A new chapter! ... Again

Well it has happened! I will be getting paid to write about one of the things I love most in this world: food! The articles are suppose to be more "newsy" and factual in this particular writing and I need to come up with articles that are interesting to the general food loving public. Stuff like, "How to cut your grocery bill in half" or "How to cook for diabetes". I get paid according to how much traffic goes to my articles, so I am interested in what you guys want to read about! If you have any suggestions for articles or questions you would like me to answer, post it up on my 3 lbs of chicken facebook page and I will be more than happy to take it into consideration. Once my page gets set up for these articles I will make sure the link is known and you can all join me on this new adventure!

As a side note, I have a recipe for you guys! Beau gets paid once a month and it is getting close to the end of our month so I am scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to food in this house. I suppose I could run to the store and just grab a couple things to make my life easier, but I thought, "nah!" I want to try to make dinner for the rest of this week using only the food I already have in the fridge and pantry. Which sounded easier when I first had the thought... but last night I started digging around and I found a half a box of macaroni noodles, some jarred tomatoes, sharp cheddar cheese, and some leftover chicken from a whole roasted chicken I had made the night before. Put it all together and what do you get? Pasta with chicken in a tomato cheese sauce! Yum! I love how that sounds... tomato cheese sauce...

I would have a picture for you, but before I could get out the camera we both had pigged out on it and it was gone! But I can tell you it looked as yummy as it tasted!

Pasta with Chicken in a Tomato Cheese Sauce

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 whole onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups roughly shredded cooked chicken
2 cups canned tomatoes
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped
a pinch of garlic salt
a pinch of brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
enough cooked macaroni noodles to feed 2 people

In a saute pan heat the olive oil and then add in the garlic and onion. Saute until soft and translucent and then add in the chicken. Saute for 2 minutes then add in the tomatoes. Let it simmer until the tomatoes begin to sauce up. Add in the rest of the ingredients (except the noodles) and let simmer for a couple minutes until the cheese is melted. Toss with the noodles and enjoy!

If you happen to have more things in your kitchen than I did then feel free to throw them in your sauce! It will change the flavor a little so stay consistent, but some capers, balsamic vinegar or white wine, etc. would all taste really yummy.

Down Home Mondays

Every so often I sit down cuddled up next to Beau and I think, "I will write a little something on my blog." But nothing will come to me. I just sit here staring at the screen, thinking of all of the recipes I have and the dinners I have made and I just sort of wonder if anyone really cares to read about my day to day. Does it matter or make any difference to anyone that Beau and I spent the day ripping out ugly dead bushes from our front yard and hacking down the cactus of ugliness from our driveway? And will anyone gasp with pleasure and surprise when I say that Ally is sitting up by herself now? You might be happy to know I have adopted the "meatless Monday" practice in an attempt to create a happier, healthier planet.

The truth is, I think my life is fantastic and I absolutely love my simple routine of cleaning, making baby food, and doing yard work on long weekends. I take great pleasure in walking the dog around the block. I love playing peek-a-boo with my little Boo and when Beau gets home it is like the sun has just risen for the first time all day. I enjoy making dinner and I don't even really care that I don't have a dishwasher (even if I complain about doing dishes all the time).

As exciting as it all is for me, sometimes I am reminded of a friend who I had in school. She had a baby and I was far from the time in my life where I would ever consider such a thing as a possibility. She looked at me and said, "Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone thinks my baby is as adorable as I think he is." Could it be, that when I sit down to recount the events of my day or week, that nobody thinks it is as cute as I think it is? It is definitely a possibility...

But regardless, it does help me to unwind and I enjoy looking back at recipes or times in my life. So like it or not, here are a couple more recipes. What I made for dinner tonight: macaroni and cheese, peppered buttermilk biscuits and pan fried potatoes. Perfect for a meatless monday, or in smaller quantities, a lunch for a group! So enjoy! Or don't... but here it is regardless!

Macaroni and Cheese
adopted from The African American Heritage Cookbook (and my memory)

1 1/2 cups dried macaroni noodles
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup milk
1 cup light cream
2 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp paprika

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the noodles until al dente.
While the noodles are cooking, in a pan melt the butter. Add the flour and whisk constantly for 2 minutes. While whisking, slowly add the cream and milk. Continue to whisk over a low heat until the sauce is thickened. Add the cheese and stir until the cheese is melted. Stir in the paprika and salt and pepper. Stir in the noodles. Place in a 1 qt. buttered baking dish. Top with the rest of the cheese and a couple dots of butter. Bake for 30 minutes.

Peppered Buttermilk Biscuits
These biscuits are a basic biscuit recipe that I made a little healthier by replacing shortening with coconut oil and adding whole wheat flour. They are hearty and go well with soups or as a filler for smaller meals. Even with the black pepper, they are delicious smeared with jam!

2 cups flour (1 cup whole wheat, 1 cup all purpose)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients. Cut in the oil with a fork or your fingers until it looks crumbly. Stir in the buttermilk and knead until it forms a dough. Roll it out to 1/2 inch thick, cut it with a glass cup, and place on an un-greased cookie sheet. Brush with buttermilk and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Pan-Fried Potatoes

2 potatoes per person, diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 Tbsp oil
salt and pepper to taste
mesquite seasoning to taste
chopped fresh oregano

In a large saute pan, heat the oil. Saute the onions until soft and toss in the taters. Toss them with the salt, pepper, and seasoning. Continue to saute them at a medium to medium low heat for about 30 minutes, or until cooked through and crispy on some edges. Sprinkle with oregano before serving.

You Dirty Dirty Rice! ;)

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." so said the famous Mr. Charles D as we all may remember from High School. It is probably a very over-used quote, but I found it to be relevant to this week. It really is the best of times; Ally is getting cuter every day and continues to entertain me with huge smiles and sweet baby giggles. Beau and I are contentedly building our lives together and the dog has settled into his routine here. But it is also hard times... money, screaming babies, sleepless nights in the anticipation of some very mean teeth... So indeed, I am among some of the best times of my life, and some of the hardest. I suppose that is what happens when you have a baby young, but at the risk of sounding cliche, I wouldn't have it any other way.

