A Lebanese Feast

I love going out to eat, but on our budget sometimes I have to make the take out. After talking with some friends the other day about Gyros and Falafel, I started craving Middle Eastern food. The hummus and garlic were calling to me (okay, maybe it was just my stomach). I had to have it. So with lentils on the brain already I wanted to make one of my favorite side dishes, Jedra, or Mujaddara to be exact. Luckily I was able to find a recipe here. Served in a pita with some grilled chicken, hummus, lettuce, and pickles it was just like take out!

Ingredients: Lentils, Rice, Onions, Cumin, Cinnamon, Olive Oil, Chicken, Hummus, Pitas, and additional condiments.

Caramelizing the onions is one of my favorite parts! Here's how they start out, just sweating a little bit.

 And after 15 minutes you get these delicious little noms!

What a feast we had! The recipe claims 4 servings, judging from the amount of rice in that bowl I would say at least 6 or more! Sounds good to me, leftovers for lunch this week!

All American Meatloaf!

Hope everyone enjoyed election day! Whether your candidate won, you're glad you had the day off, or you just like the "I Voted" sticker this is a great dinner! To celebrate I made an All American Meatloaf with roasted sweet potatoes. This is my mom's meatloaf recipe it is good with brown gravy or ketchup! Also makes enough for a couple of sandwiches for lunch, Eric's favorite!

Ingredients:
1 lb lean hamburger (90-93%)
1/2 small onion chopped
1 egg
3/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
1 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp. Milk
1 Tbsp. Sweet Relish
1 Tbsp. Ketchup
2 small or 1 large Sweet Potato
1 stalk celery
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a small pan saute onions with olive oil until translucent. Mix all ingredients together adding more breadcrumbs if mixture is too wet, more milk if too dry. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil and form the mixture into a loaf on the foil. No need for a pan, this method gets more crunchy outside parts! Bake for 1 hour, you want the meatloaf cooked through. Let rest before slicing. Great clean up - just throw away the foil!

I roasted the sweet potatoes on the same sheet pan with the meatloaf, I kept them seperate to avoid cross contamination. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into one inch pieces. Cut celery stalk in half the long way and then into 2 inch pieces. Toss on sheet pan with 1 tsp olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Place in oven while preheating.

Feeling under the weather or just need to warm up?

An easy to make chicken soup! We call this one the "Get Well Sooner Soup" around here!

Ingredients:

Olive oil

2 Carrots, medium dice

2 Stalks Celery, medium dice

1/2 Yellow Onion, small dice

2 cloves Garlic, minced

Pinch Red pepper flake

1/4 tsp Oregano

2 quarts chicken stock

1/2 cup crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup frozen corn

1 can cannelini beans, drained

2 cups chopped roast chicken

1 cup small cooked pasta of your choice

salt and pepper

Heat 1-2 Tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over medium low heat. Add onion and celery, cook for 5 minutes then add garlic and red pepper flake. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until softened. Add the tomatoes and chicken broth, scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the pot. When broth starts to simmer add corn, beans, and chicken. Heat through until hot. When ready to serve add pasta. If you are making this to freeze do not add pasta, it soaks up too much of the stock. Add salt and pepper to taste! Serve with Parmesan cheese and parsley.

If you are feeling under the weather I will sometimes add more garlic and red pepper flake! Always makes me feel better! And if you know someone feeling ill, cheer them up with some of this and send along a free package of Get Well Kleenex!

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Eggplant Napoleon

Vegetarian Dinner tonight! Using some reserved marinara sauce from the freezer and a little imagination I made a healthy and budget friendly dinner. These can easily serve 4, there are just two of us and we love leftovers!

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant, heavy for its size
3 cremini mushrooms
1 handful spinach
1 small clove garlic
1/4 cup Breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp. Grated Parmesan
1/4 cup Shredded Mozzerella Cheese
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 cup marinara sauce
1/2 Lb. pasta of your choosing

Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch rounds and layer in a colander. Add two pinches of salt and mix with eggplant, set aside for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400° F. Pat eggplant dry and arrange in an even layer on a sheet pan (or two). Brush both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, flipping once halfway. Slice mushrooms and saute in 1 teaspoon olive oil with a smashed clove of garlic until tender. Discard garlic and set mushrooms aside.

