the dollar store dinner

chicken and salad! what a concept!

today it was roasted split chicken breasts (97 cents a pound!),
sprinkled with red robin, convection baked at 325 for 45 minutes
(they were large breasts. hi, boys!)

salad was red oak leaf lettuce (a dollar!), shredded
broccoli slaw (love this stuff, and only a dollar!)
red onion, sliced
seasoned croutons
marie's balsamic vinagrette

i served it up with lipton chicken rice (only a dollar! and for all that sodium!)

southwest steak caesar

okay, so there's no chicken to be found. oh, well!
this is BEEF country btw, so what's a girl to do?
it's what's for dinner.

leftover steak. i had grilled on my fabulous grill pan
with a little of that liquid hickory smoke flavor, sliced thinly
and warmed up a bit back on the grill

romaine
leftover corn cut from the cob
lucerne chipotle sharp cheddar cheese, cubed
safeway cheddar and onion croutons
cardinis southwest caesar dressing, natch
toss at will
little grape tomatoes if that's your thing (aint mine)

serve salad with steak on the side. yum.

jambalaya

tonight, no salad!
why?
because there are plenty of veggies hiding in the mix, for starters,
though i think i should have had more onions.
and to make it requires about 17 pans.
i went with james beards version from the ancient nytimes cook book,
except for the ham (why? if you have smoked sausage?) and i added shrimp
as it should be, extra tabasco and too much rice. again. when will i learn?
and why, oh why does he not have a roux? you gotta have a roux to do
jambalaya! and while it was okay, it's always better a day or two after.
i got enough for a small army, even if there are teenagers in the house.
well, enough to share with coworkers and a small bucket for the freezer.

asian slaw with ahi

so i wanted to reproduce what i would call a 'happy meal,' not the CRAP they offer at mickey D's, but rather a good meal surrounded by good times. it started with the ahi tuna in carmel for anniversary, dare i say, number 18. every day for four days it was ahi tuna. last year, they started offering it with a slaw at the club. treated with asian sauces, and dangerously RARE, the ahi was scrumptious always. the slaw offered at PERSIMMON is mimicked here, with help from epicurean.com. BTW, it has to be fresh and barely grilled ahi. (one inch thick, one minute per side at 500 or so. my favorite grill pan comes in handy for this). dont' forget the wasabi!
WHAT? NO CHICKEN?

asian slaw
green cabbage, julienned
carrots, shredded
scallions, sliced, white parts
butter and/or other 'soft' lettuce

dressing (as usual, everythings approximate)
sesame seed oil, 1T or so
rice vinegar, regular flavor, a few T
soy sauce, 1/4 c or more
scallions, sliced, whatever you want
ginger a T grated (i wimped out and got the stuff in a tube-oh what joy!)
garlic, a clove or two, optional, crushed

chow mein noodles on top

when i made this for anniversary number, ahem 19, the kids actually tried the tuna. they're much more adventurous than i was. but that's not to say they liked it.

mmm! fresh corn!

so the store got a crop of corn on the cob in. from where i do not know. couldn't be around here. but for all we care that's all we need for dinner. just boiled and slathered with butter with pepper.
okay, so i did serve DINNER. i took what was left of the enchilada filling and made a southwest salad to go with. pretty colorful

tonight's salad
iceberg, shredded
one large carrot, peeled and shredded
red cabbage, shredded
little bit of onion, chopped
one small but lovely and ripe avocado, chopped

ranch dressing (kraft buttermilk)
safeway "O" blue corn chips, crushed a little bit, instead of croutons

sour cream and salsa (gotta love the safeway chipotle. mmm!), too

i was going to add some of the corn, some black beans and black olives, but i didn't want to scare off the children. the purple stuff in the salad already had them running from the table.

more running around

had about 10 minutes for supper. temps hitting 100, certainly ain't cooking no way, no how. so it's the easy way out: chef salad with a minimum of ingredients. turkey, american cheese, lettuce. some croutons (mrs. cubbinsons' cheese and garlic) and ranch (kraft buttermilk).
and out the door!

cereal nite

tuesdays are mostly cereal nites in our house. it started a long while ago when breakfast was on the menu of the busiest night of the week. i dont' get too many complaints. the kids can pick what they want, can fix it themselves and nobody goes away hungry. the boy had leftover enchiladas. i picked at some shrimp cocktail that was just waiting for me. i also made a salad of a wedge of iceberg with bleu cheese dressing (ken's, of course) and extra blue (lighthouse idaho) on top of that. the lettuce was bitter. yuck.
but really, how retro is THAT? iceberg used to be all you COULD get. now its' Heinz 57 in the lettuce AISLE!

lame-o

not feeling like cooking. chip-n-dip for dinner. almost as bad as brownie sundaes for dinner. nah!

to the club

so the kids want to act like adults and go to the club. it requires meeting a certain dress code, natch, and they went right for it. so i spiffed them up and took them to the ironwood for lunch. i knew i was already off the hook for dinner, little man was making brownies for dessert, skip straight to the sweets.
so the little lady had the chicken fingers, little man had the chicken quesadillas (even pronounced it correctly). i had the potato skins (too much cheese) and the caesar salad. i like the other club's version--this is served with teenie croutons instead of the parmesan cheese crisp. bummers.
well, chicken and salad. sort of.

