Our 13 year old daughter Rachel loves baking and chocolate; which prompted her to change her blog name to The Baking Chocoholic. While browsing blogs the other day she came across an idea that struck a cord with her; reviewing food & candy. She has begun her foray into this realm and is really enjoying it. She is putting a lot of time and effort into writing descriptive reviews, taking better photographs of her subjects, and critically thinking about what she likes and dislikes about a product. I hope that you will take the time to visit her blog and see what she has to say.

The Baking Chocoholic

Having a menu really helped me greatly last week, and I am going to keep at this, because it helps things flow much more smoothly. During the week I posted some of the recipes from my meals, and I hope to do so again this week. If you would like to join us in meal planning, click over to Laura’s place.

Sunday: Date night

Monday: Chili with black beans & cornbread

Tuesday: Ham, sweet potatoes, cabbage, butter beans, & bread

Wednesday: Ham & lentil soup with grilled ham & cheese sandwiches

Thursday: Breakfast pizzas with sausage

Friday: Chicken quesadillas

Saturday: Leftovers

Tonight is the night Gene goes out to eat dinner with friends and then goes witnessing with them. I will often cook something he doesn’t care for, that the girls and I like, since he’s gone. Tonight I made Chicken Manicotti. It was quite easy & the girls loved it!

I’m trying to use up the meat I have in the freezer, so I decided to use some boneless skinless chicken tenders that I have.

I did not thaw these first; I often do this when pressed for time, and it usually turns out just fine.

I then made a mixture of Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic powder, and salt which I sprinkled over the chicken.

While my chicken was cooking I boiled and drained my pasta.

I then made my cheese mixture which included 15 oz ricotta cheese, 1 cup grated mozzarella, 1 egg, Italian seasoning & oregano. (sorry I didn’t measure the seasonings)

I then put it in a ziploc bag for easy piping.

I sliced the chicken tenders into smaller pieces, and stuffed them in the manicotti and piped in the cheese.

For my sauce I put 2 cans of roasted garlic and one can of Italian seasoned tomatoes through the blender.

I poured the sauce over the manicotti and cooked at 400 F until bubbly. (sorry for the blurry picture)

I have been looking into what we eat more closely as of late, and have been quite disturbed about some of the things I have found. The recent beef recall has only served to reinforce what I have been reading. To that end, I am making an effort to buy better meats, but trying to do so at a reasonable price. I read many blogs that talk about frugality, especially in food. The only problem is, we often substitute what is good, for what is cheap. One of the changes I am making is reducing the amount of meat that we use. By reducing the meat, we can then afford to use better meat. I have also been watching for sales on organic meat. About a week and a half ago I went to Wal-mart one night and found three whole organic chickens for about $4 each. That is $2 below the original price they were marked. Although, this week when I checked the prices the whole organic chickens were running about $10 each.

Since the chickens sell by date was going to be running out in a couple of days I roasted all three of them together in my electric roaster. It was the best chicken any of us had ever tasted! What I did to them was oh, so simple, but oh, so good. I rinsed them out well, and then put 1/2 a lemon and a sprig of rosemary inside each one. After I placed them in the roaster I squeezed the juice of a whole lemon over them and sprinkled some chopped rosemary. I added a little kosher salt and cracked pepper and that was it. I cooked them at 325 F until they reached an internal temperature of 180. After allowing them to rest I cut them up. We ate off of one right then and put the rest in the fridge, and I cut up and froze the other two for future use.

On Wed we had chicken mashed potato bowls. It’s a take on the KFC mashed potato bowls, with a healthy & economical twist. I thawed one of the frozen chickens and heated it in the oven by putting it in a covered pan with a little water in the bottom. The water creates a steam, which makes the meat quite moist. I do this whenever re-heating meat, and it helps greatly. I heated it at 400 until warm. I then made homemade mashed potatoes with fat free cream cheese, butter and organic half and half. I’m sure they were healthy due to the fat free cream cheese and the half and half being organic…. aren’t you??? I also steamed some broccoli, made homemade chicken gravy, and grated cheddar cheese. Then we each assembled our bowls and enjoyed them. It is amazing how something like this adds up and how filling it is. You also use a lot less meat serving it this way as opposed to serving a slice or two on the side. Feeding our family of 7 I only used half the chicken. We ate the other half in leftovers over the next couple of days.

This is a recipe I have come up with over the years after much trial and error. I hadn’t made it in a long time, so I put it on the menu for this week. It’s really not hard to make, everyone loves it, it makes a lot, and it freezes well. If you have any questions, please let me know, and if you try it, I’d like to know how you like it.

1 cup oil
1 cup flour
3 bell peppers
1/2 cup celery
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. gumbo filé
1 lb. sausage
2 cups chicken, shredded
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 t. Louisiana hot sauce
1 T. Tony Chachere’s
7-8 cups water
Kitchen Bouquet as needed

Chop bell peppers and onions and green onions, garlic and slice sausage. Make roux using oil and flour adding Kitchen Bouquet to darken until it looks black. Add chopped vegetables, cook til soft. Add water, you may need to add more to make it more soup like, Tony’s, filé, salt, wor. sauce and hot sauce. Simmer for around 20 minutes, then add chicken & Sausage. Cook til hot. Serve over rice