The First Pantry Challege: Chicken Breasts!

My pal Shannon from over at the Motivators threw me the first Pantry Challenge (and inspired pretty much the whole group to clean out their pantries I think! Eek!) so here I go! Here's the message I got from Shannon.

"I loved your ideas with the roast & the whole chicken. I'll have to save them for when I find those items on sale.

OK, here is my challenge for you. I have a freezer full of chicken breast that I got on sale & I also have a ton of dark red kidney beans as well as white rice & pasta(these are things I use very frequently). What can you come up with? I will take as many ideas as you have."

Isn't this par for all of our freezers? We find a great buy on something as versatile as chicken breasts and then stare at it. Yes, chicken has potential but you can only make the same stuffing casserole, broccoli and rice bake, and grilled breast so many times before you are ready to curse Mr. Perdue into oblivion. The same thing can happen to ground beef. So here's my answer to the challenge.

Chicken Chili! Think about it. You brown up those breasts and chop them up fairly fine. Grab your kidney beans and a large $2 can of diced tomatoes and you are on your way. It's different, uses what you have on hand and is really great for the recent weather. Not to mention that you can put it in the crockpot and have a one dish easy dinner. Pair it with my Cornbread and you are on your way!

Cornbread
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
½ cup melted butter
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1 ¾ cup flour
½ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda

Blend together sugar, egg, milk, butter and cornmeal until smooth. Stir in flour, salt, powder and soda. Pour in greased and floured (or use a bit of the cornmeal) 9x9 pan. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

But Sarah that was a gimmee! So I'll give you some more takes I have. Cheesy Cornball Chicken - this one was an invention from one of my own pantry dives when I was running low and didn't want to head for the grocery store.

Corny Cheeseball Chicken
3 boneless, skinless breast halves
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
¼ green pepper (diced)
1 med tomato (diced)
1 bunch green onions (diced)
1 12oz package dipping cheese (with or without jalapenos)
6 oz milk
Mexican chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown chicken in large skillet. In med bowl mix together corn, green pepper, tomato, and onion. Season lightly with salt, pepper and chili powder and set aside. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and return to skillet. Stir in corn mixture and allow to simmer. Prepare cheese according to package directions and stir into chicken and corn mixture. Pour into oven proof dish and bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until beginning to brown and getting bubbly. Serve with flour tortillas.

There's also L.M. Lion's favorite! Italian Skillet Chicken. Simply brown your chicken breasts and add some quartered fresh tomatoes, garlic, parmesean cheese and Italian seasoning. Top with some shredded mozarella and bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until your cheese starts to brown.

And if you think you have exhausted my chicken reserves you are dead wrong. My favorite thing to do is to grab menu items from restaurants and try to recreate them at home. Some faves around the neighborhood are Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with homefries; Chicken Cheesesteaks; Chicken Reubens; Chicken Ceasar Salads or Wraps. I'm a huge fan of the gourmet pizzas too. Check out my Faker's Gourmet Pizza's then shake it up to suit your own mission!

A Faker’s Gourmet Pizza
1 premade pizza crust (Boboli)
1 jar alfredo sauce
1 boneless skinless chicken breast half (cooked and chopped bite size)
1 bag shredded mozzarella cheese
Additional toppings:
1 jar sundried tomatoes
½ pkg sliced fresh mushrooms
Or:
½ bag frozen broccoli
½ pkg sliced fresh mushrooms

Place pizza crust on lightly greased cookie sheet. Top with preferred amount of alfredo sauce and chicken. Then add preferred topping blends and cover with cheese. Bake according to pizza package directions or 425 until cheese is browned.

This also works with A1, cooked steak-ums and shredded cheddar cheese; olive oil, Italian seasoning, thinly sliced tomatoes, prociutto, and very light cheese; or blue cheese dressing, chicken tossed with hot sauce, and blue cheese crumbles – obviously served with a side of celery!

So Shannon, even if you don't ever make any of these, I hope it got those culinary ideas flowing. Happy Eats! Any more takers? I'm up for The Challenge!

Mom Tip Monday: Stretching your Fridge

And I don't mean by packing it full of leftovers that will turn into your third grader's science experiment in the next month! I mean making what is in there go further. I know I kind of blended budgeting and menu planning last week but I want to focus a little more on that budgeting part this week.

