used frozen thighs)
--1 yellow onion, chopped
--1 cup mushrooms, chopped (I used baby portabellas)
--16 ounces frozen vegetables 

--2 cans cream-of-something soup, or combine in a saucepan:
4 T butter
6 T flour (I used Pamela's baking mix)
1 cup milk (I used soy)
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp poultry seasoning

I used a 6.5 quart crockpot. Anything 4 quarts and up will work. Put the chicken and vegetables into the bottom of the crockpot. Add the cream-of soups, or your homemade substitute. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5. I cooked ours on high for 4 hours, and on low for another two. An hour before serving, shred chicken with two large forks, and drop in the biscuit dough.

Cover and cook on high for another hour. The bisquits are done when you can insert a knife and it comes out clean. They will be spongey and will brown a bit on the sides and top.

Serve in bowls, with a biscuit or two per person.

I, however, did not have a large enough crockpot to feed the people that I had coming over so I used the same recipe except cooked it on the stove. The biggest difference was that I had to cook the chicken and then shred it first then mix it in with the rest of the ingredients. 

Along with the meal I made green beans and roasted potatoes. 

Everyone really enjoyed the meal. I haven't had chicken and dumplings in a very long time so it was nice to have one of those comfort food meals again.  
On a night that it will just be my hubby and I, I think that I will make it in the crock pot just to see how it differs from making it on the stove top. 

Week 10 Meal

This week we went all out and had a Chinese food feast. We made pork egg rolls, wonton soup, bbq'd pork and fried rice. For dessert I also made a Chinese Sponge Cake. It was a huge hit at our house and even our neighbor said that it tasted better than anything you can get in town. This meal had a lot of prep work to it. I spent about two hours yesterday morning putting everything together and then it took me about an hour and a half last night to cook everything up. The recipes that we chose were pretty good on their own although for a little more flavor I did add some chicken broth to the wonton soup instead of just using stock.

Wonton Soup:
Ingredients
1/2 pound boneless pork loin, coarsely chopped
2 ounces peeled shrimp, finely chopped
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon finely chopped green onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger root
24 (3.5 inch square) wonton wrappers
3 cups chicken stock
1/8 cup finely chopped green onion
Directions
1.In a large bowl, combine pork, shrimp, sugar, wine, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon chopped green onion and ginger. Blend well, and let stand for 25 to 30 minutes.
2.Place about one teaspoon of the filling at the center of each wonton skin. Moisten all 4 edges of wonton wrapper with water, then pull the top corner down to the bottom, folding the wrapper over the filling to make a triangle. Press edges firmly to make a seal. Bring left and right corners together above the filling. Overlap the tips of these corners, moisten with water and press together. Continue until all wrappers are used.
3.FOR SOUP: Bring the chicken stock to a rolling boil. Drop wontons in, and cook for 5 minutes. Garnish with chopped green onion, and serve.

BBQ Pork (Char Siu):


Ingredients:

1 lb pork butt (cut into 4 pieces)
3 clove garlic (finely chopped)
1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil

Char Siu (Char Siew) Sauce:

1 1/2 tablespoons maltose
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rose wine (玫瑰露酒)
3 dashes white pepper powder
3 drops red coloring (optional)
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Method:

Add all ingredients in the char siu sauce in a sauce pan, heat it up and stir-well until all blended and become slightly thickened and sticky. (It will yield 1/2 cup char siu sauce.) Transfer out and let cool.

Marinate the pork butt pieces with 2/3 of the char siu sauce and the chopped garlic overnight. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil into the remaining char siu sauce. Keep in the fridge.

The next day, heat the oven to 375 degree F and roast the char siu for 15 minutes (shake off the excess char siu sauce before roasting). Transfer them out of the oven and thread the char siu pieces on metal skewers and grill them over fire (I used my stove top). Brush the remaining char siu sauce while grilling until the char siu are perfectly charred. Slice the char siu into bite-size pieces, drizzle the remaining char siu sauce over and serve immediately with steamed white rice.

