7 posts tagged “food”
I had the brilliant idea of next time adding some beans to the meat to make it stretch more, and then thought, "Why not make chili, but with taco seasonings?" So I went on google to see if anyone already had my idea, which I thought would probably be the case, and sure enough.... countless Taco Chili recipes. I'm a little heart broken, but I'll be ok.
So, last night John and I tried to re-create a Japanese steakhouse experience, though we didn't bother with the starter veggies and noodles -- just fried rice and chicken. It's not exactly the same, but pretty close.
I'm going to share my recipes here, and point you to the ACTUAL "white sauce" recipe. John made it, and it tastes exactly like it does at the restaurant. It was so good that I even tried to overeat, but my stomach has already shrunk some from my weight loss efforts so after a small plate full I was stuffed.
Technically, you're supposed to let the white sauce sit overnight, but we didn't wait that long and more or less started eating as soon as all of the food was done. It tasted fine and I'm not really sure why it would need to sit overnight, aside from maybe the consistency?
Fried Rice
Ingredients
2.5 cups rice (dry)
1/2 cup peas and carrot mix (preferably frozen)
2 tbsp green pepper
2 eggs
(optional) 1 clove of fresh garlic, minced
soy sauce (to taste)
teriyaki sauce (to taste)
oil
Instructions
1. Make rice according to manufacturer instructions. This actually works best with leftover rice, but if you make your rice very sticky/moist, then it should work fine the day of. I recommend using regular rice instead of the quick rice. It takes more time, but the end result is that it just tastes better. Just get it going about an hour before you want to start cooking.
2. Heat some oil in your (LARGE) pan and add your veggies. Cook until the frozen vegetables are no longer frozen but cooked, and when your onions/peppers have started to brown. Remove from pan -- I usually put them on a plate.
3. Mix eggs in bowl and place in pan. They cook fast, so you need to babysit them until they are finished. Just treat them like scrambled eggs. Place on top of your vegetables when done.
4. In the same pan, add oil and rice. Stir in the soy sauce and teriyaki sauce completely. Give it some time to warm up the rice some.
5. Stir in your vegetables and eggs so it is mixed through out.
6. Put in a large bowl and serve!
Teriyaki Chicken
Ingredients
The amounts of each of these vary depending on how much chicken you are cooking up. I don't measure, so these are guesses. If you feel like you should use more or less of any of these ingredients by all means go for it!
3 chicken breasts cut in thick strips or 8 tenderloins
3 tbsp teriyaki sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1.5 tbsp oil
Instructions
1. Thaw frozen chicken on a microwave safe plate for a few minutes on defrost. Heat some oil in your pan on low. I usually get the best results when the chicken is flexible, but maybe still a little frozen in the middle.
2. Place chicken in pan and begin to brown on both sides. Adjust the heat to somewhere between low and medium, you want to have it cook somewhat slowly. If you cook it fast, then the outside will be done with a still solid pink center. Once one side is pretty much white, I flip to keep both sides cooking about evenly.
3. Once both sides are cooked with a little browning, dump the teriyaki, soy sauce, and honey over the chicken. I didn't mix these ingredients and truthfully I just poured them straight from the bottle to the pan, and mixed them around a little bit with my spatula. You can also mix these things in a bowl if you'd rather, and then pour it over the chicken, but why dirty more dishes when you can do it all in one?
4. Cook thoroughly, chopping up the chicken into a little larger than bite size chunks (maybe approximately 1"x1") with your spatula to make sure that the chicken is cooked all the way -- it should be completely white without any pink inside.
5. Allow it to cook a little longer so the sides brown some from the sauces. Serve!
White Sauce
And finally, for the white sauce recipe, check out this website!
As you have read in my previous post, my goal is to eat cheap but healthy, the challenge being that there are only two of us, and so sometimes making dishes causes us to waste a lot of food due to unidentifiable leftovers in the back of the fridge. How can we prepare dishes with common ingredients to get the most for our buck, while still eating well every day, and having plenty of variety? Stay tuned, because I will have plenty of tips that I discover from my own experiences.
I call these quesadillas hearty because they are not your ordinary flimsy ones. Warning: this is not an appetizer, but a meal in and of itself; they are loaded up with a lot more than just cheese between a tortilla. As you can see from my photos, they are oozing with colorful veggies and cheese and atop my frugal bake ware, which is nothing more than approximately 10x10" square piece of aluminum foil -- no mess, easy clean up!
Hearty Quesadillas
Makes six quesadillas, but it's really just about enough for 2 to 4 meals.
