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

---

• 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

---

• 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