Food Plan and Grocery List, 031311

It's spring, sort of. In the mood, I cleaned out my freezer and realize I need to be better about labeling things. There were unidentifiable chicken parts in there without dates that I figured were probably really old. Better safe than thaw some freezer-burned chicken when I'm ready to cook later.

Some unidentified bowls of soup I'd made a while ago were also removed. I'll be honest: I'm not going to eat it, whatever it was.

Now I know I have in the freezer:

• a pound of ground beef
• two whole chickens
• a pound of bacon
• a single Mahi-Mahi filet
• two pounds of shrimp
• one bag of Korean Marinated Flank Steak

The line-up:

• Korean tacos
• Chipotle Shrimp Fajitas
• Smoky Beef and Black Bean Chili
• Snickerdoodle Bread

........................................................................................................

So I shopped my ass off hunting for the cinnamon chips called for in the Snickerdoodle Bread recipe. That's going to have to be postponed as I continue the hunt at a later date.

Grower's Direct:

• fresh-cut honeydew: $2.44/3.09 lb
• fresh-cut pineapple: $1.71/2.16 lb
• fresh-cut maradol papaya: $1.32/1.48 lb
• green onions: $0.49/bunch
• brown onion: $0.23/0.60 lb
• Persian cucumbers: $1.30/0.82 lb (4 total)
• garlic: $0.30/0.12 lb
• yellow bell pepper: $0.92/0.46 lb
• cilantro: $0.39/bunch
• TOTAL: $9.10

Stater Bros.:

• Romeros tortillas: $1.99/12-pack
• sour cream: $1.39/8 oz
• organic free-range eggs: $4.49/12
• Hunt's fire-roasted diced tomatoes: $1.39/14.5-oz
• Hunt's fire-roasted diced tomatoes: $1.39/14.5-oz
• Mexican-style diced tomatoes: $0.88/14.5-oz
• Mexican-style diced tomatoes: $0.88/14.5-oz
• San Marcos chipotle peppers in adobo sauce $0.99
• cabbage: $0.69/head
• TOTAL: $14.09

Ralph's:

• milk: $0.99/pint
• El Pinto Chipotle Salsa: $3.50/16 oz
• TOTAL: $4.49

Smart & Final:

• Chipotle Tabasco
• TOTAL: $3.99

Grand Total: $31.67
Total for the year: $315.62

Siamese Express Fried Rice Leftovers

There's a place I go for lunch once in a while called Siamese Express. It's a Thai place and I really like their noodle dishes. Those wide noodles are yummy. Because I had a potluck for class, I opted to get fried rice from Siamese Express as they have a wide variety.

I picked up two orders of vegetable fried rice, one meaty fried rice and one seafood fried rice.

Normally, I wouldn't even consider eating leftovers from a potluck.
But less than 10 people brought food to partake in. And the rice turned out to be really good. Almost as good as their noodles.

I killed what was left from the potluck alongside some Alabama BBQ Chicken. A sort of weird combo especially since what was left of each type of fried rice was combined by the teacher during clean-up, but it worked.

I must've been really hungry because now that I wrote that last sentence I'm wondering how I was able to eat it at all. I ate leftover potluck fried rice.

Four orders of fried rice, $32.45 OTD.

Cost of Take-Out Lunch, Week Ending 031111

Monday: Sango Rainbow Roll: $9.24
Wednesday: Chronic Taco, 3 tacos and Coke: $11.48
Thursday: Tacos el Granjenal, 3 Kim's tacos and Coke: on the boss
Friday: Knowlwood: $16.62, lunch for 2.

Total: $37.34
Total for the year: $235.22.

Not even a full quarter into the year, I'm already beating the take-out lunch pace of last year. This sucks!

Alabama Backwoods BBQ Chicken, Take 3

I said, "Yep, there will be a Take 3 and I think the only thing I'll do differently from this take is to put the sauce over the chicken immediately before baking and then bake the full length of time undisturbed."

Then I ditched that plan and went with broiling since the pan was all clean and shiny, almost like new. Otherwise, everything is the same as far as seasonings and sauce goes.

Alabama Backwoods BBQ Chicken, Take 3

adapted from Alabama Backwoods BBQ Chicken, Take 2

whole chicken cut into 8 pieces (breasts, wings, thighs, and legs), patted dry with paper towel

2 tbsp peanut oil
Seasoning rub
Sauce

Seasoning Rub
3 tbsp light brown sugar – packed
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 1/2 tsp Kosher or sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme

Sauce
1/2 c mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp prepared horseradish
1 1/2 tsp Creole or whole grain Grey Poupon Country Dijon Mustard

1 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
1/4 tsp Kosher or sea salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper

Combine seasoning rub in a small bowl. Rub dry chicken pieces with oil. Cover the chicken pieces on all sides with the rub and marinate, covered, overnight.

Bring chicken to room temperature; preheat broiler. Meanwhile, prepare sauce and reserve.

Distribute chicken across the broiler rack skin-side up and broil 8 minutes until pieces begin to color (and in my case some blackening).

Yes, I realize there is only 7 pieces. The other boob was sacrificed for the Rosemary-Chicken Lasagna.

Flip chicken, rearranging as you see fit, and broil additional 7 minutes.


Flip chicken so skin-side is up again; broil additional 5 minutes before pouring sauce over chicken pieces.