viva el cinco!

the kids wanted a little fiesta for cinco de mayo. they really wanted to go out for nachos and stuff, but it being amateur hour (and way too much alcohol involved, and a saturday), i chose to stay in and make chicken enchiladas. hey, i get the kids to eat rice and beans, so it can't be all bad. doens't hurt to soften the blow with frozen virgin strawberry margaritas and chips and THE dip. of course, i could just pour some margaritas and a bowl of chip-n-dip and i'll be set. it's happened before. once.

enchiladas
mission soft taco flour tortillas 10pk
(8) manor house frozen chicken tenders or equivalent (it's what i had to work with), about 1 lb,
thawed, or leftover chicken chunked or shredded
lipton spanish rice mix, prepared as per package directions
1 c. frozen corn (safeway)
1/2 can black beans, rinsed (s&w 50% sodium)
1/4 lb. sharp cheese (lucern chunk) shredded
1 jar enchilada sause (sw mild)
olive oil
garlic powder
sour cream (lucern lite)

fry up the chicken in a fry pan (i love my caphelon) with a tablespoon of oil on decent heat. shake on some garlic powder if so desidered. i chopped it up with the spatula as it cooked. when no longer pink, take off heat.
oven 350-375F
in a decent size bowl (pampered chef's 8c is my fave), mix the chicken, rice, corn and beans.
prepare a 13x9 baking pan with a good spritz of oil to keep things from sticking. roll up an enchilada using a tortilla and as much 'stuff' as you want, place in the pan. make up the rest until you have your portions--will make up to 10, depending on how stuffed they are-and squeeze them into the pan (may need another or a 9x9).
pour the contents of the jar sauce over the top and finish with the cheese over that.
bake 20-25 minutes.
serve with sour cream and today it was chip and dip, too. OLE!

the definitive dip recipe
a favorite all the way around. more than a few of us have had it and chips for dinner. period. once.
8oz. tub soft lite cream cheese
about 1/2 c safeway chipotle salsa
tabasco chipotle (not regular) sauce

in a microwaveable container, melt the cheese. shouldn't take more than a minute to soften. add as much salsa as you like, stir, mixing in a few good splashes of tabasco for good measure. serve with chips. can be made ahead and chilled, but it gets stiff. there will be broken chips in the dip.

today i served it up with safeway 'O' blue organic tortilla chips. yum.

ready for cinco de mayo?

so it's friday nite, and there's usually pizza on the menu. well there was THAT (red baron original cheese), this is a household of teenagers after all. but to jump start Cinco de Mayo ( Do YOU know why it's a holiday???***), we picked out some chicken empanadas from safeway. the green stuff was simple zucchini and carrot sticks with ranch dip (when will hidden valley farms realize their DRESSING mix makes a better dip than their DIP mix?). case closed. jacob's creek chardonnay on the table (the 2005 is WAY better than the 2004, and still the house wine)

***it's a bigger deal here for BUDWEISER than it is for MEXICO, though if it weren't for MAY 5, they'd be all speaking FRENCH!!

pretty slim pickins

so, i raid the refrigerator tonight. not everybody's home together, so it's leftovers. the kids get some roasted pork with garlic and herbs and a melange of potatoes with snowpeas and red peppers. you'd have thought i was forcing hemlock on em.

i had what was left of some tyson honey bbq chicken. the salad was spinach with cheese and garlic croutons (mrs. cubbinsons) and kraft buttermilk ranch (whatever happened to their peppercorn ranch from a few years ago?).

he'res the kicker: everything, except the dressing, came out of a bag! isn't that just WRONG?

presentation

i guess what i left out of the directions for yesterday was what to do with all that stuff. for family fare, i'm not too worried about what it looks like. and given the ingredients, i'm thinking most people would figure out what to do with it.
the broccoli salad is kind of just piled up in a bowl, in order. all the yummy stuff settles to the bottom and while no one would freely admit it, we all end up picking through the broccoli to get to the goodies.
my sister says i should take pictures of the salads. i say she hasn't seen my kitchen or she wouldn't be saying so.

this is a test

so i was thinking.
everyday it's chicken and salad for dinner (just ask joanne).
my kids joke i could have that for dinner and it'd never be the same in 365 days.
so, this will be the burden of proof, a written diary of dinners.

auspiciously, we're starting with, haha, leftovers

JUSTINE"S BROCCOLI SALAD
justine was a VP at an ad agency i worked for. she had a party for her dad and she made something LIKE this. she had a dressing of miracle whip, white vinegar and white sugar. sounds awfully WHITE, but it was yummy. of course, it's bad for you; goes without saying so.

our version we're using KEN"S steak house 1000 island, there is no other substitute for thousand island dressing in our minds.

broccoli, cut up in bite size
a bit of onion, preferably red, but today it was maui wowies
bacon bits (the jar stuff is okay)
cheddar cheese, in chunks (lucerne sharp)
sunflower seeds (planters dry roasted)
raisins (sunmaid)

for the record, no chicken was consumed in this house tonite. it was blue box please, a kid request.