UnFunChicken

Back a way long time ago when I was just a little girl, there was a grocery store across from the Lincoln Mall in Freeport. Is it where the Eagles Club is now? I can't remember, I was very small. I think it was a Logli's, maybe. Lee's? BRB, Googling.
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Google is not helping! Gah. My mom reads this blog, she'll know. Anyway, there are only two things I remember about that store. They had a big ol' Brach's candy display with the honor-system box where you could put in a nickel and take a piece. When I went shopping with my grandma, she'd give me a quarter and I would get five little pieces of candy and that was awesome. The other thing I remember was the Fun Chicken.

Now the Fun Chicken was a vending machine at the front of the store, right by the exit doors. It was a big box with clear walls, and inside was a plastic hen in a nest of plastic eggs. If you put your money in, the hen would move around and cluck, and one of the plastic eggs would pop out of the machine with a toy inside. Good times. Waiting in the endless checkout lines was not so bad if you had the promise of Fun Chicken waiting. I'm sure the 2010s version of the Fun Chicken awaits us soon, whenever Robert catches on to the fact that the machines whose levers and doors he loves to manipulate actually produce something if money is put in.

Anyway, I'm only thinking of that tonight because I had to deal with whatever the opposite of a Fun Chicken is tonight. It was too bad, too, because I was really excited about the recipe I had. I've been experimenting with my new cast-iron Dutch Oven, and tonight I tried roasting a whole chicken in it, French Style. I put it on the stove and put a little olive oil in, salted and peppered my chicken, and set it in the pot to brown. I added onions, celery, garlic and bay leaf, flipped the chicken to get a little brown on the other side, then put foil over the pot, put the lid on over that, and put it in the oven on 250 to let the magic happen. Since it was a small chicken, only about 3.5 pounds, it wasn't supposed to take more than an hour or so, so I gave it 70 minutes.

When I went to take it out, it leaked red juices everywhere! Gross! I put it back in, twice, and finally had to put it on the cast iron skillet and just let it sit in the oven for ages till it would come to temp. 250 is stupidly low for cooking a chicken. The jus that was supposed to happen was nasty and oily, lacking in flavor. And when the chicken was finally done, the skin was gross and flabby and undelicious. The chicken meat was okay, but I've done far better with a simple beer can. Bummer! Anyway, my lovely chicken meal was ruined, since Robert was in bed by then (he got an alternative supper) and we'd already eaten the side dish, which was fried corn and quite tasty.

What do you do with an entire mediocre cooked chicken? In our house, that's easy. Buffalo chicken wraps are one of M's favorites, and we have lots of whole wheat tortilla shells in the house lately. The problem I've always had is that it's a pain in the butt to shred all that chicken into the proper consistency, and after wrestling with the chicken for two hours already, I was in no mood. Then genius struck! I mentioned the other day that in my organizing, I found all the parts to the food processor and put them in one place, right? Now was the perfect time to break it out. I put on the basic blade and stripped the chicken, tossing white and dark meat in there alike, leaving out the nasty skin. When it was all in there, I buzzed it in the processor for about five seconds, and voila! Shredded chicken! It was almost chicken salad consistency, actually, but that's fine with me.

I dumped the chicken into a bowl and mixed in Frank's Red Hot Sauce and ranch dressing. (If I wasn't cooking for M, I'd have added celery or lettuce, but he's not a fan.) I spread the mix onto tortillas, rolled them up, and cut them into pieces about an inch thick. Delicious and fun, and a nice way to save a disappointing dinner. I guess nobody always has good luck with new recipes, and I've done really well lately, so I was due for a stinker. But I really do want to find a nice Dutch Oven chicken recipe. I'm sure there's one out there!

Since I'm already talking about kitchens, I should mention that Robert's birthday present of a wonderful play kitchen and accessories has arrived! We assembled it yesterday and stocked it today, and man is it a hit. He loves all the things he can do, and he'll love it even more when we get all the batteries, I'm sure. 12 batteries, sheesh. It's so entertaining to watch his little brain working, and to see him do things like put a piece of lettuce and an orange in a skillet on the burner, or shove all the utensils in the microwave at once. He's a funny guy!

