Easy, Frugal Cooking |Chicken Tacos

by Kristen on March 11, 2010 · 30 comments

in Main Dishes, Recipes

A couple of months ago, I decided that I wanted to learn how to make Chicken Tacos. I poked through Cook’s Illustrated’s website and found nothing (only a steak taco recipe), so I decided to search some other online cooking sites. The wealth of chicken taco recipes was overwhelming, and I had no idea which recipe would be good and which would be horrible (ratings and reviews aren’t all that helpful because of the variance in opinions. How can a recipe be both fabulous and disgusting at the same time??).

So, I decided to go with the Cook’s Illustrated steak taco recipe and just modify it for use with chicken. Happily, the tacos were a great success. They’re sort of like a no-grill-required wintertime version of fajitas, and they’re really easy to make.

Also, they use up cilantro, which will appeal to all of you out there who, like me, struggle to use up an entire bunch of cilantro before it goes bad.

You start by making a pesto-like herb paste, which includes cilantro, garlic, scallions, a jalapeno, cumin, and some vegetable oil. Put all of that into a food processor (a blender would probably work as well), and pulse until it’s all finely chopped.

With the machine running, add 1/4 cup vegetable oil and process until the mixture is fairly smooth.

Remove 2 tablespoons of the herb paste to a bowl. Squeeze in 1 tablespoon of lime juice, and set it aside (this is for use  as a taco condiment later).

The rest of the paste is going to go on the chicken, but first, you need to rub some coarse salt on the chicken.

Because I’m not that good terrible at cooking whole chicken breasts, I always cut mine in half lengthwise so that they’re turned into thin cutlets. This makes it easier to cook the chicken all the way through without scorching the outside.

Spread the herb paste over the chicken, then cover and refrigerate the chicken for 30 minutes to an hour. If you’re worried someone in your family won’t like the herb paste, you can always leave a breast or two plain.

Scrape the herb paste off of the chicken (as you can see, I never get all of it off, but it seems to be fine!) and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a 12-inch skillet (I use my cast-iron skillet) over medium high heat. Add chicken.

Cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until cooked through (this will vary depending on how thick your chicken pieces are). Let the cooked chicken rest for 5 minutes.

Slice rested chicken into narrow strips and season with salt if desired. Place several strips in the middle of a warmed flour tortilla, and top with cheese, tomato, sour cream, chopped cilantro, reserved herb paste, or whatever else you wish (I sometimes saute onion slices before I cook the chicken and add those in my tacos).

Chicken Tacos (printable version)

Herb Paste
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves
3 medium garlic cloves , roughly chopped
3 medium scallions , roughly chopped (about 1/3 cup)
1 medium jalapeño chile , stemmed and roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Chicken
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced lengthwise into thin cutlets
1 tablespoon coarse salt or 1.5 teaspoons table salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Combine cilantro, garlic, scallions, chile, and cumin in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped, and with machine running, add 1/4 cup vegetable oil. Process until smooth.

Remove 2 tablespoons of herb paste to a bowl, whisk in lime juice, and set aside.

Rub salt over both sides of the chicken, and spread with remaining herb paste. Cover and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.

Scrape herb paste off chicken and sprinkle with sugar and pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy 12 inch skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken and cook 4-5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Let cooked chicken rest for 5 minutes, then slice into strips. Season with salt if desired. Serve in warmed flour tortillas and top with cheese, chopped tomato, chopped cilantro, sour cream, sauteed onions, and reserved herb paste.
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Need more dinner ideas? Browse my other main dish recipes.

{ 30 comments }

Avoiding Food Waste, in pictures (naturally)

by Kristen on March 10, 2010 · 38 comments

in Food Waste

Because I cannot stand to blog without pictures. ;)

I show you my food waste or lack thereof on a weekly basis, yes, but I don’t spend a whole lot of  time talking about how I avoid food waste. So, every now and then I like to show you what I’ve been doing to use up odds and ends from my fridge. (hmm…upon further inspection, it looks like I’ve only done this once before.)

Happily, most of these small efforts took only a little bit of time and energy.  In fact, I often think that the actual using up of food isn’t the hard part…most often the difficult part is  simply managing to notice what needs to be used up.  So, regular fridge inspections have become an important tool in my fight against food waste.

Here’s what I found in my fridge, and what I did with the stuff I found.

I had a lone lemon half sitting around, so I cut it up and squeezed it into a glass of water (given that most people don’t actually eat lemons, I figured this counted as using it up).  Fortunately for me, my kids like drinking water with lemon in it just as much as I do, so this is a surefire way to use up extra lemons before they get fuzzy.  Naturally, we compost our lemon slices after we squeeze out the juice.

