simple salt

I love having jars of seasonings that is ready to go but the prices int the store is completely insane in my opinion. We have a place locally that I can go and buy bulk herbs and seasonings and build my own special seasonings. So far I have a Tex- Mex salt and Salt and Pepper jars. Mainly because I need to go shopping. My cupboard is running on E.

So here is my Tex-Mex seasoning and Salt and pepper. 

Both start with Salt and pepper. I hand ground my pepper using a motor and pestle. 

It is glorious when you are having a bad day. 

I did equal parts for the salt and pepper jar and set it aside. 

Now the Tex- Mex jar,  I started with the salt and pepper ( I made 2 jars)  and added cumin, fresh dried chili peppers, and cilantro.

I used a spice grinder to have more of an even cut but kept it slightly chunky for texture. 

Mix it together. 

I do not have measurements. Here is my reasoning, everyone and family has different taste. I love heat and spice but I know other people do not so the best thing to do is start with equal parts. If you hate cilantro then reduce it or take it out, if you love spice add more chili. Then add it to the salt pepper blend and test it. Adjust as needed. 

Frozen Breakfast sandwiches.

On our quest to go process free we decided to give our hand at ready made breakfast sandwiches. 

We bought: English muffins 

Bacon

Eggs 

Cheese

I tossed the bacon on a pan in the oven. 

Then I fried the eggs. I used this egg ring to keep the eggs in a nice tight circle to fit on the english muffin neatly. I just put a pinch salt and pepper on each egg. 

Place it on the English muffin. 

Top with cheese. 

Then add the bacon. Wrap it with foil and place in an air tight container. I marked when we made it. 

we found it easier to pull out what we want the day before so it cooks quickly.

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. 

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.

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.) 

 

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. 

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. 

Moorish crunch salad

I love Jamie Oliver and really started learning about him when he started the food revolution with our food in schools (Pilot). He talks about the process food industry and what is in the food. You really should take the time to watch it might make you think twice about the theory "we all have to die sometime".  His shows are part of the reason I started taking a close look at what we were eating. The more we looked at our health the more I decided it was time for a change. Recently I started running out of ideas for ways to feed my children and picky husband. I love almost any vegetable but I seem to be the only one in the house. I decided to look up Jamie Oliver cook books to see if I liked it. I started with the library and found Jamie's Kitchen. Best cook book ever!!! We love it so much that I may buy it soon. Well the first recipe we tried was the moorish crunch salad and served it with roasted chicken and homemade orange soda.

Dinner family style

My thoughts : minus the raisins (I have a thing with raisins, they are way to sweet and weird) This was delicious.
Yasser did not like the dressing but loved the salad.
Little Man loved the dressing and would not stop dipping things in the jar.
Hulk Man could not get enough of it.
Justin like everything else it was just okay.

Salad stuff before tossing

Moorish Crunch Salad

My pretty purple and white carrots next to the normal orange we are use too. 

4 carrots
3 radishes
1 large or 2 medium apples
rasins
( The recipe calls for 1 handful for fresh chopped parsley and mint. I only used parsley but I put it in my dressing jar.)
4 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
8 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon tahini
salt and pepper
2 tablespoon sesame seeds.

Close up

I found a really cool bag of organic multi color carrots and Trader Joe's (you would think they pay me but they do not I just love them). I then peeled and thinly sliced the carrots. Thinly slice the radish and quartered and chopped the apples. Toss together and set aside.

This is a great fall mix

In a small mason jar I made my dressing. I put the vinegar and tahini in a jar and shook it. Then I added the parsley and salt and pepper. After shaking it really well ( okay that was a kid job so they would leave me alone) I added the oil. You can just add it all at once and shake but this entertained the kids for a longer time period.

Dressing

I kept the raisin and dressing out and let everyone add what they wanted. This also means I can save the salad and make a left over green salad the next day. 

I think this dinner is a total win and plan on making it in the fall but maybe with pork.

Dinner time!!