Avocado smash sandwich

I love avocados. They are the best food in my books. I eat them seasoned and sometimes just out of the shell. I love them. I have not tried the fries yet, I had one incident where I tried it cook with an egg. It could have been the egg but that was awful and never again will I try to make something that will ruin such and amazing piece of fruit. 

So this was a quick simple lunch and took me less than 5 minutes to make. May have taken less had I not been telling Yasser how I ate this all the time while pregnant her. I also made he father go out in a horrible snow storm to get me stuff to make this once. 

Poor Justin, I still feel bad 6 years later, not at the time though. Never mess with a pregnant lady and her cravings. 

You need: Avocado

Lemon

Salt and pepper

onion

1 garlic clove

A few tomato chunks 

Asiago cheese

1 can of tuna 

Bread 

Peel the avocado and dice. Place in the bowl add cheese, salt and pepper and the lemon. Gentle mash
( I love chucks so I do not make it smooth).

Add onion, tomato, garlic and tuna. Mix together and place in side the bread. Now this is ready to eat and enjoy. Quick simple meal.

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. 

Mustard pork

I am not a huge fan of fall, it means Summer has ended. The days get shorter and colder, then the snow comes. Okay I just do not like cold and to me anything under 70 is way to cold, some days 70 is to cold.   One of my friends brought me homemade mustard and

 I had to make a delicious fall meal. 

While oil is heating season the pork really well then brown. 

Now chop up carrots, and onions ( if you want to add parsnip) I tossed in mustard and salt, pepper as well as paprika with oregano, parsley, basil, and thyme.

Set meat aside so you can put the veggies on the bottom. This will rise the meat over the juices and let it get a slight crispness to it and the veggies will roast in the liquid adding flavor.

Coat the meat with mustard and paprika then bake at 450 until cooked through.

Roast potatoes with salt and pepper. 

Slice meat and serve. 

Quick grilled pork

We have recently started shopping at Bj's and I came across a buy one get one free for dressings. We got a caesar and a balsamic but unfortunately I was the only one who liked it on salad but it worked on the pork.

I figured nice hot days require grilling but I can not use my grill unless I want to deal with stupid landlord rules. This is where the cast iron comes into play. I truly love my collection :)

I marinated the pork over night. 

I grilled the pork on my cast iron pan and added pepper.

I tossed the asparagus in oil with salt and pepper. 

As I let the pork rest, I grilled the asparagus. Which makes this dinner perfect for 

really hot summer days. 

I chopped up the asparagus and grilled some onions and made a quick salad. 

The plating was simple I put potatoes on the bottom with a pork on top and a salad to the side. 

Budget planning : I buy the pork in bulk at $12 and I get 6-8 meals. Potatoes cost about 1 to 2 dollars and asparagus during the summer is about $4  and an onion is maybe a dollar. 

this meal for 6 people is about $8 coming to $1.50 each. 

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. 

Broccoli Cheese Meatloaf

                                      

Personally I can't stand meatloaf, but my daughter and husband are pure carnivore. My father in law tends to make this meatloaf that has meat and broccoli inside it and cheese melted on top. I sorta tried to keep with that theme but my own version. 

 This recipe is a broccoli cheese filled meat loaf wrapped in bacon and BBQ sauce and cheese over the top. This is a meal my daughter loves and she loves it even more when I make shaped like a cupcake.

 For the meat loaf we need: Bacon
                                             3-5 pound ground beef (depending on the amount of people)
                                             Tarragon, oregano, basil, thyme, paprika, marjoram, savory

                                             Salt and Pepper

                                             Panko and eggs
                                             Broccoli
                                             Provolone

Add all of the seasoning to the meat with eggs and panko. Mix well 

Lay plastic out and layer the bacon.

This will be on the outside and create a crust. 

Now press ground beef out on top of the bacon. 

Keep in a nice even layer. No thinner than 1/2 inch. 

Add cheese and broccoli. 

Roll and stick inside a loaf pan. 

Cook at 375 until the beef is fully cooked and temps at 160. I pour out the extra grease that collects. Then place BBQ sauce and  cheese until a nice and bubbly-ness appear.

Now for the lovely mash potatoes.

For 7 people I cooked 8 potatoes. First we peeled it and then boiled it until soft. 

After the potatoes are cooked I whip them with butter and a small amount of milk and seasoning. 

I love garlic with cheddar. 

Cook some green beans or salad as a side and call it a night.