Saturday Shopping and Baking

Morning started today at 4am with baby-feeding, but thankfully Robert went back down till seven, a slightly more humane hour. M and I swapped off watching him and each got a facsimile of sleeping in that way. It's not like the old days when we'd snuggle in together until halfway through the morning or later, but sleep is sleep. It helps that Robert is at his most charming in the morning, happy and smiling and noisy with sounds that aren't crying. We still have a lot of new-parent hormones flowing, and a big gummy smile can turn either of us into a cooing parental puddle, which is pretty funny to watch and oddly enjoyable to experience.

I didn't make it out shopping last night like I was going to, thanks to a sudden and acute attack of the lazy, but I went out today to Kroger with Robert. I used to do my WIC shopping and non-coupon shopping at Meijer, but I am still unhappy about the way I was treated last month, so boo to them. Kroger was very busy, something about one of the other nearby Krogers being closed for some reason, but we soldiered through anyway. I picked up some escarole for the birds because the vet says they need more veggies, and a little ball of lettuce is just the right size. I also got some bananas and a cantaloupe, and two boxes of Mother's Milk Tea , because I was totally out. The stuff is horrible, but it really works, I had some of that and some oatmeal this evening, and it made a real difference when I pumped, plus Robert was less fussy.

The WIC voucher this week got us milk, cheese, eggs, juice, beans, rice and peanut butter, all the nutritious staple foods. I did make the mistake of setting the voucher down in the carseat while I was bagging the lettuce, and when I looked over again, Robert had it clutched in his teeny little fist. He was happy about it, too. I had visions of trying to present a crumpled up, soon-to-be-drooled-on voucher at the checkout, and spent several minutes carefully prying it out of his hand. The time when I could use his lap as my coupon table is past, I think. Ah well. While we were there, I browsed the clearance carts and shelves as well. Kroger usually has interesting things on clearance, and sometimes I can get really good deals. Today I got some lemonade tubes and some almond-cranberry oatmeal for well under a dollar each, and I picked up a NUK Learner Cup  for just 3.19 on clearance. Good deal! Robert won't be ready to use it for awhile yet, but might as well get it now when the getting is good!

At the checkout, I found that my cashier had the same midwife as me, Sister Kay, which was cool. I felt bad though, because she had her baby less than three weeks ago and was already back at work. I think that's just awful, but what can you say? It's not like she probably had much choice in the matter, checkers don't get paid maternity leave. It was another reminder to me to be grateful for all that I have, even if sometimes I feel frustrated or like we never have enough. I'm actually very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in and have the opportunity I do. Once we got home, Robert went down for a nap and M and I cleaned out the birdcages, then he did all the dishes. Woo-hoo!

Having all the dishes done put me in a creative mood. I haven't been using eggs as fast as we get them lately, so a lot of them have built up in the fridge, and I decided to use some for baking. I found a cool recipe for cinnamon-sugar biscotti and made that. It was easy, and I even got down the food processor to give my flour a proper sifting. M and I both thought it turned out really well. I would like to try it sometime when I have real butter on hand, I think it would be even better. I tried some with my tea, but that was actually kind of icky, because it made me taste the tea for longer. I ended up going with my usual technique, letting the tea cool till tepid and then chugging it as fast as possible. Undignified, but it works.

Day of Many Things

Today was tax day! I had some Staples Rewards money to spend from last quarter, and I wanted to know if I had to spend it on a desktop version of TurboTax. As it turned out, it was far cheaper to use TurboTax online and just pay for one state filing. I called the Ohio tax bureau and learned I did not have to file in Ohio, which made me very happy. We will be getting an extremely helpful refund in a couple of weeks now, half of which I am directing into our savings account for summer. Summers are hard here, because M's stipend is much smaller. But I scored a 100% on the Census employment test last week, so even if I don't find other work, that could be a good addition to our money supply as well. Unless an emergency comes up, I will probably put the rest towards our credit cards. Having student loan debt is bad enough, I am trying to pay down the credit cards and not have to worry about them anymore.

Today was also pulled pork day. I bought a big pack of pork shoulder rib last week at 99 cents a pound, and today I browned them with some butter in a skillet, tossed them in a crockpot, sauteed some onions and garlic, poured water over them, poured the whole mess over the ribs, then added a tablespoon of liquid smoke and let it all cook. After six hours, it is one of the most awesome sandwich fillings imaginable, just add barbecue sauce. The pork fat I strain off is good for cooking, and the leftover liquid makes great rice for pork fried rice when the sandwiches are gone. It is a very stretchy sort of meal.