Egg Rolls:
Ingredients:Yield:
12 12 12Servings Size
eggrolls
Update

eggrolls
12 egg roll wraps
1/2-1 lb ground pork (or chicken or beef)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 (16 ounce) bag shredded cabbage and carrot coleslaw mix (not quite the whole bag)
4 green onions, sliced
1 egg, beaten with
1 teaspoon water
oil (for frying)
Change Measurements: US Metric

Directions:
Prep Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 30 mins
1 Brown pork with ginger and garlic in pan; drain any grease.
2 Mix salt, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil. Add to pork and mix well.
3 In large bowl combine cabbage mix and green onions.
4 Pour hot meat over vegetables and stir well. Let cool slightly.
5 Lay wrap in front of you so that it looks like a diamond.
6 Place 3 tablespoons pork filling in center of egg roll wrapper.
7 Fold bottom point up over filling and roll once.
8 Fold in right and left points.
9 Brush beaten egg on top point.
10 Finish rolling.
11 Set aside and repeat with remaining filling.
12 Heat 2-3 inches oil in large frying pan to very hot (350ºF).
13 Fry a few egg rolls in pan at a time, 2-3 minutes per side.
14 Drain on paper towels.
15 Serve with sweet and sour sauce, plum sauce, hoisin sauce or jalapeño pepper jelly.


Fried Rice:
2 cups uncooked rice
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large eggs
1 cup sliced green onions
1 cup frozen peas and carrots thawed
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp bottled ginger
2 tbsp rice wine vinager
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Cook the rice seperately.

While the rice is cooking, scramble eggs into small pieces and remove from pan. Add oil to pan. Then add onions, peas and carrots, garlic, and ginger. Saute about 2 minutes.

While veggi mix is cooking, mix together rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil.

Add cooked rice to pan and stir constantly for about 2 min breaking up the rice. Add soy mixture and eggs. Cook about a minute stirring constantly.

Chinese Sponge Cake:
Ingredients:
•1 cup sifted cake flour (note: not 1 cup cake flour, sifted)
•1 tsp baking powder
•1/4 tsp salt
•5 eggs
•1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
•3/4 cup sugar
•1 tsp almond extract
Preparation:
Line an 8 X 8 or 9 X 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper. Prepare a wok for steaming.

Place the flour in a medium bowl. Stir in the baking powder and salt and set aside.

Separate the egg yolks and the egg whites. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat briefly. Add 1/4 cup of sugar and beat for another minute (don't let the egg whites stiffen). Add the egg yolks and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat for about 2 more minutes. Stir in the almond extract. Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, stirring. Mix thoroughly, but do not beat.

Pour the batter into the cake pan. Bring the water in the wok to a high boil, then turn down to medium. Steam the cake, covered, for 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cake on a rack. Invert onto a plate and remove the parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so that the cake is right side up. Cut into squares.

Here are the websites with the recipes as some have good pictures to go along with each step:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/wonton-soup/Detail.aspx
http://rasamalaysia.com/bbq-pork-recipe-char-siu/
http://chinese.food.com/recipe/chinese-egg-rolls-134053
http://chinesefood.about.com/od/dessertscake/r/spongecake.htm

Have a great week and happy cooking!
~Rachelle~

Week's 8 and 9 Dinners

I also apologize for posting this a little late. I have had a very busy week with school and sick kitties so I will be posting for week 8 and week 9.

Week 8 - Crock Pot Philly Cheesesteak

For week 8 we made crock pot Philly cheese-steaks, the recipe can be found here.
This was actually a very simple meal to make. The only substitution I had to make was vegetarian Worcestershire sauce due to a fish allergy one of my guests has. We used mozzarella cheese which I also probably would use swiss next time. Everyone really enjoyed this meal though. We have decided that the crock pot would also be an amazing way to make french dip sandwiches.

Week 9 - An Asian Buffet

This week wasn't really just ONE dish. It was an Asian themed meal. We made egg rolls (recipe here.),
Chinese BBQ Pork (recipe), Wonton Soup (recipe), and my personal Fried Rice recipe.
This dinner actually turned out pretty delicious. My husband said it was the best chinese food he had ever had. This meal took the most preparation time out of all the meals so far. Because I was cooking for so many people I had to double the Wonton Soup recipe so wrapping 50 wontons and 24 egg rolls took some time. I made the mistake of stacking my wontons and egg rolls without anything in between them so the next day they stuck together a little too much and I lost a few of my egg rolls but thankfully I saved enough of them to feed my guests. Here are the pictures:

Enjoy!