This week has been particularly hard on the wallet and I am waiting for the next pay check before I go grocery shopping. So dinners have consisted of leftovers in the fridge thrown together into something hopefully edible. Last night we had bean chili with leftover taco steak thrown in, along with wild rice, spanish rice, and some salsa. Throw a little cheese on top and it wasn't half bad, plus I cleaned out my fridge with this one. But the real unexpected treasure was tonight's dinner. I had some ground beef in the freezer which I thawed, and a little bit of basmati rice in a bag stuffed into the back of the pantry. Out of this I made something quite delicious! I believe that part of what made this so very yummy was my chicken broth that I cooked the rice in. The recipe can be found in one of my past blogs. Basically just chicken, chicken bones, onion, celery, carrot, etc. I reccommend always making broth with all of your bones and keeping some in the fridge and some on the freezer. It will save a meal when you have limited ingredients.

Jasmine's Version of Dirty Rice

1 cup basmati rice
2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper

1 pound ground beef
2 cloves garlic
a pinch of cayenne
a pinch of paprika
a pinch of whole cumin seeds
a pinch of mesquite seasoning
about 1/2 cup leftover spaghetti sauce
about 1/4 cup canned tomatoes

a little grated jack cheese on top

In a pot with a lid, boil the chicken broth, salt and pepper. Add the rice, turn down to a low simmer, cover and simmer the rice for 20 minutes. Turn it off and let it steam for a few minutes.

In a large saute pan, saute the garlic until golden. Add the ground beef and spices brown. Once the beef is cooked, add the spaghetti sauce and tomatoes to warm them. Let it all simmer together to create a little saucy meat mixture. To serve, put the rice down in a bowl, top with the meat and sprinkle with some cheese.

This really was very very tasty! And so stinken easy I can't stand it. :) I was also able to create a bunch of new baby food recipes while this was cooking that worked fantastic! Using the same basic, steam then blend method I cooked some apples, sweet potato, rice and carrots. All organic for my baby! Then I put some sweet potato in the food processor, a little but of rice and some apple puree. Blend it all up into a smooth puree and watch your baby love it! I would say the ratio was about 1/2 sweet potato, a little over 1/4 apples and the rest rice. (not the best ratio I have ever come up with, but hey, you get the idea right?) Also in my fridge is sweet potato rice, carrot apple, and apple. I am getting very good at this baby food making thing and I just love it! I wish it was as easy to feed grown ups...

I am a mom...

With the holidays come and gone, there is a lot of visiting festively decorated houses and dropping by families' houses. All sorts of different ways of doing things, styles of furniture, food traditions and styles of parenting. After many days of observing other peoples' parenting skills (or lack thereof) and then watching a marathon of Super Nanny, I started to wonder: what kind of mother am I? And what sort of family will I raise? Will my kids scream cuss words at me while throwing toys at my face, like some of the little monsters on Super Nanny? Or maybe they will be little hippies and love the earth to the point of obnoxiousness. It's a little early to tell how Ally and all my future kids will turn out, but I do know what kind of person I am now and I am sure my own little quirks and habits will have some sort of effect on her future quirks and weird habits.

I started to notice the things I do as I go about my day while I tried to figure out what kind of mom I am...

I am the kind of mom who reads Natural Health magazine while munching on a donut...




I am the kind of mom who hates to eat animals or look at picture of animals who will soon be food, and yet I am always raving about the delicious pork roast I make every so often that is just SO yummy!

I am the kind of mommy who keeps a very clean house, despite a messy baby and a messy dog who try to make this as difficult as possible...


I am the kind of mom who is always reminding everyone to drink water even though I never drink enough myself.

I am the kind of mom who went to culinary school but who's favorite recipes are the quickest and least complicated...


I am the kind of mom who makes her daughter's baby food myself from organic veggies and fruits.

I am the kind of mom who has her baby on a strict schedule because it makes me feel less chaotic.

I am the kind of mom who hates the wind because it rattles my brain.

And I am the kind of mom who sits down on the couch with a sigh after a long day and sips red wine while browsing through Facebook.

I am certainly not the perfect mom (even if I might think so after a particularly awesome day of eating all her food, taking her naps on time and lots of happy giggling) but I do hope I will be a good role model for my little lady and someday have a beautiful, thoughtful and caring young woman on my hands. As for right now, all I can do is watch her grow.

Ally's Favorite First

1/2 cup organic carrots, diced
1 organic apple, peeled and diced
3/4 cup filtered water
more water for steaming

steam the carrots for 15 minutes. Once soft, blend the carrots with 1/2 cup filtered water in a food processor until it is a smooth puree.
Steam the apples for 10 minutes and then blend with 1/4 cup water until it is a smooth puree. You can add more water if you would like a thinner puree.
In your baby food storage jar, mix 1/4 apple puree with 3/4 carrot puree for a yummy carrot apple baby food!

I used my Baby Cook machine to do the steaming and the pureeing. There are fool proof lines to show you how much water to add, a little steam basket to steam the fruits and veggies in, and very little clean up. If you do not have such a handy little contraption, the amounts of water and steaming times may take some trial and error. Also, with my handy little machine, I get to puree the fruits and veggies in the liquid it was steamed in to try to recapture some of those nutrients that are lost while steaming. You can do this too by using the steaming liquid instead of filtered water in the puree. Just steam your veggies in filtered water and ka-blam!

Chicky Chicky Chicken!

I am watching Beau play video games with my sister and her boyfriend and it almost makes me want to join in! Almost... :) I have never been much of a fan of these things unless it involves a little frog hopping across traffic to the river. I am very very competitive so I like instant gratification; meaning I like to win as quickly as possible. All of this shooting people, story lines, blah blah blah. It's just not my thing. But it sure is funny to watch other people play!

I would just cuddle up with a cup of hot chocolate and watch them contentedly except that it has been nagging at me that I promised some chicken recipes. So I thought I would take a moment to not only jot them down, but also to brag that I still have chicken in the fridge waiting to be eaten! One 3 pound whole chicken has been feeding us for days now, and it all started with a broth...

I have been obsessed with Nadia G lately (if you don't know who she is, you can look her up on the cooking channel's website) and I wanted to try a soup she made called Aztec soup. So I bought the stuff which ended up being very affordable and that is what started all of these chicken meals. The recipe only called for 1 cup of cooked chicken, but I wanted a whole one so I could make a broth. So I bought one little chicken friend and made a delicious broth. Usually I just stick the chicken, carved of its meat, in a crockpot and let it go on low over night. But this time I left the meat on, chopped it up to expose the marrow in the bones, and let it simmer with some vegetables (all chopped). I sauteed some carrot, celery, onion, and garlic in a stock pot. Then I added fresh oregano, threw the chicken into the pot and covered it with filtered water. I simmered it for 2 hours and let me tell you, the house smelled amazing! After I let it cool, I strained all of the broth into mason jars and hand picked all of the chicken off of the bones. There was already flavor in the chicken from cooking in the broth which is a nice added bonus.