I kicked myself when seeing how blackened the skin was -- I should've flipped and immediately poured the sauce!

Broil chicken 18 minutes and maybe 2-3 more minutes to achieve a beautiful color.



Whoa, hello! The skin was really close to the crispy I'd been trying to achieve. Not perfection, but close. The bummer was that all that time under the broiler caused the chicken boob to be a little bit on the dry side, as in overcooked. This should not be shocking as 40 minutes under a broiler is pretty long, as in about 10 minutes too long.

That does say something about the recipe though, while the white meat was overcooked, it still tasted good! Drums and thighs, they can take some punishment and are good 90% of the time anyway.

Take 4? Oh yeah, gonna be doing this once again. Now I have two ways of going about it, depending on whether my broiler rack and pan are clean. If the tools are clean, I'll broil skin-side up, flip, broil, flip, sauce, broil, done in 30 minutes resulting in crispy skin and ultra juicy chicken, even the boobs.

Click for the printable

No-Stir Rosemary and Butternut Squash Risotto

Normally when I buy a package of fresh herbs, a good portion goes to waste. I perused a ton of recipes to find a side dish incorporating rosemary so that what was remaining from the insanely good California Beef Stew with Zinfandel (and subsequent Rosemary-Chicken Lasagna) would not go to waste.

I love risotto, I love butternut squash, I love spinach and I love parmesan cheese. Hence, I decided to make this dish.

There are a couple of changes from Gastronomy's rendition:

1. Better Than Bouillon concentrate instead of straight-out stock
2. Noilly Prat vermouth instead of dry white wine
3. skipped the bleu cheese altogether (per Gastronomy's suggestion)
4. I did a simmer while covered portion of the recipe instead of going uncovered the entire time

No-Stir Rosemary and Butternut Squash Risotto
adapted from Gastronomy

7 c chicken broth (I used Better Than Bouillon)
3 tbsp butter
1 1/4 c finely chopped onion
1 2-lb butternut squash, peeled, halved, seeded, cut into 1/2 to 3/4-inch dice (about 3 cups)
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary, divided
2 c arborio rice (about 13.5 ounces)
1/2 c Noilly Prat
4 c (packed) baby spinach leaves (about 4 oz)
1/2 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 7 cups of water until hot in large saucepan. Stir 7 tsp (or two heaping tbsps) of Better Than Bouillon into hot water. Cover and reduce heat to low.


Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes.


Add squash and 1 1/2 teaspoons rosemary; sauté 4 minutes to coat with butter.


Add rice and stir 2 minutes.


Add wine and simmer until evaporated, about 1 minute.


Add hot broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover 12 minutes.


Uncover and continue simmer until rice is just tender and risotto is creamy and slightly soupy, stirring very occasionally, about 7 minutes.


Stir in spinach, and Parmesan cheese.


Season to taste with salt and pepper if you think it's the thing to do.

Transfer risotto to large bowl, or not. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and serve.


The dish was really pretty and tasted ok, but it didn't rock my world as I'd expected. The rice was creamy, the squash tender but not mushy, the spinach slight flavor-texture bursts throughout. Maybe I was suffering rosemary overdose. After all, I ate a week of kick-ass beef stew flavored with rosemary and then a week of lasagna flavored with rosemary.

I sort of wonder if my Noilly Prat was too old. Maybe the rosemary was too old. I dunno.

I'm going to have to do a retake.

Cost:

• Better Than Bouillon chicken stock: $0.92
• butter: $0.76
• onion: $0.60
• butternut squash: $1.10
• rosemary: $0.50
• arborio rice: $4.98
• Noilly Prat: $0.40
• spinach: $1.33
• Parmesan cheese: $2Total: $12.59 or $2.10 for each of 6 servings.

Click for the printable

How to Clean a Broiler Pan and Rack

This is what my broiler pan looked like when I used it to hold the water necessary for baking that Crusty Boule.

This is what it looked like after scraped away the loosened big chunks.

Look at the broiler rack! It's hideous!


When I was at Target, I considered buying a new broiler rack and pan for about $20. Then I remembered the Easy-Off. It worked on my oven so I gave it a try, squirting it on the pan and rack.

After about 6 minutes, the whiteness of the Easy-Off turned a goopy brown and I was done looking at the mess. Imagine my surprise when I stuck the pan and rack in the sink to rinse and the goop simply washed away.

For the most part anyway.
While an improvement, the pan needed another go-round with the Easy-Off. I squirted it, inverted the broiler rack over the pan and squirted it with Easy-Off as well.

After 20 minutes, I rinsed the rack, bottom and top, as well as the broiler pan.

I saved myself $20 on a new broiler rack and pan, plus I "revitalized" my old one -- no waste! I really love sodium hydroxide!

Additional Posts with Print Options

I haven't heard anything from anyone about the print options I'd added earlier and have no clue if anyone is utilizing them. Maybe the "click for a printable" link at the very end of posts is simply a dumb location. Does everyone skip my shoulda, woulda, coulda and cost evaluation toward the end of posts and thus never even see the link?

Anyone? Anyone?

That said, I went ahead and added a printable link at the end of the following posts:

• Arroz con Gandules
• Oven-Braised Spare Ribs
• Slow-Cooker Black Bean Soup
• Sweet Korean Chicken Wings

Any feedback would be so very nice. My feeling won't be hurt if you tell me I'm being dumb in any way.