Weekend Dinners

Remember last week when I had dry grilled chicken? Well, the leftovers got pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten until I found them again yesterday. It was still OK to eat and I was loathe to throw out that much meat, so I decided to try to salvage it. To "fix" the chicken, I diced it up and threw it in a pan in which I'd just cooked a little bacon. (The fat was drained but the pan wasn't wiped out.) I sauteed the chicken for about 2 minutes, then added just a splash of chicken broth and cooked for another minute or so until it was absorbed. The result - moist, tender and juicy chunks of chicken that tasted better than the first night I cooked it. I used these to make spinach salads, also topped with crumbled bacon, gorgonzola cheese and dried cranberries. On the side we finished off the rest of the Trader Joe's beer bread and everyone had their salad dressing of choice. It was a wonderful meal, even though everyone was hungry again around 10pm last night. Oh well, lucky for us a friend gave us a big Hickory Farms box for Christmas, so we noshed on cheese, summer sausage and mustard.

Totals:

$1 - 1/2 bag of spinach (from Aldi)
$1 - gorgonzola, cranberries, bacon, dressing
free - leftover chicken and beer bread (accounted for in other meals)

$2 for dinner for 3

__________

Dinner tonight was one of the best I've made in a long time. I used one old favorite recipe, and made a new one that turned out to be a definite keeper.

Quick story, though: I needed diced tomatoes for my recipe and I was out. I usually get them at WalMart or Aldi, where they're .44 - .50 for a 14 oz. can. But tonight I ran to Harris Teeter because that's the closest supermarket. The cheapest canned tomatoes they carried were Harris Teeter house brand, at $1.19 per can. I would have been really angry at having to pay more than twice as much for the same product, but I noticed they had a national brand (Furmano's) on sale for $1.50 for the big 28 oz can. Just shows how much the price can vary between stores, and also that it pays to look at value rather than cost. (I ended up using the whole can in my recipe and I really liked the extra tomatoes.)

Here's the original recipe for our dinner:

Creamy Rice, Spinach and Chicken Dinner

Now I always tweak recipes according to my needs, so here's how I did mine:

Started with about 1.5 lbs boneless chicken thighs, and sauteed them in about 1/4 cup Kraft Sundried Tomato dressing. When chicken thighs were well browned and cooked through (about 15 minutes), I removed them from the pan and set aside. I added in another 1/4 cup of dressing, 2 cups instant rice, the whole 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes (undrained) and about 1 cup chicken broth. I brought to a boil, then reduced heat, covered, and simmered until rice was tender. Then I added in the fresh spinach leaves (about 1/2 a bag), covered and let wilt for 3 - 5 minutes. I stirred the spinach into the rice, then added 1/2 an 8 oz. package of cream cheese, cubed. I stirred the cream cheese until it melted into the rice and made everything creamy. Then I added the cooked chicken thighs back on top of the rice, covered and let stand for 5 minutes to reheat the chicken. This is one of our favorite dinners and always gets rave reviews (I've served it to company, too).

Dessert tonight was Sauteed Bananas with Tangy Sweet Cream, which was a recipe recently featured on Ten Dollar Dinners. This show airs on the Food Network on Sundays at 12:30pm and has quickly become one of my favorites. The host, Melissa d'Arabian, was my favorite contestant on The Next Food Network Star competition. I'm really pleased with the show the network has come up for her because the topic - good, homemade food on the cheap - is one that's near and dear to my heart. (FYI: The winner of the competition gets their own show for 6 episodes. After those 6 episodes, the network has fulfilled its obligation. Her show, however, was picked up for a full season after that - much to my delight, because I think she's just great.) I have every recipe from that episode bookmarked because they all looked so wonderful, but this is the first one I've gotten around to making. I give it 5 stars because it was simple, delicious and cheap - what more could you ask for?

Totals:

$3.50 - boneless chicken thighs (marked down from $5.50)
$1 - 1/2 bag of spinach
$1.50 - canned tomatoes
.30 - 1/2 package cream cheese (.59 package after super double coupons)
.50 - rice, dressing, chicken broth

$1.60 - bananas
.50 - remaining ingredients (sugar, butter, 1 orange, sour cream)

$8.90 for dinner & dessert for 4 (sister joined us) - with 1 large serving chicken & rice left over