Adding Fun to dinnertime!

"There is no better time of the day than we when we are all together sitting around the table eating dinner as a family and enjoying great conversation one with another"! (kimmie)

Each month I add 2 or 3 FUN meals to break up the many soups and bean dishes we eat. By adding a little Fun to dinner, it keeps us from eating out.

Whether you call them
"Haystacks" or "Sundaes" this meal is always a hit with everyone, because each person gets to make them however they please with as little or as much of any topping available. Especially my little Ethan. He is not a tomato eater, but he knows there is no use complaining when a soup has tomatoes in it and so he eats whatever we serve for dinner and never complains.
However, he LOVES when we make these as he gets to go along the counter and choose his toppings of choice and it's fun to see all of our plates dished up to see what each one of us likes.

I usually make these in January because whole chickens usually go on sale as well as bell peppers and tomatoes and also...
January/February means
CHINESE NEW YEAR,
(which this year is on February 14th).
I usually make this meal served up with some fortune cookies to celebrate
Chinese New Year and
break up the monotony of wintertime.
Kids LOVE having a FUN occasion to celebrate!

I usually make this at 2:00 in the afternoon

and then I put this in the Crock-pot on low until dinner time. The longer cooking really makes the chicken really tender.

I then chop all of the veggie toppings
and have them in containers so when it’s dinner time all you have to do is cook up some rice and then pull out the toppings and the kids can make their haystacks to their own liking.

Chinese Sundaes/Hawaiian Haystacks
Sauce:
¾ cup flour
1/3 cup butter
3 cups chicken/turkey broth
3 cups milk
1 tsp. salt
2-3 cups chopped chicken or turkey
(great thing to make with leftover Thanksgiving turkey)

Melt butter and stir in flour.
Take off heat and slowly stir in milk and broth and salt.
Heat to boiling and then
Add in chicken or turkey and boil for another 5 minutes

Serve over rice with grated cheese (optional)
and any of the following toppings:
Chopped celery, chopped tomatoes, chopped bell peppers, pineapple, coconut, sliced olives, Chinese noodles, sunflower seeds, cashews, OR anything else that sounds good to you.

The price of the Haystacks were
Chicken $3.23
celery-- $1.00,
3 tomatoes--$1.27
2 bell peppers--1.00
1 can of olives--.79
1 can of pineapple tidbits--.89
about .75 worth of rice
Cashews...about .50
and ½ can Chinese noodles--.50
So $9.93 fed 4 people 2 lunches and 2 dinners.
Pretty economical if I do say so myself and very healthy and tasty as well!

Happy Week of celebrations...
Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day!

Economcially, Delicious Chow Mein!

WOW,
last week was a high energy week with 3 evenings of different birthday celebrations for Ethan, Young Men's for Jade, RS Birthday dinner, date night, weekend projects and getting concert tickets and church!!

So, I am glad life is now "back to normal"...
I didn't do much cooking
and I actually missed it!

We enjoyed a wonderful Sunday dinner of homemade Chow Mein, which was very yummy, low fat and also very economical.
This was a wonderful meal to start off our week!
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Chow Mein

2 Tbsp. butter
2 cups cooked chopped meat (I use boneless, skinless chicken)
1 chopped onion
2 cups chopped celery
1 tsp salt
dash pepper
1-1/2 cups hot water
1 can bean sprouts
1 small can water chestnuts

Melt butter, add onions and cook 3 minutes.
Add celery salt, pepper and hot water, cover and cook 5 minutes.
Add bean sprouts, water chestnuts and meat. Cook for 5 minutes.

Mix:
3 Tbsp. Water
3 Tbsp corn starch
1-1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1-1/2 tsp sugar
Add slowly to rest and cook for 1 minute. Serve over brown rice (or fried rice). Also yummy with chow mein noodles.

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

How FRUGAL is this meal?
Rice--.33
Chicken--$1.50
onion/celery--.40
Bean sprouts--.79
Water Chestnuts--.59
Misc. sauce ingredients--.25
Chow mein noodles--.33
Total---$4.19

We fed 4 people 1 dinner
and 3 people 1 lunch!

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Sunday Sweet & Sour Chicken Stir-Fry!

I guess you could say that we aren't your typical family

that has Roast and potatoes for Sunday dinner.
In fact, for years to keep Sunday simple we would just have grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for Sunday dinner and our big meal would be on Monday before Family Home Evening.

However, Tracy has created the most fabulous stir-fry that has become a family favorite and that is what we had this week and most Sundays.
This is very economical and tastes better than any Chinese takeout I have ever eaten, PLUS, it doesn't have all of the extra sugar, MSG
and deep fried meat that most Chinese Sweet and Sour has in it.
******************
Our kids really look forward to our Sunday dinners
and this dish tastes even better the 2nd day.

Sunday Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir-Fry

(this is often our Sunday meal , instead of doing a roast like most families do.
We look forward to having the leftovers in our lunch on Monday!)

2 chicken breasts
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp corn starch
1 onion
2 Tbsp olive oil

Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces and coat in soy sauce and cornstarch mixture. Sauté meat along with chopped onion in olive oil until chicken is browned.
Add ½ cup water and simmer covered for 10 minutes stirring twice.

