Cooking at Home

Since moving, it's been all too easy for us to just go grab food for dinner. Not only does this get expensive.. it's not good for us. :( Feeling bloated and yucky is not worth the simplicity. Sorry Pei Wei, Whataburger, Chick-fil-a, Burger King, Jet's Pizza..  you won't be seeing us so often. I made a conscious effort to make a plan and a list of grocery items for three make-at-home meals this week. I didn't want to get to ambitious on our first week of eating at home. :) Hoping to work up to like 6 meals a week at home.

I went to Pinterest for all three of these.

Tuesday night we tried Dr. Pepper Chili.

(her chili!)

My chili! I only omitted the onion (don't judge me!). And, I accidentally grabbed a can of adobo sauce with NO chipotles in it. :( So, I just used three Tablespoons of adobo sauce instead of 1 T and 2 chipotles. Still good. This Chili was so tasty! Very tomatoey, and the Dr. Pepper made it perfectly sweet! Glad there were leftovers! 

Wednesday night, we tried Chicken Enchiladas with Avocado Cream Sauce.

(That's her photo, not mine!!)

I was not crazy about this, unfortunately. I left out the onions. Hector said this is why it lacked flavor. The sauce needed more salt, for sure. And, on the recipe, she doesn't specify how many rotisserie chickens to use, I used one, and was lacking about 3/4 of the chicken necessary. :-/ I don't think I let mine cook long enough.. because the tortillas came out kinda gummy... ya know? Or maybe it was because Hector poured WAY too much of the avocado sauce on top before baking, that they never stood a chance. Regardless, don't think I'll be making these again. A lot of steps for bland, gummy enchiladas. (TO ME.) If I followed her recipe more closely, I'm sure they'd be ok. 

And tonight, we're having this. Sweet and Spicy Chicken.

(Her pic)

Can't wait for this one. I'm a meat and potato girl at heart! 

Yay for eating at home three nights in a row!

plan=success!

We had meal plan success this week! Not ONCE did we eat out! Wednesday before group, I was tired, it was kinda close to go time, and Hector said, "Wanna just grab something on the way?" I thought about it, came {this} close to saying, "YES! I so don't wanna cook today!" but refrained, and said, "No, I've got the chicken thawed out... I'm going to make dinner."

So, we had this. Greek Salsa Chicken.

Because of aforementioned laziness and time constraints, I didn't take pictures of the prep. But I followed the recipe exactly.

It had this "salsa" on top.

parsley, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, feta cheese, olive oil, oregano, lemon juice

BEST combo ever. We had leftover of this and ate it the following night with couscous. :)

I served it with roasted red potatoes. 

Tonight we had Grilled Cajun Ranch Chicken Pasta. Another win! Except, I tried the healthier option in the pasta sauce, where I used evaporated milk instead of heavy cream. And my sauce came out super watery! The flavor was there, but it didn't stick to the pasta whatsoever. But the marinade for the chicken was amazing! I'm SO excited to be taking that chicken in my lunch for work tomorrow!

It feels amazing to know that we didn't eat out, and that we followed our plan this week! Small victories, people. :)

What's for Dinner?!

I used to toy with meal planning. Now, I'm serious. We have a small grocery budget each month and we have been going grossly over it lately. Not just with groceries, but with eating out too.

I sat down, looked through recipes and came up with this weeks plan. We buy groceries weekly. I just can't do it for a whole month.. or even two weeks. We do, however, take out cash every two weeks for groceries (haven't been.. but will now) and once that money is gone, so are our trips to the grocery store. BUT that's where the meal plan comes in! We plan it out, only buy those things and then we don't need to go back! And by buying each week, we are able to refill on basics like milk and bread.

July 7-13th Plan
Crunchy Pecan Chicken Tenders
Greek Salsa Chicken
Grilled Cajun Ranch Chicken Pasta
Tinga (a Mexican tostada dish)
Chili dogs
leftovers (twice)

(we eat small lunches i.e. sandwiches, rice, noodles, leftovers...)

So, tonight, we had Crunchy Pecan Chicken Tenders from the Plain Chicken.

So, grab these things:

Bisquick

paprika

chopped pecans

creole seasoning

salt

buttermilk

chicken tenders

melted butter

Heat oven to 350*

Combine 1 cup of Bisquick, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 1 teaspoon of creole seasoning, 1 teaspoon paprika and 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a bowl.

like so.

Now, swish the tenders (about 2 pounds worth) in 1 cup of buttermilk. Then dunk them in the Bisquick mixture. Lay them in an ungreased 13x9 inch pan. 

Melt 1/4 cup of butter and drizzle it over the chicken.

like so.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the chicken is done.

There ya have it! I served ours with steamed broccoli and roasted squash. It was pretty good! Cohen and Hector liked it a lot. Can the record just show that I don't love "tenders"? I think they're a little tough and whyyyyy do they all have that nasty tendon running down the middle???? 

It didn't turn out too crunchy, either. But the flavor was good and I loved getting little bits of pecan in bites. :) Maybe less Bisquick? Less butter? Not sure how exactly to make it crunchier.