It's very important to make sure you stay stocked up on your pantry staples. Most people would count flour, sugar, olive oil, etc as the staples. At our house it's shredded cheese and tortilla chips.
The plan for dinner yesterday was chicken and dumplings, but when we got home at 5:30 and Matthew realized he had a big job to complete for a client, and I realized that we didn't have any chicken broth....plans changed. (chicken broth should be on that staple list) So the kids got chicken nuggets and pizza rolls, and mom and dad had chicken nachos with the leftover chicken from Saturday. It's another cheap meal, and had the girls been interested in eating it I had plenty of chicken to do the whole meal for the family for about $5.
So today is grocery day. I'll post again later when I've decided what I'm making for the week, so far the list includes lobster tails, chicken and dumplings (I'm determined), and baked ravioli with meat sauce. You can get free pasta at Kroger this week with a $1 ronzoni coupon, so there may be some pasta on the menu this week, too.
How do you make your chicken and dumplings?
ReplyDeleteStaples here include shredded cheese and tortilla chips too! I ALWAYS pick up canned beans when they are on sale. Quick/easy/cheap go to that will feed our fam for a few days (or an army if you have a group of ppl over to watch the game) is Taco Soup. Nice thing about it is you can change it up depending on what canned beans you have on hand. This is my standard recipe:
2 cans pinto beans (undrained)
2 cans kidney beans (undrained)
1 can black beans (undrained)
1 can corn (drained)
1 large can sliced olives (drained)
1 can diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 can tomatoes with green chilies (undrained)
1 can mexican stewed tomatoes (undrained)
2 small cans diced green chilies
1 lb ground beef
2 cups diced onion
1 taco seasoning packet
1 ranch dressing packet (I use the buttermilk one)
Brown the ground beef and onions until completely cooked. In a large pot add all of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer for at least an hour. You can also cook in a crockpot on low for a few hours. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and tortilla or corn chips.
That sounds awesome! I'm going to put it on the menu for next week. I know I've got pinto and kidney beans in the cabinet now, and we always have diced and stewed tomatoes on hand, too.
ReplyDeleteFor the Chicken and Dumplings I use Bisquick. So imprecise, but here it goes:
Boil some (I usually do three - four depending on how much I want left over) chicken breasts, remove from broth and skim out fat and nastiness, chop/tear into bite size pieces and return to broth. If I've got leftover chicken from something else then I just use canned broth and skip to the dumplings.
There is a recipe on the side of the Bisquick box, but again, I just do it by sight. Start with a cup of Bisquick and "some" milk. Mix to a sticky consistency, adding milk as necessary. These are drop dumplings, meaning you just drop them by the spoonful into the broth, so you don't need to have a dough that you can handle or roll out. Make sure the broth is at a boil before you drop them in. They'll get fluffy and float to the top when they are done.
I also add salt and pepper to my taste.
The problem that I sometimes have with the dumplings is that they get really dense. I forget what causes this, so I tend to repeat it! There is an actual recipe that my mom gave me, and that's what I'm loosely following here. I'll try to remember to pull it out and post necessary corrections here!