Not so quick, but cheap and easy: Beef Shoulder Roast!

Beef shoulder roast with veggies!

Plated and awaiting nomming :) 

the quick and dirty of it ....

3lb beef shoulder roast 
1/2 a large sweet yellow onion
1 stalk celery
4 medium red potatoes
fresh parsley, garlic chives, and 2 kinds of thyme from the herb garden
All tossed with a a few Tsp of clarified butter and salt and pepper. Half-ish bottle of guinness black lager poured in the bottom and wrapped it in foil. 3hrs at 275-300*. Let the meat rest while reducing the juices for a sauce. Thicken the sauce (I used the hand blender and  4 chucks of the cooked potatoes but use whatever you're into), add a Tsb of butter and the leaves of a few fresh sprigs of thyme and season with s+p! Then, slice (across the grain), plate with veggies and sauce and ... nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom 

From hungry to eating in 13mins.

MMM Dinner!

Started heating the pan at 5:47pm by 6:00pm I was taking this pic and getting ready to eat :)

I'll be posting the recipe soon but right now I've got food to eat!

Chicken with bacon, broccoli, and foil packet root veggies!!!

For this meal I started off with one large potato, 2 medium carrots, and half a small onion. The root veggies were cut into 1/4" cubes and tossed with some butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  This all went into a foil packet, made by folding a piece of foil in half and then folding the edges over to close them. This packet was placed in a preheated 350* oven  and a timer was set for 30 mins. Depending on how well you construct your pouch you may wanna put a pan under it, just in case there are any drips. 

 Next came 2 slices of bacon cut into 1/4" strips. The bacon is added to a cast iron pan, over medium heat, to start rendering out its fat and to crisp the pieces up. 

 While the bacon cooks, debone and remove the skin from 2 chicken leg quarters. Then cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Season liberally with your preferred seasoning mix (I used Montreal steak, a little bit of salt, and garlic powder on mine) and add it to the pan when your bacon is halfway cooked. 

Move the bacon to one side of the pan and turn your heat up to medium high. Like most of my meats, I only want to flip the chicken once, so I try to make sure that I put the largest surface of each piece down in the pan. This also give me a nice amount of browning without overcooking or drying out the meat. 

Once the chicken is browned on both sides, I added two handfuls of frozen broccoli, about 7oz. Not only does the little bit of ice on the broccoli create steam to help it cook, but it also deglazes the pan so you get all the flavor from the bacon and chicken in the broccoli too. 

My 30min alarm was going off around this time so I turned off the oven, but left the pouch in there. You really don't have to worry about anything in there burning so you can just let them stay warm in the oven.

Throw a lid on it and let the steam finish it off. With a cast iron pan like this there is plenty of heat left in the pan to finish cooking the broccoli, so I turned my stove off.

Check your broccoli for doneness after a few minutes and it should look something like this. A nice, bright green color and the broccoli shouldn't be mushy.  

Now that, the stuff in the pan is done, we can turn our attention to the packet of goodies in the oven. Carefully remove it from the oven, to a plate or cutting board. Unfold one of the seams and pull the pouch open. Watch out for all that delicious smelling steam, it's HOT!  I like to serve it with a little more butter on top and a little more salt and fresh ground pepper.

Cost Breakdown:

Chicken - 1.80lb @ $.89/lb = $1.60

Broccoli - 7oz @ $1.50  for 14 oz = $.75

Bacon - .25lb @ $.50/lb = $.44

Butter - 3T @ $2.50/lb = $.32

Carrots - 5oz @ 1.70 for 2lb = $.25

Potato - .5lb @ 5lbs for $2.50 = $.25

Onion - 2oz @ 6lb for $4.00 = $.08

Total = $3.69

if you divide that by 2.5 servings it's only $1.47 per serving!!

Here's the finished dish.  This recipe made enough for me to have a second helping and still have enough left over for another meal. Cheap, easy, and delicious, what more can you ask for?  Hope you enjoyed reading and please don't forget to comment and share!!

BBQ chicken Sandwich !!!

Continuing from where I left off in my last post,  I'm going to show you what I did with my freshly deboned leg quarter. The plan was to make a quick and easy chicken sandwich and let me tell you, not only was it extremely cheap to make, it was pretty damn tasty too! 

