Category: Food on a Budget (Page 8 of 12)

      Some foods are too funny

      November 15, 2011 /

      Chef JimDo me a favor, try to keep a straight face when I say this–Spotted Dick.

      If you didn’t laugh, I’m sorry but I can’t be friends with you. I saw that in a magazine a few years ago and my wife and I were howling. Turns out spotted dick is a sort of English sponge cake, almost like fruit cake.

      Maybe some day I will be brave enough to try it, even though it’s not like eating monkey brains or anything. I just can’t get past the name or the fact that it is sold in a can. Anyway, I snapped the photo you see here at a World Market store recently. I couldn’t help it. And even as I write this I am snickering. Spotted Dick….ha!

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Ingredients, Uncategorized, Your Kitchen

      Cheez-It chicken

      November 9, 2011 /

      Like most guys, I have an affinity for cheese crackers, and in particular I’ve always been partial to Cheez-It brand crackers. And for some reason, I haven’t been able to look at a box of them lately without thinking that I need to use them in recipes. So I just figured this past weekend that I was going to do it. So I made fried chicken breast cutlets with crushed Cheez-Its as the breading. Do you think that sounds good? Yeah, me too, but they came out even better than I had anticipated. Here is how to do it…..

      Gather a pound or two of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and flatten them slightly with a mallet unless they are already on the thin side. Put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil in a nonstick pan and set over low heat. Meanwhile, set up a station of plate-shallow bowl-plate leading up to the pan. Take about 2 cups of Cheez-Its and run them through a food processor until you have the consistency of bread crumbs. Put some flour on the first plate, crack two eggs in the shallow bowl and whisk together, and put the Cheez-It crumbs on the other plate. Season each station with salt and pepper. Then dip each chicken breast into the flour, egg and then crumbs before placing in the heated pan. Raise heat to medium and cook chicken about five minutes per side or until crispy on the outside and cooked through and no longer pink in the middle. Depending on how many you are making, it might be better to cook them in batches. Serve as is or with ranch dressing for dipping.

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Ingredients, Product Reviews, Recipes

      1-2-3 chicken soup

      November 4, 2011 /

      Last weekend I was caught by the smell of the rotisserie chickens in the grocery store. Sometimes I can walk right by them and sometimes I shop hungry, which is always bad for the wallet. And it’s especially bad when confronted with especially delicious smelling roasted chicken. I got home and we had chicken sandwiches for lunch and picked it all off the carcass to save for recipes or chicken salad. Sometimes I throw the bones away, but as you should do with a cooked chicken or turkey, I wrapped it up and made soup on Sunday.

      Making homemade chicken soup is so easy, a monkey can do it, especially when you have grocery stores that roast the chicken for you. Anyway, here is how to do it…

      Put the carcass in a large soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, while adding chopped carrots and celery and some parsley sprigs. Add some salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme, a bay leaf, and pinches of onion powder and garlic powder. Lower heat and simmer for about two hours, adding more water as necessary and adding more salt and pepper to taste. When cool enough, remove bones, and make sure you leave the meat in the soup (or add in meat you may have taken off the bone earlier). Then cook some noodles or rice separately and add to the cooked soup or in individual bowls to serve. Nothing is better than homemade chicken soup. To me, canned soups are for some reason becoming more and more disgusting. I’m not sure if it’s the preservatives or the weird spices or thickening agents used, but blech. So yeah, make my soup instead!

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Healthy, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Classic BLT

      October 4, 2011 /

      One of the best things about bacon is the BLT–bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. I’m not quite sure why it all goes together, but it does. You can come up with all kinds of variations, but to me, the simplest form of BLT is the best–bacon, iceberg lettuce, ripe tomato, and mayo on white bread or a white roll. Today I bought some white sandwich rolls and ate two of them, pictured above.

      Here is how to do it. First, cook some bacon (yesterday we went over a few ways to do this). I chose to make two kinds–Oscar Mayer center cut bacon and a maple bacon I found today. I mixed the two on my sandwich and they came out amazing. After cooking the bacon (2-4 slices per sandwich), spread some mayo on the bread. Layer cooked bacon, tomato and lettuce, and that’s it! You can add a bit of salt and pepper if you like, or use rye or wheat bread, or even use a wrap, but the basic flavors are key.

      Okay, on to come up with more bacon ideas!

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Easy breakfast tacos

      September 8, 2011 /

      It’s not always easy to make a quick, healthy breakfast, but here is one you can do that is way better than something you can get at any drive-thru. Breakfast tacos, and super easy ones at that.

      For one person, you’ll need 2 corn tortillas (I like the white corn rather than the yellow), 2 eggs, some shredded sharp cheddar, optional bacon and some good salsa or hot sauce or both.

      You can either warm the tortillas by wrapping them in foil and putting in the oven or toaster oven for 10 minutes at 300 degrees. OR my way is to quick fry them in a nonstick pan by spraying both sides with cooking spray and cooking over medium high heat for about 30-45 seconds per side.

      If using bacon, cook 2 slices according to package directions (I use the microwave for this).

      Meanwhile, heat another nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk with salt and pepper. Pour into pan and cook for 2-3 minutes or until just set. Divide the egg on each tortilla, sprinkle with cheese, crumbled bacon and hot sauce or salsa.

      Fold in half and eat!

      Food on a Budget, Healthy, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Your Kitchen

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