Ingredients
7.5oz of Pinto or Black beans -- approx 1/2 of a 15oz can
2tbsp of frozen or canned corn (frozen is good for a little here, a little there, canned is good if you already have some sitting in your fridge as leftovers)
approx 1/4 of a medium to large green pepper, sliced thinly and cut into thirds
4 medium thick slices from a medium to large onion (I prefer vidalia sweet onions, but yellow onions are usually the cheapest) cut in 4ths
4 chicken tenderloins, fresh or frozen OR 1 chicken breast
8oz shredded cheddar cheese or Mexican blend (extremely important or your cheese won't melt -- block cheese is sometimes cheaper, but make sure you have a cheese grater)
6 eight inch tortillas
1/3c of salsa (to taste)
2 to 4 drops of hot sauce (such as tobasco)
sour cream
1tbsp of vegetable oil
Equipment
Stove & rangetop
Small skillet/frying pan
cookie sheet/cake pan or foil
(optional) toaster ovens work great!
Directions
1. Thaw frozen chicken in microwave until flexible, before it starts to cook. cut into 1" thick stripes if you don't have tenderloins. Put oil in small frying pan with the chicken and cook over medium/low heat. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. While the chicken is cooking, wash your hands and start cutting your green pepper and onions. When finished, dump them in your frying pan with the 1/3 cup of salsa, corn and beans. I actually never measure the salsa out, I just kind of dump it over my chicken and eyeball it. Just don't add too much or your mixture will get watery. Mix everything together and let cook for about 5 minutes or so on low heat. You want to make sure your chicken is cooked all the way, so cut it up with your spatula into smaller, bite sized pieces. Once the chicken is white all the way through, let simmer until you are ready to use it. Allow extra time if you used any frozen vegetables.
NOTE: I suppose some of you might be wondering why you'd cut the chicken up with your spatula during the cooking process rather than at the beginning. For one, it's just much easier to cut once it's cooked then trying to cut it when it's raw, secondly, you don't have to worry about having knives with raw chicken on them, this way you only have one contaminated plate if you're thawing. I actually think cooking them in somewhat thick strips and breaking them apart later makes the meat a little more moist, along with the low cooking heat, it allows the juices to remain in meat longer. And lastly, it almost gives a "shredded chicken" texutre, which is ideal for quesadillas -- so you don't have huge chunks of chicken when everything else is pretty finely chopped or small to begin with. But onto the recipe!
3. Lay out your foil/cookie sheet/cake pan. I find that using a cookie sheet works great, but I lay 2 quesadillas on one sheet of foil. I can usually fit about 4 on one pan. Now, there are a few ways to do this. To make the quesadillas in the photo, I laid one tortilla down, put a hefty helping of shredded cheese, and then spooned my chicken and veggie mixture, and topped it with a little more cheese and another tortilla. This method produces 2 quesadillas (one quesadilla consisting of 1 tortilla). This works great for such hefty quesadillas, but I will warn you that flipping these bad boys over is not a task for the faint of heart. I think the easiest way is to use foil for each quesadilla, and use another piece to lay on top of it, then flip it over and remove the was-just-on-the-bottom foil. I didn't use that when I made these, I just tried flipping them with my spatula. Alternatively, you could lay half of the amount of cheese and filling on one half of the tortilla, then fold it over and cook that way -- it's easier to flip! That is what I normally do but I wanted to try another method.
4. Once your first batch is ready, pop it in the oven for about 8 minutes. Then, take it out and flip, and put in for another 3 to 4 minutes. The tortillas should be crispy and the cheese melted. Cut with a knife or pizza cutter. If you made 2 quesadillas in one (tortilla sandwich) then cut it into 4ths. If you made 1 quesadilla (omelet style) then you can cut it in half, or you can attempt to cut it into 4. Bigger slices actually work better because they have a lot of fillings and it's easier to eat that way. Serve with sour cream and salsa!
And that's it!
For the health conscious, use light sour cream, less cheese, or even light cheese. We also got low carb tortillas -- they are a bit more thin than usual and only 81 calories a tortilla.
Lately John and I have really needed to be frugal with our money. You know you are in a tight spot when groceries are going on the credit card, but what can you do? We gotta eat, and really need to make the most of it since we very well may be paying interest.
I have found that feeding two people versus a family is actually a bit more difficult than a family of four or more -- you actually can save quite a bit of money buying in bulk. When you're single or just making for two, you tend to have lots of leftovers (i.e. eating the same dish three nights in a row) which is really tiring. Things tend to stay in the fridge until they are indiscernible, which is more money being thrown in the trash.
