Stauffer's Chicken Alfredo

Yeah, the FMS is going FULL THROTTLE, so last night hubby picked up a Stauffer's Chicken Alfredo at Aldi's on the way home. I nuked it, and fixed a green salad.
Hubby, Paddycakes, Mother and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Hubby even finished it off.
However having made my own Alfredo using Mario Batali's recipe, I thought it was a teensy bit bland and could have used a pinch more garlic and a pinch more cheese. Overall though it was pretty good.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I must tell you that my feelings are mixed when it comes to Thanksgiving.
First off, I have Cherokee ancestors so as far as honoring the Pilgrims, and "Manifest Destiny" policies of our government-forget about it.
As a Christian however, I am very thankful for every way that God has blessed me and I thank him every day.
Lately the Fibromyalgia has been kicking my butt, so rather than having to go out and shop(which kills me), and then cook(usually something I enjoy-but lately a little much for me), we ordered the family meal from Cracker Barrel.
For $49.99 we got
Turkey Breast for 6
Ham
Dressing
Hash Brown Casserole
Green Beans
Sweet Potato Casserole
Biscuits & Corn Bread
Turkey gravy
Cranberry Relish
Quite a good deal for the price and pretty good too. Not anywhere near as good as what I could have fixed myself, but still pretty good, and a heck of a lot less than what I would have spent at the grocery store.
The four of us ate, and there are plenty of leftovers, so I can say that we are happy.

CHICKEN & RICE CASSEROLE

I am a big casserole lover, and chicken and rice is probably my favorite. Truly this is always what I want when I am sick, tired, or stressed, it is my comfort food.
You probably already have your own version of this, and if it is different from mine, please do share in the comments.

I always pre-cook my chicken.
I used two chicken breasts, cooked and cut up.
One can of cream of celery soup, one can of chicken broth.
Plenty of garlic
3-Fresh celery stalks, chopped up.
1-Fresh onion-diced
2 Cups Uncle Ben's Brown Rice.
Into a buttered baking dish pour the rice, chicken, onion, garlic & celery.
Pour celery soup into a bowl, and add the chicken broth slowly in small amounts to prevent celery soup lumping up. When all mixed smoothly pour in the dish with the rest.
Stir
Top with a few pats of butter.
Cover with a lid or foil.
Bake at 350 for about an hour or until the rice is done.
Remove from oven and let set for a few minutes to cool.

TONIGHT'S DINNER

I am cooking a pork tenderloin for dinner.
I absolutely love these things, they are so versatile.
You can eat them like a pork roast, or you can shred them up and use as base for the Hoppin' John or add barbecue sauce and have pulled pork.
Today's will probably be eaten as a roast and served with mashed potatoes and peas.

SATURDAY'S DINNER

Last night I was feeling pretty bad, so I had hubby pick up a Stauffers Frozen Lasagna for dinner. They are actually pretty good.
Add a green salad and dinner is served.
The only drawback to it is that it took two hours to cook. I could have made a home-made lasagna for that amount of time, but my back was killing me so I really didn't feel like it.
And it was a heck of lot cheaper than take-out.

Steak

Lara's Lean Rib eye Steaks
Baked Idaho Potato
Green salad

Nothing exciting here tonight. I broiled them in the oven, and forgot them so they were a little bit dry. Ugh, I really need to get hubby to fix our grill. I think it has something wrong with the feed from the gas to the burner because we can't get it to flame correctly. When I fix anything on the grill I hover over it, so I never forget them. I stuck tonight's in the oven and waltzed off to do a load of laundry.
So do any of you readers out there use your grill or is that something you let your husband do?
I know some people let it be the male household member's domain, but not me, I love my grill.