To build the Napoleons start with 4 large eggplant rounds, layer one spoonful of marinara, mushrooms, and mozzarella on the round. Add a smaller or similar sized eggplant round and continue layering marinara, spinach, and mozzarella. Continue layering ending with eggplant. You should have about 1/2 cup of sauce left over. Finish the napoleon with one more spoonful of sauce, the breadcrumbs, top with Parmesan cheese. We were able to make 4 napoleons, 4 eggplant layers high, and even had few rounds to snack on. Return pan to oven and cook for 7-10 more minutes.

Boil your pasta, drain, and add remaining sauce. If you are making this for more than two people or you like saucier pasta you may need more sauce.

Wondering what that colorful pasta is? Ronzoni Garden Delight spaghetti. Each serving has a full serving of vegetables! It was a GREAT deal at the store the other day! On sale 2 for $2 and I had a coupon to save fifty cents, and I only bought one....so it cost 50¢! So awesome!

Happy Halloween!

Wondering what to do with all that left over Halloween candy? Or the reserve candy you bought just in case more kids showed up (or your husband got to it on October 20th)? Why not make more candy from it!

Inspired by a Real Simple Magazine article on what to do with leftover candy I came up with a delicious treat! The recipe calls for white chocolate, but I am not a fan - too sweet! I used semisweet morsels, next time I will use darker chocolate. I actually made two different batches from this recipe. The first, above, was simple but the chocolate was too thick.

For the second try I took the already formed candy and broke it up into small pieces, then added more pretzels and Craisins. Cover the baking sheet with the new mixture and put the baking sheet in the oven set at 200° for 10 minutes. This allows the chocolate to temper and "glue" the pretzels and Craisins together. To serve just break into small pieces and enjoy!

Next time I will just add the extras from the beginning so it looks prettier! But hey, it still tastes good! I wish I had good pictures of the second batch, but we ate it up too fast! The candy never fully sets up, so its best to store in the fridge before eating it.

For the Trick on Halloween I bought these awesome candles that bleed as they burn down! They turned out even more creepy as one bled pink and one just pussed...GROSS!! Eric thought they were the best candles ever!

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Lentil Soup with Kielbasa

Started off the week on a high note! Lazy afternoon led me to make Ina's Lentil Soup with Kielbasa (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lentil-sausage-soup-recipe/index.html)!

Ingredients: Lentils (I used brown, but green are good too!), Onion, Garlic, Leeks, Thyme, Cumin, Carrots, Celery, Chicken Stock, and Kielbasa.

This was so filling! Served it with some rye bread toast and shaved Parmesan cheese on top! I cut the recipe in half and look how much we have left over! 6 more servings, maybe I will find a friend to take some! I now have half a pound of kielbasa in the freezer that can be used until January! Who thinks an apples and onion sausage dinner on cold winter night is in Eric's future? Other leftovers from this recipe are two leeks, be interesting to see what I can do with those besides potato and leek soup!

Weekly Budget update!

This weekend I spent $13 at Trader Joe's and $66 at Stop & Shop. Because I cooked so much last week I was able to spend less this week!

 Major Purchases: 2 lbs ground beef, package of fresh thyme, 2 filets frozen tilapia, lots of produce!

Good Deals: None this week unless you count all the free candy we keep getting for Halloween!

Meal Planning:
Lentil Soup
Eggplant Parmesan
Meatloaf
some sort of chicken with rice??
Leftover Beef Stew
Tilapia (date night!)

Every week I try and make a special "date night" meal to replace going out for dinner. I set the table, light some candles and spend a little more time cooking to make it special. This week I am shooting for sauteed tilapia in a white wine sauce with roasted potatoes and carrots. Wish me luck!!

A bit about me and my new blog!

Welcome to my kitchen! As you will soon see it is a very small kitchen, about 35 square feet! This is where the journey to savings began. After cutting back where we could everywhere else my husband, Eric, and I have challenged ourselves to save more money during these tough times. The best way we could think to do this is by limiting the amount of times we dine out each month. Though it was tough at first to continuously cook every night, I eventually came up with a system to both save money and time - and actually started to enjoy it!

We have a budget of $80 per week to spend on all food! That means if we want ice cream from 7 Eleven one night it has to come out of the budget. I will be sharing how I do with the budget as well as any awesome weekly finds and deals, and photos of the recipes I am making each night! Hopefully you will be inspired to start saving money, and dining in with food good enough for a restaurant!