The challenge is learning how to tweak recipes for two people with minimal leftovers (maybe just one day of leftovers instead of three), and still save money. The key is to create "staples" in your home -- things that you can make and keep ingredients on hand for easily, that share as many ingredients as possible. We make lots of mexican dishes, stir frys, and pasta, so we almost always have ingredients for them on hand at all times, and if we need to get anything, it's usually fresh foods that spoil easily or go stale. If you have recipes that share ingredients, then you can get by making different dishes and not wasting any food. For instance, one large onion and one large green pepper is enough to last about three dishes, easily. The other challenge is to make things that are somewhat healthy -- as that I am trying to lose weight and don't want to fill up on salty, fatty, sugary processed foods that pack a high calorie punch while keeping you hungry.
I'm going to document the meals I make this month -- it may help someone else through tough times too, who knows. Feel free to contribute some of your own ideas and comments, and I'd love to read some of your recipes and tips in your own blog too, just be sure to comment and let me know of your posts so I'll check them out! The experiment is to see how long John and I can really last on this one shopping trip, and a little more than $50. I will note that we do have some things at home -- sauces, spices, cans of tuna, cans of soup, etc, as most people generally have. I am *not* starting from a completely bare cupboard and fridge.
Grocery List
I'm going to start off with my grocery list and planned menu. Note how I estimated about how much I was going to spend. I took the time to write down the actual prices so I could get a better idea of how to estimate. I went about $10 over due to underestimating, if anything, you should over estimate!
|
Item |
Approx cost |
Actual cost |
|
Peanut Butter |
$2.60 |
$2.59 |
|
Bread |
$2.50 |
$1.89 |
|
Eggs |
$1.20 |
$1.99 |
|
Milk |
$1.60 |
$1.65 |
|
Bananas |
$0.49/lb |
$1.17 ($0.52/lb) |
|
Apples |
$1.50/lb |
$2.29 |
|
Onion |
$0.99/lb |
$0.78 |
|
Pepper |
$0.99 |
$1.00 |
|
Frozen Veggie Medley |
$1.20 |
$1.00 |
|
Rice |
$2.00 |
$3.29 |
|
Tortillas |
$2.50 |
$2.79 |
|
Salsa |
$2.00 |
$2.99 |
|
Can of beans |
$0.69 |
$0.79 |
|
Sour Cream |
$0.79 |
$0.89 |
|
Shredded Cheese |
$2.50 |
$3.99 |
|
Frozen Chicken |
$6.99 |
$5.97 |
|
Mayo |
$2.50 |
$1.79 |
|
Pork chops |
$2.00 |
$2.82 |
|
Oh’s Cereal |
$1.99 |
$2.00 |
|
Stir Fry Mix |
$2.00 |
2 for $2.50 |
|
Pasta Sauce |
$2.00 |
2 for $4.00 |
|
Ranch Dressing |
$2.50 |
$1.99 |
|
Pasta noodles |
$1.00 |
$1.00 |
|
Lettuce |
$1.69 |
$1.69 |
|
TOTAL |
$40.90 |
$52.86 |
The Menu
Meals including some possible ingredients, I suppose the actual recipes will depend on what we have available.
Quesadillas (chicken, bean, onion, pepper, tomato, salsa, cheese, corn, sour cream)
Pork Fried Rice (pork, veggie medley, egg, rice, soy sauce)
Stir Fry (chicken, stir fry mix, onion, pepper, teriyaki sauce, rice)
Salad (chicken, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, dressing)
Pasta (pasta noodles, pasta sauce, cheese, veggies, seasonings, meat of some sort)
Tuna/Chicken Salad Sandwiches (tuna or chicken, mayo, seasonings, lettuce, tomato, bread)
PB&J (peanut butter, jelly, bread)
Pancakes (flour, eggs, milk, oatmeal, bananas, syrup, peanut butter or butter)
Scrambled Omelets (eggs, tomato, onion, green pepper, cheese, meat of some sort, seasonings)
Are you ready for this?!
Just as a warning, this is going to be long and maybe even rambling at times, but I'm going to be honest.
I am fat. I am not just fat, I am morbidly obese and if I don't do something NOW while I am still young it is just going to get harder and harder and cause more and more problems with my health. Currently, the only real problems I am experiencing reflects on how out of shape I am and I do have a bit of an irregular cycle. In 10 years I have gained over 150 pounds. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Look, I could give you a million excuses but I'm not going to. I may even have hypothyroidism, but even if that is one contributing factor I don't think it is the sole cause, and while I intend to get a blood test to find out once in for all, I'm actually hoping that I don't have it. I don't have health insurance, and if I had enough money to afford prescriptions I would have health insurance (a hopeless downward spiral if you ask me). So where does that bring us? It's quite simple, I overeat and lack sufficient exercise, and apparently I learned these habits early on. Is it a coincidence that early on, I was also told I was chubby, fat, etc from my parents, especially my father? Again, I am not making excuses, but I can't help but feel that if my father used more positive reinforcement I wouldn't have learned how to patronize myself into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 7th grade, 11 years old, 132 lbs. Was I chubby? Sure, but was I morbidly obese? No. Would it have been such a big deal if by the time I was in high school I weighed around 165 to 175 pounds and learned how to maintain that weight? I would be overjoyed to weigh that much right now. Then I would only be like 20 pounds overweight and I could handle that. Instead I have 130 to 150 pounds to shed and I already know this is going to be quite a journey and a test of my strength, will-power and discipline. I need to lose the weight of an entire PERSON. Does anyone here realize how OVERWHELMING that is?