Two weeks in One (Weeks 7 & 8)

I apologize up front for my part of the blog not being done last week. We had friends in town, and so life was a little busy for us.

Last week (February 13th) we made a Valentines meal of Spaghetti and Heart Meatballs and Heart Shaped Crescent Rolls. The spaghetti sauce was made from tomato soup and then my own spices added in (sorry for me it is a little bit of this and that, I am all about going for taste). While I don't think I would use the tomato soup again it was an all around good meal. And my boys loved all of the heart shaped food.

This week we made crockpot philly cheesesteak sandwiches. You can find the recipe here http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/02/crockpot-philly-cheesesteak-sandwiches.html.
It was a good meal with the peppers and onion, but it was not enough for our entire family and one extra adult even with adding another half a pound of meat and an extra pepper. We are thinking that next time we might add some beef broth or flavoring too just to give the meat a little extra flavor. Everyone ate every bit of it though and I think it was a great hit. The best part for me is that I was able to put it all together in the morning and able to eat around 5:30 with no extra prep work besides putting the sandwiches together and we also put the cheese on and placed them in the oven for a few minutes just to melt the cheese.

We are still in need of some more recipe ideas so if you have any you would like to submit please email us at twosisterscooking.rl@gmail.com.

Happy cooking and have a great week everyone!

~Rachelle

Laura's Week 7 Meal

This week, in honor of Valentines Day, we made spaghetti with heart shaped meatballs. The recipe that I used can be found here. For the sauce, I actually blended it in a food processor because I do not like chunks in my sauce and I think it helps to make the onion and garlic more flavorful in the sauce. I also added some garlic powder and onion powder to taste and also a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar. For the noodles I used whole wheat noodles because they are better for you and I think that they taste better. We also made some heart shaped rolls using a cookie cutter and some crescent rolls from the refrigerated section. Everyone really loved the food. For the meatballs I also used crushed up saltines in place of the bread crumbs which I think added an amazing taste to it. They smelled delicious while they were cooking.
The meal only took about an hour to make from start to finish. I really enjoyed this sauce recipe though, I have not fount a sauce recipe before that I really cared for before now. Here are the pictures I took:

Unfortunately I do not have my receipt for the groceries so I don't have an amount for you this week.
I would highly recommend making this if you ever feel so inclined to make hearts everywhere. You could make it as a regular spaghetti and meatballs too.

Have a great week everyone!

Laura

Laura's Week 6 Meal

Sorry for the late posting. Homework has had me very busy. This weeks meal was delicious. We made pizza using the same crust as Rachelle's. The only thing that didn't work so well was that the pizza stuck to one of the trays that we used. I did however use an airbake tray for the other pizza and it worked well since the holes in the bottom of it prevented the pizza from sticking.
I also made the garlic chicken pizza for one of mine. For the second pizza I made a Hawaiian pizza with homemade sauce.
I failed yet again at putting the SD card in my camera so unfortunately I do not have any pictures but I can tell you that they actually looked pretty tasty. I used Hidden Valley Ranch to make the sauce for the garlic chicken pizza which I would not suggest. It is a very sour ranch and didn't work well with the pizza. Overall the pizza was very good though. I would definitely make this again with a few tweaks.

Here are my numbers:

From Safeway:
Canadian Bacon: $3.49

From Albertsons:
Tomato Sauce: $2.89 for 28 oz (in retrospect, I should have just used small cans because I didn't use barely any of it)
Wheat Germ: $5.29
Yellow Cornmeal: $2.69
Pineapple Chopped: $1.49
Flaxseed Meal: $4.79
Tomato Puree: $1.00 (28 oz)
Mozzarella Cheese: $7.99
Cooked Chicken: $3.50

Here is the recipe for my sauce from Allrecipes.com:

Ingredients

• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 1 (29 ounce) can tomato puree
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, saute garlic in oil until tender. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until sauce reaches desired thickness. Use in Deep-Dish Sausage Pizza, Tomato Artichoke Chicken or any recipe that calls for pizza sauce. Sauce may be refrigerated for up to 1 week. 

