Cellfire Groundhog Day Giveaway

1 Feb

If you aren’t familiar with Cellfire, it is a savings site where you can download coupons to your store savings card or get coupons you can pull up on your cell phone to use at certain stores.  Fry’s (and Kroger family stores) is a participating store, so you can go and load coupons from the Cellfire website to go directly onto your VIP card to use like the digital coupons on Fry’s website.

Anyway, tomorrow, Thursday February 2, they are having a Groundhog Day Giveaway.  All you have to do is log in using your Cellfire account to see if you’ve won.  200 winners will get a $5 Amazon gift card, and 2 winners will get a Kindle Fire.

If you aren’t registered at Cellfire already I would suggest doing it before tomorrow because promotion days tend to make the site slow, so it’s easier to just log in instead of trying to register.  Click here to lean more about Cellfire and this promotion!

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Baked Ratatouille

31 Jan

 

My oldest daughter thought it was so cool to make Ratatouille like in the Disney movie, Ratatouille.  I used the eggplant from the Asian themed veggie pack I got this week, a zucchini I had left in my fridge, rosemary, oregano, and parsley from the Italian themed veggie pack a few weeks pack, and tomato and onion from this week’s basket.  It tasted really good, but my presentation needs some work.  I had wanted to use a round casserole dish, but it wasn’t fitting right, so I put it in a 13 x 9 pan instead.  But, then it was all spread out too much, but it still cooked fine.  Also, most recipes also call for peppers, which I have, but just didn’t add in since my husband doesn’t really like cooked peppers.

 

Baked Ratatouille
Based on recipes here and here

What you need:

1 large onion, cut into rings
1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2″ slices
2 zucchini, cut into 1/2″ slices
1 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh chopped parsley
2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
2 tsp fresh chopped oregano
Olive oil

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a small bowl, mix together Parmesan cheese, garlic, parsley, rosemary, and oregano.

Grease a medium-sized casserole dish with olive oil.  Make a layer with the onions.  Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and spice mixture.  Repeat this process for the remaining vegetables.

Cover and bake in the preheated oven for 45 – 60 minutes.

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Slow Cooker Chicken and Noodles

29 Jan

This is something I haven’t made in quite a while.  Since I got celery and carrots this week with Bountiful Baskets, I decided to make it.  I made it a little differently than I have in the past, and I was very pleased with the results.  I made it with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but you could also use 2 pounds of chicken breasts with bones or 2 pounds of thigh and drumstick pieces with bones.  You just need to make sure that you get all the bones out since the chicken will be very tender after cooking in the slow cooker.   Also, I made this with egg noodles, but you could use homemade noodles, or some other kind of pasta, or even rice.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Noodles
Serves 6

What you need:

2 cups sliced carrots
1 1/2 cups diced onions
1 cup celery
1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, or 2 lbs chicken with bones, skins removed
1 tsp poultry seasoning
5 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
2 cups cooked egg noodles, pasta, or rice

How to make it:

Place carrots, onions, and celery in the slow cooker.  Place chicken on top of vegetables, sprinkle with poultry seasoning.  Pour in chicken broth and water.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 3-4 hours.

After finished cooking, remove chicken.  If using boneless chicken, cut or shred chicken into bite size pieces.  If using chicken with bones, remove chicken from bones and cut or shred into bite size pieces.  Discard bones.  Return chicken pieces to slow cooker.  Stir in cooked noodles, pasta, or rice.  Serve.

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Weekly Meal Plan: 1/29/2012 – 2/4/2012

29 Jan

I got lots of yummy things this week in Bountiful Baskets, now to use them all!  Here is what I have planned to far:

 

Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles, using carrots, onion, and celery (in the slow cooker right now, smells so good!)

Lemon Chicken and Vegetables over rice.  Vegetables will include bok choy, carrots, green onion, water chestnuts, asparagus

Buffalo Chicken Pizza & Sandwiches

Ground Beef & Cabbage Stew, using cabbage, onions, carrots, and potatoes

Slow Cooker Cabbage Rolls, using cabbage and onions

Some kind of dish with eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes, possibly with pasta

 

I will also be making a Chinese Napa Cabbage Salad to go with our lunches, possibly some Egg Rolls, depending on how many veggies I have left.

