Frugal is something that by nature, I am definitely not. Especially when it comes to food. When Ross and I got married, we knew that our biggest downfall is that neither of us is very good at all about spending money wisely. We’re a little too “live in the moment” when it comes to spending!
However, there are a few major home improvement projects that we really want to do, so we are trying to save money in order to complete them before we move out of this house. We’ll see how it goes. Unfortunately, food is the most logical area to cut back on. After all, it’s easier to cut back on food than electricity or something, right?
I think in part this is why I haven’t been blogging as much lately. Our food just hasn’t been interesting enough to talk about. I’m going to try to be more creative with our cheap groceries and get more interesting. Food is one of my highlights each day; I look forward to dinner the second I finish lunch. So, I want it to be exciting and fun and interesting, even if it is cheap.
There was chicken on a major sale at Lowe’s this past week and I bought a whole bunch. I froze them in packs of 2 so that instead of making 1.5 lbs of chicken for just the 2 of us, I am making a more reasonable amount and saving the rest for another meal. On Saturday, I took 2 chicken breasts and covered them with my favorite lemon garlic marinade from Wegman’s. (I always bring a bunch of this back everytime I visit NY). I let it cook for about 6 hours and then shredded the chicken with a fork. We loaded ciabatta rolls with the shredded chicken, caramelized some red onions and sauteed some mushrooms and topped it all with a slice of Swiss. We grilled these and ate them alongside a new and tasty soup.
Campbell’s Select Harvest Caramelized French Onion Soup was wonderful. It was close to some I’ve tasted at restaurants, and only required being heated in a pot. It is lower in sodium than most French Onion soups, but didn’t taste like it was. We threw a slice of cheese on top and let it melt and really enjoyed this with our sandwich.
Last night, I wanted to make homemade soup. I have a recipe for one that we’ve only had once, but I remembered that we really liked it. I cooked this up last night, and ended up tossing in the leftover shredded chicken from the night before. 2 chicken breasts fed 2 people for 2 meals! I’m proud 🙂
Bean, Pasta and Pepper Soup
1 tablsespoon olive oil
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
1/2 cup uncooked diatalini pasta (I couldn’t find it so I used elbows)
1 can chicken broth (or veggie to make it vegetarian, and I used doulbe this amount)
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Heat oil in a pot. Add carrots, celery, onion, parsley and garlic, cook until tender. Add tomatoes, beans, pasta and broth. Heat to boil. Cover and cook 15 minutes or until pasta is done. Add peppers and vinegar, heat through.
That’s all! It is quick, easy, cheap and has a wonderful flavor.
Not only does it cook wonderfully, but I am amazed at how well it cleans up. I don’t have a single dish, pot or pan that cleans up more easily than this. It really just wipes clean. I absolutely love it, and in the 3 months that we have had it we have used it a ton of times. They are pricey, but I can tell that it will last forever and we use it so often that it makes it well worth it (not that we paid for it, it was a very generous gift from my Aunt, Uncle and cousins, but still… it was their money well spent)!
I bought some nice, fresh sub rolls from Lowes and made a mixture of sour cream, green onion, cilantro and a little bit of cumin. With a spatula, I spread a thin layer of it on the bread. On top of that on each half of bread I put a slice of pepper jack cheese.
Anyone Hungry? 
