Pages

Now THAT wasn't in my plans!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Friday night I cut up and roasted the 10# bag of chicken leg quarters ($5.90). They came out CRISPY brown just like I like them. The original plan was for me to bake them and set aside 3 thighs before serving them. After all, if I waited until AFTER the meal to save them, there probably wouldn't be any left to save. After dinner I deboned the thighs into a pan and deglazed the first roasting pan. As I started working on the second pan I saw Sean out of the corner of my eye. He was sitting in the kitchen next to me and picked up something. As I turned to investigate further he overturned what he had into the pan of chicken and drippings. It was the sugar bowl!!!! 2 cups of sugar mixed in with all those golden drippings and moist thigh meat. I put it aside with the thought that I'd figure out what to do with it in a few minutes. I needed to get Sean out of the kitchen and occupied. Well I did find something for Sean to do and so did I. I got distracted and forgot about the chicken until it was bed time. 5hrs sitting there, it then became cat food. Luckily it wasn't too much. But still there went the batch of chicken and gravy or chicken noodle soup I'd planned on.

So what did we have with the crispy chicken leg quarters? 5 cans of sweet potatoes from the pantry ($3.96 - $.79/ea - Aldi's) with a stick of butter ($.50) and 1/4 cup of brown sugar (< $.25) and 4 bags of Knorr Sides plus Roasted Chicken Rice ($2.67 - 6pkgs/3.99 - BJ's wholesale club) We had lots of leftover rice which will be used in another meal. (had to add a stick of margarine to the rice mix... $.19.

Total for Friday's dinner... $13.47

Saturday I made dinner while I experimented in the kitchen. We have to bring a "fancy" dessert to church today. We're having feast for a family that is moving. I had the brillant idea of making mini chocolate cups, filling them with an orange flavored custard and topping it with a strawberry. I had plastic 2oz (I think) cups that I tried to use for the mold. I dipped them in the chocolate...it went on too thin and broke whenever I tried to remove them. I tried using the inside of the cup but it came out too thick. Then Sean woke up from his nap and all my creative juices went down the drain. I decided to see if I could buy mini pie/tart shells at the store and make lemon merginue pies. They didn't have any, only phylo ones which were teeny and expensive. So I sold myself out and bought a large pan of frozen peach cobbler and a container of whipped topping.

So dinner was a quick throw together of Scalloped potatoes. I used 6 bags of hash browns ($6), although I could only use 4 as 2 were gross (risk of buying food at the dollar store even though it hadn't hit it's sell by date), 3 cans of cream of mushroom soup from the pantry ($1.77 - $.59/ea - Aldi's), a stick of margarine ($.19), dried onions, salt, pepper, ham from the freezer (see this post) and a few cups of milk ($.50). It was plenty enough without any sides since there were only a few of us here. There were even leftovers.

Total for Saturday dinner... $8.46

Running total of dinners cost.... $51.34 (4 meals)

0 comments: