What's Cookin' Wednesday: A little meal planning goes a long way!

I tried a little meal planning for these two weeks. (We buy groceries in two week increments, as that's how I'm paid.) I'm pretty boring about dinner foods, so I took a look at one of my friend's (Katy's) meal plan. She does it every month and her ideas sounded fresh and new, so I borrowed a few! Check hers out. Thanks, Katy!

This is what our two week plan looked like.

-Spaghetti
-Greek chicken, spinach and feta puff pockets
-Chili dogs
-BBQ Chicken sandwiches
-Hamburgers
-Pasta salad
-Grilled chicken
-Lentil Soup (fave!)

Then we'll eat some leftovers and have sandwiches and sometimes we're not home. So, yea. You can definitely tell it's a beginner's plan. :) Hopefully I'll get more creative and search through my millions of cook books (thanks, Mom!) for some new staple meals, 'cause let me tell you, I'm tired of spaghetti! :)

But the point is, we save money by only buying the ingredients on the list, rather than a basketful of disjointed ingredients that I don't know what to do with when I get home.

ANYWAYS. I made the BBQ chicken sandwiches last week and they were divine. And SO simple.

All you need is:

3-4 thawed, boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or more if you want to make it last longer)
BBQ sauce, any kind (I used Sweet Baby Rays) :)
buns

I like my chicken LEAN... those are the scraps on the left.

Place in crock pot on low. Salt and pepper. 

Cover with BBQ sauce, generously.

After several hours, get in there with a fork and knife, and shred the chicken up. I added a little more BBQ sauce and let it cook for maybe an hour more.

There it is! It was delicious!

It actually tasted like BBQ pork or beef.. not sure why.. (looks like it too, huh?) It didn't need that extra hour though. It really was a good meal.. I was able to take some to work for one of my lunches, too! 

Give it a try!

Crock Pot Tuesdays

I have been working on a lot of Tuesdays lately and we also threw a trip to Paris in there, but I do have a new Crock Pot Tuesday dish for you!

From Pinterest, I found Hawaiian Chicken! It was a recipe from a website called $5 Dinners.

All you need is:
chicken breast pieces
a can of sliced pineapples in juice (not water)
cinnamon
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper

I used frozen chicken breasts.  

Put chicken in the bottom. Layer with pineapple slices, pour in 1/2 cup of pineapple juice. 

Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.

Set your crock pot on low for 8 hours (high for 4-6). 

I made (again) brown rice to serve with the chicken. I also made some caramelized carrots.

Sliced carrots sauteed in sugar and butter. YUM.

There you have it!

If I do this meal over again, I'd add some soy sauce to the mix. Soy sauce and pineapples are a match made in heaven. My chicken got a little tough (gasp!). I know that's slow cooker blasphemy. I'm not sure if I left it in for too long or if I needed more liquid. (enter soy sauce) But it tasted great! And it was dirt cheap to make! I already had the chicken, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, rice, carrots, butter, sugar.. All I had to buy was the pineapple. [79 cents] :)

Crock Pot Tuesdays

This past Tuesday, we continued the tradition of Crock Pot Tuesday!! Yaay!

I asked hubby all day Monday what meat he wanted. Hours went by, he never told me. It came time to go to the grocery store, so I decided on chicken and found a recipe. He said, "Oh, I was hoping for something with steak in it..." Are you kidding me? Now you tell me?

I digress.

I decided on a chili recipe I saw on pinterest a couple days ago. It's a beef chili from Better Homes and Gardens dot com. You can find the recipe here.

(decided to lead with a picture of the finished dish, to get you excited!)

ingredients:

1 pound of round steak, cubed (3/4 inch), fat trimmed off

1 T cooking oil

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 can beef broth

1 C chopped onion

1-2 fresh chopped jalapeno peppers (I used a can of chopped green chiles)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 t chili powder

1 T brown sugar

1 1/2 t dried oregano

1/2 t ground cumin

1/4 t black pepper

Brown the meat in the oil. No need to cook all the way.

Then, put tomatoes, broth, onions, chiles, spices and steak into crock pot on high for 5-6 hours (10-12 on low). (I did high for 6 hours and I stirred occasionally.)

