98% FF = Blech!

New England Clam Chowder is one of my favorite soup-type things to eat. I especially savor the opportunities to enjoy clam chowder when I am at a quality seafood restaurant. The delight of biting into a large chunk of clam as the creaminess of the soup washes it down is exquisite. In my book, nothing really beats a great bowl of chowder.

Normally, I let Bruce pick out the soup on soup and sandwich nights but I found a can of clam chowder and knew what I wanted to go with my sandwich. It got even better when Bruce agreed to prepare our meal while I gave our dear daughter some more bananas.

I was filled with anticipation as I brought the first bite to my lips and that is where it ended. I couldn't believe how horrible it tasted. Given the nature of this experiment, the first thing I thought is to check the expiration date on the can. You can bet I was surprised when Bruce said the can didn't expire until sometime in 2010! While I pondered my letter to Campbell's, Bruce re-read the can again. Turns out, I bought the 98% fat free version of my favorite soup. I'll never make that mistake again! It was awful. No amount of seasoning improved it either.

Oh well, live and learn. Bruce dumped that batch of soup and heated up another can. I sure hope we don't have anymore of those 98% fat free cream soups left!

Menu Plan Monday

Better late than never...
Monday - Pan-seared Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Raioli
Tuesday - Napolean Artichoke from MGFK
Wednesday - Soup & Grilled Cheese
Thursday - Crockpot Chicken (chicken w/ a can of petite diced tomatoes poured over top), probably to be served over rice

A pretty boring week ahead of us since we had the most exciting meal tonight already. I have an appointment next Saturday to go back to My Girlfriend's Kitchen, but I think I'll be cancelling it for a lot of reasons.

First, I still have about 4-5 meals left from last time. Second, I think I can get a better deal if I book through a e-mail offer instead of on-site. Third, I might have to be out of town anyway. Fourth, I haven't decided if going back will break my ground rules. Any thoughts?

Late Dinner

Tonight we ate too late. I am used to eating dinner around 5 pm or so, but due to circumstances, it wasn't until 8 pm when we sat down with our plate of food. It was so worth the wait! We pan-seared pork chops and then I got to deglaze the pan! Yeah! Have I told you that I only feel like a real cook when I am deglazing a pan? It is so true. Here's what I did tonight.

After an emergency defrost of 2 bone-in pork chops, Bruce sprinkled them with Tony Chachere's seasoning and then pan fried them. While those were going he put on a pot of water to boil the butternut squash ravioli I found in my freezer. I think I bought them out of the clearance freezer rack at Publix. Boy am I glad I did! After the pork chops were done, I swooped in to create a sauce for the ravioli. While it might seem odd, all I had to deglaze the pan with was water. I forgot to defrost my broth from 2 weeks ago and I didn't think red wine vinegar would taste right. So, I poured about 1/4 cup water into the pan and added 2 thin slices of REAL butter. Next came a very generous shaking of Dill Mix from Pampered Chef. Dill is my all-time favorite herb and I think it makes everything better. well, not Lucky Charms cereal, but that is already yummy enough!

I stirred constantly and let this cook down until I had a very dense and intensely flavored sauce. There were bits of pork, some of the Tony'seasonings, a touch of creaminess from the butter, and of course my beloved dill mix! This was poured over the ravioli and really made the flavor pop. The bag recommended a butter, sage, and parm cheese sauce and I am glad I skipped that. It would have been too heavy to really enjoy, especially this late at night.

Everything except for the butter came from my stash! That is a good use of resources my friend. The pork chops were buried in the very bottom of my freezer. So far down that my husband couldn't even find them. I had to go digging myself!

Also, I did go to the grocery store tonight. It is why dinner was late. I had made trip last Thursday for milk and bread so had already used up ~$6 of my weekly budget. I am proud to say that, including that trip, I stayed under budget this week. I spent just over $18 tonight and that included buying some personal care items! Of course, I forgo eggs, so we'll have to wait another week to enjoy those. I hope hubby likes the waffles and bagels we pull from the freezer stash.

