Kamikaze Dinner #4- Lunchtime Edition

It may be a little early for lunch, but so be it :) I'm not much of a breakfast person anyways.

So, here's what I have baking/toasting in my toaster oven as we speak...


Barbeque Pork Flatbread

Super easy, and GREAT for leftovers.

Start with some sort of Tortilla. I used a super-good-for-you high fiber/local calorie Flat-Out brand. Top with Pulled Pork (mine was Curly's brand BBQ Pork, in the tub, leftover from dinner a few days ago). Top with thinly sliced Onion (omit if you don't like onion). Throw on some spices, top with your favorite Cheese (I used 6-blend Italian..mmmm). Bake til it's warm and gooey. Yum.

I heart using up leftovers to make something awesome!

This recipe is great for a singleton, especially if you have a toaster oven. Super-quick, you don't have to heat up the whole kitchen with your oven, and no waste!

If you want to make more than one of these, simply put more on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at about 350 degrees. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. If you have kids, this is a fun/easy meal for them to help "make"!

As always, throw on more veggies, or add whatever floats your boat. Prefer Quesadillas? Add more cheese and an extra tortilla on top, toast on both sides (in toaster oven or in a skillet) and Voila!

If you have any thrown-together recipes you'd like to share, post a comment on this post!

Save a Little Grocery Money This Week

A good couponer has a great stockpile-tons of food stocked away in their pantry that they've bought at an amazing price. This is important in keeping grocery costs low, while still enjoying great food.

This week I give you a challenge-try to eat ONLY from the food in your pantry. Don't go to the store, don't pick up a few extras, just eat from the food you have. Of course, if you have kids and need fresh milk, etc, do what you gotta do, but try your best to dig through the pantry (freezer and fridge as well) and see what might be hiding in there.

I recently emptied out my giant stand-alone freezer. I did this for 2 reasons: 1. It needed to be emptied and cleaned-it was starting to freeze over. 2. Some of the food had been in there a while and needed eating.

So, I emptied the freezer, actually going through food I totally had forgotten I'd had. I put some in the fridge to thaw for the week, and the rest went into my somewhat bare freezer in my fridge. By doing this, I've been eating food I'd forgotten I'd had for the past 3 weeks. Good stuff, too!

So, give yourself a break from the store this week. Eat from your freezer, your pantry, and your fridge. You might be surprised about what you come up with when you're limited in what you can use!

Did you come up with a fun dish from your pantry/fridge/freezer that you didn't plan? Post it on this comment, and I'll share it with everyone under my Kamikaze Recipe posts!

Kamikaze Dinner #3- The Weevils Edition

Not knowing what I was going to make for dinner last night, off to the freezer I went. I knew I had some chicken and a couple of different boxes of rice mixes. So, I started the thaw the chicken. I reached for the most interesting rice mix, added water to the pan, dumped the rice into the pan, and saw WEEVILS!

If you've enever seen these things, they're horrible. They are little black bug things that like to sprout from grains, flour, crackers, etc. I have friends that have never seen them. My mother thinks it's because I'm a slob. I've done my research, though, and weevils like warmth. I don't cool my house much when it's hot, or warm it much when it's cold, so my kitchen is a perfect breeding ground from them. The creepy thing is, they don't (like ants) come from the outside in...they actually come FROM the grain! So, even when a package is sealed and unopened, I've found weevils inside! Horrible.

Anyways, I quickly went through all of my other rice boxes- WEEVILS! So, I nixed the rice. So much for stockpiling grains from now on! I've also started keeping new boxes of pasta, rice, etc in the fridge. Weevils don't like the cold. Little boogers.

Plan B. I found a bag of mac and cheese..NO WEEVILS!

So, I made a Fajita Mac and Cheese. Here's how it went:

Cooked up some Chicken with sliced Onions and some Cumin and Garlic Powder. While that was happening, I cooked my Macaroni. Once the Macaroni was cooked, I drained it, and transferred the Chicken and Onions to the Macaroni pan. I drained a can of hot Rotel and added that to the Chicken mix.

After the moisture cooked off, I added some Velveeta log (the Mac and Cheese came with packets of seasoning, breadcrumbs, and cheese sauce, but I decided I wanted REALLY cheesy mac and cheese, and the velveeta needed to be used before it got icky, so there ya go). I cooked that for a few minutes until the cheese started to melt. Then I added the Macaroni back to the pot. I seasoned it up with a little more cumin and garlic powder, and Voila! Fajita Mac and Cheese!

I sauteed up a Plantain I had bought to go along with it as a side. Super Yum!

Do you have any fun, thrown together dinners you want to share?

A Frugal Impromptu Meal

You know how it is- You've been working all day, you're hungry, and you haven't planned on anything to make for dinner. You're driving home and passing by all of the fast food joints, thinking how easy it would be to just go through drive-thru and pick up something off the dollar menu- I mean, it's a dollar, right?

Then you have a tiny moment of clarity and think of all the fat and calories that dollar menu burger has. It begins to sound less tempting- though on some days, you go for it anyways.

Today was NOT that day. I was good, and drove home, where I knew lots of random food items awaited me.

So, I opened the pantry and stared. Then I started pulling out a few items, getting more as I went.

I started with a bag of that Kraft Deluxe Mac and Cheese. My sister had worked at a food and wine event, and they were giving away bags FOR FREE! So, I opened my free bag of mac and cheese and started cooking the pasta.

Now, I'm one of those people who can't leave well enough alone. I knew that if I JUST ate the mac and cheese the way it was, I'd eat the whole thing- there's not a lot to mac and cheese really. So, then I got creative.

I saw a jar of veggie chili in the pantry. Visions of southwestern mac and cheese came into my brain.

So, after draining the pasta, I bypassed the "seasoning blend" in the bag of mac and cheese and went straight for the squeezy thing of cheese. I put that with the pasta, let it melt, and added the can of veggie chili. Better, but still not good enough.

Next came a can of Rotel (diced tomatoes with green chilis-I like the HOT kind ) that I got a few months ago during a crazy sale/coupon deal at Publix. Regularly $1.39/can, I got about 30 cans for 4 CENTS a can! How awesome is that! So, that went into the pot. Close, but still no cigar. I wanted meat- or at least something like it.

So, I opened the freezer and found a bag of Boca veggie crumbles that I had left over from a Boca House Party (more on that later). Perfect! So, I nuked the bag and dumped it into the pot. Added a little garlic and onion powder and some cumin, and...Voila! A somewhat healthy, filling, and FRUGALTASTIC dinner! I toasted up some homemade bread to go with it, and YUM!

It tastes WAY yummier than it looks- I swear!

So, to break it down...

Kraft Mac and Cheese-  Free!
Veggie Chili- 99 cents at Aldi
Rotel- 4 cents (from crazy stockpile Publix Sale!)
Boca- Free!
Seasonings- less than a penny

Total cost of awesomely yummy meal- $1.04! LESS than if I had gotten a dollar menu burger (with tax, dollar menu burger would have cost me $1.07) Not to mention I don't feel ill from the fast food, AND I have plenty of leftovers, which will be great for some lunches this week.

This "recipe" is one I change up all the time. You can use boxed mac and cheese, some leftover pasta and some velveeta, even pasta and some leftover queso or remnants of cheese from the fridge. Anything works! Then what I add to it changes on my mood- sometimes frozen broccoli and a can of chicken. Sometimes ground turkey and ketchup (sounds weird, but it makes it like cheeseburger mac-realllly good!) The possibilities are endless.

So, sometime when you're driving home, and REALLY want to stop and get some fast food, just TRY to make it home and check out your pantry. You never know what yumminess you might come up with!