 Here I've got my deboned chicken. You can see how, if done properly, the skin will be nicely intact after deboning. I like to make a few slits in the meat to even out the thickness and allow for more even cooking. 

I also make slits on the skin side. When I crisp up all that delicious chicken skin, it helps to reduce the amount the skin will contract and helps to keep the meat nice and flat and even. After seasoning liberally with fresh cracked pepper, salt, and adobo (my personal favorite all purpose seasoning) the chicken goes into a preheated cast iron pan, lubed up with about a 1Tsp of bacon drippings, skin side first.

Cook over medium heat until the skin is crispy, golden brown, and delicious. Don't mess with it! Lifting a corner now and then to check on the browning progress is fine, but don't go moving it all over the pan. Just let it do its thing and it should only need to be turned once. 

Once both sides are nicely browned and the chicken is cooked through, it should be transferred to a draining rack to rest and allow extra fat to drain. While the chicken was resting, I took advantage of the residual heat and sprinkled it with some finely shredded medium sharp cheddar cheese so it could get nicely melted. 

Here are the basic components of my sandwich. My pan seared chicken leg quarter with melted cheddar cheese, some multi-grain whole wheat bread, sriracha hot sauce (AKA rooster sauce), and a small sample sized  container of BBQ sauce. I would've liked to have added some lettuce for crunch and temperature contrast but I didn't have any, so I didn't. 

Here's the finished sandwich! Great chicken flavor mixed with the cheese and tangy bbq sauce and all that goodness is brought together with the with little hints of spice from the sriracha and the flavor of the hearty bread it's all wrapped in.

COST BREAKDOWN:

Chicken - 0.91lbs @ $.89lb =$0.81

Cheddar cheese - 1oz @ $4/lb = $0.25

Bread - 2 slices @ $4.39/ loaf  =$0.53 

Sriracha sauce -1tsp @ $3.29/bottle = $0.02

BBQ sauce sampler = free

Total = $1.61

I hope you all enjoyed my first recipe post. Still just getting started, so any suggestions and constructive criticisms are welcome! Thanks for reading and please don't forget to comment and share!  

Chicken leg quarter de-boning fast and easy!

 A step by step tutorial on how I debone a chicken leg quarter. 

The basics; a chicken leg quarter, a sharp knife, kitchen towel, and  a cutting board.

Start by flipping the leg over and finding the seam between the hip/back portion and the femur.  Slice straight along it, but don't worry about going all the way through. 

Take the leg quarter in 2 hands and open the incision you just  made . You should feel the hip socket  "pop".

With the socket no longer an issue you can finish separating the back from the rest of the leg. The back piece can be  thrown in a baggie and kept in the freezer until you have a enough for the stock pot or you can do what I do, and feed it to my dogs. They get any raw bones and meat scraps I have left over from cooking and they love it.

Next you  feel for the femur bone and make an incision along its entire length. Follow that with a cut on both sides of the bone. You don't need to go too deep and you can use your fingers to work around the bone once the cuts are made. 

You're going to want to repeat that same process for the bone in the drumstick but you don't need to go all the way to the end of the lower bone .

2 more slices around the leg joint and you should have something that looks like this.

Pinching your fingers around the bone makes it easy to get a knife in underneath it.  Slice towards the free end of the bone. 

Do the same for the lower bone being sure to avoid putting your knife between the leg bone and the smaller, pin like bone.  Once you reach the end of your incision (as shown in the picture) slice straight down toward the cutting board.

With both ends free, you should be able to pinch them together and make the final cut under the leg joint. You have to watch out for the cartilage on the outside of this joint. It's very easy to slice a piece off  and nobody wants that in their  boneless chicken.

Well, that's it! Your deboned chicken leg quarter is ready for whatever  creative cookery you can come up with.
Hope people find this helpful and informative! Leave me a comment if anything needs more clarification . Thanks for reading and don't forget to share!

A look at my menu planning... Part 2

Dinner... 

