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. 

Tomato slow cooked chicken

I am always taking pictures and I can never remember which picture actually make it up and which ones don't. I started this article and stopped so many times I totally forgot which story I was going to share with it.

My background is Hispanic. I am not a pureblood but my mom is from Panama and I grew up for the most part with her family. I spoke Spanish at home for years and my Mami Abuela made sure I knew how to cook. She also tried to teach me how to crochet and sew which is something I did not master until recently. So my version of comfort food is Spanish or Spanish type food. This is my quick toss it in the pan Spanish style chicken served with rice.

This is also considered low budget because I used 2, (3 if a want a ton) chicken breast and feeds about 6 people. 

2 cloves of garlic

2 chicken breast 

1 large onion 

rice 

can of tomato or 3 medium tomatoes 

oregano 

salt and pepper 

parsley 

1 cup of  Chicken broth

Sautee onion and garlic until translucent with seasoning and salt and pepper. Add chicken until browned. Add tomatoes and broth and simmer until liquid is reduced. Make rice and serve.  

This meal came to about $10 ( I forgot how much the chicken breast is going currently) 

which puts it at about $1.70 per person. :) Happy eatings

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. 

Pepper Steak

                                                 
There is nothing worse than working hard all day and all the sudden remembering you have 3 hungry kids and a husband to feed. I am not a huge fan of the crock pot but from time to time the thing has saved my butt a few times. After the insanely long weekend I caught a fun head cold which in turn has made me moody and not pleasant, I also do not want to cook. So savory pepper steak it is.

 ½ inch thick strips of beef 

Salt and Pepper

2 cups of pepper and onions 

1 can diced Tomato

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce 

1 tsp Tex- Mex seasoned salt 

                                             Toss in a crock pot and serve with rice. 
                                               I also made green beans. 

As for the budget of this meal the total for 6 people ( I had enough for 2 people) and a lunch set up as well. The meat was $4 and a can of tomato, half a bag of pepper and onion blend and rice brings the total at the most $10. This makes the meal about $1.50 per meal. 

Bridging part 2

For our Bridging we want to do something special and remarkable each year. We decided on mini piñatas filled with confetti and glitter with the patch on the inside. 

WARNING THIS TAKES A LOT OF TIME!!

Do not try to do this project quickly because it needs time to dry and if you do fringe that is another painstaking process. 

Items needed: 

Card stock

scissors

glue

crepe paper

confetti

glitter

string

hot glue gun 

First you need a templet: Which I found here 

Print the templet out on card stock to save a step other wise you need to transfer your templet to card stock. 

 

 In the small square center which will be the bottom you need cut out a square so you can have a "door" that pulls open. I put the crepe paper but only glue at the exterior edge because I wanted the center to not be crazy strong.

Now for the fringe paper. I cut a ton of paper and then fringe the entire thing so when I glued it on it would look nice. 

Then I made my bottom. You need to use the hot glue or super glue or something so the cord stays attached to the bottom when you pull the "door". Otherwise this will not work and you will have kids staring at the piñata trying to figure out what happened. 

 I glued the paper on in a pattern using the girl scout green and white. I also somehow managed to line it all up too.

 Glue it on all of the sides and set aside to dry. Do not try to use a heat gun to speed the process up this resulted in almost burning my house because apparently this is extremely flammable.

 Now we trim the sides so the fringe is not in the way of glueing the sides down.

 I very carefully snaked the string through the paper on the bottom and closed it up

 Then you get the two sides glued together and let it dry.

 Now is the best part fill with glitter and confetti. We even put our bridge in so it would fall on the girls. At least in theory it would.

 I learned how to make this better for next time and am glad the girls had fun. I am not 100 % sure I want to do it each bridging ceremony big they take so long to make and clean up but the girls loved it.

Steak Solvaski

Marley was upset with me that she has ben getting a ton of "not yummy dead cow". Steak is expensive and I want to work with a tight budget to save some for my dream house. I hear a lot of steak salsbury but have never had it and decided to make up my own thing. So here is my Greekish cubed Steak.
                                                               

I started buy making roasted potatoes. I washed and chopped the potatoes. Tossed it with oil and seasonings. Normally I use salt, pepper, paprika, basil, oregano, and thyme.

Now for the steak, put salt pepper and basil on both sides. Add a small amount of butter in a hot pan and cook the steak. 

Set the steak aside and start mushrooms. 

Sautee the mushrooms with onions and garlic with parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the left over sauce from the chicken solvaski. (If you refrigerate the leftover sauce the grease will harden and easy to separate.) Add the steaks and cook until until the potatoes are done. 

Two pieces of cube steak is $4, a giant bag of potato that gets me 4 meals is $5 and mushrooms are $3.50. Each meal comes to about $3 a person.

Spanish Lasagna

I have such a hard time letting go in the kitchen. It is my special place a way from the kids and now they want in. It is great that they want to learn because then they know how to cook and it teaches culinary skills and math.  I love food from all parts of the world. My comfort food will always be my Spanish meals. 

This is my crazy lasagna that I made because my perfectly envisioned tortillas were made by my children. They made them a little to thick and not very round.   So I adjusted my smothered burritos to lasagna. Everyone loves that right?

 The ingredients:

Ropa Veja

Red chili sauce

flour tortillas

cheese 

I layered the ingredient. I started with the sauce which I learned after the first lasagna I made was very important. I don't think I am allowed to make traditional lasagna after that first time, somehow the pasta baled and became hard, it was pretty bad. After the lasagna is layered you put it in the oven and cook it until heated through.

Then after it is done cooking top it with guacamole, salsa, sour cream and anything else you want. I think this will be the only lasagna I will ever be allowed to make again. 

Lowes Build and Grow

I am some what handy, my dad made sure I knew what the different screw drives are.  I want to kids to  know how to take care of things for when they move out.  I have started looking for projects and things to do that allows me to teach the kids basic skills. Lowes offers build and grow clinic, the best part is it's all free!!!! So the kids got aprons and little hammers with googles.  Our first project was Iron man's Jet and they turned out amazing. We did not take pictures as we made the project because it was 3 kids to the 2 of us and one of them were in constant need of help. Maybe one day as they feel more comfortable  and we can take pictures from the beginning. But for now I will just tell you how much fun it was and the after picture. It is also a solid project and simple enough for the kids to figure out the only thing was hammering was difficult for them but once they get use to it I think it will be a breeze.