Ultime Chicken Fingers Beans Beans Beans

Wait, what?

Yeah, well I left work REALLY late on Thursday and was pretty pissed off and in no mood to cook.
So I went to Brookshires, bought a rotisserie chicken, french bread, Bob Evans Mashed Potatoes and Wavy Lays and Dean's Ranch Dip. I know not a good thing, but let me tell I needed that.

So today I decided what the hell let's make both, all right my wife suggested it when I realized I didn't have the ground beef for Beans Beans Beans, why not also make the Ultimate Chicken Fingers I hadn't made. So that's tonight's game plan.

I just want to say I hate breading things because I suck at it, and tonight's meal was no exception.  That being said the Chicken Fingers are straight forward and easy to make. I will mention since Evie can't have eggs I use Ener G Egg Replacer for any recipe that needs it, including this one.  Sometimes it turns out well, sometimes not really.  Let's use the pictures as our tools, don't compare them to the Betty Crocker site though, as there is no comparison.

I basically just throw them all in the zip lock bag and shook them all together then placed them on the pan.  Although I forgot to grease the foil which caused half the breading to get stuck, oh well.  Then I waited about 10 minutes before flipping them. 10 minutes later I flipped them again at my wife's instance they be "extra done."  Also the foil proved difficult to remove all the chicken easily, but eventually I won, losing more breading in the process.

The beans on the other hand I changed that recipe up a bit as well.  I made these on the stove top rather than in the stove since there would be 100 degree difference between the two and I don't have a stock pot I can put in the oven, although I am sure a casserole dish would work too or a Crock Pot for that matter!

I made the bacon as directed, and it smelled so good, and crumbled so easy.  Then I just sautéed the onions in the bacon grease.  Then I completely changed everything else, sort of.  To the onions I added the barbecue sauce, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, salt and pepper. Then I took it from the pan to a big pot. Added all the beans, drained and rinsed where required and mixed it all up.  I set it to low, put on lid and stirred it a little every few minutes.  The I kept tasting the beans the whole way through and I figured they were done after about 20 minutes, but decided to leave them goin until my wife concluded the chicken was done as well.

Steak

Tonight was Steak.

No recipe needed.

Now I don't have a grill, so I used my tried and true Foreman Grill.

Let me tell you, delicious.

Decided against potatoes because they had gone bad, or at least one had and the bad smelled SO bad.

Anyway, made some pasta with a little butter, lemon juice and parmesan cheese.

Sorry no pictures today, it was too delicious to wait to take pictures.

I'll always be ready for more steak so making this is a no brainer...

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chiles

I suppose, Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chiles isn't necessarily a meal, but more part of a meal.
In this case it was more of a snack, but frankly that's not important.
This recipe is from a food blog called Oh Bite It.
I may get a few more recipes from here in the future.

It occurred to me, while removing the seeds, that I hadn't ever made anything with peppers before, aside from bell peppers.
It is very important, and I can't stress this enough, that you immediately wash up after handling the peppers and not touch anything, especially your face.
Let me tell you, it doesn't feel good.

That being said, the recipe was very simple to follow.
Although I used smaller peppers, less chicken and Cheddar cheese it still turned out well.

I do think if I make this in the future, I won't put anything on the bacon.
I mean it was easy enough to brush off the excess Chili Powder and Oregano, but it wasn't a flavor that I really liked.

Here are the pics for this one:

Now to get ready to watch the 49ers play the Seahawks in tonight's game.

Kielbasa - yeah, I swapped Saturday and Sunday at the request of my wife...

I'll just say this was another allrecipe one and I should've considered something else, but that's hindsight for you.

All I am going to say is I must have done something wrong.

The cabbage got a little burned and otherwise the whole thing didn't taste that great.

No pics, didn't think it was worth it.

Not doing this again.

Pork, it's the other white meat and it's what I am having for dinner tonight

Allrecipes.com again for this recipe. What can I say I really like the site.  This was easy to make, I am actually still making them. I searched Google for this mashed potato recipe and they're already done.

I basically wrote this all the previous blog posts talking about this attempt to cook at home while I was waiting for this to finish baking, the only downside of this recipe is waiting 90 minutes to enjoy it. On the plus side I got some dishes cleaned and did some other cleaning around the house while I waited. I bet with slight modification it would be possible to make this in a crock pot as well, I'll have to think about it. Below are some pictures I took while making tonight's dinner. Also this probably isn't healthy cooking, but I don't care. Anyone who has read my blog knows I am fat and loving it.

I didn't get any pictures of the initial preparation. Oh well...
First up we have this picture of the cream of mushroom soup mixed with milk and white wine.

Next up we have the pork chops, after being in the oven for an hour.

 Now we've got the mixture on top of the chops going back in for 30 minutes.

 Meanwhile I've made the mashed potatoes and now I am just waiting for the chops to finish.

