Recent Dinners

The spring weather has had me in a cleaning/organizing frenzy, plus I'm trying to get ready for a trip we'll be taking in a few days. Consequently, dinners have been more about convenience than usual.

Thursday night we had burgers & tater tots. The ground beef was practically free after some creative couponing. I had a coupon for $1.50 off ground beef with the purchase of 2 Classico pasta sauces. Harris Teeter had that brand BOGO last week, plus a sale on ground beef for $1.47/lb. So I picked up 2 jars of sauce for $2.69, plus another .33 for the ground beef (price on package was $1.83 for something like 1.25 lbs.) I served a can of peaches on the side.

.33 - ground beef
free - American cheese (some long ago deal - time to use this up)
.59 - 1/2 package Food Lion brand hamburger buns
.75 - 1/2 package Food Lion brand tater tots
.50 - canned peaches

$2.17 for dinner for 4 (sister joined us)

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Friday was the second-to-last fish night of Lent. (Thank goodness. I love fish and meatless meals in general but I hate being told what night I have to have them.) I served a bag of Gorton's Crunchy Breaded fish fillets with hush puppies (bagged, frozen) and a can of Del Monte green beans with potatoes. (OK, these have "ham flavor" added so they're probably not technically meatless, but I won't tell the rest of my family if you don't.)

$2.25 - fish fillets (BOGO + super double coupon)
$1.25 - hush puppies (BOGO)
$1 - green beans with potatoes

$4.50 for dinner for 5 (sister joined us & brought home leftovers for brother-in-law)

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Saturday night I heated up the last of the Jack Daniel's heat-n-serve entrees. If you remember, I got these for $3 apiece because of a Harris Teeter raincheck. I noticed that they're on sale this week BOGO, so you can stock up on them for about $4 apiece if you 're interested.

I served the pulled pork BBQ on hamburger buns. Tater tots and leftover corn rounded out the meal.

$3 - pulled pork
.59 - buns
.75 - 1/2 package tater tots
free - leftover corn

$4.34 for dinner for 4

Tuesday & Wednesday Dinners

Chicken with Creamy Tomato-Spinach Rice

After an unlucky run of blah and just-plain-bad dinners, I was out of my "experimental" mode and determined to cook things I knew everybody liked.

Wednesday night I made the above, which is my own take on a recipe I found on Kraft.com. (I forget what they called it, but it was about as inspired as my title.) I've changed it enough to just post what I do:

Heat about 1/4 cup Kraft Sun-dried Tomato Vinaigrette in large non-stick skillet, and brown 1 lb. boneless chicken thighs or breasts (I prefer thighs). Continue to cook until almost all the liquid has evaporated from pan and dressing has cooked down to a thick, syrupy glaze on the chicken. (If you take chicken out when it's cooked through but the pan is still full of liquid, chicken will have no flavor at all.) Remove chicken from pan and keep warm. In same skillet, add 2 cups instant rice, 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, and 2 cups chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice is tender - about 5 minutes. When rice is cooked, stir in 1/2 of a 8 oz. package of cream cheese, cut into chunks. Keep stirring until cheese melts and forms a creamy sauce for the rice. Add 1/2 of an 8 - 10 oz. bag of fresh spinach leaves. Cover pan for 3 -5 minutes, or until the heat has partially wilted the spinach. Stir spinach into rice, top with reserved chicken, and serve.

Totals:

$2 - boneless chicken thighs (from Aldi - $5.99/3 lb bag)
free - instant rice (after triple coupons)
.55 - canned tomatoes
.40 - 1/2 package cream cheese
$1 - 1/2 package spinach
.65 - chicken broth (1/2 carton)

$4.60 for dinner for 4 (+ sister) with leftovers for another serving (I used 5 chicken thighs)

We also had dessert last night - a Mrs. Smith's Dutch Apple Crumb Topped Pie served with Edy's Caramel Delight reduced fat ice cream. The pie was only $1.75 after sale + triple coupon, and Harris Teeter had Edy's ice cream on sale for $1.99 last week (so I stocked up as much as my full freezer would allow). Total for dessert was about .45 per serving.


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Tuesday was busy as usual for me, so it was more about putting a meal together than actually cooking. I made Veal Parmesan with Italian breaded veal cutlets from Aldi. These are a specialty item they don't carry all year-round, so now is the time to buy them if you're interested. (The High Point Road Aldi had plenty when I went on Monday evening.) At $6 for a package of 9 cutlets, they're also very economical.

After pan-frying, I topped the cutlets with mozzarella and baked in the oven to melt the cheese. I served them over spaghetti with jarred sauce (one of the 6 jars of Bertolli I got for free with raincheck and super double coupons). Frozen garlic bread rounded out the meal.