Today was also fussy baby day! I don't know quite what's gotten into Robert, but he's been getting quite fussy in the afternoons lately. He'll be good all morning, interested in looking at everything, playing in his tunnel, etc. Then in the afternoon, he's mad, mad, mad! We went on a walk around the expanded block and he slept for awhile during that, at least. The weather has been great today. Tomorrow we will be very busy and there'll be no time for a walk, but I enjoyed it while we had it.

March 12, the food

Yesterday was a good food day. Boring oatmeal for breakfast (though I do like the banana bread flavored stuff we got on sale at Meijer for this week). For lunch, we each had leftovers of our similar-yet-separate dinners from Wednesday night. I warmed up sauerkraut, sausage and dumplings and enjoyed myself very thoroughly. For M, I took his half of the leftover sausage and put it between sliced cheese biscuits so that he could warm it up for lunch. He pronounced the hot sausage biscuits "One of the best lunches he's had at school." Hurrah! 

For dinner, I went back to the tomato soup can label to try yet another recipe. I was attracted to Tangy Tomato Soup Chicken because it was ridiculously easy, so much so that they didn't give instructions in words so much as showing a tiny picture of all the ingredients you put in. I browned five chicken breasts (they were quite small, a regular feature of Meijer chicken breasts), and then added a sauce made of a can of tomato soup, a quarter-cup of water, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and let it simmer with the lid on till the chicken was done all the way through. To extend it into a meal, I made roasted potato chunks with onion soup mix and flavored olive oil. My flavored olive oils are running very low. If I don't find a sale soon, I'm going to buy the least expensive plain stuff I can find and try my hand at infusing. 

Dinner turned out great. I was skeptical of tomato soup's ability to come through with the flavor, but even relatively small amounts of sugar and vinegar packed a big punch. I really enjoyed the chicken, so much that I poured the leftover sauce onto my potatoes. There were two chicken breasts left over, one of which I sliced up and put in a sandwich with mozzarella cheese for M, and one of which I shall eat in just a moment. After the great successes of dinner the past two nights, I fear tonight's offering of Tuna Helper is going to feel like a letdown. Tuna Helper was once a staple of our diet, but unless I get a job very soon, I don't think it's going to stay anywhere on the menu. 

In unrelated news, I finished another pair of booties and got halfway through another hat. M knows someone who has a little girl baby, so I sent him off with the first hat and the second booties. I need a baby guniea pig to test whether these things are actually turning out the right size, and what baby doesn't need hats and socks? 

March 4, the food

It has come to my attention that I have been ignoring my English muffins. English muffins must go on the menu for breakfast! This weekend is scrambled eggs for breakfast, perhaps I'll break out the English muffins and these leftover hot dogs and do hotdog mcmuffins. That was pretty good last time. It does remind me, though, that I need more A-1 sauce. I got addicted to A-1 on eggs during my misspent college days, and now the two are not the same apart. It's my biggest gripe against Waffle House, honestly. 

Anyway, for lunch yesterday M had about half of the rest of the chili. He reports that overnight refrigeration thickened it up and made it even better, so that's good to know. The other half is lunch for today, so that made things easier. I had turkey sandwiches for lunch, trying to eat up the open packet of turkey before it goes off, especially since they're getting bumped off the menu in favor of leftovers fairly often.

For dinner last night we had pulled pork, a project I started on early in the afternoon. I found a great recipe here: Southern Pulled Pork , and simply adjusted it for a five pound roast. I trimmed the fat off, chunked up the meat, browned it, put it in the cooker, and put the broth of onions, garlic and pork-flavored water over top, garnished with liquid smoke, and let it all cook till 8:30. (I would've started earlier, but after being up all night trying to fix my computer, I was running late on everything yesterday.) To eat this kind of pulled pork, you pull up a spoonful, drain it off, slap it on a bun, and squirt it with your favorite barbecue sauce. I use Sweet Baby Rays, which is my favorite and was 99 cents a bottle this week. Perfect! 