As for the soup recipe it is a Nadia G recipe and I am not sure what the rules are about putting somebodies recipes on these things so I will just tell you this: you can look up the Aztec soup recipe by looking for Nadia G on cookingchannletv.com. It is a delicious, flavorful soup that is kind of spicy and very hearty. There is chicken, black beans, corn and wild rice in it. I used wild rice but I know the stuff is expensive and after eating it I would say that brown rice would work just as well. And she grills corn on the cob and then slices off the kernels and uses it in the soup but I am here to tell you that frozen corn does the job! And creme freche is her topping of choice; sour cream people. Let's keep it simple. Oh and one last thing, I could not find dried chipoltle peppers anywhere in my local grocery store- canned chipoltle peppers in that yummy sauce will do the trick. So take my little handy hints and try the recipe! It is well worth it.

And then for the rest of the chicken? That has been the fun part! Sure I could have done the obvious: chicken enchiladas, more chicken soup, etc. But I decided to just throw it in anything and everything. Chicken sandwiches for Beau to take to work with just lettuce tomato and cheese were simple and a nice change from lunch meat. Grilled cheeses with chunks of chicken, and then a personal favorite is this cheap box of spiral noodles in a cheddar cheese sauce (kind of like macaroni and cheese) and then just toss in chicken! My next meal will be tacos which is so super easy, just toss with some spices and grilled onions.

I know I didn't exactly give you any solid recipes to work with but I hope I at least gave you some ideas! So go out there friends and buy up some whole chickens, because they really do save money. Hence the name of this blog; there is so much to be done with Three pounds of chicken!

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Quick and Easy Chicken Enchilada Casserole

cooked leftover chicken
a mexican blend of shredded cheese
green or red canned enchilada sauce
corn tortillas

heat your enchilada sauce and soften your tortillas one by one in it before laying it in a casserole dish. layer down your chicken pieces, top with some cheese, then add another layer of tortillas. You can make another layer, or just top with lots of cheese and some extra sauce. Bake at 350 until the cheese is melted and it looks bubbly around the edges. let it cool a little before cutting and serving.

There are so many ways to fancy this up and make it amazing, so use this as a little rough draft and make your own masterpiece! Or make it as is for a quick dinner when you need something fuss free. It freezes very well and can definitely be made ahead of time and heated right before serving.

I've got a bunch of coconuts...

Here's to your health!

I have come up with a smoothie that just can't be beat when it comes to being nutrient dense and delicious. We all know how easy smoothies are, and that you can add or skip ingredients as you wish according to your own taste buds, but this makes a good base for whatever kind of smoothies you like. Every ingredient in it has a purpose and makes a fantastic wake up smoothie early in the morning when you are not allowed to drink coffee.

1/2 cup fresh young thai coconut juice
2 Tbsp fresh young thai coconut meat
1 little jar of homemade yogurt (about 3/4 cup), or store bought plain
2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
2 small bananas or 1 large one
honey to taste
ice

I know what you are thinking, it sounds like a difficult smoothie to make. I probably lost you at young thai coconut, but hear me out! You have yogurt for digestion and protein, flax seeds for omega fatty acids and fiber, bananas for potassium and mood boosting qualities, and of course, the coconut for energy, metabolism, your skin, and so so much more. The coconut is the most crucial part of this smoothie not just for flavor, but for nutrients sake. If you are not already on board the coconut band wagon, let me enlighten you!

Coconuts have had a bad reputation in the US and I am not really sure why, as they are highly regarded in almost every other part of the globe. They have been used not only as a delightful addition to the diet, they have also been used as medicine in Asian and Pacific populations. The juice, milk, meat and oil have all been found in various ways to treat baldness, stomach problems, scurvy, rash, malnutrition, skin infections, tumors, weakness, and the list goes on and on.

Unfortunately in America we had a period of time recently where we dismissed anything with any trace of fat in it, thinking it would make us, well, fat! Not true my friends and we should all know that by now. Fats should be a key component in our diet. They help your inner organs run smoothly, beautify your outer appearance and are a key component to brain function. So embrace your fats! And especially the coconut. Our "modern science" is just now finding out what millions of cultures already know: the coconut is a super-food! Coconut oil has been called "the healthiest oil on earth". Not only is it healthy, but the oil has one of the highest smoke points, which means you can heat it to a very high heat and it will not go rancid like olive oil or canola oil will. Now modern science finally knows that coconut can cure herpes, reduces inflammation, helps with diabetes, improves your bones and teeth, improves digestion and bowel function, supports the immune system, aids in weight loss, and so much more that I can't even begin to write it all down. But if you want to see a full list, you can go to coconutresearchcenter.org and see for yourself. And the reason I like coconut, and the purpose for including it in my wake up smoothie, is that coconut is nature's purest energy drink. The juice from a young thai coconut contains electrolytes and sugars that make up a perfect energizing combination. It literally perks you up and gets you going just moments after drinking it! And the benefits to your skin and hair are a plus too.

In these next summer months when everyone likes everything to be tropical, treat yourself to everything coconut and reap the benefits of nature's most nutritionally complete and miraculously healing food! You can find young thai coconuts at little Asian markets and sometimes Mexican ones. They are not the fuzzy brown ones we are all used to! Look for a white little block with one end flat and the other end in sort of a point. They should be very cheap and don't be intimidated by the exterior! They are quite easy to open.



To Open a Coconut...
1. use a sharp knife to shave away the pointed end until you reach the hard coconut.
2. set the coconut on it's flat bottom. imagine a small 3 inch in diameter circle on the top of the coconut. use the back end of your knife to whack the coconut where you imagine the edges of this circle will be. The coconut will begin to crack in a circle, just follow the natural cracks. Once it is loosened, you can easy take off the top and you will see it overflowing with yummy coconut juice!
3. How to check if it is bad... pour the juice into a mason jar or bowl. If it is slightly yellow tinted and smells sweet, you have a good coconut. If it is pink in any way and smells funny, throw it away. The meat should be springy and tight and not have any flecks of pink. Pink means bad!