CHILI AGAIN

Hi Dearest Internet buddies, I haven't forgotten you, I promise, I just haven't been very inspired lately.
I fixed my favorite and famous Chili, tonight for supper. I don't know if you read what I wrote about it earlier, but I use the recipe on the back of the Mexene bottle. If I want to make it like a soup(which is what we did tonight), I add cans of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans or black beans whichever I happen to have on hand, and a can of diced green chilies(they have no heat).
Now I am going to give you a very good tip. When your favorite grocery store runs sales on the bags of shredded cheese, buy them and put them in the freezer. Now when you are serving a very hot dish like chili, you top it off with some of your frozen cheese shreds. The cheese will warm up and melt but in doing so, it cools off your chili.
Well that is all that is on my mind for today, but I do want to thank Sandi Beason for linking to me, and all of the other Mississippi Moms who have been reading my ramblings lately.
Oh I almost forgot. I just got an email from Hershey's proclaiming that they can fill all of your holiday needs. On their website they have a really cool recipe feature. My mouth was watering just looking at the pictures.

Last night

Um, last nights dinner was fun size Snickers, and miniature Hershey's Mr. Goodbars.
After trick or treating was over I stuck a Freschetta Four Meat Pizza in the oven.
Oh dudes, do I have a sugar hang-over today!

TONIGHT'S DINNER

Um, tonight was Krystal's.
Little boy was rather difficult this afternoon and when he took his nap, I took one too.
Tomorrow I will try to do something fun with the leftover chili.

My main objective

My main purpose in writing a food blog, is to challenge myself to do something different.
For a while now it seems like we eat the same thing over and over again.
I am probably going to be horrified at how many times per month we have Chili for dinner.

Chili

We had chili for dinner, it was really good considering it was a 50 degrees today.
You didn't seriously didn't think I was going to give you my chili recipe.
I will tell you this. I use Mexene Chili powder, and if you read the recipe on the back of their jar, it is pretty close to mine. Only mine has a few more ingredients in it. I will give you another hint-use cans of chopped green chili's.
That's all you are getting!

Tequila Chicken with black beans and rice

Start with boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Apply liberal amounts of garlic salt, and mexene chili powder
Put in pan pour liberal amounts of tequila around the breasts and put in oven to bake at 400 degrees for about an hour.
I also did something really neat with the Uncle Ben's brown rice that I fixed to go with it.
I put the rice in the pot, then added a can of petite diced tomatoes, a can chopped chili's, and a chopped onion. Allowed it to cook the normal amount of time.
Heated up a can of black beans to go with. It turned out really well. Forgot to take a picture.
Don't know if you noticed it or not, but I am just flying blind here.

TONIGHT'S DINNER

I didn't feel like cooking last night(Fibromyalgia & CFS killing me) so we had some frozen Freschetta Rising Crust pizza's. Their Four Meat Pizza, and the Four Cheese are really good, considering they come out of a box.
Today the Fibro and CFS are still on the warpath, but I was able to throw some Pork Tenderloin Chops in the oven and bake them, so our meal was at least partially homemade.
For side item we had McCain's Baby Cakes. If you haven't had those, they are "nasty good"!*
Our vegetable was steamed baby carrots with butter.
At least it was better than take out.

*Nasty good-term coined by me, to mean a food that is more of guilty pleasure, than nutritious.

My own version of Hoppin' John

Tuesday we had a baked pork tenderloin for dinner. There was enough left for about two sandwiches, but my husband won't take his lunch, and these would have been relegated to a midnight snack for me, which I don't need.

So after racking my brain, I finally came up with my own version of Hoppin' John.
PS-In keeping with the frugal theme-my carrots, celery, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce,black beans, green chili's and chopped garlic ALL came from ALDI'S!

Hoppin' John

*************

5 slices of bacon, cut into small pieces

1 large onion

baby carrots

3 stalks celery

1 can diced tomatoes

1 15 oz can of tomato sauce

1 15 oz can of black beans

1 15 oz can of black-eye peas

1 small can diced green chili's

chopped garlic

left over pork tenderloin shredded

Started off with a 4 QT. pot

over medium heat cut up bacon in about

1 inch squares into pot to fry.

When bacon is done to a crisp remove and put on paper towel to cool and set aside.

To bacon grease in pot add;

Sliced onion

Cut-up carrots

Cut-up celery

Diced tomato's

Tomato Sauce

Black beans

Black-eye peas

green chili's

chopped garlic

and shredded pork

Stir together, and let cook for about an hour until carrots soften and liquid thickens up.

Turn off heat and allow to sit for a few minutes.

Serve over rice, and top with crumbled bacon.

I also added shredded cheddar to the little boys, which made it really good.