March 2 and 3, new recipes

I'm rolling two days together here, which may become my new pattern. My six-month-old laptop has decided that working is bourgeoisie, and instead it will turn itself off at random intervals to keep me on my toes. So it's going back to Compaq Heaven to get a new set of fans and probably a complimentary hard drive wiping, while I make do with M's old five year old Gateway laptop, which is a fricking workhorse for all it has no battery. This is sad, because while I'm using the Gateway, we will have nothing to watch our Netflix on. We may have to finally dig up the actual discs we got about four months ago and send them back to continue on with our queue. At least those we can play on the actual television. 

Anyway, in the food department, yesterday was a day for an exciting new recipe, tomato soup lasagna bake. I found it on the label of the tomato soup can. Basically you brown and drain a pound of ground beef (I used turkey) and a diced up onion. Shake in a teaspoon of dried oregano, and if you're addicted to italian seasoning like me, throw some of that in. Over that you glop on a carton of ricotta cheese as evenly as you can. I was going to sub in cottage cheese, but was tickled pink to find ricotta on sale at Aldi's this week. It makes a difference! Over the cheese you put four cups of uncooked rigatoni, and then over that you pour two cans of tomato soup mixed with one cup of water. Squish it all down so it's all wet, then simmer it in the pan for 15 minutes, till the pasta is cooked, and then toss on a cup of grated mozzarella. 

I didn't take a picture, mainly because I was starving and worried that the burger bottom was going to burn even more than it already had if I didn't get it served up right away. If I make this recipe again, I will definitely half-cook the noodles ahead of time, because they simply took too long. By the time they were done, my ground turkey had burned black on the bottom. Other than that, though, it was a really good recipe. It wasn't hard, it didn't take a lot of attention, and the flavor was great. Excellent way to use two of my dozen free soups. There were plenty of leftovers for lunch today. 

For supper this evening, I wanted to give M a treat. A new favorite dish he's discovered since we moved to this area is Cincinnati chili, an odd dish that really isn't much like chili at all at least not to me. It's really hard to describe, watery and sweet beanless chili that's served over spaghetti. If you've ever had three-, four-, or five-way chili at a restaurant, you've probably had it. I'm not terribly fond of it, but it's okay. It's very expensive to buy at a fast food joint around here, five or six bucks for a one-person serving. This week at Meijer, though, they had seasoning packets on sale, and all they required was water, tomato paste, and ground meat. Score! I cooked up the chili for more than an hour in my six-quart pot, then boiled up some spaghetti noodles, then served it garnished liberally with low-fat cheddar and oyster crackers, very traditional. 

It turned out really well. I actually liked my homemade stuff better than the stuff from Skyline or Gold Star Chili, partially because it was less greasy and partially because the whole pot cost about 5 bucks. M was also a big fan. He had seconds, and there was plenty to pack up for his lunch tomorrow. There might even be two days of leftovers for him in there, since I think I'll stick to the turkey sandwich plan and leave the chili to someone who can really appreciate it. 

I've also been making granola this week. I got all the ingredients together and made a batch last night, which turned out delicious. I didn't put in sesame seeds, subbed in pecans for almonds and peanuts, and only used craisins for fruits, but it was snacking genius. I tried to make another batch today, while the chili was simmering, but M came home and I got distracted and left it in the oven way too long. It's not bad, a little carmelized, a little carbonized, but edible. I love making granola because it's the only way I can afford it, and it makes me feel handy and clever. 

I've been reading lately about container gardening online. We've got this nice patio here, and it gets good sun during parts of the day, so I think it could work. I need to get some containers and some dirt, but after that, smooth sailing, right? I'm thinking I could maybe decorate the outside of a plastic storage tub and plant into there, plus I have a kitty litter bucket and an empty hanging basket for tomatoes. A garden like that wouldn't have a big yield, but I think it would be satisfying to watch growing. And being able to grow some of my own herbs, garlic and green onion would be very handy, since I'm always running out. 

Tuesday, February 24, soup is made!

The soup turned out amazingly well, though I'm not sure it's a recipe I can ever replicate. Basically I looked at about ten different recipes online, then just did my own thing. I soaked a whole bag, 2lbs, of dried split peas overnight in 2qts of water. After that, I drained and split the peas into two pots and poured two quarts of water over each batch. A third of a large sweet onion, sliced thin, went into each pot. I added a bay leaf to each pot, some minced garlic, and a piece of ham. One pot got the bone, one got the small chunk, and every ten minutes I swapped them off. As it simmered, I added garlic salt, celery salt, and pepper to the mix. After an hour or so, when the ham was getting soft, I cut off most of the meat, cut it into small chunks, and tossed it into the pots equally. Eventually, enough of the water had simmered off that I was able to combine the two pots into one six-quart stock pot. 