Have a great week,

Laura

Whole Wheat Pizza

For this weeks meal we did whole wheat pizza. The recipe we used was submitted by my friend Lindsey. For one of our pizzas we just did canned sauce with mozzarella cheese, sausage and pepporoni and for the other we made a mock Papa Murphy's garlic chicken pizza, we both have been wanting it for awhile and do not have Papa Murphy's where we live, we were surprised on how close this sauce was. Although we had a minor setback with our pizzas sticking, it was still very flavorful and we thought a great pizza crust. Next time we make it we will put corn meal on the bottom so that it does not stick.

The only thing that I did not have at our house for the crust was the Flaxseed so my bill was not very expensive this week. I also had the ranch, garlic, green peppers and pizza sauce for both pizzas at home.
Total purchases for this weeks meal:
Flaxseed - $2.08
Roma Tomatoes - $1.34
Mozzarella Cheese - $7.88 (only used half of the bag so $3.94)
Pepperoni - $2.00
Sausage - $2.00
Total - $11.36

Here are the recipes:
Whole Wheat Pizza Crust - Makes two 12" crusts
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine 1 cup bread flour, whole wheat flour, cornmeal, flaxseed, yeast and salt. Add 1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees) stir until combined. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surfaced. Knead in the remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (3-5 min total).

Shape in to a dough ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (2 1/2 - 3 hours).

Punch down dough. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 2 portions. Cover and lest rest 10 minutes. Use as directed in indvidual pizza recipes.

Mock Papa Murphy's Garlic Chicken Pizza:
Sauce:
1 Cup Ranch
1 Tablespoon minced garlic

Grill Chicken, (we put garlic in with the chicken) Mix together and put on pizza. Top pizza with Mozzarella Cheese, Chicken, Roma Tomatoes and Green Peppers.

This Weeks Dinner

Sorry that I am a bit late posting this. This week as Laura said we made Crock Pot Spicy Turkey Lasagna that my friend Chris Domser donated. The meal was fantastic. My middle son who is going through a no green stage actually ate the spinach that was in it. Only thing I might change next time is a little less red pepper as the kids said it was a little spicy. I loved the fact that I could throw it all together in the crock pot and go do other stuff around the house while it was cooking and then we had it with green beans and garlic bread so that was all I had to prepare right before we ate . I did forget to take pictures this week but this is a highly recommended meal from our house.

Laura already posted the recipe but here is what the cost of the meal was for us:
Ricotta Cheese: $2.95
Shredded Italian Cheese: $3.39
Frozen Spinach : $3.09
Lasagna Noodles : $1.99
Pasta Sauce: $2.46
Crushed Red Pepper: $1.29
Total: $15.17

Happy cooking everyone and have a great week!
~Rachelle~

Laura's Week 5 Meal

For week 5 we made the crockpot lasagna, recipe donated by Chris Domser. Here is the recipe:

Meal: Crock Pot Spicy Turkey Lasagna

Ingredients:

1 lbg ground turkey
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t salt
1/2 t red pepper flakes
15 oz light ricotta
2 c shredded Italian cheese
10 oz frozen spinach (chopped, thawed, and squeezed dry)
12 lasagna noodles -- uncooked and broke in half
26 oz chunky pasta sauce
1/2 c water

Directions:

Brown turkey over medium/high heat for 5-7 minutes.  Season with salt, oregano and pepper flakes.  In a bowl mix ricotta, cheese and spinahc.  In a slow cooker, add a liner for quicker cleanup.  Then layer the bottom with noodles broken to cover.  Spoon 1/2 meat, pour on 1/2 pasta sauce and 1/2 water.  Spread cheese mixture over top.  Repeat layering.  Slow cook on low for 4 hours.  Makes 8 pieces.

With this meal I also made twice baked mashed potatoes, garlic bacon green beans, and garlic bread. 

