Wicked Cheap Wednesday - Mediterranean Style Chicken, Pasta, and Veg!

Seriously, how good does this look?  Just enough sauce to mesh everything together, and just enough summer veggies to remind us of what's coming!  How did I make this WCW meal?  Well, it took an hour, but it was worth it!

You will need:

• 2 cups pasta, cooked and covered to keep warm
• olive oil for cooking
• 2 small green zucchini and 1 yellow squash, cut in half lengthwise, and cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 cups (or more if you'd like) of cooked chicken, seasoned with salt and pepper - this was about 1 lb of small chicken pieces, cut up after cooked
• 1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes with chiles, undrained
• 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
• pitted olives
• crumbled feta cheese - we used feta cheese that incorporated tomato and basil

Cook and drain pasta as directed; cover to keep warm.  Easy enough right?  Cook chicken in olive oil or Pam and cut into bite sized pieces - set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large fry pan over medium heat.  Cook zucchini and squash for 2 minutes in the oil.  Add the chicken, tomatoes, and tomato sauce and cook until veggies are tender (it was about 15 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Serve chicken mixture over the pasta and top with olives if you so desire (not me!) and feta cheese - yum yum yum!  The chiles gave it a kick, the sauce a good taste, the veggies some texture, and the feta - oooh the best part!  Why did it take so long?  Cooking the chicken took time, cutting up the veggies took time, you get it right?  I don't prefer to eat dinner at 7pm...I think it just means I'm working too late:)

I like it enough I'm even bringing it for lunch tomorrow.  You know me, I am NOT a fan of leftovers, but I could eat this over and over!  Served with a side salad, it was a great meal!  Cost, even better!

Chicken - $4.00
pasta - .88
zucchini and yellow squash - $2.00
canned tomatoes with chiles - $1.00
tomato sauce - .33
olives - $1.00
feta cheese - OOPS!  $5.00 - worth it though, it made the dish!

Okay so about $15, not that cheap, but not too bad?  Better than the cost of 2 meals and salads at a restaurant!  But trust me, I enjoy my Sat night-no-cooking-restaurant-meals!! 

So, Easter is right around the corner!  Do you have ham?  What is your favorite way to make it and what are your faves sides to serve with it?  CCC, yes me, has never made a ham, but I do plan to buy one since they'll be on sale and make it another time an I need your suggestions:)

Have a great night - I'm off to enjoy my funny shows and wii!

Kinda Wicked Cheap Wednesday while cleaning out the freezer!

Happy Wednesday!  Another gorgeous day up here, but I'm ready for the rain to come so I can lay around, at least for a little bit this weekend, and watch movies in comfy clothes!!  AND sleep in!!!

Tonight was a meal I haven't made in a very long time - Spicy Peanut Bake Chicken with Jasmine Rice and green beans.  Easy easy, and yummy yummy!  And again I got to use things from the freezer, cabinets, and leftovers:)

What you'll need for the chicken:

• 1-2 lbs boneless chicken breast - I had about 1.5 lbs, or 3 breasts, each cut in half
• one package, which has 2 envelopes, of A Taste of Thai Spicy Peanut Bake mix

Yup, that's it!  Preheat oven to 350.  Place chicken pieces into a baking dish and coat with both envelopes of the mix, turning chicken to coat both sides.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until chicken pieces are fully cooked thru (it was about 27 minutes for mine).

While this is baking, I prepared a cup of A Taste of Thai Jasmine Rice as directed on the package.  Once cooked, I added a can of pineapple chunks (from pineapple juice, not syrup, as learned at the Univ of Lissy) and some honey roasted peanuts - yum!  Paired these with green beans and wallah - dinner!   Oh yes, and leftover cornbread from last night;)

I love this meal and I don't know why I don't make it more often!  The spice mix is the pefect blend of sweet and spicy!  

I know a lot of you make your own seasonings (taco, chili, etc) at home, but do you have a favorite packaged seasoning you use, or what is your favorite seasoning to make at home?   Does anyone else out there like A Taste of Thai at home items?

Tomorrow night is NOT well planned - grocery shopping after work and then making a new, scary to me, meal...this could be dinner at 8pm, or Wendy's at 8:30pm;)  

Have a great night everyone - I'm off to eat some more Purely Decadent Coconut IC!  Oh, and my cookies were a hit at work today...as usual;)

Mini meatloaves to drool over! And pair some onion soup roasted potatoes with it!

Hi everyone!  Hope your week is treating you well so far!  So far so good here, work, dinner, online, errands, Wii, read, sleep, repeat...throw in alittle Jeopardy and Rich Bride Poor Bride so far and that's my week:)

Tonight I'm making (literally making right now - they are in the oven hehe) one of our faves - Mini Turkey Meatloaves from Martha Stewart.  What I like about this recipe is that there is alot of personal touches you can put into it, like what kind of mustard you use, or what kind of cheese you use.  What makes me nervous is them baking - you have to watch them very carefully (I guess I'm not doing this very well if I'm on here!) so they don't dry out.  Out of about 12 times, I've only had them come out a bit dry once, so I'll take it; no one's perfect;)

Another thing I love about this recipe is the ingredients - the only thing you most likely wouldn't have around the kitchen is ground turkey, and maybe the white cheddar cheese - everything else you most likely already have!  Gotta love that!  It's not Wednesday, but this is "wicked" cheap, so I'm going to post the breakdown at the bottom of cost.