Two weeks in a row now I have managed to cook once and make at least three meals out of what I made. And for both weeks the starter was only $10. Have I gotten your attention now? Would you like to know how I did it? Of course you would! Because if you could feed your family for 3 days on $15 (including sides and extras) who wouldn't do it?

Week #1.
I made a four pound beef roast (which I got on sale for $10) on Sunday. I dropped it in a pot of beef stock and let it simmer all day. I know it's not the traditional way to cook a roast but I had a plan because I had my menu laid out ahead of time. I made some mashed potatoes and steamed veggies to go with it (all pantry items at my house) and we were set.

Monday - I took the reserved beef stock, now thoroughly flavored from the onion soup spices (also a pantry item) I had added to the roast, and sliced two Spanish onions ($1.50) into it and again let it simmer away. I made some homemade bread to go with it - but even that is only a few dollars at the grocery store if baking isn't your forte. Day Two!

Wednesday - The leftover roast itself was up for grabs. I pulled it off into pieces and put it to (everyone together now) simmer with a bottle of barbecue sauce ($2.59). We served it on the rolls I had thought to make with half of the bread dough and had dinner for Day Three.

Thursday - If you can believe it, Beloved took leftover BBQ for lunch, and we had leftover soup for dinner.

I fed my family for four days on $14.

Week #2
Sunday - Baked chicken ($10) with trimmings.

Monday - Rigatoni with chicken, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, artichokes and spinach. (This is a Zookeeper original so you may need to play with it a little to get the flavors you like.)

Rigatoni & Chicken
1 box rigatoni
2 cups chopped chicken
1 jar sundried tomatoes (reserve oil)
1 cup mushrooms (or less to taste)
1 sm jar artichoke hearts (drain and rinse)
2 cups fresh spinach
2 Tbsp four
1 cup chicken bullion
1/2 cup milk

In a large skillet toss together chicken, tomatoes, artichokes, and mushrooms and heat through. At the same time prepare rigatoni according to package directions. When meat and veggies are heated through remove to a bowl. In your skillet add reserved tomato oil and blend with flour to create roux. Whisk in bullion and bring to a boil. Whisk in milk and allow to thicken. Toss chicken and veggies in sauce, add spinach and allow to rest over low heat while draining pasta. Toss all together or serve by spooning sauce over pasta.


Tuesday - Chicken veggie and noodle soup.

The chicken didn't get me as far because there wasn't as much concentrated meat to work with but I still managed to get out with the $10 chicken and emptying my pantry.

There are a million meals you can make with leftovers like this. Pita pockets for lunches in place of those $7 fast food meals that you (and your behind) don't really like anyway. Grab a flour tortilla, a leaf of lettuce and some thinly sliced roast beef with your favorite dressing or some tomatoes and you have an easy and cheap beef wrap. Chik-fil-A makes the most wonderful chicken wraps. But imagine how much you could save making them at home from LEFTOVERS? It's not a dirty word if you know how to say it!

I haven't had any takers on the Pantry Challenge yet so if you stumbled across something this week that had you saying, "Hmmm?" pass it over. I don't have a mission for Mom Tip Monday for next week so if you have a challenge for me feel free to zip it to me at ineedthezoo(at)yahoo(dot)com and I'll be happy to give you my two cents.

Have a great week and happy leftovers to all of you! Your wallet will thank you!

Mom Tip Monday - Menu Planning 101

It's Monday again! And as promised this week we are working on Menu Planning. In preparation for this post I put up a quick one liner over in the MomDot forum. "What challenges do you face when you are menu planning?" Holy Smokes! The response from my fellow mom blogs was overwhelming so we will be spending more than just one week on this. Remember, if you have a question or you want to hear my take on your challenge, zip it over to me at The Zookeeper's Inbox (ineedthezoo(at)yahoo(dot)com). But more on that later.

This week we're vlogging - aren't you thrilled? It's on the old camera so you may need to spike your volume. And please pardon Orangutan's run by interruption. She's got great timing like that!

So are you ready for The Pantry Challenge? Do some digging and send me your challenge at ineedthezoo(at)yahoo(dot)com. And for those who didn't take notes while the web addresses were zipping by, here they are one more time.

allrecipes.com
kraftfoods.com
and pillsbury.com

I hope this helps you stretch that budget a little and gives you some new ideas for dinner tonight. Next week, Budget Stretchers. How I fed my family for a week for $15! You don't believe me do you? See you next week!