Poultry

Two Night Dinners

With the cost of everything skyrocketing, it’s hard to keep food on the table without spending a lot of money at the grocery store. Dinner is an especially hard meal to finance because there are so many choices and our families are picky. Save money by turning one dinner into a second meal a couple of days later.

Some people don’t like leftovers. No matter how you good the food was the first time, they won’t eat it again to save their lives. This can eat into a family food budget when a portion of that food ends up in the trashcan.

You have two choices: fix less or make that meal go farther. The former can be tricky or near impossible with a family of hungry picky eaters, large or small. Let’s go for option two and see if we can surprise those finicky folks.

If your family won’t eat leftovers, maybe they will go for another fabulous creation from your kitchen. We are calling these “two night dinners.” The two nights in question don’t have to be consecutive. In fact, it is probably better that they are not so you can surprise your family.

We start with the basic meat. Purchasing a whole pork shoulder, chicken, or piece of beef is economical. Have the butcher cut it up for you for free in the grocery store or meat market. You’ll have several cuts to choose from for dinner.

Let’s try a chicken dish. Everyone loves the yard bird don’t they? For the first night, the family enjoys an herb rubbed roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots. No one will eat the entire chicken. What do you do with the rest?

Pick as much meat off of the chicken as you can and store it cooled in a Ziploc bag or reusable container. As for the carcass and essence, boil it down to create chicken stock. When cooled, pour it into Mason jars or plastic containers.

The leftover chicken can be used in a variety of ways. Mix it with rice to create a casserole dish. Stir fry it with frozen vegetables and pasta. Make chicken salad for a light dinner on a busy night.

Other meats are just as versatile as chicken. Leftover beef roast can be used for stews and soups. Combine with egg noodles and sauce to create beef stroganoff. Slice thin and stir fry with vegetables for beef fajitas.

You get the basic idea. You have several dinner ideas just waiting to be born right in your refrigerator. We suggest two night dinners because leftovers don’t keep for long. After the fourth day in the fridge, it’s best to toss it out. With the ideas you are sure to come up with, there shouldn’t be anything left by day four.

Poultry

Decorating the Perfect Easter Egg

The perfectly decorated Easter egg begins with the egg. Two of the most popular ways to decorate eggs begins with either a boiled egg or a blown (or hollowed egg).

Boiled Eggs

To avoid rubbery eggs do not cook eggs in boiling water. Instead, boil the water and remove the pan from the stove. Submerge the eggs in the hot, boiled water for 15-17 minutes.

Blown or Hollowed Easter Eggs

To hollow out an egg simply wash and dry your eggs. Then taking a thin needle, carefully poke a hole in each end of your egg. Cover the holes and shake the egg. Place your egg over a bowl or other container and gently blow into one of the holes in your egg. The egg white and yolk should make its way out of the other hole. Once the insides have been blown out wash and dry your egg again. Some eggs are easier to hollow than others. It will take patience and although more fragile, a hollowed out egg can be decorated and kept for many years to come depending upon how it is stored.

Decorating Ideas

Decorating your egg can be as simple or elaborate as you would like it to be. You can make beautifully designed Easter eggs with items you probably currently have in your home. Some of these ideas work egg-ceptionally well on the hollowed eggs.

• Ribbons – take leftover ribbons and glue them to your egg in the desired colors and patterns (blown eggs)
• Glitter – spread your egg with a thin layer of glue and then roll the egg around in glitter (superfine glitter will give your egg a sugared look) (blown eggs)
• Lace – using the same principle as the ribbons decorate your egg (blown eggs)
• Sponge Paint – dig out your sponges and craft paint to create an original design
• Stickers – let the kids decorate using their favorite stickers
• Crayons – with a parent’s help color on a warm egg
• Mosaic – be creative and glue pieces of tissue paper, small pasta pieces or shells to your egg.

These recipes will come in handy if you have decided to stick with the tried and true dyed Easter egg

Simple Egg Dye

Combine 1/2 cup boiling water, 1 tsp. vinegar and the food color together adding drops of food coloring to achieve desired colors. Dip hard cooked eggs in dye for about 5 minutes or until desired color.

Natural Egg Dye

Dye your eggs in boiling water, with vinegar and the item used to create the desired color, boiling both eggs and dye items together. Don’t forget to compost your dye items when you are finished dyeing your eggs.

Color ideas:

Lavender Small Quantity of Purple Grape Juice

Violet Blossoms plus 2 tsp Lemon Juice

Violet Blue Violet Blossoms

Small Quantity of Red Onions Skins

Blue Canned Blueberries

Red Cabbage Leaves

Purple Grape Juice

Green Spinach Leaves

Liquid Chlorophyll

Greenish Yellow Yellow Delicious Apple Peels

Yellow Orange or Lemon Peels

Carrot Tops

Celery Seed

Ground Cumin

Ground Turmeric

Saffron

Brown Strong Coffee

Instant Coffee

Black Walnut Shells

Orange Yellow Onion Skins

Pink Beets

Cranberries or Juice

Raspberries

Red Grape Juice

Juice from Pickled Beets

Red Lots of Red Onions Skins

Hard boiled, hollowed out, color dyed or fancier designs, anything goes when decorating your eggs for this Easter season. The only rule is to have fun.

Poultry

Two Night Dinners

With the cost of everything skyrocketing, it’s hard to keep food on the table without spending a lot of money at the grocery store. Dinner is an especially hard meal to finance because there are so many choices and our families are picky. Save money by turning one dinner into a second meal a couple of days later.

Some people don’t like leftovers. No matter how you good the food was the first time, they won’t eat it again to save their lives. This can eat into a family food budget when a portion of that food ends up in the trashcan.

You have two choices: fix less or make that meal go farther. The former can be tricky or near impossible with a family of hungry picky eaters, large or small. Let’s go for option two and see if we can surprise those finicky folks.