And now that you know how to open a coconut you have no excuses! Drink the juice straight when you need a pick me up, throw the meat in smoothies or eat it as a snack, and find a health food store that sells coconut oil so you can start cooking with it! You want a cold-pressed extra virgin oil for the most nutrients. It is a solid oil unlike what you are probably used to. Delicious in vegan cookies as a replacement for butter!

Easy Snacks to Save Money (and keep you healthy!)

Beau and I are still on a constant mission to keep up with my ever-growing appetite and still stay within our grocery budget. It is for sure not an easy task since lately I have taken to wanting to eat 5 or 6 times a day! Now don't let that make you think I am just sitting around eating all day. It is more like, when I do eat I can only eat small bits because it feels like my stomach is being shoved into my lungs so I am eating more often. I am still loving my yogurt, but I have been trying to stock our pantry with other snack type things for on the go and for when I think I am starving to death. Granola bars are an easy and sometimes cheap go to snack, but unfortunately, they are so loaded with sugar! I have scoured the shelves at the grocery store looking for the "healthiest" granola bar, and to my dismay, the less the sugar the more they charge. TLC has a pretty good selection of healthier granola bars, but they are still about $1 more than the other brands. So today while we were at Target and I was picking up some boxes of snacks, I was looking around and thinking of how silly it is that I spend the money on these fancy boxes of little wrapped treats, when I actually happen to know how to make versions of all of these! I know how to make crackers, I can make my own trail mix and I even have a few granola bar recipes. So why do I spend the money on convenience? My goal when I became a natural chef was to inspire people to make healthy and delicious food on their own at home, but how can I expect people to take me seriously when I don't even practice what I preach?

Here are some reasons why I opt for convenience...
1. It seems so much faster
2. I love the packaging. Silly but true! It grabs my attention and pulls me in
3. You can get more of a variety by buying multiple boxes rather than a bunch of one type that you made
4. Fear that buying all the ingredients will cost too much

This was all that I could come up with so I decided to explore this topic a little bit. Wouldn't it be worth it to stock up your pantry and take a little time if it meant you would have much healthier snacks? And hopefully they would be just as tasty.

Snacks can be as simple as a piece of fruit or some veggies and dip. One of my all time favorites is ants on a log, which is just celery with peanut butter and raisins. But let's face it, sometimes you just don't want veggies! Or maybe all your favorite fruit is out of season, or perhaps you have had such a hard day that even the simple task of smearing peanut butter onto a celery stick sounds absolutely absurd. Hey, I'm not judging. I have been there. So here are some ideas that you can have around the house conveniently at your fingertips.

Trail mix is one of those awesome snacks with tons of good for you stuff and is yummy to boot. Unfortunately, grocery store trail mix can be upwards of $10 a bag and full of unnecessary sugar. A lot of people are afraid of nuts because of calories, but in fact they are very very good for you and in moderation can be a healthy "diet food". There are oils in nuts that are amazing for your health and all those little antioxidants we have all heard so much about. As for dried fruit, the quick jolt of sugar can be a fantastic energy booster, while the nuts are more slowly metabolized and will give you a more slow and steady type energy. So you have the whole package! A quick jolt to wake you up, and the slow and steady to keep you going for hours. Here is what you do: find a place that sells nuts and such in bulk. Stock up on your favorites such as walnuts, almonds, pecans etc. Now get some fruit. You want a little more nut, a little less fruit because of the sugar. It is healthy sugar, but you don't want to overdo it because even too much of a good thing can make you tubby. Some good ones are cranberries, dried blueberries, raisins are cheap, apricots, cherries, etc. Some flaked coconut, sunflower seeds, dark chocolate chips and wheat germ are all wonderful additions and each contain their own special nutrients. Mix it all up in an airtight container and pour small bits into a bowl to keep on the counter or coffee table. It will keep more fresh in the fridge, and if you only put small amounts you will be less likely to eat too much. A handful should be plenty. You will spend half of what you would spend on the packaged mixes!

I also have a recipe for a granola bar that took me weeks to make perfect! I came up with it for my dad and they were quite delicious, but the recipe seems to be MIA. I am on a mission to find it, and once I do I will post it right away. :)

But in the meantime, I found an easy sounding recipe on my school's forum that is similar to how I make bars when I want them. Once you find an easy base you like, you can always add whatever sort of ingredients you want to make it your own. It is never a bad idea to add some flax seeds, green powders, protein powders, etc. for a little additional nutrition.

This recipe calls for rolled oats, wheat germ, nuts and seeds of your choice, dried fruit, cinnamon, coconut,honey, nut butter, and coconut oil. One of my favorite ingredients in this recipe is the coconut oil. I added that in addition to the original recipe. It has a delightful flavor and fantastic health benefits. Coconut is another misunderstood food but trust me, the fats are incredible. It can even help you lose weight! For these bars, just toast the nuts and oats. Mix together all the dry ingredients. In a pot, melt together the wet ingredients. If it is too thick add a little water. Mix together everything and lay flat on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Put in the freezer and then cut into bars. Ta da!

So now you hopefully have a little inspiration and you can stay away from those expensive and terribly sugary packaged snacks. You can do something quick and easy like trail mix and pre cut veggies or get more creative and make your own bars to keep in your purse or eat when you are in a hurry. I hope you enjoy it!

He had a dream, isn't it time it came true?

This is a food blog so I try not to get too deep into my life and such, but I was watching a youtube video that a friend of mine put up and I was instantly so irritated I had to tell someone! So I will tell it to the vast pit of the world wide web. First of all, I am not irritated at my friend, she is awesome. It was what happened to her. Long story short, a mixed race woman took offense when my white friend commented on a video of hers, and the woman said she does not get along with white people.

Two things about this bothered me, and both have to do with the fact that I am due to give birth to a mixed race baby. First of all, the video my friend commented on was one where this mixed race woman had basically said she was ashamed of her race and the fact that she felt she was faking being one race or the other.

I am a "mutt" and by that I mean that I do not know for sure exactly what my race is. And in case you are wondering, I am fine with that. I know I look white for the most part, and my dark hair and dark eyes and ferociously bushy eyebrows that I have to tame with tweezers once a week are from the Mexican or Spanish blood on my father's side. I also know that somewhere in there I have some Czechoslovakian blood, which I think I only remember because it is such a long and difficult to spell name. But if someone were to look at me, they either say "wow you look exotic!" or else they assume I am white/Italian. (the funny part of that is that I don't think I have any Italian relatives, but I get it all the time!) But even though I don't have a specific heritage, this has never affected my life and now that I am going to have this baby, I suddenly am afraid that race is going to mean a lot to her. I don't know why, but with mixed race people, it seems they like to pick one or the other rather than embrace both of their parents' races, and I am horribly afraid it will be my confusing ancestory that she chooses to dismiss. Even though I don't know what my race is, I want my baby to love and embrace the mutt side of her! I can only imagine that if she chooses to dismiss the "white" side of her, that I will feel personally dismissed as well.

