A defrost tray

 So we got this beautiful large freezer this year. It was wonderful except for the fact I never decide what I want to eat until like lunch and then the food does not always defrost in time for dinner. My husband was reading I believe amazing gadgets to have on the Chive. I honestly have no clue and he bugged the crap out of me how we needed it. So I gave in and bought it. I honest did not believe it would work. 

 So I set it on the tray 

 This is about 15 minutes later 

within 30 minutes.

I could not believe it. So if you want you own try click my link and buy it :D 

1 X Gourmet Trends Quick & EZ Defrosting Tray

The best part of this time saving tray is it was $14.06, and well worth it.

Bacon Mac and Cheese

So this summer with the chaos in the house we got lazy with the cooking.

Last night I made a scratch made Bacon Mac and Cheese. My macaroni and cheese connoisseur still complained. He said it was good but still missing something, I am pretty sure he is giving me a hard time because he had 2 insanely large plates. 

Everyone thinks making macaroni and cheese is difficult and time consuming, I promise you it really is not. 

To start boil pasta. While I was boiling my pasta I set everything else up. 

 Shred the cheese this will make the rest simple. 

Drain the pasta out and I used the same pot for everything. 

Cook the bacon until nice and crispy. and set it aside. 

In the bacon fat toss the onions, salt/ pepper ( I used my Tex- Mex blend) and equal parts flour. 

The flour and fat will make a rue and that will thicken the milk creating a white sauce which we will add the cheese creating a cheese sauce. 

So I added about 2 cups of milk, and you simmer until it starts to thicken. 

Chop up the bacon and add with the cheese. 

Mix until the cheese is nice and melted and the bacon is well incorporated. 

Add the pasta and mix until everything is coated. 

Now enjoy the beautiful bacon macaroni and cheese.  I served with green beans. 

I will try to remember to price everything out and do my budget prices but it should come to about $2 a person depending on what kind of cheese you use. Better taste comes from the stronger flavored cheese. 

Fried Chicken and mac-n-cheese

My family settled for a time period in Macon, GA. While down there I grew to love my southern comfort food. I have worked hard learning how to cook foods that I really love without having to go out often and friend chicken is one of the hardest things to master. The reason I feel that it is the hardest is because not enough flour mixture the to over cook the chicken and its not good, under cook it and you get sick. If you bake it you lose some of the flavor, making it such a finicky meal. 

I started with my chicken because I was doing oven baked "fried" chicken and it was going to take the longest. 

 I pull out my flour (1 cup) and turmeric (1 teaspoon), paprika( 2 teaspoon) , salt, pepper, small a mount of Italian seasoning. Mix it all together and set aside.

Now for my wet ingredients. I used 1/4 cup milk, 2 eggs, salt and pepper to taste. Mix really well and set aside. 

Now is the time to pull out the chicken and start the long pain staking process of pat dry roll in the flour and set aside and do the remaining. 

After all of the chicken is dusted dip in the egg mixture and roll around in the flour again. Repeat with the rest. 

At this point I toss into the oven and let cook at 350 for about an hour give or take depending on the size of your chicken. 

Now for the mac and cheese. 

I made pasta ahead of time and set aside so I was well prepared to my one hour crunch time. 

I made a quick rue (1 tablespoon flour to 1 tablespoon butter) and added onion, garlic, turmeric, salt and pepper to taste. I get my sauce some what thick and then add the cheese. I love real raw sharp cheddar cheese with dubliner cheese for its bite but for this meal I used the regular cheddar found in the dairy section.  

Mix it until all of the cheese is melted. Add the pasta and mix well. Then I made a quick simple salad. 

This meal came to about $14 for the entire meal. This feed everyone and we had leftovers, making each serving about $2 per person. 

Chicken Solvaski

We moved to Maryland 4 years ago for work which was a horrible idea but some good came out of it. We found a prefect little Greek restaurant and it became out go to for eating out all the time. We would order 4 meals because if you bought 3 the 4th was free. Justin would order a gyro and the kids and I would order Solvaski with a falafel meal. Each meal came with the most amazing salad and rice. Out of everything in Maryland I really really miss our little restaurant. They even delivered now I have nothing like that local to me and my delivery man ( which is Justin) complains and his job is moving further from the only greek place we found. So now it is time to take action and learn how to make our own Greek food. I made chicken solvaski for the third time.

So for ingredients:  

• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika or paprika
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or grated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt + 1 teaspoon pepper

Now mix everything together to create a marinade. Leave the chicken in the marinade for a few hours. 

 I cooked the chicken in the marinade at 350 for about an hour and a half. 

Then I made white rice using chicken stock and added butter and lemon with parsley with sautéed green beans.

I have been working with limited funds so this meal cost me maybe $2.00 per person. We have been buying chicken thighs for $4 and it has about 10- 12 thighs in it. Each person gets one and the bag of green beans was $.99 rice is also nice to keep in the pantry. Save the marinade/ chicken stock for the next meal. (Please keep a close eye on the bottom of the food entries for more budget saving tips and tricks.) 

 

Red Chili sauce

I have never tried to make my own sauce. I am not Mexican and my Spanish family loves to remind me that when I cook. I have always figured if i want to food to taste amazing it needs days to cook so the sauce should be the same. Well I quickly learned that is not true. The sauce took a few hours and it was not really time consuming at all.

Ingredients:
5 cups chicken broth
1 onion chopped ( do not worry about finely cutting it)
3 garlic cloves
about 12 dried New Mexico chile peppers stemmed (it said seeded but I left it)
2 corn tortillas
Salt
extra hot sauce as needed

Supplies:
Ninja Master Prep (QB900B)
pot
knife and cutting board

Directions:
Sautee the onion and garlic until it becomes slightly soft and translucent in color.
Add broth, bring to boiling then reduce heat to medium. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Then add chile peppers and tortilla and remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Place ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Strain. Put back into pot and simmer sauce for about 15 minutes until thickened.

Now you are ready to cook. 

Starting a school binder

Living with Autism is tricky because the first several years you completey rely on a group of people you have never met before to help you decide what is best for your child. You trust them to help you decide how to handle the melt downs and how to handle the downs as well and the ups. 

When you first meet your team you don't even have an official diagnosis. 

I was lucky that I love to research, I am not even lying I really love to research things. 

Now I am testing the boundaries yet again. I refuse to let my son's disabilities define him. I want him to expand beyond what our society believes to be normal for a kid with autism. 

He has been stealing Yasser's school work and doing it on his own but his social skills are no where near where they should be.

To help keep things in order we have been working on binders and schedules. I started out by searching for cute prompts the create cards to help label everything. We have things for daily chores, brushing our teeth, etc. 

After I colored everything and cut it all out I then made a blue background and cut it all out. I have learned that if I make things his favorite color then he will pay attention and give it a try. 

I also learned to laminate things because sometimes they find there way into water when he does not like something. We bought  Purple Cows Hot and Cold Laminator, Includes 100 3 mil Hot Pockets, Assorted Sizes (3016c) It is also 100% amazing to own. We use it for school and some of our daily lives things. I will be added more pictures as I continue to sort and organize things. But right now our binder is my favorite and I look forward to seeing what happens as we add school. The binder is divided up into different sections. The first has a weekly outline, the second has daily sections which allows us to break up things by the hour and the third has calendars for the entire year. We also have an entire section of school work for when he gets bored and goes for something else to do. 

He will excel despite what the statistics show.