Chicken bake for less than a $1.70 a serving.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of chicken – I purchased 3lbs of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for $9.99.  Cost for recipe $3.33.
• 1 can of Cream of Mushroom Soup – I purchased the store brand for $0.67.
• 12 oz of milk – I purchased a gallon for $3.49, Cost for recipe $0.33.
• 2/3 pound of pasta – I purchased a pound of mini bowtie pasta in the supermarket for $0.99. Cost for recipe $0.66.
• 1/2 bag of frozen broccoli in cheese sauce – Purchased on sale for $1.49 a bag.  Cost for recipe $0.745.
• 1/2 bag of frozen cauliflower in cheese sauce – Purchased on sale for $1.49 a bag.  Cost for recipe $0.745.
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs or crushed saltines – Purchased a 4 cup can of bread crumbs for $0.99.  Cost for recipe $0.06.
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flake (optional or you can add a little extra, up to you)
• 1 tbs dried parsley
• I rounded up for the price of the spices as they were already in my cupboard and the price for a cup of water is negligible.  I guessed on the high side $0.20.
• Total Price: $6.74 or $1.69 per person for a family of four.

The first step is to preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

The second step cut up the chicken into strips.  I know that everyone usually puts the chicken in whole when they make a casserole, but I like to have my chicken throughout the casserole.  Plus then you don’t have to divide the chicken amongst the family, it is already portioned.  Then pour the cream of mushroom soup, water, milk and spices into a 9×13 casserole dish and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. 

Mix until the soup is not lumpy any more

Then add the pasta, chicken and frozen vegetables to the dish. Mix until everything is coated.

As you can see the cheese sauce from the veggies is frozen into squares.

Then bake for 25 minutes.  The chicken bake should be slightly brown.  Remove from the oven and add the bread crumbs.  Sprinkle them all over the top of the dish.

Layer the bread crumbs all over the top of the dish

Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the bread crumbs are a golden brown.

As you can see the breadcrumbs come out perfectly golden

Let cool for a couple of minutes and then serve.  The dish is tasty, quick and easy.

Tastes like a $10 meal and not a $1.69 meal.

This dish is pretty flexible.  If you can not find frozen veggies that are already in cheese sauce add a half cup of cheese to the mix.  Buy whatever veggies are on sale.  If they have mixed veggies, green beans, corn, etc.  Almost any vegetable will work.  Same with the meat.  If chicken is not on sale use pork, turkey or even tuna.  If they have pie crusts on sale, place that over the top of the casserole dish before baking to make a quick and easy pot pie.  If you use a pie crust, brush it lightly with melted butter to get a golden brown crust. 

Overall this dish was tasty.  Since it make enough for 4-5 people I will be eating it for a couple of days.  Not sure if I will love it as much as I do now, in two days, but we will see.  Hope this gives you guys some ideas for quick, easy and affordable meals.  Enjoy.

I have been on a quest for the best chocolate chip cookies for a while.  After a while I have figured out the ingredients needed to make a really good cookie.  You need to use both butter and shortening.  If you use all butter your cookies come out flat and crunchy.  If you use all shortening your cookies come out fluffly but don’t spread out.  A perfect balance of the two gives you a light and fluffy cookie that is not too thick and not too thin.

Chocolate Chip Cookies – (Adapted from The Worlds Best Chocolate Chip Cookies from Chef2Chef.com)

•  3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 1/2 Cup Shortening
• 1.5 Tbs Vanilla – 1 Tbs if you are using mexican vanilla (it has a stronger flavor)
• 2 Eggs
• 3 Cups Bread Flour
• 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 3/4 tsp Salt – (Preferably Kosher or Fine Sea Salt)
• 1 Bag of Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Side Note – I just want to take a minute to let you know that if you have a kitchen aid mixer you should get a beater blade.  The original blade that comes with the mixer works great but requires that you scrape the edges of the bowl so that everything is incorporated.  The beater blade has silicone scrapers on the edge of the blade that scrape the edges and make it so that you do not need this step.

Back to cooking.  Add room temperature butter, shortening, sugar and brown sugar to your bowl.  Mix at medium speed creaming the butter and sugar. 

Now add the eggs slightly beaten and the vanilla.  Vanilla is a compliment to chocolate, so by adding the vanilla you are going to enhance the chocolate flavor.  Who doesn’t want more chocolately chocolate.  I know I do!

While that is mixing sift the flour and baking soda onto a piece of wax paper or parchment.  This step can be skipped but if you want the perfect textured cookies, I recommend that you sift your flour.  Then once your flour is sifted you can use the wax paper or parchment as a funnel to get the ingredients in the bowl.  This makes less of a mess when incorporating flour.  Otherwise you might end up looking like casper the friendly ghost. 

I used a strainer to sift the flour. It works great. No need to buy expensive equipment.

The wax paper makes pouring the flour into the mixer easy.