If your family won’t eat leftovers, maybe they will go for another fabulous creation from your kitchen. We are calling these “two night dinners.” The two nights in question don’t have to be consecutive. In fact, it is probably better that they are not so you can surprise your family.

We start with the basic meat. Purchasing a whole pork shoulder, chicken, or piece of beef is economical. Have the butcher cut it up for you for free in the grocery store or meat market. You’ll have several cuts to choose from for dinner.

Let’s try a chicken dish. Everyone loves the yard bird don’t they? For the first night, the family enjoys an herb rubbed roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots. No one will eat the entire chicken. What do you do with the rest?

Pick as much meat off of the chicken as you can and store it cooled in a Ziploc bag or reusable container. As for the carcass and essence, boil it down to create chicken stock. When cooled, pour it into Mason jars or plastic containers.

The leftover chicken can be used in a variety of ways. Mix it with rice to create a casserole dish. Stir fry it with frozen vegetables and pasta. Make chicken salad for a light dinner on a busy night.

Other meats are just as versatile as chicken. Leftover beef roast can be used for stews and soups. Combine with egg noodles and sauce to create beef stroganoff. Slice thin and stir fry with vegetables for beef fajitas.

You get the basic idea. You have several dinner ideas just waiting to be born right in your refrigerator. We suggest two night dinners because leftovers don’t keep for long. After the fourth day in the fridge, it’s best to toss it out. With the ideas you are sure to come up with, there shouldn’t be anything left by day four.

Poultry

Super Bowl Recipe-Barbeque Chicken Pizza

2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

2 kaiser or hard rolls, halved horizontally 1/4 cup canned tomato

sauce 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 425*F. Combine the hot pepper sauce, mustard, and honey in a small bowl. Toss the chicken and half of the hot pepper sauce mixture in a medium bowl; let marinate 15 minutes. Arrange the roll halves, cut-side up, on a baking sheet.

2. Spray a nonstick skillet with nonstick spray and set over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken, turning once, until browned and just cooked through, 3-4 minutes. Stir in the remaining hot pepper sauce mixture and the tomato sauce.

3. Spoon the chicken and sauce evenly onto the 4 roll halves, then sprinkle with the cheese. Bake until heated through and the cheese melts, 10-12 minutes.

Poultry

Stretch That Chicken to Make It Go Further

Chicken is routinely eaten at evening mealtime in American households. We each have our favorite ways of preparing it. When cooking a whole chicken, you can do wonders with what you don’t eat for dinner. Here are some ways to make that roasted chicken appealing to the family.

Learn to slice a whole chicken. Slicing one properly makes it easier to remove the rest of the meat from the bone. The skeleton can be used to create broth. Boil it in some water until the rest of the meat falls off.

You can season the broth with herbs and spices. After it cools, pour it into jars for storage. You’ll be able to keep the broth for a few weeks. Use it to flavor soups and casseroles.

Do your kids carry their lunches to school? Instead of buying lunch meat, slice leftover chicken breast for sandwiches. It will be a nice change from the usual lunch fare.

On the weekends, instead of ordering a pizza or going to McDonald’s, use that chicken. Cube a few pieces to toss on top of a salad with some cheese and croutons. Combine with peppers and onions in a skillet to make filling for fajitas or soft tacos.

Does your family like chicken pot pie? Add some of that chicken, along with vegetables (canned or frozen) and a can of creamed soup to a pie crust and you’ve got an instant dinner that takes less than an hour to prepare. It is a quick meal idea perfect for busy families. A salad on the side will make a complete and healthy dinner.

Chicken based casseroles can be made and frozen for future meals. The family may be all “chickened out” for the week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of the chicken you have left for future weeks.

Do you still have more chicken? Well let’s keep going with more ideas. Hey, our mothers and grandmothers learned to use chicken in many ways and so can we. What tastes the best when you have a cold and are feeling under the weather? Why, chicken noodle soup of course.

Don’t settle for canned soup with small noodles. Make your own soup with juicy chicken pieces and wide egg noodles. That broth you jarred up will serve as a nice base and best of all it is already seasoned.

Add wide egg noodles and sliced vegetables like carrots, celery, and onions to your soup. When the noodles are tender, add the chicken. Since it is already cooked it just needs to warn up. Ladle up a bowl for the sick and the healthy as a light weekend lunch.

What are you doing with your chicken after dinner tonight? Try some of these ideas to make that chicken do double and triple duty to save on your family’s grocery bill. The best part is that the new meals are just as tasty as the original dish.

Poultry

Creamy Chicken Noodle Bake

mail	Creamy Chicken Noodle Bake
Recipe Name	tinabutler@sbcglobal.net
Ingredients	3 c. cooked chicken, cut up into bite size pieces(boneless chicken breasts or tenderloins) 2 – cans cream of chicken soup (10 3/4 oz cans) 1 1/4 c. milk 1 – 10-oz. pkg. frozen peas 1 – 12 oz – package wide egg noodles, (cooked al dente)(I use no yolk dumplings) 2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese (seperated) 2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
Instructions	In an large bowl mix together chicken, soup, milk, peas and 1 cup cheese. Add noodles; stir to coat. Add mixture to a 2 quart greased casserole dish and pour on the melted butter. Top with remaining cup of cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.
Variation to Recipe	I like to season my chicken and grill on my stove top grill. It taste so much better then just boiling the chicken.
Servings
Company or Site Name	Mommy’s Kitchen
URL address	http://tinamommyx3.blogspot.com/
Short Bio	The weather is getting cooler so If you want a quick & easy dinner that also warms the tummy this would be perfect. Serve with a salad, hot rolls or french bread. There are peas in the casserole so a veggie on the side is not needed.