This meal was a huge hit! Everyone really loved it. I wasn't sure how well it was going to turn out since I only had a 3 quart crock pot but it actually worked well, it just wasn't as flat as it probably could have been. It was nice that the lasagna only took about 10 minutes to put together and then just had to cook for about 4 hours. I am generally not a huge fan of lasagna but this was actually pretty good. I liked the ricotta cheese as opposed to the usual cottage cheese. 

Here are the numbers for this weeks meal:

From Central Market:

Spinach 15 oz: $2.39

Crushed Red Pepper 2.62 oz: $4.99 (only used half a teaspoon)

Lasagna Noodles 1lb box: $2.00 (used about 5 noodles)

Spaghetti Sauce 26 oz: $1.39

Ricotta Cheese 32 oz $3.99 (used about half)

Shredded Italian Cheese 16 oz: $2.99

Total for lasagna: $17.75 (served 7 people with one serving left over)

For the sides:

Bacon bits: $2.99 (used half between green beans and mashed potatoes)

Cream cheese: $1.19

Russet Potatoes 5 lbs: $1.79 (used half)

Green Beans: $1.69

Garlic Bread: $2.19

Meal total: $27.60 

If we would have had an 8th person, it would have cost about $3.45 per person. Not bad!

The green beans and twice baked potatoes are something I learned from my mom so if you want the recipe for those let me know and I will tell you, its one of those just throw together dishes you never actually measure out. 

Have a great week everyone!

Laura

Week 4 Meal - In Wisconsin

So to start out after a few little mishaps we finally had this meal tonight and it was well worth the wait! These Flank Steak Naan Bread Wraps are delicious and I want to personally thank Ellie from Home Cooking Montana for allowing us to use this recipe. To go along with the wraps I also made green beans, cheesy potato wedges (also from Ellie's blog), and sauteed mushrooms.

Now for the mishaps. Living in such a small is proving to be difficult to make certain meals. For example I was unable to find flank steak so we had to use sirloin. When I went to get everything on Sunday the store was also out of cilantro, this is not the first time that the store has been out of cilantro here. For some reason my first time of making the Naan Bread was not successful. It didn't rise correctly and I couldn't get it to roll out right. My second time of doing this was much more successful though. This recipe does take a little extra time just because of making the bread, but it is well worth it to have the homemade bread. We are planning on making up more of the bread to use for wrapping other things (hubby wants to try teriyaki chicken). The boys all loved it, and I think my husband was in love from the first bite. For the steak marinade I rubbed it with garlic, then olive oil and then put the remaining pesto for the sauce on both sides. All together actually preparing time, not time waiting for bread to do rise was about an hour.

Here are the prices of the items I had to buy for the wraps, although most only took a minimal amount some of the stuff I did not have on hand.:
Steak - $7.92
Instant yeast (3 pack) - $2.09
Cilantro - $0.89
Garlic - $0.40
Lime - $0.99
Bread Flour - $3.23
Wheat Flour - $2.86
All Purpose Flour - $1.58
Sour Cream - $1.42
Parmasean Cheese - $1.86
Total Purchased for Wraps - $23.24

Remainder of the meal purchases
Green Beans - $2.98
Potatoes - $1.50
Green Onions - $1.18
Mushrooms - $3.38
Total - $9.04

Grand Total $32.28


Here are the links for both of the recipes:
Wraps:
http://homecookinginmontana.blogspot.com/2009/05/naan-bread-stuffed-with-flank-steak.html
Potatos:
http://homecookinginmontana.blogspot.com/2009/04/cheesy-potato-skin-wedges.html

Laura's Week 4 Meal

This week our choice of meal was Naan Bread stuffed with Flank Steak with a crushed red potato side. The recipe was courtesy of Ellie @Home Cooking in Montana . My sister found her blog and there were so many amazing recipes that we asked her if we could use a couple for our challenge.

I started my dish yesterday by marinating the steaks. For the seasoning I used 2 tablespoons of minced garlic (from a jar), about ¼ teaspoon of paprika, 1 teaspoon chopped cilantro, salt, pepper, and a tad bit of garlic salt (I really like my garlic). After mixing those ingredients together I added enough Extra Virgin Olive Oil into the mixture that would cover the steaks nicely. I poured it onto the steaks, making sure to cover all sides of the steaks, and put it into a container in the fridge to marinate overnight.  