Mix until the flour is incorporated.  Then fold the chocolate chips in with your favorite wooden spoon or spatula.

Now portion the cookies out onto a baking sheet covered in parchment or a silpat.  I use an ice cream scoop to portion out the cookies.  I have found that I could get six cookies per sheet.

Using an ice cream scoop makes sure that all of the cookies are the same size.

The silpat is reusable and thus saves money in the long run.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.  Remember to take them out when they get stiff.  If the cookies look done they are probably over done.  That is one of the biggest mistakes most cooks make.  An overdone cookie is a crime.

When the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. 

It might be the simplest and greatest sandwich ever.

The French Bacon Sandwich (As seen in South Park Complete Season 2 boxed set)

• 1 pound of bacon
• 8 slices of white wonder bread
• 1 bottle of French dressing

The first step is to cook the bacon.  Unlike the cooking segment I like to bake my bacon in the oven.  It comes out looking nicer.  Set your oven to 400.  Then you need a sheet pan lined with aluminum.  Then put a baking rack over the foil. 

Then put the bacon in strips on the rack.  If you have a rack with grates you can push the bacon between the grates for a nice rippled look or else you can lay it flat.  Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until it is the desired crispyness. 

I left mine in for 25 minutes.  Then remove and let it cool.

MMM Bacon

Meanwhile grab your white bread and lay it out.  Layer with the bacon and drizzle it liberally with french dressing. 

Doesn't that look amazing!!!

Add the top layer of the bread, cut and serve. 

The French Bacon Sandwich - Quite spectacular looking, if you could only taste it.

That is it.  I know what you are thinking, yep it is solid bacon.  Who wouldn’t love that.

Above is some freshly shredded pork, you can see the nice pink smoke ring.  Doesn’t it look delicious.

Before you can dust the meat with your rub, I always like to brine the meat.  Why brine you say?  Well brining helps the meat retain moisture, become more tender, and overall can help impart nice flavors if you spice up your brine. 

To make my brine I used:

• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup non-iodized salt (kosher or sea salt)
• cayenne pepper
• seasoning salt
• 1/2 pound of ice cubes

Start with the 3 cups of water, salt, cayenne and seasoning salt in a non-reactive pan and bring to a boil.  I know it seems like a lot of salt but once the mixture boils, remove from the heat and add the ice.  The ice will melt, cooling the brine immediately down so that you can use it right away.  This is why there was so much salt.  We needed it as the ice was going to dilute the mixture.

Next inject the meat with the brine.  You could just let the pork butt soak overnight, but since it is a thick cut of meat it would never fully absorb.  I always inject as much brine as the meat will take and then let rest for an hour.  Make sure to put the meat in a dish as some of the brine will leak out.

Once the meat is fully rested,  remove it from the refrigerator and pat it dry.  Now it is time for the rub.  Remember once again, it may seem like there is way too much seasoning and salt in the rub, but it is only on the outside of the meat.  For it to penetrate the flavors have to be strong.

The Rub – In a bowl mix

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3 tbs paprika
• 1 tbs dry mustard
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 tbs seasoning salt
• 2 tsp onion (powder or granulated)
• 2 tsp garlic (powder or granulated)
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

After you pat the meat dry and liberally shake the rub over the meat.  I then pat the rub into the meat and let the meat rest for the rub to set.  After it sets, rotate the meat and rub the other sides.  Then let the meat sit while you get your fire started in your smoker.

Once you have your smoker going steady around 210-230 degrees, insert a thermometer into the meat and place it on the smoker in the warmer part of your smoker.  If your smoker is anything like mine, it has hot and cold spots.  Since the pork butt is a thick cut of meat I usually place it on the grates near the firebox.

I had a 6lb pork butt cooking at 215 degrees.  So it would take approximately 10 hours to cook.  So I set the smoker, closed up the vents so that it stayed at 215 and barbecued it for 5 hours.  At the 5 hour time I opened up the smoker flipped and rotated the meat.  While the cover was open I basted it.

Above it the meat halfway through cooking.  As you can see the rub is set and it is looking amazing.

Barbecue Mop – (All purpose Memphis Basting Sauce  from Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue)

• 3 cups water
• 1.5 cups red wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup Heinz 57 steak sauce
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup prepared yellow mustard
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 tbs seasoned salt
• 2 tsp liquid smoke

Every 30 minutes open the lid and mop the meat.  If you don’t have a mop you can go to the hardware store and grab a clean spray bottle.  This works very well.  A word of WARNING.  The only problem is that you need to strain the mop sauce before you put it into the spray bottle.  I have lost of few good spray bottles by not properly straining the mop sauce. 

When the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees remove from the smoker and wrap in aluminum foil.  Let sit for 20 to 30 minutes to let the internal temperature rise to 205 degrees.  This is the perfect temperature to pull the meat.