While the soup was having one last simmer, I made up some corn muffins to go with it, and dinner was served. It was delicious! Savory and filling, and there are certainly plenty of leftovers. I have more than a gallon of soup leftover now, and I have a feeling it may cool to a consistency where more water needs to be added just to eat it. I figure we'll have it for lunch tomorrow, maybe a snack tomorrow night, and whatever's left after that goes into the freezer. Not a bad way to use a hambone!

Tuesday, February 24, the food

Today was a bit of an improvisational day, for all we stayed within the general idea of the food plan. M and I both had our breakfast cereal, though not till evening, what with snack fruit available and convenient in the morning. M had his pot roast leftovers for lunch today instead of PBJ, and I finally got around to mashing that half-rutabaga and eating it with leftover gravy. It was okay, though I wouldn't buy a rutabaga just to do it. Mashed potatoes and mashed cauliflower are both tastier. 

Dinner tonight was supposed to be a pasta with parmesan cheese and hot dogs, tossed with olive oil. But when I was grating cheese, I noticed that my mozzarella is starting to go moldy, so it needs to be used more quickly than I'd planned! This is no small matter, since we're talking half of a five pound block here. I decided to make a penne pasta casserole with hot dog instead, so I could use a lot of cheese, and maybe have leftovers to boot. All my jarred spaghetti sauce is already on the menu for later in the week, but I found a can of tomato paste and a packet of spaghetti sauce seasoning in the back of the cupboard. Perfect! I cooked up a sauce with that, added a half cup of chopped onion, four diced hot dogs, and some extra italian seasoning. I undercooked half a box of penne and grated about two cups of mozza. Ordinarily I wouldn't use so much, but it's better to eat it than to let it go to waste. I mixed the pasta and sauce in my baking pan, put the sauce over top, and cooked it at 350 for half an hour. My parmesan cheese is even older than the mozza, and though it certainly keeps better, I decided to use some of that too, tossing it on in the last five minutes. It was a good decision. 

The casserole turned out delicious, and the hot dogs were surprisingly really tasty in the recipe. There's enough left for M's lunch tomorrow as well. Later on, I sliced up a potato and tried potato chips again. Not totally crispy yet, but much closer this time. I think next time I will have it, and the oil is still good for another use. 

Sunday, February 22, the food

Today M and I both slept in, so we didn't end up having our french toast after all. That's all right, the bread and eggs are in no danger of going to waste just yet, so they can be pushed forward. Lunch was pot roast leftovers, though for once M wasn't especially hungry. He was apparently saving himself for cookies and snacks at the party tonight. There is enough pot roast left over for him to take a very large lunch to school tomorrow. 

For the Oscar party, I made a nacho dip and took along a big bag of Meijer-brand tortilla chips. The nacho cheese dip is yet another family recipe, and was reasonably priced to make. It's much cheaper if you can find the cream cheese on sale, which I could not. But the shredded cheese was on sale, at least, which helped hold down the price. I love salsa enough to buy it by the gallon at Sam's, so there's never any lack of it around here. 

Nacho Cheese Dip (also Nacho Dip Pizza)

1 pound (2 blocks) of regular or low-fat but not fat-free cream cheese

1 packet taco seasoning, pick your favorite

Salsa

Shredded cheese

Green onions, black olives, sour cream, guacamole (if desired)

Soften the cream cheese and mix well with the entire packet of taco seasoning. This is easiest to do if you buy a carton of cream cheese instead of blocks, but it's considerably cheaper to buy blocks and use a hand mixer or even just a spatula and some elbow grease to mix and soften it up. When it's very well blended, spread it in an even layer over a platter. Cover it with a layer of salsa, chunky works much better, at whatever spiciness you prefer. Cover that with a layer of shredded cheese, Mexican blend if you can get it. Top it however you like to top your nachos, with green onion, olives, dollops of guacamole or sour cream, whatever. Refrigerate a little to stiffen it up, if you have time, otherwise serve immediately. 

