Broke Kitchen: Holiday Edition

I love holidays.  Growing up, my mom always made every holiday special, and that is something I have carried on into my adult life.  Since I recently moved into a new house, I decided to have a dinner party for St. Patrick's day.  Normally my mother would make a nice Irish stew for St. Patty's, and I was planning on doing the same.  But hosting a dinner party on a budget is no easy task.  Luckily, if there is one thing the Irish know how to do, it's feed a crowd on a shoestring.  While at the store, I noticed how cheap corned beef and cabbage were!  Partially it was because they were on sale for the holiday, but it was still a better bargain than buying all the ingredients for stew.  So, corned beef and cabbage it was.  Although I AM a good Irish girl, I have actually never made, or maybe even eaten corned beef and cabbage.  Weird, right?  Well, Wikipedia told me that corned beef and cabbage is a distinctly Irish-American dish, so I guess my Irish-American family missed out on that memo, who knows?

Anyway, I had to go searching for a recipe, and I found one that sounded pretty good HERE.  Later I realized that I probably hadn't gotten enough meat, so I ran back to the store to pick up some more.  I decided to make the dish both ways, traditional and non traditional.  Traditional is basically simmering the roast for 2 hours, then boiling the cabbage in the same water.  However, everyone agreed that the non-traditional way was more delicious, hands down. 

Stick about 12 cloves into the meat, then slather with hot honey mustard and sprinkle with brown sugar.  Wrap in foil and bake at 350 for about 2 hours.   Take off the foil and broil for about 15 minutes so that the roast gets nice and brown on top.

Chop up the cabbage into strips and then heat up some olive oil with chopped garlic and onions.  Throw in the cabbage and saute it until it gets nice and brown.  Waaay better than boiled.

Total for this meal:

Corned Beef - $5.47

Cabbage: $1.08

Sweet Honey Mustard: $1.50

Cloves: .10 cents ( bulk spices are your friends!)

Olive oil, onions and garlic from stockpile

Total meal cost under $10!  Not bad for a dinner party! :)

Now dessert was a different story...but that's another post.

Happy St. Patty's everyone!

Broke Kitchen

A few months ago, I thought I was as broke as I would ever get.  But I was wrong, my friends.  Dead wrong.   How did this happen?  Don't ask me.

  Ok, I'll tell you.  See, I moved to the big city, and now I have to drive further, pay more for the same stuff, and get paid the same, or maybe slightly less?  So, yes, a new job and perhaps a small bank robbery are in order.  But in the meantime, a girls gotta eat.

I have gotten amazingly good at making something from nothing, or at least something from whatever I have in the cupboards.  I recently received my coupon for a FREE tub of the new Philadelphia cooking creme that I got from Kraft First Taste.  (PS - if you haven't joined Kraft First Taste yet, I suggest you do.  I have gotten quite a few freebies from them!)

I decided I could use this to whip up something edible from my stockpile, and so I did. 
I used:
1 Box of Ronzoni Smart Taste Penne (Free at Albies awhile back)
1 Bell Pepper ( $1 at Fred Meyer last week)
2 lbs of chicken breast ($1.88 lb at Albies last week)
1 tub of Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme ( FREE)

(I would have really liked to add some broccoli or spinach to this, but I didn't have any.)

I cut up the chicken into small pieces and seared it in a pan with olive oil ( At this point I would suggest you season the chicken, at the very least with salt and pepper.  I didn't, and I wish I had)  I also cut the bell pepper into strips and added it to the pan when the chicken was mostly cooked.  Waiting until then allowed the bell pepper to remain a bit crunchy but gave it a nice sweet flavor.

I cooked the noodles, drained them, then threw everything in the pot with the cheese.  Stir it up and done!  Easy Peasy.

This made about 5-6 good sized servings.  This dish in particular cost me about .90 cents per serving!  Not too shabby.

Notes for next time:  As I said, I would for sure season the chicken, I think it would make a big difference.  Also, I think this would be good with a few more veggies.  The sauce was pretty good, but you could probably fancy it up by adding addition cheese, milk or cream, maybe some more seasonings.