What you'll need:

• 2 sweet potatoes and 2 red bliss potatoes 
• 1 onion soup mix packet
• 1/3 cup olive oil

For the potatoes - preheat oven to 450.  Cut potatoes into bite sized pieces and place into a 9x13 baking pan.  Pour onion soup mix and 1/3 oil over the potatoes.  I say DON'T mix the ingredients at this point - if the onion soup mix and oil end up all on the bottom of the baking dish, the little soup pieces will just burn up and cause a mess of a cleanup after, and it won't be as flavorful.

Bake potato mixture for about 35-40 minutes - when a fork can go through them, they are done:)  If you want to mix the ingredients, do so about halfway through.  This is what the potatoes, and meatloaves, look like about 1/2 way through:

Now for the good stuff!  You will need:

• 2 tbsp mustard (Martha recommends honey mustard, I used regular yellow mustard tonight, but have used dijon and horseradish mustard in the past)
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 cup shredded white cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper

Mix the mustard and ketchup together in a small bowl and set aside.  If you haven't already preheated the oven to 450 because you're making a different side, preheat oven to 450 now.  Mix together ground turkey, breadcrumbs, egg, 1/2 cup of the cheese, and salt and pepper.  I find it works best to mix it by hand, so get your sleeves up!  Keep in mind, if the turkey has come out of your fridge just before you start, it's very brr chilly cold on your hands, so let it sit at room temperature for a bit for your hands' sake:)  Form turkey mixture into mini, egg shapes loaves (depending on the size, this recipe should garner you 4-6 loaves) and place on an ungreased baking sheet. 

I love how you can see the cheese in the forms - yum!

Spread the ketchup and mustard mixture on each loaf, and then cover with rest of  cheese.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until loaves are cooked through.  Enjoy!

 

Now, tonight I had 2 lbs of ground turkey, so I doubled the recipe.  Because I made larger loaves tonight as well, I garnered 8 loaves out of 2 lbs.  Sometimes, I'll make smaller loaves and it gives me 12.  No matter what, you want to make the loaves to be the same size so they cook evenly.  Also, because I made them a little larger, then took about 30 minutes to cook through instead of 15-20 minutes.  Again, it's all about watching them to make sure they don't overcook and dry out.  The husband made sure to tell me the one time they were a little dry;)

Here's the husband's plate - well his first helping - always a good sign when he goes back for more:)

Cost:

My favorite part!

2 lbs ground turkey - $5.00 - always a great price!
white cheddar shredded cheese (natural) - $2.75 (I had a coupon)
...and, well, I had the rest of the ingredients!  If you had to buy the breadcrumbs and potatoes, you would add about $5.00 more = $12.75 for a meal plenty big enough for a family of 4!  WOW!  Thank you Martha for a cheap but extremely tasteful recipe!  

So I'm stuffed!  Are you stuffed after your dinner tonight?  I hope so, in a good way:)  I'm off to Michael's to get some glue for scrapbooking (and when I mean some, I mean like 8 - I go through them like hotcakes) and to Target to just browse...I feel like browsing.  Then hopefully I'll come home, play some Wii, catch up on some of my fave blogs like this one, continue reading Scarlett, and get some good sleep.  Every morning I wake up saying "I'm going to bed at 10pm tonight!"....it never happens, I have too much I want to do!

Have a great night, everyone, and see you tomorrow for a new recipe I have yet to try!  Eek!

You're Da Bomb! The Steak Bomb that is;)

We had a couple grilling steaks in the freezer, the husband saw steak subs on Phantom Gourmet, and immediately asked me to try to make him my own version of a "steak bomb."  I was going to save this for WCW, or Wicked Cheap Wednesday to new readers, but I couldn't!  So easy, had all of the ingredients, because I had the steak already, and was a nice change from how I usually make these subs (with sausage). 

What you'll need:

• 2 grilling steaks, boneless, cut into bite sized pieces
• half a green pepper, sliced into thin pieces and then cut into small pieces
• half a red pepper, same as above
• 1 whole white onion, sliced thinly
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and any other seasoning you may like
• ketchup, mustard, or any other topping you may like
• 4 American cheese deli slices

Heat a large fry pan or wok on medium heat.  Once heated, add Pam spray, let sizzle for a second, and add cut up steak, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.  Let cook until it looks about halfway cooked, to your liking.

Add cut up peppers and onions and turn heat up to medium high.  Continue to cook until vegetables and steak are cooked thru to your liking. 

Once cooked to your liking, tear up the 4 deli cheese slices and put on top of steak/veggie mixture and let melt. 

 

Once melted, remove from heat.  Put into your favorite bread/roll (we used sub rolls tonight) and top with ketchup, etc if you choose - I choose not to:)  Enjoy with a nice garden salad and some fries and enjoy!

This meal was quite easy to make and I was able to multi task while making it, as it didn't require much attention.  The hardest part was cutting up the steak and veggies!

 

 

***Since tomorrow night I'll probably talk about my NYE recipes, I'll break this down as a WCW:

2 grilling steaks - $5 or less at this time of year

1 white onion - $1.50

1/2 a green pepper - .50

1/2  a red pepper - .50

sub rolls - $2.50

4 deli slices of American cheese - about .30 cents

 

As long as you have the Pam spray, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, ketchup, salad stuff, and a side, you're looking at only spending about $10.30 for a  great meal - for us, it made 4 helping and there are leftovers:)

Time to play some Bejeweled, check up on some other blogs, and read Scarlett:)  Has anyone else ever read Gone With The Wind followed by Scarlett??  I love it!