Day Six: Beef and Noodles

Two of my all-time favorite comfort foods are chicken & noodles and beef & noodles. We've had temperatures below zero for the last couple of days, and we needed some comfort food. I thought there was a container of beef & noodles in the freezer, but I was wrong. But I did find a 3 1/2 pound rump roast. Beef & noodles coming up!

I put the frozen roast in the crock pot, covered it with water, and let it stew on high overnight. When I got home today, I pulled out the roast, which was ready to cut up and shred, and put the roast juices into the fridge so the fat would be easier to skim off.

About an hour before dinner, I cut up some peeled potatoes and put them on to boil for mashed potatoes...just a little something to put the beef & noodles on.

As the potatoes are cooking, here are the ingredients for the beef & noodles...shredded beef, the juice from the roast, some beef soup base (which I prefer over bouillon) and a cheap package of brown gravy mix. Yes, they were all in the pantry! And today's noodle of choice is Fettuccine. We have a LOT of boxed pasta in the pantry. And for this dish, the Fettuccine works great. I also like to use Kluski noodles.

I break the fettuccine noodles into smaller pieces before cooking.

Heat up the beef broth and add a couple Tablespoons of the beef soup base...

Heat to boiling and mix it up, then add the dry noodles.

It's best to keep stirring constantly for several minutes so the small noodles don't stick together. Once the noodles are soft, add the beef.

Let it simmer & stew for at least 20 minutes, giving it a stir every once in awhile. And mash up those potatoes.
That's a mighty fine looking pot of beef & noodles...

Potatoes are mashed and ready...

Put some mashed tators in a bowl and ladle over some beef & noodles. Mmmmmm.....

And there's enough left over for lunch sometime this week, and a large container for the freezer to be eaten some night when we feel the need for comfort food...I just won't have to work as hard to make it!

Day Five: Rosemary Chicken and Roasted Potatoes

Jo said she wanted some chicken for dinner, so I needed to decide how to cook it. Chicken is like Forrest Gump shrimp...you can fry it, batter it, bread it, broil it, bake it, roast it, grill it....so many choices. We had fried chicken last week, so I decided to go with rosemary roasted chicken.

We always have legs & thighs in the freezer (buy them in bulk at Aldi, then package 2 to a baggie). So out come some thighs, legs, and today's spices of choice...some chicken seasoning that I make (with seasoned salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and celery salt) as well as rosemary and a little more garlic powder.

Wash off the pieces of chicken, pat dry, and add the chicken seasoning...

Next is the rosemary...

To roast, I put them on a rack that raises the chicken up off the foil-lined baking sheet. That gives it more even cooking. I'm also cooking a couple boneless chicken breasts for our son.

Into the 400 degree oven for about an hour.
Now for a side dish. Let's keep the "rosemary" theme! It's roasted rosemary potatoes. Got 3 of them out of the pantry.

Scrub them clean and cut up into large cubes.

Now, we just need to add the seasonings...

I drizzle some olive oil over the potatoes, then sprinkle on a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and rosemary. I've also still got a big green onion left over in the fridge, so I'll dice that up and throw it on.

Pour it out onto a foil-lined pan and put in the oven. These will take about half as long as the chicken.

They're in there!!! I'll pull out the potatoes after about 20 minutes to flip them for even browning, then sprinkle Parmesan cheese over it. Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes. I flipped the chicken for more even browning at this time, too.

After about an hour of cooking time for the chicken, we have a tasty meal! And all from the pantry and the freezer. Very good dinner!

Day Four: Lazy Sunday Minestrone

Sundays in our house tend to be a little lazy. With the weather getting very cold, we tend to snuggle in and watch some football and college basketball and crave comfort food.

During the week, breakfast is quick.  If it  takes me more than two minutes to make it, it is not happening. However, on the weekends, John likes to make a big breakfast. This morning he found some bacon in the freezer along with some frozen hash browns. We already had eggs including a bunch of leftover egg whites from John's New Year's Eve creme brulee, which only takes yolks.

Soon we had a great hash brown omelet.  OK, the bacon and hash browns probably offset the healthiness of the egg whites, but it was darn tasty.

We ate breakfast on the late side, so we decided to eat lunch late and have a kind of expanded snack for dinner.  For lunch we made Minestrone soup.  I'd made these soup-in-a-jar kits for Christmas.  I had one left over and we put it together.

There was only one problem. Canned tomatoes are not an item we stock up on.  We buy them as needed and we only had enough for John to make chili sometime in the next few weeks.  We did have an extra can of Rotela with green chilies.  Since John adds chilies to his chili anyway, he gave up a small can of diced tomatoes.  But this was not enough.  Luckily, we had three fresh tomatoes in the fridge.