The total time for this meal was about 5 hours because the Naan bread needs to rest for a total of about 2 and a half hours. I also had to cook each Naan piece separately since I only have a small cast iron skillet.

Everyone gave this meal a thumbs up. One person wasn't a HUGE fan of the cilantro pesto sauce that went inside of the Naan with the steak but everyone else loved it and even went back for seconds. This was probably the best seasoning for steak that I have ever tried. Being that I am a huge fan of garlic, it was perfect.

Here is a picture of the meal! Sorry its not the best quality, my camera died so I had to take it with my cell phone.

Here are the numbers for this meal:


Store: Safeway
All Purpose Flour: $1.61 for 5lbs (used 2 cups)
Whole Wheat Flour: $3.99 for 5lbs (used 1/2 cup)
Bread Flour: $3.69 for 5lbs (used 1 cup)
Pepper Jack Cheese: $2.69 for 16oz (used about 2oz)
Shredded Parmesan Cheese: $2.69 for 8 oz (used 3/4 cup)
Flanken Rib Steaks: $6.29 for 4 steaks
Lime: $0.50 for one. (used half)
Red Potatoes: $1.55 for six
Cilantro: $0.99 for a bunch (used about half)
Organic Chives: $2.24 for 0.66oz (used about 0.2 oz)


Total Spent: $26.24 to feed 6 people with seconds.


(also, keep in mind that I have enough flour left to last me probably a year or so)


I am actually very pleased with this meal. I think that I will be making this in the future. I still have 4 Naan pieces left so I will for sure be finding something to do with those.


Have a good night!


Laura

Week 3 Meal - Rachelle

Tonight we made Taj Maholla Chicken, submitted by Aaron Smit courtesy of the Food Network website. I made mine with corn as a side dish and brown rice for it to go over. Total time to prepare this meal was approximately an hour and a half for me which was a half hour longer than the recipe said. I also was unable to find coriander or pomegranate juice at our local grocery store. We felt that this meal was good but because of those 2 missing ingredients that ended up being substituted it didn't seem to have much flavor. Everyone ate it though.

This was an expensive meal to make because I had to buy a lot of spices that I did not have but I will also have them to use at a later time. Here are the items that I had to purchase this week for this meal.
Heavy Cream - $3.69
Cinnamon Stix - $6.63
Turmeric - $4.87
Whole Cloves - $6.65
Chicken Thighs - $5.98
Ginger - $0.57
Red Onions - $0.87
Roma Tomatos - $0.92
Total to purchase for this meal - $30.82

Here is the link for the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/taj-maholla-chicken-recipe/index.html

Jan. 16th Dinner - Laura

Hello!

As I said previously, tonight's dinner was the Taj Maholla Chicken. This dish was a bit difficult to make. Between myself, and two of my friends it took us two hours in total from start to finish. I can imagine that cooking it a second time would probably be a little bit quicker because I would definitely do all the chopping in the beginning and just set items aside.

It turned out to be similar to what I would assume is a curry (however I have only ever had curry once and I don't remember it much). I have never cooked with bone-in chicken before so I am not sure if this would make much of a difference but, I think that it would have been easier to get boneless chicken since in the end result you use the chicken shredded.

I served the chicken with white rice and a slice of a baguette on the side.

Overall, the chicken was pretty good but probably not something that I would cook again. My guests liked it but felt the same way I did. I was told that it was a little sweet so were I to make it again, I would probably add more chili powder and garlic. We couldn't even tell that there onions or tomatoes in the sauce.

My guests have rated this meal 3 out of 5 stars.