Now everything is done and we're all ready to eat!!

 At first I was a little worried because it had a wine like aroma, but you couldn't taste it anymore and after the foil had been off for a few minutes

 My wife Chelsea who is very particular about the "done-ness" of food and she wholeheartedly approved.

 I just took a scoop of mashed potatoes and added it to each plate, covered it in the sauce and chowed down.

Okay so for the record, this was the best thing I've made so far this week. It was AWESOME!!
I've always been a big fan of pork chops.  The sauce made an excellent gravy for the mashed potatoes and there is so much left that it can probably last two lunches, or not...
I am definitely going to save this recipe and make it again some day!

Crock Pot gets used again to make Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

So this was the first time I made anything like this and I loved it, recipe in the link back there. I followed all of the recipe, except the beer, I just put in 1 and 1/2 cup water. It was still very flavorful. Pretty much all the stuff I used was Food Club brand from Super 1 Foods because it was inexpensive and just as good as the name brand. I don't have any prep pictures, but I still have a plastic-ware container full that I am taking to lunch tomorrow.

Now I will say because I didn't get home to take the chicken out and shred it and put it back in, it was still okay, When I tried to take the chicken out it literally fell apart on the fork.  So I just took a fork and knife and cut it up in the crock pot. Turned out just fine.

When I removed it from the crock pot and placed it in the bowl I added sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and some tortilla chips.  Everyone liked them, even Evie, our two year old daughter.

Below is the leftover I am taking to lunch tomorrow. I can't wait! My wife took some to lunch today and she said it was great.  We just put some chips in a zip lock bag and she took them that way.

I am definitely making this again. This gets 5 stars in my recipe book!

Slow Cooker Pot Roast is so easy

So I made some slow cooker pot roast on Tuesday because the fact is both of us get home later in the afternoon. I got this one at allrecipes.com, here. I like using their site because you can do an ingredients search.  Unfortunately I ate the last of this for lunch today so I don't have any pictures either. I added potatoes to the recipe and let them cook with the beef all day. It was good.

I liked it enough, but I just don't know if I want to make it again.
I think it may have also been because I added a little too much liquid.
Other than that it was certainly enough to eat for dinner and have left overs for lunch later in the week.

Pizza

Made pizza for dinner. Delicious. Too full for write up.

Monthly Shopping Update 1

Well, we've bought everything and the pantry, freezer and refrigerator are fully stocked. Including household goods such as laundry soap and diapers plus other things like that we came in around $360. We'll have to see how this endeavor goes. I think the helpful thing on my part is that I am also dieting. More on that later.

Monthly Shopping

We're trying out this new thing where we buy all our groceries, save a few perishable items, on a monthly basis. This got us to buy a lot of stuff at Sams Club. However we're also shopping around at all the other local stores, not that Tyler has much variety besides Walmart, Brookshires and Super1. Although we also got a few things at Walgreens and Dollar Tree. Basically we're looking for the most economical and at the same time largest quantity. The exceptions are Bananas, milk and yogurt, plus a few other items with short shelf lives that we don't want to freeze like bread.  We're trying to do whatever we can to save money. We're also trying to not eat out anymore and cook at home as much as possible. It's just hard to avoid the temptation and convenience of fast food. Either way we'll see how this experiment goes.

Diet Day 6 - Everybody has a bad day whem they are dieting

So, today was a bad day. I have surpassed 2000 calories and have not even eaten dinner. Although I am not necessarily hungry. The main culprit was soda. I probably had the equivalent of a 2L of coke or more. Plus I had fries, part of a cheese burger and a funnel cake. In case you are wondering I had the day off today and originally planned on helping Chelsea clean out her class room, but she finished yesterday and since I had already taken the day off we went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Arlington. I should mention I did try to be good by eating a grilled chicken salad, but I did have thousand Island dressing. Not to mention I ate some of Chelsea's fries, part of her Cheeseburger, and part of her funnel cake. Not to mention I made use of my free refills from my souvenir sports cup, sure I could've gotten a diet coke or something else, but I really felt like coca cola. I do think however all the water play must have burned a few of those calories. If I do eat dinner I will try to keep it small and healthy and make up for it this weekend, trying to stay as close to 1500 calories as possible and doing some yard work. Of course there will also be some cleaning up that also comes with the weekend.

Supreme Nachos

Harvey's, the little mexican food joint down by the lakes between the HPR/Admin Building and the Library has the best nachos you can get for $3. They come with gooey cheese, your choice of beef or chicken, guacamole and sour cream, refried beans or pinto beans. Good stuff.

Tomatoes

About 2 months ago we bought a tomato plant and it finally produced a decent amount of fruit. They're cherry tomatoes, though the tag says they are a hybrid, of what I am not sure, but I would assume 2 different types of cherry tomatoes. It took a great deal of watering and care, but it was well worth it.