      This tends to be the most expensive meal of the day. I try to combat this by using lower-priced cuts of meat and low and slow cooking techniques. Buying a pork shoulder at sometimes less than 99¢ a pound, and with most pork shoulders averaging 9 to 10 lbs., that gives you a lot of protein for very little money. Considering I'm only cooking for one, a pork shoulder will give me many meals and plenty of snacking options. Anyone who's had good pulled pork or Puerto Rican style pernil knows how good this cheap piece of meat can be! Besides the protein aspect, I usually try to have a starch and a veggie or two with dinner. I'm a definite meat and potato guy so potatoes are a dinner constant. Mashed, roasted, fried, or scalloped. I love them all! There will be plenty of rice and pasta sides too... I just love my taters!

    The basic rundown of my weekly dinner menu consists of chicken as the primary protein source. Most of my chicken will be in the form of chicken leg quarters. Not only can I get them in bulk for between 49 and 89 cents per pound for a 40lb box, but they really are my favorite part of the chicken. Once you learn to efficiently de-bone a leg quarter it makes this cut about 50 times more versatile. The darker meat takes to grilling and pan searing beautifully. It always stays moist and (I think) it is much more flavorful than white meat. I will also be including shrimp, pork and beef in the rotation, figuring on one meal of each per week for dinner. I'm expecting to eat the pork and beef on the weekends when I'll have more time for longer preparations and that will leave the leftovers for lunches on Monday and Tuesday.

    I'm hoping ...

   to be camera equipped shortly so I can get started with the cooking and posting up something besides a bunch of text. Keep an eye out for new updates and please comment and share!!!! 

A look at my menu planning.

The main thought behind building my menu was to base it on a standard week, with Monday through Friday being the easier days and Saturday and Sunday being bigger, more special meals.  Of course I have each day broken down into breakfast and lunch and dinner as well.  


Let's start with breakfast:

As it's written right now, breakfast Monday through Friday will consist of two hard boiled eggs and two pieces of toast.  Along with the eggs and toast I'll have either bacon and a glass of milk or a fruit smoothie, alternating between the two daily.  As for the weekends, that's when I take the time to cook myself up some eggs over easy, an omelet, or some other special breakfast that takes a little more time.  I personally like to make some special hash browns or corned beef hash with some poached eggs!  My breakfast plan might not seem very exciting but the hard boiled eggs and the bacon can be prepared ahead of time for the entire week and the toast and smoothies only take minutes to make.  With the way I have my menu planned it should cost me an estimated $1.50 per meal.  Not too bad if it works out that way!  Obviously we'll see if it does once this thing gets going.  That's basically my breakfast menu, I'm sure I'll be making adjustments to it in the future but that's what I've got so far.

And on to lunch:

So lunch is a little more difficult.  Eggs and toast for breakfast is easy and I'll never get sick of that, but I'm definitely going to need more variety in my lunches.  I plan on using leftovers from the weekend dinners for lunches on Mondays and Tuesdays.  For the rest of the week my lunches are mainly going to be a starch (rice, pasta, couscous, etc.) some vegetables and a little meat or deli meat sandwiches, alternating between the two.  This gives me a ton of options!  Whether it's stir fried vegetables with shrimp or fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli and chicken or any number of soups or salads to go along with a sammich.  The sky's the limit as long as you have some basic ingredients and a little imagination.

That's about it for right now ... 

I'm gonna start working on writing up the dinner portion and the first month's shopping list. Gotta get ahold of a decent camera  and also do some (very light)  inventory so I can see what food  and supplies I have on hand. Then I should be able to show, pretty well, how I get the most out of a small food budget starting with basically nothing. Stay tuned,comment, and share!!

First bit of writing...

So I started this food blog today.  Now I'm trying out some voice recognition software.  I think it'll help me to not have to type as much.  I'm going to start with my menu and food planning as I haven't gotten my food stamps yet and have no money for food currently .  I really based my menu and my planning on cheap easy to make meals that are both delicious and good for you.  I hope to be able to show that with basic ingredients and a few different techniques there's a whole world of possibilities out there in food that don't break the bank.

A few more older shots

I love eggs and toast... just something about that yolk, the butter and the bread...It's like magic!

Simple, cheap, easy, and delicious!  

Homemade Corned Beef Hash!!! Always a welcome sight the morning after St Patty's. 

A simple shrimp and rice dish. 

Stir fry shrimp and veggies.

Just some older pics to get things going.

Gotta love BBQ!!!! :D 

Some smoked up chickens. 

Bacon Wrapped Beef Short Ribs

About 4hrs later 

Fresh crab cakes ..they were just swimmin'!!