Totals:

$2 - veal cutlets
.50 - spaghetti
free - sauce
.75 - mozzarella cheese
.63 - garlic bread (HT brand - $1.68 for 8 slices)

$3.88 for dinner for 3

Recent Dinners

I haven't made any nightly dinner posts since last Wednesday, so let me do a quick update:

Thursday afternoon was spent sleeping off a migraine, so I was in no shape to cook that night (nor did I have much appetite). So my family opened up a frozen bagged meal - Birdseye Steamfresh was the brand, in some beef, mushroom and pasta flavor. The funny thing is, I served this exact variety a few months ago and everybody (including sister, who was joining us that night) liked it. Not loved it, but liked it well enough for me to buy the same thing again. This time, however, we all thought it was terrible. Go figure. I don't recall exactly what I paid for it, but I think it was around $3 after sale & double coupon. Good thing it wasn't expensive, because we didn't even keep the leftovers.

Friday we ate out.

Saturday I roasted a Hormel Mesquite BBQ Pork Tenderloin in the oven. On the side I served sauteed pierogies and buttered cabbage. The pork tenderloin was only $3 (down from $8 or so) after sale + super double coupon. The pierogies only .75 a box after BOGO + $1 off coupon. And the cabbage was about $1 for a small head. So $4.75 for dinner for 4 (sister joined us) with leftover pork and cabbage left over. It was a nothing-special sort of meal, but everyone left the table satisfied.

Sunday is The Kid's night at youth group, so we heated a frozen pizza.

Monday night was the biggest disappointment of all. I found this recipe for Balsamic-Glazed Lam Meat Loaf in last month's Real Simple magazine and couldn't wait to try it. The verdict: The Kid liked it a lot, but both of the adults thought it was awful. The thyme called for in the recipe completely overpowered the flavor of the meat, even though I had cut the amount by more than half. (I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like thyme and won't be using it in any future recipes.) I would have thrown out the leftovers but The Kid wanted to save them for lunches. (I think I'll serve it on pita bread with lettuce and tomato, sort of gyro-style.) The only saving grace of the recipe was the red onion/red pepper/white bean mixture served on the side. We all really liked that and I'll be making that on its own again. (I purposely left out the thyme, and used jarred roasted red peppers because that's what I had on hand.) Luckily I didn't pay much for the ground lamb. Harris Teeter was the only store where I was able to find it, but I got it on meat markdown for $2 instead of the normal $6/lb. The cost of the rest of the meatloaf ingredients were negligible, and the total cost for the bean/onion/pepper mixture was about $2.

Wednesday Dinner

Tonight's dinner was sort of a theme meal. We had something like a French picnic - chicken liver mousse/pate' served with a loaf of homemade bread, cracked wheat crackers, Dijon mustard, assorted cheeses, grapes and Granny Smith apples.

I won't go into a lot of details about the chicken liver mousse/pate' because I know that liver is one of those love it or hate it foods. My recipe is fairly standard and not unlike hundreds of others out there. I'm happy to share it if anyone wants it - just email me. The basic ingredients are bacon, chicken livers, onion, apple, brandy, and spices.

I won't price everything out individually, but it was very easy on the wallet - well under $5 with lots of leftover everything. Chicken livers are just about the cheapest meat around at $1.25/lb. A whole batch of pate' costs me less than $2. We always have crackers and Dijon mustard around anyway, and the fruit was what I had on hand for snacking and The Kid's school lunches. I can whip up a loaf of bread machine bread for under 50 cents. The cheeses would have been the most expensive part of the meal, but they were a freebie. If you're in Greensboro, you should really sign up with Earth Fare (Earthfare.com) to be on their email list. Every week they send out a printable coupon for a different free product - sometimes multiple free products! It really is the best deal going. This week's freebie was a 7 oz. block of Kerrygold Irish cheese with any purchase. The Kid and I each went armed with a coupon, so we got a block each of Irish sharp cheddar and a Gouda-like cheese called Blarney Castle. So we were able to add $7 worth of imported cheese to our meal for $0.


(NOTE: I love a good freebie like anyone else, but I don't like to feel that I'm taking advantage. Even though there's no minimum purchase required, I always spend at least as much as the freebie is worth. On this visit I got 2 lbs. of bulk dry soybeans for roasting, and The Kid bought a 1-lb container of organic dark chocolate peanut butter.)

Tuesday Dinner

Salmon with Lemon-Cilantro Vinaigrette
(served with couscous and steamed edamame)

Today wasn't my normal busy Tuesday, so I spent more time than usual in the kitchen. After the Muffin Fiasco this afternoon, I turned my attention to dinner. Luckily this recipe turned out perfectly, even better than I'd hoped, because I would have really been bummed if this one had been a failure, too.