As you can see above, the bone is falling out of the meat.  I have also added a picture of the perfect smok ring.  It penetrated the meat, hardened the rub and made some delicious meat.

Using two forks shred the pork butt to make nice pulled pork pieces.  Serve meat as is or add your favorite barbecue sauce.  Perfect side for pulled pork include potato salad and cowboy baked beans.

One of my passions is barbecueing and this outing was nothing but spectacular.  The meat was perfectly cooked with a kiss of smoke.  The meat was juicy and tender.  It made some of the best pulled pork sandwiches that I have ever had.  If you have a chance to barbecue I hope you try this method.  Brining makes all of the difference.

This book has 50 pages dedicated to the basics of sausage making.  This is an extremely helpful section for a novice sausage maker.  It covers equipment from meat grinders, sausage stuffers, measuring tools, thermometers, and basic ingredients.  It even covers topics such as nitrates for dried and cured meats.  The best part of this book occurs on pages 26-27.  On these two pages there are drawings illustrating the 8 basic steps to making sausage. Oh, don’t forget to check out page 49 with a macgyver’s guide to making your own smoke house using a metal barrel, 6″ stovepipe and a few bricks.  This is clutch if you ever find yourself on a desert island with a bunch of meat, casings, a grinder and the above listed hardware.

Part Two: Sausages

The Home Sausage Making book includes over 100 sausage recipes to make at home.  This includes but is not limited to pork, beef, game, poultry and seafood sausages.  They have an extensive list of all of the most popular types of sausage including breakfast sausage, bratwurst, kielbasa, pizza sausage and frankfurters.  The recipes are easy to read, include basic ingredients and are well written.  Plus, most of of the sausage recipes include a brief history of each type of sausage and suggested cooking instructions.  On a side note, I noticed that most of the recipes are just meat and spices and fail to include a binding ingredient.  While not necessary, binding ingredients improve the overall texture and moisture of the sausage.

I was extremely interested in the seafood sausages.  This seemed quite weird to me.  Nothing sounds more awesome than fish chopped up and stuffed in animal innards.  Page 193 lists one of the craziests sausages that I have ever read about, especially since it includes a 1/2 cup of alcohol and 8 medium sized squid.  Needless to say, I am going to be making this in a couple of weeks. 

Part Three: Cooking Sausages

The third section of the book suggest sausages and recipes for each sausage based on the time of the day.  Sausage and Apple pancake roll-ups for breakfast, Guacamole with chorizo for appetizers and Sausage pizza for lunch or dinner.  The recipes all sound great.  The best recipe I read about and one that I am going to have to recreate is a sausage filled piroshki.  It is a russian dumpling that is baked and filled with sausage, egg and onion.  It sounds awesome.  I love sausage, egg and pastry. 

Overall this book is very informative and includes a lot of great instructions and recipes.  Even though none of the recipes that I read included binding agents the seasonings and meat combinations were traditional and sounded delicious.  While the basic ingredients are good, the lack of fillers will create juicy sausages that will fall apart, dry up and lack in the great textures that you are used to.  So, If you are looking for a great informative book on how to make sausages you may want to pick up this book.  If you already are knowledgable about the art of sausage making and want a book with sausage recipes you might want to pass. 

When I started BBQ’n and making sausage I had no idea where to find good meat. I started by going to the Safeway grocery store by my house and picked up prepackaged Pork Butts and Briskets. Then I went to a specialty butcher which cost two to three times as much. I decided to call the butcher up at the Safeway and order the best cuts from him. 

I though by calling that I could get in good with the butcher.  So I ordered a 8lb pork butt and a 6lb brisket.  The biggest ones that he had.  When I showed up the butcher was so happy.  He spent the last 20 minutes timming the two slabs of meat.  He was so proud of his work.  Then I said that I needed them untrimmed so that I could bbq them.  The look on his face when said this was a mixture of disgust, hatred and sadness.  I kindly asked him about some untrimmed specimens.  He was not too happy with me. 

On a side note, No offense to the butcher but even if I was not BBQ’n I would still want the fat. It is where all of the flavor resides.  Plus, if you get untrimmed pork butts you can use the fat for sausages and you don’t have to order more.

Well after a few minutes talking to the butcher I asked him for untrimmed specimens. He was not too happy to begin with but he went in the back and came out with four vacuum sealed pork butts. I got to choose. It was amazing, you could see the fat and the bone. I got to determine what I wanted. After doing this I BBQ’d all day and took a specimen back to the butcher. It was the best thing that I have ever done. Now I call and he has six to eight different Boston Butts for me to look at. He also can order me full briskets.

My suggestion to you, is to save a buck by looking for deals in the newspaper. Call ahead tell the butcher exactly what you are looking for and make sure to tell him or her that you do not want it trimmed. Finally tell the butcher that it is for BBQ and/or sausage making.

Oh, and it always helps to take a sample to the butcher, because you haven’t seen deals until your butcher knows what you are capable of.