Oh! And tomorrow is a big ay at school... my students are taking an important test and I know that not all of them will have a good breakfast. So, I had a $10 Publix gift card that I got as a rebate for an earlier purchase and used it to buy fruit and nut granola bars and a bag of apples. Hopefully at least a couple of kids will show up and be able to put food in their belly so they can concentrate on the test!

Friday Night Firsts

Now, I haven't made a habit of posting about my family here, but since this is a food related blog, I thought this video was appropriate for this EatingItUp journey since our dear daughter is helping us use up our stash.

This is a video of the first time she ever ate something other than momma's milk. Click here to see her eating her first meal - think of it as a 6-month old's birthday present! Be warned, though. The file is 129 MB, so it will take a while to download and you'll need Quicktime to watch it.

I have several containers of mashed bananas in the freezer from a time I purchased them on clearance sale. They were something like $0.19/lb. The only way I knew to keep them and not waste them was to mash and freeze. I decided this would be the best food to try based on days of reading everything I could find online about baby's first foods, including this site. We gave her about a tablespoon's worth just so she could get used to the idea of having a new texture and taste in her mouth. I think you will see that she liked it. And some of those faces are priceless!

Grocery Day

I have decided to try and change my grocery day. It makes no sense to go shopping for the week on Thursday night when I don't plan my menus until Sunday. How can I know what I am going to need come Sunday and menu planning day? I can't.

So, there will be no fun picture of my Publix receipt today. Sorry to disappoint all 2 of you who are following along with my little experiment. I do have to admit though, that I bought milk and french bread today at Wal-mart. We had run out of milk and since we were having spaghetti tonight I thought the fancy-schmancy bakery bread would be a nice addition. And boy was it! Bruce picked out the tomatoe basil twin load and it greatly exceeded my expectations... It smelled so good even that we snacked a little on it as we drove home from the store. I had to reseal the bag to help with the temptation to scarf it all down!

Recipe of the Week

This week has been going fairly well meal wise and we are making good use of our leftovers in lunches. We even had enough left over food that I didn't make anything new tonight. So, our weekly meny is a little off. On top of that, we are taking our daughter for her 6-month pictures tomorrow night so I will probably stick to making the spaghetti and skipping the pork chops and ravioli.

That being said, when I started this blog, I did intend to share at least 1 recipe a week. I'm a bit swamped tonight with stuff to do, so I am going to point you to a yummy sounding recipe that I might try next week, but with pork. Do you think that would work?

I found this recipe at Scribbit, one of my favorite blogs. It is for Beef Carnitas. Head on over to her blog to check it out, then come back and let me know if you think this will work for pork or chicken too.

Menu Plan Sunday & Giveaway Winner

I really didn't feel like planning a menu for this week. I'm tired and really want to go to bed, but know that without a plan, I'll be lost and more tempted to order pizza or make a quick dash to the grocery store. Well, it wouldn't be quick since Publix is 15 minutes away...

Anyway, here is my plan for the week. Somedays will probably get moved around depending on schedules, but at least the meals are decided upon.

Monday - Soup & Grilled Cheese

Tuesday - Ciao Bella Pot Roast (MGFK)

Wednesday - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce (an old favorite around here)

Thursday - Butternut Squash Ravioli w/ Pan-seared Pork Chops

Friday - Leftovers for hubbie because I'll be out of town

Now, onto the exciting part of this post! I'm please to announce that Mo is the winner of my spices, rices, and treats giveaway!

She won:

• 3 cookbooks (Delightful Deserts from Pampered Chef, All-Time Family Favorites Casserole and One-dish Meals, and 365-Favorite Brand Name Hamburger),
• 1 box of Whole Grain Rice-A-Roni,
• 1 box or organic macaroni and cheese,
• Suisse Mocha hot beverage,
• 2 packages of Mahatma rice (jasmine and broccoli & cheese),
• 2 McCormick grinders spices, and some
• hershey kisses.

As soon as she replies to my e-mail, I'll add some more sweet items based on her likes. After reading her blog I sure am glad her two little girls are okay... otherwise this food giveaway might not do them anygood!

Congratulations Mo!