(sauce)
1/3 cup vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup chicken broth (or 1 bouillon cube in 1 cup water)
1-1/2 Tbsp corn starch
¼ tsp garlic powder

(veggie mixture—cut all veggies thin)
5 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 bell pepper

Add sauce to veggies and then add this to the chicken mixture. Return to a boil and simmer covered for 15 minutes stirring often.

Add in 1 cup pineapple and ½ to 1 cup cashews until heated through.
Serve over rice.

(optional veggies: broccoli, zucchini, fresh corn, summer squash, etc….)

RICE:
(white rice)
2 cups of rice into 4 cups of boiling salted water. Cook 20 minutes

(brown rice)
2 cups of rice into 4 cups of boiling salted water. Cook 45 minutes.

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How Frugal is this meal?
The chicken cost $1.50
The sauce cost about .30
Onion cost .19
Carrots and celery .75
Bell Pepper .69
Pineapple .39
Cashews $1.00
Rice .66

TOTAL---$5.48

This meal fed 4 people 2 dinners and 3 people 1 lunch

This means each meal we ate cost about $1.82.

WOW! I would sure rather stay home and eat Chinese
than go and spend over $20.00 on 1 meal,
PLUS, this has a minimal amount of sugar in it (compared to how much sugar is in Sweet and Sour chicken at a Chinese Restaurant), no MSG and it doesn’t have deep fat fried chicken in it either..

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NOW, what to do with all that extra leftover rice you have...
another favorite of ours..."Rice Pudding".

Rice Pudding

1 cup Rice
2 cups water

Put on stove and cook until almost dry.
Add 2 cups milk (I use POWDERED MILK)and
cook at lowest heat about 1- ½ hours.

Beat 1 egg, ¼ cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 teaspoon lemon extract, ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ½ cup raisins.
Add to boiling rice and milk.
Cook for 2 minutes and then take right off heat.

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(this great to make up and night
and then eat it in the morning for breakfast!)
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A frugal tip for the week!

So, part of my reason for wanting to have a Blog is to be to able journal the meals that I fix each week and frugal things that I have done to make meals stretch
and just money stretch in general, etc....
and to also journal the events of the Smith Family in a fun, creative way.

I’m not trying to impress anyone...This is for me… a place to put my thoughts, feelings, passions and interests, however, I do hope that it interests you and hopefully will inspire you in some small way as I have definitely been inspired greatly from many people from many walks of life.

Since my January got away from me I just want to share my frugal tidbit for the week. Albertsons had whole chickens on sale for .69 per pound and you could get 4 of them for this price and so the 4 chickens I got cost an average of $3.00 each and I bought 4 whole chickens for $12.83. (that was including tax).

I froze 3 of the chickens and cooked the 4th one on the top of my stove for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon and then after the chicken was falling off the bone, I pulled all the meat off the chicken and saved the broth and put it in the fridge.
I also set aside 1 large chicken breast to use for sandwiches.
(I would have made Haystacks this night, but Jade was at Ski School until 9:00 and I wanted to have a nice family dinner together with all of us there).

On Thursday morning I made all 4 of us a chicken sandwich for lunch (on French Bread I had made on Tuesday) and then we had Hawaiian Haystacks AKA “Chinese Sundaes” for dinner on Thursday. It was the first night all week that we had all of us there to sit around the table and talk and have a great family dinner.
I loved it!!

There is no better time of the day than we when we are all together sitting around the table eating dinner as a family and enjoying great conversation one with another!

The Haystacks are actually an economical way to feed a family and the kids feel special and in charge as they get to go along the counter and put on whatever toppings they want on the top of their rice/chicken gravy. So a $3.21 chicken made 2 dinners of Haystacks, 4 sandwiches on Thursday, Ethan and I sandwiches for lunch on Friday Tracy and Jade took Haystacks for lunch to work/school on Friday

The price of the Haystacks were (on top of the chicken) 6 stalks of celery that averaged out to be about $1.00, 3 tomatoes that cost $1.43, 1 bell pepper that was .50, 1 can of olives that was .79, 1 can of pineapple tidbits that was .89, about .75 worth of rice and ½ can Chinese noodles that was .50.
So $9.07 fed 4 people 2 lunches and 2 dinners.
Pretty economical if I do say so myself
and very healthy and tasty as well!
(recipe is shown below)

Chinese Sundaes/Hawaiian Haystacks

Sauce:
¾ cup flour
1/3 cup butter
3 cups chicken/turkey broth
3 cups milk
1 tsp. salt
2-3 cups chopped chicken or turkey
(great thing to make with leftover Thanksgiving turkey)

Melt butter and stir in flour. Take off heat and slowly stir in milk and broth and salt. Heat to boiling for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Add in chicken or turkey.
********
I usually make this at 2:00 in the afternoon and then I put this in the Crock-pot on low until dinner time. The longer cooking really makes the chicken really tender.

I then chop all of the veggie toppings and have them in containers so when it’s dinner time all you have to do is cook up some rice and then pull out the toppings and the kids can make their haystacks to their own liking.
********

This is ALWAYS a hit at our house.

Serve over rice with grated cheese (optional) and any of the following toppings: Chopped celery, chopped tomatoes, chopped bell peppers, pineapple, coconut sliced olives Chinese noodles, sunflower seeds OR cashews, or anything else that sounds good to you.