Here is a picture:

-Laura

Shopping Trip for Jan 16th Dinner - Laura

This week we are making the Taj Maholla Chicken, recipe donated by Aaron Smit.
This was a pretty intense shopping trip because of all the spices I had to get. Here are my numbers:

Safeway:

Pomegranate Juice: $3.39 for 2 liters. (used 2 tbsp)
Cumin Seed: $3.91 for 0.95 oz (used 2 tbsp)
Coriander Seed: $3.99 for 0.87oz (used 2 tbsp)
Cinnamon Sticks: $6.15 for 0.75oz (used 2 sticks)
Bay Leaves: $2.71 for 0.12oz (used 1 leaf)
Peppercorns: $2.00 for 0.85oz (used 2 tsp)
Garlic: $0.50/head (used 1.5 heads)
Ginger: $1.08 (used half of what I bought)
Tumeric: $4.63 for 0.95oz (used 1.5 tsp)
Bone-in Chicken Thighs: $5.93 for 6 lbs (used 2 lbs)
Red Onion: $0.83
Heavy Whipping Cream: $2.51 for 1 pint (used 0.5 cups)
Roma Tomatoes: $0.78

All other ingredients I already had.

Normally I would add up how much the meal cost to make but in this case I think it would be too confusing to say per teaspoon or table spoon.
The total cost for what I bought was: $38.66

-Laura

Rachelle's Weekly Meal

So this week we made my good friend from high school Smittay's Super Easy Goloush.  I personally loved it and so did Andrew, the older boys weren't so sure of it but I am going to try it on them one more time before I give up, hubby was not here to eat with us for our meal this week.  Total cooking time was 30 minutes and I felt this was an easy meal to make. 

This week I did most of our shopping at the commissary the cost of this meal for me was:

Ground Beef:  $2.38 for 1.31pounds

Mushrooms: $2.19 for the 8oz

Onion : $1.29 a pound

Vegetable Beef Soup: $1.29

Cream of Mushroom Soup: $0.67

Milk was on hand along with the spices.

So my total cost to buy this week for the meal was $7.82.

The recipe is:

Smittay's Super Easy Goulash

1-1.5 lbs ground beef (turkey if you wanna go healthier)
1 pack mushrooms sliced
1/4 - 1/2 cup diced onions
1 can campbell's vegetable beef soup
1 can campbell's cream of mushroom soup
1-2 cups milk
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
2 tsp johnny's seasoning salt
1 tsp chopped garlic

Add ground meat to pan with seasonings and garlic. add mushrooms and onions when the meat first starts to brown. Finish cooking/browning meat. Remove all grease, I prefer to dump all the meat out onto paper towels and pat dry, then wash the pan. Return meat to pan, adding vegetable beef and cream of mushroom on med low. stir until all is incorporated. Add milk until desired thickness ( I like it to be a Little bit runny as it will thicken a bit once it starts cooling). season with additional salt,pepper and johnny's to taste. serve over white rice or mashed potatoes or toast. canned green beans or corn goes great with it too :)  

January 9th Dinner

Tonight's dinner, as I said earlier, was goulash. I started cooking at around 5:30pm and it was finished at about 6:15. Neither myself nor my guests have ever had goulash before so it was quite a treat. I loved how easy it was to throw together. Had I already known the ingredients for the recipe I probably could have cooked it in about 20 minutes.

Everyone loved it! They even went back for seconds! I served it on white rice (not the brown rice I had originally planned due to cooking time) which worked well. We also had corn on the cob and dinner rolls.

-Laura

Shopping Trip for Jan 9th Dinner

Tonight's meal will be Goulash. The recipe was donated by Aaron Smit.

Here are the numbers for my shopping trip!

From Costco:
Ground Turkey - $3.63

From Safeway:
Yellow Onion - $0.89
Campbell's Vegetable Beef Soup - $1.49
Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup - $1.49
Milk (1 to 2 cups) - $0.26/cup
1 Head of Garlic - $0.50

Total: $8.52

I already have:
Paprika
Johnny's Seasoning Salt
Salt
Pepper

With the meal I will be serving brown rice and dinner rolls.

The dinner rolls were $2.49
The brown rice was $5.21

-Laura

Cost of the first meal in Wisconsin

So here is what it cost to make the Easy Cheesy Potato Casserole for me shopping at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Tomah, Wisconsin:
The 2 pounds of frozen potatoes cost $1.88
The Onion was $.88 for a whole one but we only used one so $.44
The Celery was $1.79 for a whole bunch of it but we only used one stalk there were 10 in it so about $.18
The Cream of Celery soup for store brand which is what I used was $.92
The Sour Cream which was cheaper to buy Breakstones of was $1.42
The Butter I got 4 sticks for $2.99 so about $.75
Salt and Pepper we already had on hand
We used the potato chips which were $1.98 for an entire 11 ounce bag, we only used 1 1/2 cups though which ended up being approximately just over 2 ounces which cost $.32
Casserole Grand Total = $5.95
Green Beans were $.76 a can at the commissary
Biscuits were $.99 a can at the commissary
Chicken was leftovers from our New Years get together.
Entire Meal Grand Total = $7.70 to feed an entire family of 5 last night!