Here's my stance on the fat thing. People who are morbidly obese like I am NEED to do something. This whole "fat is beautiful" thing is not super helpful because it fails to address the issue from a health standpoint. Okay look, not everyone is going to think I'm beautiful and that's ok, the same thing applies to any person no matter what size they are. And also, why do we care so much if people think we are good looking? I include myself in this, yes, even I care about what other people think of me, and it shoots me straight into depression because I think, "What if this person looks at me and can only think about how repulsive I am to them?" What if I'm trying to exercise and people are looking at me and making all manner of judgments about me? But what... am I going to let that deter me from going out there and exercising? If I decdied not to exercise because I was afraid of what people thought then what would I be accomplishing? I would be securing my future as the 600lb fat person who can't get out of their bed and die at the age of 45.
LOOK, if you are morbidly obese, WAKE UP! YOU ARE NOT HEALTHY! I start to get winded if I go on a walk and talk at the same time. I can't hardly run at all and my endurance totally sucks. THAT IS NOT HEALTHY! I have an amazing fiance who finds me beautiful and that's great, I think that I am beautiful too, but there needs to be a change here. I have wasted so much time feeling sorry for myself and perfectly accepted my fate as a fat girl even as I sat in depression. Why bother doing anything? I'm always going to be fat. I am just a fat girl and that is that. NOT TRUE. Now I am kicking myself for not realizing when I was 200lbs... 220lbs... hey you know, this is not that bad. I could get back down to my target weight and stay there by making changes that would lead to a healthier lifestyle. But no, I was depressed because I was fat, and when I was depressed I'd eat or mope around or do something other than fixing the problem. I just made it worse, and my current condition is a testimony of that. I've gained 60lbs in the past year alone. Even while I write this I should get up and exercise, I certainly am feeling quite motivated but I want to finish this first.
My fiance keeps saying that I'm not going to do something unless I really want to. Which is a hard thing to take sometimes because I definitely WANT to lose weight. However, I get so overwhelmed by how much I have to lose that it's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to revert back to past behavior. It's easy to, when I get hungry, eat a lot of food really fast when I need to eat slower and eat less. It's something I have to constantly think about and work on and that's difficult, I won't tell you otherwise. But keeping myself in the fat girl box, I am not helping myself. I need to move past that, and I think I am finally working that out in my head. I used to be a lot thinner than what I am now... so what? It's not like I can hop in a time machine and change the outcome, I only have the future to work with here. I live in the past too much, I let the past confine me.
But, back to this whole fat is beautiful movement. On the surface level, I think it's great, and I think that Joy Nash has summed it up perfectly -- stop living in the past, stop defining yourself as a fat person, stop giving yourself impossible goals, otherwise, no matter how much you diet or whatever you will never be comfortable with yourself. However, I have talked to and read things from "pro-fat" people and they really aren't better than all of the "skinny" people who say that fat people are repulsive, ugly and not worth the air they breathe. Like, for example, I've heard fat people say that skinny people are "repulsive and weird." I've had many friends who are incredibly thin and do I really find them repulsive and weird? No. I think that is a TERRIBLE thing to say. Two wrongs do not make a right. I think both sides need to learn a little respect for everyone.
And to you fatties (in the most endearing way from one fat person to another): so what if some guy/girl doesn't like you? Don't assume it's because of your weight. Not everyone has to like you, and even if you did loose a bunch of weight doesn't necessarily mean that they would instantly fall in love with you... then again, maybe that would be the case for some people. But if that is, then I wouldn't be with them anyway, because you never know, over the course of life you may gain weight, you may lose it... it's important to be with someone who loves YOU no matter what. It took me far too long to learn that!
I've got a crockpot begging to be used and trying to get through this holiday season losing weight with at least one meal soup or salad. So, if you have any tried-and-true recipes to share -- post them in your blog and link me in the comments, or simply paste a URL from elsewhere on the web (allrecipes, recipebazaar, etc).
I'm not a big spicy fan, but I love veggies! I don't mind meat, but I prefer non-red meat. I love a good french onion!