The second thing that bothered me so much about this was the more obvious, "I can't be friends with a white person." Racism has become a little bit more of a part of my life since I have gotten pregnant, but not in the way I had expected. It shows me how much hatred there is in this world for white people when I had never noticed it before, and unfortunately I have gotten to taste a little bit of that hatred, and more than anything I am afraid of raising a child who would do something so awful as to isolate a person because of their race. What is it about white people that makes other races hate us? To be honest I haven't the slightest clue, but it leaves me with that feeling you get at recess in grade school when you can hear the other girls talking about you but you don't dare try to confront them. I joined a bi-racial bulletin board website to try to learn more about the child growing inside me, but tolerance seemed to be only spared for those who are "colored" (as they called themselves) and going to have mixed babies- not a white girl. I guess us white girls are stealing all the good black men, doing our bi-racial babies hair wrong and causing racism... excuse me, but isn't excluding someone for their race the very definition of racism? I just can't understand it, and I don't know if I have the strength to try. I get dirty looks from black women who see me with Beau, and I have gotten comments. None of it bothers me as much as it bothers me to think that maybe someday, God forbid, my little girl would grow up to have this same attitude toward white people. And I just keep thinking, what is going on?

I can only hope and pray that good parenting and lessons in being kind to ALL people will make my little girl a tolerant and well-rounded human being. I just can't imagine how racism is ever going to die when people put so much weight on race! Aren't we all mutts by now anyway? Who here is really just one pure-bred human of one particular race. And who gives a crap???

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since this is a food blog, I have to put at least one recipe. This is one that Beau taught me and we had it with lunch today. When you are broke and running out of food, cook some rigatoni pasta and toss it with Italian salad dressing. I can taste that it would be awesome with some cherry tomatoes, green onions, feta cheese and some other pasta salad things, but for a quickie side, this is pretty yummy!

an extinct diet making a comeback

Beau and I have been volunteering at a community supported kitchen in Berkeley to get us out of the house while neither one of us is working. I would not exactly say the work is rewarding since we mostly chop and prep food to be cooked for the next day, so we don't see the finished product, but it is good times anyway. I think the most fun part of the whole experience is meeting such diverse and interesting people! Some of the people absolutely crack me up and have me asking myself, "Am I the only normal one here? Or is it the other way around?"

Something fascinating to me about this kitchen is the food that they cook. Everything is based on the studies of Weston A. Price. If you are not familiar with this man, I only know some vague details. Weston A. Price was a dentist who noticed the decline in tooth health in America and traveled the world looking for people with healthy teeth and studying their diet to see what they do differently than what we do. Not suprisingly, the people with almost no tooth problems were indigenous tribes and small "uncivilized" cultures. I think calling these people uncivilized is really not fair since they lived modest and happy lives and had little to no disease. We are civilized and look at us! Fat, unhappy, working our whole lives and not very healthy at all. Okay, I am being a little harsh, but you get the idea. So anyway, he travels the world studying all of these diets and finds all of these fascinating parallels between the different tribes all over the world. Certain things were the same no matter where he went. Obviously, no processed foods and no abuse of sugar, they ate a lot of organ meats and not a lot of muscle meat, and fermented foods were a regular part of the diet. They ate locally because, duh, they had to; and they ate food in season. There is a lot more but I don't have the time or the memory to write it all down. If you are interested, his studies can be found at westonaprice.org and it is really worth taking the time to read; if only to get another look at nutrition and maybe rethink what you think is healthy. His ideas are dismissed by some scientists for the ridiculous reason that they can't go and "double-check" his findings since all of the indigenous tribes have been wiped out by the rest of civilization. That is why his findings are so fascinating to me though, is that he was able to see how these traditional people ate and lived before they went extinct! And if you think about it, humans are really just animals; and maybe it isn't such a good idea to have all this "civilized" stuff because we forget our basic animal needs.

I am not exactly condoning a strict Weston A. price diet. People seem to forget when they read these studies that yes, that is what the people ate, but they also had to hunt down their food and live very physically strenuous lives. We tend to be very sedentary in this day and age and we just don't require the same amount of calories and fats to survive. I doubt any of us burn enough calories to be equivalent to that of a person who is hunting his dinner then skinning and cutting and cooking it. I happen to be in the camp of, no matter what you read about diets and nutrition, as long as you are listening to your body, eating locally and seasonally (doeasn't that also equal "fresh"?) and not being a total glutten that you are probably doing just fine. No diets needed! But it is still fun to read about them. Well for people like me it is, who also read cookbooks from cover to cover and drool over cooking magazines.

If you do read Mr. Price's studies and are interested in cooking some more food along his guidelines like this place I volunteer at does, I would recommend the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It is full of Weston A Price inspired recipes and little blurbs on health and is quite easy to follow! I have a copy and I love the fermented beverage section and some of her meat recipes, although you question them at first, are delicious!

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Liver and Onions
(gag right? But after reading some of Weston A Price you might want to become more friendly with the funky little organ meat. According to him, it holds tremendous health benefits and is recommended to eat a couple a times a week, especially for pregnant women.)

• 1 pound beef liver
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1/4 cup butter, tallow, or other fat
  
• 1 large onion, sliced into rings
• 1 cup flour, (any will do: spelt, rice, arrowroot)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Rinse liver slices under cold water, cut liver into strips, and place in a medium bowl. Cover with milk in bowl. Soak from 30 minutes to overnight - whatever you can.
   
2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter or other fat in a large skillet over medium heat. Separate onion rings, and saute them in butter until soft. Remove onions, and melt remaining butter in the skillet. Season the flour with salt and pepper, and put it in a shallow dish or on a plate. Drain milk from liver, and coat slices in the flour mixture.
3. When the fat is hot, place the coated liver slices in the pan. Cook until nice and brown on the bottom - about 30 seconds. Turn, and cook on the other side until browned. Add onions, and reduce heat to medium. Cook a bit longer to taste.
   