On top here is a bean salad I made (it's on the website). It's one can of pinto beans (drained and rinsed) and one can of black beans (drained and rinsed) tossed with the zest and juice of two medium limes. I refrigerated the bean salad for a couple hours before eating.

We paired our chili with cheddar cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips and the bean salad, of course. 

VERY GOOD!

The lime made the dish. Oh so delicious! It sort of turned out more like a soup, though. I think if I had added the beans in to cook (which you can totally do) it would have thickened up the mixture a lot. I would say this recipe made 6 servings. Pretty good deal. 

Hey, I even had leftovers of it today. And I never eat leftovers. :)

Check out my kitchen helper:

I expect our energy bill to be a few cents higher this month. :)

Crock Pot Tuesdays and a new study

This perfect Tuesday was spent cooking, playing with Cohen and studying scripture.

The girls in our community group are doing a study on Beth Moore's book To Live Is Christ. In our busy lives, we plan to meet just as girls twice a month. So, we're meeting tomorrow for the first time. I'm so excited to finally have a study to look forward to with them, I'm just giddy! I've been working straight weekends since June... meaning I've missed a lot of church. I've been once. On my birthday. Poor me, right? Well, the Lord provides. This book is a study of Paul's life and dedication to Christ. I can't wait to see how God uses this book to open my eyes to more of His plan for me.

My favorite verse, from today's reading:

 ⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
                           ----Deuteronomy 6:4-9


I wrote this out and hung it in our home. It's a convicting reminder of how we need to be teaching our children the Love of Christ and his laws any chance we get. 

Crock Pot Tuesdays

I'm a nurse. I work with a bunch of women. Seriously, no male nurses. :) I LOVE this about my job.

So, we talk about lots of womanly things. Shopping, our kids/family, and food. And on our unit, we will find any excuse to have a pot-luck party at work. Oh, the Mavs are in the playoffs? LUNCH PARTY. International Day? Mexican fiesta!! Father's Day? Sweets n' Treats! End of summer? BBQ!!!

So, with all these opportunities to bring in food, it brings about lots of discussion of recipes. One day (our Labor Day Soup and Salad luncheon day, in fact), while discussing recipes, a friend said to me, "Emily..have you joined Crock Pot Girls yet??" Interest piqued. "Crock pot girls?? No.. what's that?" She then proceeded to blow my mind with all that is Crock Pot Girls. They also have a Facebook. :)

This is an amazing website, started by girlfriends, with tons of recipes to be made in a crock pot. Now, I have a crock pot. And up until now, my extent of adventurousness with the crock pot has been: Chicken Taco Soup and French Dip Sandwiches. Yea... pretty boring.

You hereby have my vow, that I will try a new recipe in my crock pot every week. On Tuesdays, to be exact. The girls on the website coined the term Crock Pot Mondays. Monday's are just not good for us. Hector has Club for YoungLife and will usually be eating there. And I don't want to make a crock pot meal  for just me to eat. So, this past Tuesday, I started out with a meal recommended by my friend Laurie from work. She'd made it for her husband and daughter and said it turned out VERY well. I even went as far as to make the same sides as her. Thanks, Laurie! Great idea!

Creamy Italian Chicken (find it here)
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (frozen) ((I used 6 breast tenders)) (((it's what I had)))
1 package of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 packet dry Italian seasoning

Place chicken on bottom of crock pot. They recommend using a roasting bag. (I've never heard of such.) In a separate bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, soup and Italian seasoning. Pour over chicken. Cook on low heat for 6-8 hours. I also added a splash of white wine (probably about 1/2 a cup). I opened it up and lightly stirred it a couple times. I put it all in at 12:30, low setting, and we were eating by 6:30.

Chicken on the bottom.

Other three ingredients in a bowl.

Smear over chicken. 6 hours on low.

I served ours over steamed brown rice with steamed broccoli. 

This was amazing. The chicken was practically falling apart. So glad I went with something that was 1) easy and 2) recommended. I knew it should taste good, you can hardly mess it up. And the brown rice was so good! We definitely both made "happy plates."

Can't wait for next Tuesday!!