This is a recipe that's great for parties, and also works well at pizza parties for a little variety. Just put it in a pizza pan so it sort of fits the theme and put the chips out next to it. A nacho dip pizza, a couple of regular homemade pizzas, and a dessert pizza, and you've got a heck of a party going. For the Oscar party, I left it plain, because M is a purist and because I didn't have any other ingredients today anyway. It was still a big hit, and the platter was clean by the time we came home. That was one nice thing, even if I am incensed that Wall-E was totally robbed in most of its categories. Stupid Slumdog Millionaire.

Anyway, the other good thing that happened was that our hostess, one of M's friends and classmates, gave us a 12-pack of Campbell's tomato soup! She said she got it from another friend who was pantry cleaning, but she didn't like tomato soup. Score! My first impulse is to combine some with rice next week, as tomato rice soup is the only appropriate accompaniment for a poverty staple: grilled cheese sandwiches. But I think 12  cans of tomato soup is an invitation to creativeness as well. I'm starting to look up recipes using tomato soup. The first one I've come across is for tomato soup cake, the idea of which makes me want to hurl, but I'll keep looking. 

Tonight I ate the last of the cheddar potato soup from Friday, it was very thick. To change it up a little, I added two packets of Fire Sauce from Taco Bell. Taco Bell is our laundry day treat, it's very cheap and right next to the laundromat, and neither of us want to cook after hours of washing and folding. (We do our laundry once every three weeks or so. We have a lot of clothes, especially since when I'm around the house, I don't really care whether my clothes fit or whether they're hanging on me like sails.) Every time we go, we ask for lots of Fire Sauce and save the extra. It comes in handy for seasoning lots of different things. The cheese soup was very good, and quite tasty when I ate it with some of the leftover tortilla chips. 

M got new movies from the library today. We're trying to use the library more often and more carefully, so we dont' get any fines. Star Trek and X-Files this week, could be entertaining. I also found that Harlequin is offering a passel of free e-books to celebrate its 60th anniversary. I like romance, though Harlequin is not generally my cup of tea. But hey, when the book is free, why not give it a try? I've read three of them already and none has been a wallbanger. Just as well, since my computer couldn't stand that nearly as well as a paperback. 

Saturday, February 21, Cooking and Shopping

This morning we got up to take our foster cat, Pookah, to the weekly Petsmart adoption event. She's a scaredy-cat, but we're hoping someone sees past that to the lovey kitty she is inside. Before we went out this morning, I whipped up some pancakes from a box of mix. One cup of mix makes enough pancakes for both of us, so a single box will go three or four breakfasts. Not too bad, especially since I only cook breakfast on weekends. 

After hitting up Petsmart, we stopped by Target. I'd forgotten to put canned mushrooms on my shopping list, so I had to get a can, thereby denting my twice-a-month resolution. Next month I will be better at reviewing my list of ingredients before I shop. We also looked at the Brita Filters. Yesterday after I made my wish list and decided what was actually important, I started looking around on Amazon.com for things to fit the bill. You can sometimes get really good deals that way. Amazon had a 5-pack of Brita filters for 25 dollars, free shipping. Not too bad. At Target today, though, they had a 3-pack for 14 dollars, and I didn't have to wait. Score! That three pack should last six months, though I know I'm using it heavily and our water is bad, so maybe not quite that long. 

This afternoon we're having leftover soup for lunch, but for dinner I'm going all out. I got a pot roast a few weeks ago at Kroger for half price, 2.5 pounds of meat for 4 dollars, no bones. I put it in the freezer to let it sit. It might just be my imagination, but I think a pot roast is actually better once it's frozen and thawed. I thawed it overnight and finished defrosting in the microwave, then got out my crock pot. I love my crock pot. It's huge, I think it's the biggest size they make. Got it for a wedding present. Got five crockpots, actually, but I only kept three, including one adorable baby-sized one for cheese dips. You can cook anything in a crockpot and it'll probably come out tasting good.

Anyway, I cut up three potatoes in chunks and put them on the bottom of the crock pot, then added about a pound of baby carrots on top of that. I love pot roast carrots, possibly more than the roast itself.I took the thawed meat and made shallow crosswise cuts across the whole surface, then seasoned it liberally with garlic salt and fresh ground pepper, flipped it over, and repeated it. The meat went on top of the carrots, and then I added the rest of my ingredients. Here's the recipe I got from my mom. It's wonderful, you just need to adjust your main ingredients to suit your needs and the size of your crockpot.