Serve with raw sauerkraut.

One thing that is also really fun about the kitchen we volunteer in is that every time a recipe calls for fat or butter, they always use chicken fat! Sounds fattening? Well get over it, it is SO tasty and they seem to think it is also good for you and I think my shiny hair and glowing skin will agree.

1 more way to eat chicken...

The weather here is seriously playing with my emotions. Okay weather, is it summer now?! Or is this a trick to get me to fold up all my sweaters and put them away so you can turn around and rain on me again? Oh well, whatever the reason, the weather was delightfully sunny and hot today. Like a real summer! Only of course now I am use to the Bay Area weather and not the desert climate I was raised in, so the 75 degree heat felt like a sauna. All day I felt like a huge hippo and I couldn't seem to drink enough water. Which I guess is a good thing because all throughout this pregnancy I have struggled to get enough water and stay hydrated. I was never very good at the "8 glasses a day" rule and it was even tougher to drink enough for 2! But today I had no problems. But now the new problem is that I absolutely hate to eat when it is hot outside! Something about the heat makes all food except fruit and yogurt or ice cream sound heavy and unappetizing. So while I was finally drinking enough water, I was struggling to get myself to eat, and dinner was much later than normal. My appetite returned right around the time the sun was setting and it began to cool off. Unfortunately, when I made my menu plan and bought groceries it was raining, so my menu plan read: "stew, roasted chicken, etc." Not exactly hot weather food for a girl with no appetite. But I did manage to come up with something quite delicious!

The other day when Beau and I ran into a specialty European market, we had bought some fresh pasta. Sound expensive? Here is a trick: look for the "day old" pasta. They will have it someplace off to the side and it is just as good but literally 1/4 of the price! Which adds up to be about the amount for some dried cheap pasta at the store. Only this pasta happened to be handmade goat cheese and spinach raviolis. Yum! So I had a little but of the yummy pasta left that needed to be used and I also had some creamy garlic sauce that I had bought with it. Sometimes when you feel uncreative or if you are like me and can't afford millions of separate ingredients, the fresh pre-made pasta sauces are a God send at these little markets. Or of course, you can't go wrong with a simple pesto. I once advised my mom to use walnuts instead of the more expensive pine nuts in her classic pesto (you know the kind; with basil and garlic and such) and she said it turned out great! But in this case I had this creamy sauce. Not really feeling like cooking, I wanted to get a whole meal in one shabang. So I threw in a protein- chicken, (are you surprised?) and a veggie- asparagus. Asparagus is in season right now and I love it enough to eat everyday! The result was a loaded-with-goodness creamy sauce that was not too rich and creamy to be heavy and filling, served on top of fantastic little raviolis. It looked like something I would pay $20 for at a fancy Italian place, but it cost much less than that and took me about 30 minutes to make. Not too shabby! I served it with some olive bread that was cheap at Safeway and Beau and I were completely satisfied. I once read that it is very "un-European" to serve bread with pasta, which makes sense since it is a carb on top of carb, but after my very American upbringing and having been served bread at every Italian place I have ever been to, it is almost an unbreakable habit. And Beau used the bread to get every little bit of sauce on his plate.

So even though it is my personal opinion that this dinner was a little more suited for the gray and dreary weather we were getting used to, it was still very good and well worth trying! And so so easy to make, which is always a favorite of mine and of most women I know.

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Creamy Pasta with Chicken and Asparagus

ok, so this was all done in true "I don't feel like cooking" fashion, so I don't actually have a recipe. So from my memory, here it goes:

chop up 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic. While you are at it chop up about 8 stalk of asparagus. If you don't know, you need to remove the woody end of the asparagus, it is not so yummy. You can do this by holding it at either end and bending it until it snaps. It will snap where it is suppose to. Then in a pan, saute the onion. After a minute add the garlic. (I wait to add the garlic because it burns easily.) Once soft, add the asparagus and saute until the asparagus us bright green and tender crisp. I like my vegetables to be not mushy, especially if I am adding it to pasta. Once the asparagus is cooked, add diced cooked chicken to the pan and saute just to heat the chicken through. I had cooked the chicken in the oven with salt and pepper just before preparing the rest of the meal. I only needed 1 chicken breast and it took maybe 15 minutes, but to be honest I didn't time it. Once the chicken is hot, add the sauce. I used about 1/4 cup of the creamy garlic sauce diluted with about 1 tsp of pasta water. It was the perfect amount for us but that all depends on taste. Season with salt and pepper and your sauce is done! Then add your pasta to some boiling salted water. When pasta is fresh, you know it is done when it begins to float to the surface. This should only take about 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the raviolis and arrange them on the plate then spoon the chunky creamy sauce on top. If you have more money than me, top with some fresh Parmesan cheese or else just serve!

Mom's Banana Bread

Today was one of those tragically rainy days when you wish so bad it would be summertime but alas, the clouds open up and dump all over you. Then everyone says, "Oh good! We need the rain!" But all you can think of is that you would really love to wear that cute summer dress your mom bought you and your new yellow shirt looks much better without a sweater over it. Or maybe that's just me...

But even though the weather was not what I had hoped for, it did give me some time to do lazy day type things like make homemade yogurt. I know making yogurt seems like the sort of thing you only do when you have lots of time on your hands, but if you eat yogurt at all I think you should consider making your own! It is really really easy and you don't get all that icky junk that most yogurt companies put in their products to make it thicker or more sugary. Yogurt, especially plain yogurt, is really good for you if you haven't already heard. All those friendly bacterias are super good for your gut and can help you digest food and even lose weight. If you have ever read Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat or French Women for all the Seasons, she raves about the benefits of yogurt on your figure. She even dedicates an entire chapter to just yogurt where she not only recommends eating yogurt twice a day but gives you a simple recipe to make your own. To be honest, I never had any luck making my own yogurt until I invested in a yogurt maker. If you eat as much yogurt as I do, the maker quickly pays for itself! I think I paid about $30 for it. It comes with 7 adorable little glass jars with lids and you only need to buy milk each time you want to make another batch. It takes all of 10 minutes with the yogurt maker and the result is creamy yummy plain yogurt with no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, no sugar and best of all, it does not cost almost $1 for only 1 jar!