This recipe came from RealSimple.com, and it was a winner (even though recipes called 'vinaigrette' that contain no vinegar is one of my culinary pet peeves). The treatment of the salmon was nothing special - just pan-seared in olive oil - but the lemon-cilantro vinaigrette really elevated this dish to another level. It was tangy and fresh and green, and I'd love to try it on grilled shrimp or chicken next. On the side I served couscous, as suggested in the recipe. I was apprehensive because I haven't been overly fond of couscous in other dishes. (Although, to be fair, I'm most familiar with it in salads using ingredients I'm not crazy about to begin with - namely cucumbers.) This dish might actually convert me because it was delicious when drizzled with the herby lemon dressing, and its starchy blandness was a perfect balance to the tartness of lemon and the richness of the fish.

This dish really called out for some sort of fresh vegetables I didn't have on hand tonight. I served steam-in-the-bag edamame, which wasn't a great combination, although it wasn't bad, either. It just didn't seem like a good fit - Asian with Mediterranean. Next time, I think I'll try it with sauteed spinach or maybe some sliced oranges.

Totals:

$3 - salmon (3 frozen individual portions from Aldi, sold in bags of 4/$3.99)
$1.25 - 1/2 box couscous
.30 - cup chicken broth (to cook couscous in)
.33 - lemon
.30 - cilantro, green onions
.83 - steam-in-bag edamame (sale + coupon)

$6.01 for dinner for 3

Cherry Ricotta Muffins

I spent way too long this afternoon making a batch of Cherry Ricotta Muffins with the last of my leftover ricotta. I'm not posting a photo of these because the photo that came with the recipe looked infinitely better than mine turned out. Those look golden brown and delicious, with big chunks of cherries throughout. Mine were pale and anemic (they just wouldn't brown for me), and all the cherries sunk to the bottom. Plus they stuck inside the paper muffin cups terribly, so they were all misshapen and weird when you pulled the muffin paper off. (There were other issues, too, like the batter being thin and runny and messy, and the fact that there was twice as much of it as there should have been, necessitating last-minute scrambling for more pans and paper liners, and so on.)

The verdict: yummy, but the results weren't worth all the trouble and expense. (Fresh cherries are out of season, and both canned and dried are very expensive. I went with dried, but I'm not sure I'd make these again even with fresh because of the time it would take to pit them.)

Monday Dinner

Braided Ham & Spinach Calzone (top view)

Braided Ham & Spinach Calzone (cut view)

I had a little more than 1/2 a carton of ricotta to use up and not much time to do it - it spoils fast. I did some online searches for "leftover ricotta" and calzone recipes kept popping up over and over again. I culled the best ingredient and technique ideas and here's what I did:

1. I made pizza dough in my bread machine. After looking at 4 or 5 different pizza dough recipes, I concluded they're all pretty much the same, so use your favorite. (Mine had water, bread flour, salt, sugar, olive oil and yeast.)

2. While the dough is mixing, make the filling. Thaw a small box of chopped frozen spinach and thoroughly wring out all the water. (I use a clean dish towel for this.) In a medium bowl, mix spinach, 1 cup ricotta, 1/4 cup grated parmesan, 1 cup grated mozzarella, with salt, pepper and ground nutmeg to taste.

3. After dough has proofed, stretch out as large as you can without tearing, then use a rolling pin on floured surface to roll into a large rectangle. (Mine was about 12 x 15, and was a cross between a rectangle and an oval.)

4. Use the straight edge of your baking sheet to measure out a wide strip of dough in the center - about 5 - 6" wide. Use a paring knife to cut the dough along the sides into strips about every 1.5 inches. The whole thing should look something like this:

------l l-------
------l l-------
------l l------
------l l-------

Does that make sense? I hope so. The Kid called it a mutant spider.

5. Spoon the spinach-ricotta filling down the center portion of the dough. Top with about 8 oz. thinly sliced ham, chopped.

6. Now "braid" the strips over the filling. Start at the top, folding a right strip over the center, then a left, and so forth until the bottom. (This really is easy - don't be intimidated.)

7. Brush all over the top with beaten egg, then sprinkle with a little more grated parmesan.

8. Bake in 350 preheated oven for 35 - 40 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting into slices to serve. Pass heated marinara or pizza sauce at the table for dipping.

Totals:

.25 - ingredients for crust
$1.22 - chopped ham (Food Lion sale on deli ham this week)
.75- ricotta
$1 - mozzarella
.25 - parmesan
.66 - spinach
.10 - egg
.50 - leftover jarred marinara

$4.73 for dinner for 4, plus another serving leftover for lunch

$4.23