Somehow, we ended up with too many grapes, and one package of them was getting to be a little bit on the squishy, wrinkly side.  So, I washed them, de-stemmed (spellchecker says that is most certainly not a word) them, put them into an empty cereal bag, closed it up with a chip clip, and put the whole thing in the freezer.  These will be used in yogurt smoothies, because in that form, no one will notice that they were a little bit wrinkly.

As I perused the contents of the fridge, I noticed we were getting a little bit long on apples, so I cut up about half of them, cooked them in a pot with a bit of water…

and made applesauce.

The last couple of handfuls from a bag of spinach went into a smoothie (honest to goodness, you don’t really taste the spinach.  Shut your eyes, drink it, and you’ll be a believer).

And last, but not least, we dutifully used up leftover chocolate birthday cake frosting by spreading it on crackers.  It was painful, but you gotta do what you gotta do. ;)

If you want more information about avoiding food waste, check out my oh-so-creatively-titled post about how to cut back on food waste.  And do consider joining the all of us that participate in Food Waste Friday…I can almost guarantee that it’ll help you decrease your food waste (added bonus:  avoiding food waste saves you money!).

{ 38 comments }

So, I was wearing a free outfit the other day.

by Kristen on March 9, 2010 · 33 comments

in Clothing

And I was trying to take pictures of it for you.

The bathroom mirror wasn’t working out too well.

So Joshua helped me out. He is famous for taking pictures when I’m not ready. ;)

Then Sonia decided to join me.

So, this is the best we could do.  It’s a little blurry, and it doesn’t even really show my jeans.

I am reminded once again that I am much, much better at being on this side of the camera…

than I am at being on this side.

Anyways…my Aeropostale sweater and my Tilt jeans were both completely free.  I got them from an event at our sister church which is called the “Free Flea”.  It’s kind of like a flea market except that everything is completely free, and that, I think, is completely wonderful.

{ 33 comments }

Monday Q&A | Cameras, lenses, lunches, and staying thin

by Kristen on March 8, 2010 · 26 comments

in Q&A

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

One of my favorite parts of your posts are your photos — what type of camera (and lens, if applicable) do you use? I know it’s more than the camera — like the photographer, but I’m still curious. I love your photos!

-Connie

I’m so glad you like my photos…I love taking them and sharing them. :) Your question is very common, and when I finally get an FAQ page up, this question will be at the top of the list! I apologize to those of you who’ve read this answer a million times before. I am going to get that FAQ page up, I am. One of these days.

I shoot with an entry-level Canon EOS Rebel camera body, and I mainly shoot with two lenses, a 50mm/1.4 lens and a 24-70 L series lens. The majority of the photos on this blog are shot with the 50mm, though, simply because it’s so light and convenient, and because it’s so simple to use in low light.

I have done a number of posts about improving your photography no matter what camera you have, so you might want to browse through those. I do love my camera equipment to pieces (I could never go back to a point and shoot!), but like you said, equipment isn’t everything. So, if you don’t want to invest a whole lot of money into bodies and lenses, improving your photography skills is a good way to go.

Question: What kinda camera do you use? I am saving for one and cannot decide between a Nikon or Canon. I would love your input.-Monica

As I mentioned in the previous answer, I shoot with Canon equipment. I don’t have anything against Nikon at all, though…in fact, I’ve never shot with a Nikon before, so I don’t even know if I like their stuff or not. However, I’ve got a small pile of money invested in Canon lenses at this point, so I think I’m firmly in the land of Canon now.

I know that’s profoundly unhelpful…I’m sorry! I know that when I read photography magazines and articles, there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer about which is better. Some people adore Canon and some people would never consider shooting anything but a Nikon. From what I can gather, you’d probably be happy with either choice.

I do love, love, love my Canon DSLR, though, that much I can tell you.

I am a new reader to your web site, and just wanted to know if you had any frugal tips or ideas for cold lunch ideas that I could pack for my husband. He does not have access to a microwave during his day, and we are trying to save money by him not eating out every single day.
-Kaya

It does make it harder to pack a lunch when there’s no access to a microwave or toaster oven, that’s for sure! I hate it when my husband’s place of work doesn’t have a toaster oven.

I’m sure my other readers will have some ideas to add to mine, but here are a few to start you off.

  • peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
  • chicken or tuna salad sandwiches
  • wraps (you can fill tortillas with lots of different things…chicken, lettuce, tomato, bacon, cheese, etc)
  • pasta salad (we eat things like chicken pasta salad for dinner in the summer, and I send leftovers in my husband’s lunch)
  • soup in an insulated thermos

I have a silly question. How in the world does your whole family stay so fit?  If I did the baking you did, I think I’d weigh 300 pounds.  Are you super active?  Do you attribute it to how healthy you eat (other than the carbs?)? Small portions?
-Lynda

I don’t think that’s a silly question at all.  ;)

I think the overall slim-ness of our family is attributable to several things.