After my yogurt was all done and nestled into the little maker where it will sit for hours turning into yogurt, I decided it would also be a perfect day to put those over-ripe bananas to good use. I pulled out my little notebook where all my favorite recipes are written down, and right there in the middle, where the notebook naturally wants to open is a recipe for my mom's banana bread- hands down the best banana bread you have ever had! I have made it countless times throughout my life and it never fails me. Nothing says home to me like the smell of my mom's banana bread...

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Mom's Banana Bread

12 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
3-5 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts

beat oil and sugar together. Add eggs and bananas and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients, milk and vanilla. Mix well and stir in nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover with foil to prevent the top from burning and bake for another 30 minutes.

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I can't wait to have fresh yogurt and banana bread for breakfast tomorrow!

chicken soup for the lazy girl's soul

I am watching You've Got Mail while my body attempts to digest an entire half a tube of Toll House cookies I made and then foolishly ate all of. Beau is away at a graduation party and I am, yet again, stuck at home because it is very unbecoming for a young pregnant lady to stay up all night at graduation parties. Not only is it unbecoming, but I am quite sure it would be impossible because I am not very good at staying up late these days.

So while I am sitting here on the couch with my fuzzy little kitty, I keep imagining how wonderful it would be to have an actual bathtub and maybe some counter space! Imagine the possibilities! I really hate having no counter space, but I suppose it just challenges me to be more creative. And when I have counter space someday and a dishwasher, along with a sink that is is bigger than 1 foot by 1 foot, I will appreciate it all the more. I love walking around William Sonoma and pretending I have a bunch of money and I am there to buy anything I want and just fill my kitchen with tons of useless and expensive gadgets. Oh the American dream...

In other news! This is a blog about food and so I do have a little bit of food stuff that has nothing to do with my tiny kitchen. I have been cooking chicken for quite a few weeks now and for some reason I have not made chicken soup yet! Until the other day when Beau wanted soup for lunch on a particularly rainy and overcast day. It was so perfectly simple and I just had to share the recipe.

First of all, the most important part of chicken soup is the broth it is cooked in. Otherwise it is just water with a few chunks of chicken and some veggies floating in it. To make a good broth, all you need is the scraps from a roasted chicken dinner. The day that I roasted a chicken, I removed all of the meat that I could from the whole chicken carcass and placed it in a crockpot. Then I used some scraps from veggies that I had chopped, like the skins and ends of onions, carrot ends and celery ends and placed those in as well. I covered it with filtered water, put on the lid and let it cook on high (but keep in mind I have a very old crockpot and even the high setting is not very high) overnight and into the middle of the next morning. There is no specific time line, just let it go for quite a while. Then you strain the broth into a mason jar using some cheesecloth and vuah-la! I was taught to skim the fat off of my broth, but have found from a kitchen I volunteer in, that in fact a hefty layer of fat, once solid after being in the fridge, can make an excellent preservative for the broth. Not just that but as they say, the flavor really is in the fat! So I leave all of the fat from the broth and it ends up floating to the surface and being about two fingers length. The broth can stay in the fridge for quite some time and can be used in all sorts of things.

Once you have such a wonderful and flavorful broth, chicken soup easily follows. All you have to do is chunk up (cut into bite size chunks) some leftover chicken breast, chop onion, celery and carrot and set it all aside. In a stockpot saute the veggies until soft and flavorful. Sprinkle with a little salt to help release the flavor. If some brown bits get stuck to the bottom of your pan as it does on my non-stick pan, this is a good thing! Add some stock to "de-glaze" the pan and you will get all that yummy stuff up and into your soup. These are called Kitchen Treasures. ;) I actually had a teacher once who loved these little bits so much that she named her personal chef business after them. But that is besides the point... after your pan is successfully de-glazed, add the rest of your broth. Then add the chicken bits, bring the soup to a boil then bring it down to a simmer. Let it simmer for a while to heat the chicken through and meld the flavors. And you are done! Season with salt and pepper and I promise you will not regret taking the time to make soup. Not that it even really took any time at all.

So there you have it! A fantastic way to use leftover chicken. Served with some homemade rustic baguette bread that Beau and I bought from this adorable little bread shop, it is the perfect lunch on a cold day. I hope you get the chance to try it. :) Oh and by the way, if you are wondering about measurements for the soup, I really just eyeball the whole thing. So just go with it and have fun!

Yassa, I'm a little poor right now

It is a beautiful Monday besides for the rain and the clouds and the horrendous sore throat I woke up with... Ok, so it isn't that beautiful at all. I have been on my little island, the couch, all day long with what I hope is the worst case of allergies I have ever had, but is more likely a cold. All this time on the couch has given me lots of time to make the important phone calls I have been putting off (like getting an ob/gyn in So Cal... ya, kind of important) and finishing my state taxes so I don't get in trouble. And it has also given me the time to sit and think about my menu for this week! I have mentioned the very tight budget I am working with to feed not only myself but also my Beau and the hungry little girly growing inside me. I don't think I mentioned though, just how tight I am talking here. To give you a little insight into my life at this point in history, I have $30 to buy groceries this week. Yes... $30. Impossible you say? Ya, you are probably right. But you do what you gotta do. I have not made that long journey to the grocery store yet and Beau will be held over with leftovers while I sip on chicken soup for today, but I have a plan and I think it just might be crazy enough to work.

My meals for this week...
Bean soup with pork broth and greens
chicken yassa
and chicken peppersoup

I know this is only three meals but like I said... $30. And the leftovers should be enough to sustain us for the other days of the week.

As for my meals, you may have noticed my interesting name for my chicken dish. No, I did not misspell or even make something up. A yassa is a traditional African dish that can be made with a variety of meats, but I chose chicken because it is cheap. It is a meat that is marinated overnight in a very strong tasting marinade with onions, then you saute the onions, brown the meat, and cook it all together in the marinade which will now turn into a sauce. You serve it over rice and have a hearty and flavorful meal! A peppersoup is also an African dish with meat and vegetables and a mix of spices that are very precise in order for it to be called a "peppersoup". Most of the ingredients for the spice mixture are very foreign and have impossible to pronounce names, but lucky for me I live in a very diverse town known for different types of ethnic cuisine and there is an African specialty store literally walking distance from my apartment. If you are not so lucky, ordering spices online is more common than you might realize and it so so worth it to buy these spices and keep them mixed up in a mason jar for all your peppersoup needs!

Peppersoup spices:
atariko
uda
gbafilo
uyayak
rigije

mix them in equal measures. (1 Tbsp of each, 1/4 cup of each... you get the idea)

These three recipes are all very simple but pack a lot of flavor and are anything but boring! So we will see if my tiny grocery list will be short enough to keep within my means and if Beau will be satisfied enough with such simple meals.

