Success in the Kitchen

Well, I managed to only spend $26 on groceries besides our WIC stuff this week and a package of diapers. The menu for the week is pretty basic except for one excellent extravagance. Not really, it was super cheap to make but took quite a bit of time today. I have to tell you about this recipe though, it turned out so tasty!

It's from www.kraftfoods.com and it is Chicken and Peanut Stew.

I wanted so badly to take a picture of it on the plate all steamy and wonderful. However, my poor camera battery is just dead and won't hold a charge anymore. So this one from the website will have to do. I have to get a new battery pack before my trip out to California for my mom's wedding.

Anyway, this recipe is really good. I used chicken leg quarters (which I would normally never buy but they were on sale at Kroger for $1.85 for a package of 4 huge pieces of chicken!), and used my dutch oven to brown the chicken and veggies. I would have left everything in there to cook down but had to transfer it over to the crockpot because my dutch oven isn't big enough to hold all of this yumminess. I did add some additional salt though, and I think another can of tomatoes would have also been good. Spicing it up some would be fantastic, but it's hard to do with a three year old around. I already had to omit the peanuts and just add them to mine because Jason was all fussy about it. Also, I am getting a few meals from this. Here's how.

1 Dinner: Each of us had a leg quarter (Jason ate half of Freddy's and his own!)
1 Lunch: One quarter was left and I am packing that for lunch for myself at work)
1 Side: I had enough rice & sauce left to put quite a bit in the fridge as a side dish for a meal this week sometime
1 Sauce: I put the remainder of the sauce/soup part into a freezer bag to store for later. I think this would be excellent on some lo mein noodles, just add some veggies & maybe some pork or chicken and yummmmm!!!!!

I just wanted to share this and inspire some hard work in the kitchen with excellent and super frugal payoff. An hour in the kitchen got me 3 1/2 meals!

Oh, and Addie LOVES sweet potatoes. I figured I'd cook and smush some of those while I was browning my chicken. Two big sweet potatoes made a ton! I filled up my ice tray and have a tupperware full in the fridge for the next couple of days. I'll try and post pics when I get a new battery for my camera.