  • Genetics. We’re all fairly tall and have kind of light builds.  My husband I just don’t have the genes to turn out a family of linebackers…we’re built more like runners.  I would guess that our metabolisms run a little on the fast side of things, though I don’t have any medical evidence to support that.
  • Portion Sizes. I don’t know that we deserve a lot of credit for this, but none of us has an enormous appetite.  So, it’s not as though we plow through incredible amounts of food and still stay slim…we just eat smallish portion sizes.
  • Diet. Yes, we eat home-baked goods and our diet isn’t perfectly clean, but we don’t consume a lot of processed foods.   I cook mostly from scratch, we don’t eat restaurant or fast food often at all, we eat fruits and veggies, and we drink mostly water.  This causes us to consumer far fewer calories than we would if we drank sugary beverages, ate fast food and prepared foods, and didn’t eat fruits and vegetables.
  • Activity. Since we don’t spend a lot of time watching TV or participating in other sedentary activities, we tend to be fairly active.  Except for when I’m blogging, I don’t spend much of my day sitting down.  And of course, my kids, being kids, are usually running around the house or running around outside.

In sum, I think the skinny-ness of our family is due to a combination of things outside of our control (the genetics) and lifestyle choices (the portion sizes, diet, and activity level).

Now, as far as the home-baked goods go, there are two things I’d like to point out.

  • When you have homemade breads around all the time, it’s not that tempting to gorge yourself on them.  If you only get homemade bread once in a blue moon, you want to eat piece after piece after piece.  However, if you know there will be more bread tomorrow and the next day and the next day, it’s much easier to control yourself!
  • Despite the way it seems, I don’t do a lot of sweet baking.  I know I post recipes for muffins and coffeecakes and cinnamon bread, but those sorts of breads make up only a small percentage of what I bake, much to my children’s chagrin.  The most oft-consumed baked good here at Chez Frugal Girl is the lowly whole wheat sandwich bread, not the cinnamon twists (those are an occasional treat).

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Thanks for all your questions, everyone. And thanks for being patient with the tardiness of my blog post this morning. I’ll try to be more prompt tomorrow. ;)

{ 26 comments }

Q&A will be up later today…

by Kristen on March 8, 2010 · 6 comments

in Uncategorized

My husband is off of work again today (woohoo for a 3-day weekend!), and we’re all getting ready for a little outing this morning.

I’ll be back, though.  :)

{ 6 comments }

Grocery Report and Menu Plan | in slightly more detail than usual

by Kristen on March 6, 2010 · 24 comments

in Grocery Reports, Menu Plans

For a change this week, I divided my groceries into piles, and took pictures of each.  A lot of you have asked for more detail about my shopping, so I’ll explain a little bit about why I bought the items in each picture.

First up, the cold stuff.  All of it is from Aldi except the Yoplait.  The milk is for cereal and baking purposes, the heavy cream will top our oatmeal, the butter is for baking and using on bread, the cheese is for some dinner meals, the cottage cheese is for lunch (my kids think it’s a big treat!).  The OJ is for my kids to drink at breakfast.  We usually need more than this, but we had some left from last week.  Lastly, the Yoplait is a treat I bought for my husband’s lunches.

Here’s the meat.  I bought the leg quarters for $.59/pound.  We’ll BBQ some of them, and I de-boned some of the chicken thighs for a future teriyaki chicken meal.  The sausage is for a pot of  Tortellini Soup and it was not on sale…I like it so much better than other sausage, though, I’m willing to pay for it.  The ground beef was on sale for $1.79/pound.  I’ll use half to make hamburgers this week and half will go into some other future meal.  The deli meat is from Aldi, where it’s SO much cheaper than at the deli counter.  I sometimes keep a package around for those days when I don’t happen to have leftovers to send in my husband’s lunch.

This is my produce…not much explanation needed.  Most of it is from Aldi.  I have some greens left from last week, so I didn’t buy any lettuce or spinach, which is unusual.  None is organic except for the carrots and tomatoes.

And here’s the rest of my stuff.  I’ll just mention the noteworthy things.  Bulls Eye BBQ sauce was on sale, but this flavor was on closeout, so it was even cheaper: $1.12.  The canisters of oatmeal were $.66 apiece after a coupon, and the cereal was a sale/coupon deal  I paid $4 for the 4 boxes of General Mills cereal, and I paid $5 for the 4 boxes of Kellogg’s cereal (so $9 total).  Given how little cereal we are eating these days, these 8 boxes should last us for a while.

Interestingly enough, the cereal would have cost $31.74 instead of $9 had I paid full price and not had coupons. Yikes. Several of those boxes are normally $4.19, and considering that price gets you less than a pound of cereal, it’s not anything close to a bargain.