John called on the skills his parents gave him to get the tomatoes peeled and prepped for the stew.  First he boiled water and dropped the tomatoes in.

Then he scooped them out and put them into an ice bath so the skin would bubble up and peel right off.

A quick coring and peeling.

We soon have enough tomatoes for the soup.

Next we prepped...well, John prepped the garlic, carrots and celery.  I like baby carrots in my lunch.  It gives the chip crunch without all the calories.  It is amazing how a similar sensation can satisfy that craving. So we used them rather that whole carrots.

The lentils and seasonings in the jar had been simmering for two hours.  We added the veggies and some Italian sausage. John had cooked a bunch of it to easily make sausage sandwiches or pizza toppings and it was great to add to the soup.

The we added the macaroni and let it simmer for another half hour.

It was a great late lunch.  Very hearty, and the perfect comfort food for a cold Sunday.  Then we had some chicken wings as a late snack.  Another good day.

Day Three: Shrimp, Grits and Shopping.

It was a busy day.  John had playoffs to watch.  I am only six episodes from finishing "Sons of Anarchy". We had leftover biscuits and gravy for breakfast and that was late in the morning, so we were waiting for dinner.

One rule that I forgot to add to my list was that if someone invited us to their house we could eat there.  As long as we were not buying a dinner, we could do it.  My sister-in-law and her husband moved a couple of months ago and are in a house where they can entertain. So they invited us over for shrimp and grits.

We had this a couple of years ago at a potluck and remember it being great.  John and I both wondered if it would be as good as it was in our memories.

It was even better.  It was down right amazing!  The grits were cheesy and the shrimp had cream and ham. It also had about twenty other things in it.  So delicious.

I ate two bowls.  So did John.

I now wish I had grits in my pantry.  This will be corrected after the Great Pantry Project concludes.

We bought a few groceries today too. All within our rules.  We spent $12.05. So we still have $17.95 to spend on any other fruits or veggies or other perishables for the week.

We got bananas, almond milk, celery, carrots and a bag of potatoes.  We are ready to go.

Day Two! Jo Cooks...Sorta Of.

Since it was a Friday and I was home this morning, I got to make dinner. Between binge watching "Sons of Anarchy" and helping my sister move, I needed something simple. Anyone that knows me knows that I do not have my husband's kitchen skills.  He is amazing at timing everything and going into a kitchen and turning simple items into a great meal.  

I am not.  I can cook in a functional sort of way.  I am more of a baker.  There is a science to it.  If you follow the recipe and measure things right, it comes out.  There is more creativity to cooking and I don't have John's mad skills.

So I dug through the pantry and cheese drawer and made one of my specialties, sausage, cheese and crackers.

These take me back to my childhood.  This was a special dinner and always one of my favorites.  

We had some standard fare.  Summer sausage, Colby and extra sharp cheddar to go on our Ritz crackers. We also had some hard salami and Gouda thanks to a gift basket.  Thanks Misty!!! Finally a ball of fresh mozzarella that was inching past its best by date and HAD to be eaten.

The hard salami was Italian and very tasty.

So I cut the cheese.  He he he! I made a fart joke!  But this is not very thrilling.

We ended up with a nice simple meal that even I can't screw up.  And to quote John, 'it was very Gouda".

But that may be because he didn't have to cook.

Day One: Linguine in Clam Sauce

Day One of the Great Pantry Project.

John went into the pantry and grabbed some linguine we got for a dollar.  Then he found some canned clams and chose some spices and olive oil.  We also had garlic and green onions in the fridge.

John started the water boiling.

I opened my wine.  Gotta love the fancy corkscrew! Totally worth it. (I don't work on Fridays, so its my weekend)

John minced the garlic and green onions.

John also found some leftover shrimp in the fridge.  We also had tomatoes and lettuce.

Next thing you know we have a tasty salad.

The pasta was cooked and drained. So the clams are opened in preparation.  The lid is saved for a future craft project! By the way, if you don't have one of those can openers that gives a smooth edge on the lid, get one.  They are great.

So, a little olive oil, minced garlic and red peppers. John cooked them long enough to take the edge off the garlic, but not too mushy.

Pasta in the pan and the clams with the juice into the pan.

Tossed and heated through.  Into the bowl and a little green onions sprinkled on.

It was a good first night. Kind of spicy, but very tasty.  There was also enough leftover for a lunch or two. Day one complete, and a success!