Best Pot Roast Ever

1 chunk of pot roast meat

Potatoes cut in chunks

Chunked and peeled or baby carrots

1 packet onion soup mix

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can mushrooms, pieces and stems

Splash of red wine, cooking wine is okay

Splash of Worcestershire sauce

Dash of minced garlic

Add main ingredients as described, then as follows, for best results: Shake onion soup mix over everything, then add cream of mushroom soup. Fill can half with water and stir to get the last of the soup out, dump it in. Open mushrooms and do not drain, dump it all in. Add wine and Worcestershire, then garlic. Put the lid on, set to cook six hours on high or 10 hours on low. Use your good judgment to decide when it's done. The meat will fall apart and your whole house will smell wonderful. 

There's a lot of ingredients here, but only the potatoes and carrots need to be bought close to prep time. You can trim a whole lot off the price by keeping an eye out and getting ingredients when they're on sale. Things like Worcestershire and wine will last you through many, many pot roasts. And, like most of what I cook, with two people in the house, this dish will easily last two meals. We're not at the smelling wonderful phase yet, but it's been cooking less than an hour. I will try to take a picture and add it when it's done, but I sometimes lose my head around a really good pot roast. 

Wednesday, February 18, the food

Today was a day for leftovers, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'd originally thought to make corn muffins for breakfast, but since I had this banana bread, I pushed corn muffins to another day. Perishables before mixes, except after sickness, that's what I always say! Or what I always will say, since I thought of it just now. M had banana bread as well, and the last of the spaghetti from Monday. For lunch, we each had a leftover pasty. They reheated very well! 

A brief sidebar to the food for today: One of my big challenges in this plan so far has been to actually account for all the food that comes and goes. M. has bought into the plan by now, but in the first week, I wasn't really accounting for what a hungry guy he is. I have no idea where he puts it, since he's borderline underweight, but that's just the way it is. In the first week, he would eat the meal scheduled, if he liked it, then eat whatever else he could find in the house. It caused... friction, especially when the extra food was on the menu another day. We've worked that out pretty well by now, though. I've bought extra snacking foods, apples, bananas, pretzels, generic potato chips, and don't budget pretty much any dish to feed us more than twice. After the meal of leftovers, he gets what's left as a snack. That's worked much better for us so far. 

Tonight for supper, we're having tuna casserole and the leftover apple crisp from last night. Tuna casserole is very popular here, because I have an excellent recipe, which I will share with you. This was handed down from my grandmother to my mother and then to me, so the quantities are approximate. This recipe will feed the two of us each a dinner and a lunch. 

Grandma J's Tuna Casserole 

1 big or 2 small cans tuna (I use chunk light, but chunk or solid white is traditional)

1 cup rice, cooked (that means 2 cups prepared, you can use any kind)

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1.5 cups thawed frozen peas or corn

1.5 cups grated Velveeta (approximate, my mom's instruction was "till it looks cheesy enough")

1.5 tsp Worcestershire Sauce 

McCormick's Salt and Spice (salt, black and sweet bell pepper, onion, garlic, MSG, celery seed)

Minced Onion

Cook the rice. While it's cooking, drain the tuna and put it in a mixing bowl, mix it with the soup and the thawed veggies. Dump the cooked rice on top and stir it up, then, while it's all hot from the rice, add the grated Velveeta. You can add more or less, till it looks cheesy enough. Add the Worcestershire sauce, and again you can add a little more if you like that sort of thing, then a couple pinches of minced onion and be liberal with the salt and spice. Put it all in a baking dish and cook it at 350 until it's a nice golden brown at the top, usually 25-30 minutes. It cooks faster if you put foil over it, but it's crunchier on top if you don't. 

It's not exactly a low-fat dish, but it is cheap, and delicious! I took a little of the fat out of mine by using low fat cream of mushroom and 2% milk Velveeta, and it's still very nice. Frozen peas were cheaper than frozen corn this week, plus they'll do double duty in a fried rice later. The rice was a bit mushy thanks to my rice cooker hubris, but the casserole turned out just fine anyway.