(In case you’re interested, I got two of my cereal coupons from the paper and two from Coupons.com. The coupons.com ones were the best…$1.50/2 boxes).

How much did I spend altogether?

My Aldi groceries cost $45.95 and my Weis groceries cost $39.03.

So, my total for this week is $84.98, and I’m quite pleased with that.

Breakfasts this week will be typical…yogurt, bananas, muffins, toast, and oatmeal.  Lunches will be homemade yogurt, yogurt smoothies, fruit, sandwiches, and leftovers as necessary.

Dinner plans are as follows (recipes that are currently posted on my blog are hyperlinked).

Saturday

  • Usually I make pizza on Saturday nights, but tonight we are going to do something unusual and pick up a pizza.  Of course, we will have root beer (which we will not be buying at the pizza place because it’s crazy expensive there!).

Sunday

  • French Toast
  • OJ
  • fried eggs for anyone who wants one (usually Lisey and me)

Monday

  • Glazed Chicken Breasts
  • English Muffins
  • green salad

Tuesday

  • Grilled Hamburgers
  • homemade buns
  • grapefruit halves
  • potato chips

Wednesday

Thursday

  • BBQ Chicken Pieces
  • grilled vegetables
  • Cheddar Twists (a new roll recipe I’m trying)

Friday

{ 24 comments }

Please excuse the dust…

by Kristen on March 5, 2010 · 0 comments

in Uncategorized

I was working on adding a coupon ad, and I accidentally uploaded an ENORMOUS ad. I’ve since removed the code, but it’s still showing up on some pages (perhaps my server needs a bit of time to catch up with things) and it’s making the homepage very, very wonky.

Sorry for the inconvenience. If you click on the title of a post, it should take you to a page where things look more normal…it seems to be just the home page that is behaving badly.

{ 0 comments }

Where did my 3 bags of candy go?

by Kristen on March 5, 2010 · 25 comments

in Birthdays

Onto a birthday cake. ;)

Which was a (modified) replica of a CandyLand game board.

We didn’t use all new candy, though…broken candy canes leftover from Christmas were perfect for making the Peppermint Forest.

Sonia had a cake like this when she turned 4 (she found the idea in a Taste of Home magazine), and after much vacillating between a Peep cake and a Candyland cake, she finally settled on this for her 6th birthday.

She was not as confused by the trick candles as Zoe.  ;)

And she and her siblings have been happily eating cake leftovers since Tuesday (a CandyLand cake is huge!).

So even though my husband and I are not big fans of cake topped with candy, I’m not at all worried about any of this showing up in my Food Waste Friday picture next week.

{ 25 comments }

Food Waste Friday | It’s about time!

by Kristen on March 5, 2010 · 23 comments

in Food Waste Friday, Food Waste Photos

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it’s been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.

Time for a no-waste week, that is. It’s been a little while since I’ve had the privilege of not posting a photo here on a Friday. I’m happy to report that there was no old food available to model for a picture this week!

I do have a little bit of waste to tell you about, but it belongs to last week’s food waste post. I completely forgot to tell you that a little bit of the gravy from my slow-cooked chicken went bad along with the chicken, so it got washed down the drain.

I’ll be back this afternoon to show you what I did with the three bags of candy in last week’s grocery picture. ;)
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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.

{ 23 comments }

Clarification about saving for a van

by Kristen on March 4, 2010 · 13 comments

in Automotive

Since there was some confusion from a number of people about this, I figured a little post would be the easiest way to clear things up!

I am not at all interested in buying a replacement van right now, or really any time in the near future. If we managed to make my van last us for another 10 years, I’d be thrilled to pieces. I don’t think of my van as being particularly old (though it is 10 years old now) or worn out (it has nearly 100,000 miles on it) and I am not at all discontent with it.

The reason we’re starting to save now is that we know the van will not last forever (even if it is a Toyota!). At some point down the road (har-de-har-har) it will start to break down and will require massive, expensive repairs and at that point, we want to have the money saved to buy a replacement with cash. Since it takes a while to save up enough to buy a low-mileage used Honda or Toyota (our current van cost us $15,000 used), we thought it would be best to start saving now, while the need for a van is not even remotely urgent.

So don’t worry…I am not going to get rid of my van until it starts costing a ridiculous amount to maintain it. Ideally I’d like to get the money saved up for a van and be able to let the money sit and earn interest for a good long time before we have to actually spend it on a van. I’m mainly anxious to get the money saved up for a van because there are other goals I’m wanting to achieve (like paying down our mortgage) and those need to wait until the van fund is fully funded.

I hope that clears things up a bit. If it didn’t, ask away in the comments. ;)

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