Happy Cooking
~Rachelle

January 2nd - Laura's First Dinner Challenge

I would have to say that this meal was a success.....minus a minor problem I had. Apparently I didn't thaw the potatoes long enough so instead of taking an hour to cook, the potato casserole took about an hour and a half. Everyone seemed to love it though. I served the casserole with some crockpot chicken on brown rice and garlic bread.

The recipe for the chicken was supposed to give me chicken breasts but while it cooked in the crockpot the chicken started falling apart so it ended up as more of a chicken soup. My guests decided that it worked better having the chicken shredded instead of breasts though. Also, in case you decide to make the chicken, it cooked much faster than the 8 to 10 hours the recipe told me. It was done after about 5 hours so I put it on warm until about 30 min before we had expected to eat.

Thank you Ashly for this recipe. It was delicious. I am curious though how it will taste with your boiled potatoes and may have to make it at a later time like that.

Rachelle's Meal for January 2nd, 2011

So today we made up a good friend of mine, Ashly's Cheesy Potato Casserole.  It was a success here minus one of my sons but he is going through a no potato stage right now so that was to be expected.  All together it took me 15 minutes to prepare between dicing up onion and celery and grating cheese and then mixing everything up.  After that it was a very easy recipe because you just put it in the oven for an hour.  We served it today with green beans, chicken and biscuits which complimented it nicely.  My husband was a big fan and wants to make them a possible breakfast dish.  The recipe we have right now uses frozen southern-style hashbrowns, which I intend to next time make homemade after figuring out how to do so.  I used potato chips on top as we are not big corn flake fans around here. 

The Recipe is:
Ingredients

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• 1 bag (2 pounds) frozen southern-style hash brown potatoes shopping list
• 1 cup finely diced onion shopping list
• 1/3 cup finely diced celery shopping list
• 1 can (10-1/3 ounces) condensed cream of celery soup shopping list
• 1 carton (16 ounces) sour cream shopping list
• 8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded shopping list
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted shopping list
• salt and pepper to taste shopping list
• 1-1/2 cups crushed potato chips or cornflake crumbs shopping list

How to make it

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• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 2-quart casserole or 9-inch by 13-inch baking dish.
• Thaw the potatoes just enough to break them apart. Combine in a large bowl with the onion, celery, soup, sour cream, Cheddar cheese, melted butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Spoon into the baking dish. Top with the crumbs. Bake for 1 hour. Serve hot.


Enjoy your week!
~Rachelle

Side dish conundrum

Alright,

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I needed a side dish to go with my cheesy potato casserole. while in the process of deciding what I would be cooking with it a few of my friends decided that they wanted to join in on the taste testing for tonights dish. With that said, I now needed something that could feed six people, myself included. I decided chicken would be a good choice so I started looking around the Internet for chicken recipes and came across a crockpot chicken recipe complements of bigoven.com.
So alas, I had yet another shopping trip to do before tonights big dinner. The recipe calls for worcsterchire sauce which, due to a fish allergy from one of my guests, I replaced with soy sauce.I also replaced the cream of celery with cream of chicken and the mushrooms with green beans. I decided to do my shopping at albertsons so here are the numbers:

Keep in mind, these are only the things that I actually needed to buy. Everything else i already had in my kitchen.

Cooking Sherry: $3.49
16oz Frozen Green Beans: $2.19
6 Chicken Breasts: $10.28

Total: $15.96

Here is link to the recipe for the chicken if you would like to take a look:
http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/28007/baked-chicken-breasts-crockpot-to-die-for

The chicken is now cooking in the crockpot so we shall see how it will turn out tonight!

Laura