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Bean soup with Pork Broth


ingredients
bean mixture, pre-soaked
pork bones
1 bunch kale, chopped
salt and pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

put all of the ingredients except kale into a crock pot. cover with water about an inch over the beans. feel free to add any other spices you might like. Cover and turn to high. Let cook for a few hours (if your crock pot is old like mine is). Add kale when there is 30 minutes to an hour left of cooking. over and continue to cook until beans are done and kale is soft. Remove the bones and serve. Adjust salt if needed. (beans always need more than you think).

Chicken Yassa*

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 large onions, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
5 Tbsp peanut oil (traditional oil, but you can substitute if money is tight)
1 habanero chili
1 frying chicken cut into pieces (your butcher can do this for you or buy pieces with bones)
1/2 cup water

The night before, prepare marinade by mixing lemon juice, onions, salt pepper and oil in a bowl. Prick the chili and add to the marinade as well. Place the chicken in the marinade and let it sit overnight.
When ready to cook, preheat the broiler. Remove chicken, place pieces on the broiler rack and grill briefly on both sides until lightly browned. Set aside. Drain the onions from the marinade. Heat some oil in a pan and saute the onions until tender. Add the remaining marinade and cook until the liquid is heated through. Add the chicken and water. Stir to mix well. Lover the heat, simmer, covered, until chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes. Serve over rice.

Chicken peppersoup*

3 lb chicken cut into pieces
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cups water
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp dried bird chiles
salt to taste
4 cups chicken stock (can be made from the bones of the chicken in the last recipe)
1/4 cup peppersoup mixture (recipe above)
2 tbsp minced dried shrimp
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

wash the chicken, rub with lemon and place in a large stock pot with the water, onion, garlic, and minced chiles. Salt to taste and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the chicken stock and spice mixture and continue to cook for an additional 30 minutes or until chicken is well cooked. Stir in shrimp and mint and continue to cook for 10 minutes. serve hot

*The last two recipes are adapted from The Africa Cookbook, Taste of a Continent by Jessica B. Harris

3 lbs of Chicken, 5 meals

I have named this blog 3 lbs of chicken after I was inspired by my dinners this past week. Being pregnant with a full time college student's baby and having recently quit my job after a back injury, I have been forced to get very creative with our meager budget.

I am a certified natural chef and I have held a couple of very challenging and interesting jobs in the culinary field. You would think that this would make cooking for me and my Beau much easier, but in fact it has proven very difficult to move away from the mindset that I need to buy copious amounts of ingredients and make everything from scratch. I have had to start from square one and re-learn how to do dinner when you are on a budget. This last week my answer was chicken.

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I was a vegetarian for much of my teenage life and it was not until I left home at 19 to become a natural chef that I started to eat meat again. No, it was not because being a natural chef taught me that eating meat is particularly good for you... shamefully I admit that I began to eat meat out of a rebellious sort of spite for my peers. Having grown up in Southern California with a very open-minded family and town, the hard-core hippies of the Bay Area and their very opinionated viewpoints did not sit well with me and I could not stand to be in the same category as they were. Maybe I was grumpy from working full time and still having an empty fridge or maybe deep down I am just a bit of a bitch... whatever the reason, I eventually came to the conclusion that like it or not, meat is a fantastic way to fill up for cheap!

With a very large football player looking boyfriend, filling up for cheap is no easy task! Here are some of my most recent findings...

1. Figure out what meat is on sale and center all your meals around it
2. Don't be attracted to "buy one get one half off" type sales! If you only need one, then get one. If you keep buying more than you need then you end up spending more and it just sits in your fridge anyway.
3. Plan your meals carefully and only buy what you need!
4. Leftovers make great lunches
5. Know where the deals are! As much as it is a pain in the butt, it pays off to go to more than one store if you have to

So this last week, chicken was on sale! $2.99 a pound! Unfortunately it was not organic, and as much as it pained me to buy it, sometimes you do what you have to do. So I bought 3 pounds of it and out of that I got 5 whole meals!

Monday was a fantastic 3 ingredient recipe for chicken rolled with asparagus and cheese. Very yummy and got a thumbs up from the Beau. It was great that it had the veggies right there rolled into the main dish. I still shredded some romaine lettuce and topped it with tomatoes and dressing for a cheap and easy salad and we ate cantaloupe for dessert.
Tuesday I cut up the chicken and made a large chicken salad with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, apples and a creamy Cesar dressing. The other have of the cantaloupe was the side for this one. A little light, but very yummy.
Chicken and rice with beans was for Wednesday. This particular day I did not feel like cooking so I started to make rice, tossed in some za'ataar (an African seasoning that I happen to love) and a few other spices, then opened a can of black beans and tossed in some cubed chicken. I mixed it all up and made one pot meal. Beau said this was his favorite all week! We had plenty leftover since it was so filling and he ate it for lunch the next day.
We actually went out to eat on Thursday, but I did say I had 5 meals out of this chicken and this days meal was lunch. Chicken salad sandwiches. I shredded the chicken and mixed in some spicy mustard, mayo, celery and smooshed it on whole wheat toasted bread. Top with lettuce and vuah-la!
Last but not least, my last chicken breast was shredded and mixed in with an easy Spanish rice (just boil water with cayenne, paprika, taco seasoning, salt and pepper, add rice and cook) that I served on corn tortillas with some yummy toppings like avocado and tomato.

And there you have it! For lunches we had leftovers, sandwiches or salads and snacks were fruit or ants on a log (my favorite!). All in all I think I spent about $60 for the whole week and it was done in one shopping trip and then a trip to the farmer's market when I was out of tomatoes and avocados.

Now that we are out of chicken I am planning my meals for next week and I hope it turns out to be just as cheap and easy. I don't know what it will be yet, but I am thinking pasta...

Chicken and Asparagus Rolls

2 chicken breasts
1 lb asparagus
8 slices swiss cheese
salt and pepper
flour
toothpicks

1. Preheat the oven to 350. pound the chicken breast until it is flat and the same thickness all over. season with salt and pepper
2. layer on the cheese and then the stalks of asparagus. roll and skew with toothpicks to keep it closed
3. roll the chicken in flour. heat oil in a large skillet and brown the chicken on all sides. transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Slice into a few pieces and discard toothpicks. serve right away