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts

28 Jan

 

I had almost forgotten about these Brussels sprouts from last week, but they still looked great from being in my vegetable crisper all week.  Instead of shredding them, I wanted to try them roasted.  I’ve roasted many veggies this way, all delicious, and the Brussels sprouts were delicious too!  These pretty much melted in my mouth and didn’t taste as bitter as Brussels sprouts sometimes can be.

 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

What you need:

1 pound Brussels sprouts
Olive oil (about 3 Tbsp)
Salt
Pepper
Balsamic vinegar (optional)

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 450 F.  Line a baking sheet with foil.

Remove the outer layer of leaves from each Brussels sprout.  Cut each in half.  Put in a zipper bag with the olive oil, and the salt and pepper to your taste.  Place Brussels sprouts in a single layer on baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the Brussels sprouts just start to blacken on the outer layer.

If desired, drizzle balsamic vinegar over roasted Brussels sprouts.

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Club Melt on Sourdough

28 Jan

I know I have talked a lot about the bread available through Bountiful Baskets, but I just can’t say enough good things about it!  I have had this in my freezer for a few months, and while it probably wouldn’t have tasted great alone, it was perfect buttered and toasted to make club melts for lunch today.  Roast beef and turkey, with swiss cheese, pickles, and lettuce, tomato, and onion from Bountiful Baskets this week.

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Bountiful Baskets – 1/28/2012

28 Jan

I got a lot this week!  I got the conventional basket for $15, the Asian themed veggie pack for $8.50, the case of Pink Lady apples for $22.50, and the 25 lb bag of carrots for $8.50, making my total $56.  I did split the apples and carrots with a friend, who is sharing her honey with me in return (12 lb bucket was $37.50).

Conventional basket had minneolas, yellow onion, apples, blueberries, green peppers, red peppers, tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, cabbage, lettuce, and baby red potatoes.  Not shown is 3 grapefruits, which I gave to a friend because she gave me her cabbage and some peppers.

Asian themed veggie pack had celery, basil, yellow onion, garlic, water chestnuts, green onion, Napa cabbage, eggplant, and snow peas.  Not shown is bok choy, which I gave to my friend for her mom’s pack, since hers was small and not looking real good and I have plenty left from last week’s inherited Asian veggie pack.

One layer of Pink Lady apples.  There is another full layer underneath this, plus another 5 apples.  There are usually 100 apples in the boxes of apples available.  I have half, my friend has the other half.

About half the 25 lb bag of carrots.  These are huge!  My friend has the rest.

 

I don’t have a picture of the honey yet.  It came in a bucket, so my friend is going to get it split into other containers.  Can’t wait!

I am working making room for all this in my fridge and decide what to make with all of it.  Hopefully, later today or tomorrow, I will have my meal plan for the week with this week’s basket.

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Orange Chicken

26 Jan

 

While I was working on my meal plan for this week, I posted on Facebook that I was having trouble deciding what to make.  A friend of mine, CrunchyMetroMom, said she was working on a dish with chicken and orange juice.  Since I am getting a little burned out on making Sesame Chicken, Orange Chicken popped into my mind, like the Orange Chicken at Panda Express.  So, I went in search of recipes online and then ended up doing something in between 2 recipes.  Then, since I got part of my friend’s Asian themed veggie pack, I had vegetables to stir fry to go along with the chicken.  The chicken I did in the slow cooker, but I think next time, I might do it like I do Sesame Chicken, cook the chicken, mix the sauce, then add the chicken and vegetables.  One advantage to using the slow cooker is that the chicken really absorbs the sauce well, but with my slow cooker, it didn’t leave a lot leftover for the vegetables.  I could have added the vegetables to the slow cooker, but I was worried about them being too mushy, but would have saved me some time.  Anyway, I’ll walk you through how I did it, and you can decide if you want to the same, do all in the slow cooker, or all in a wok.  Also, if you would like to add some heat to this, add some crushed red pepper flakes.

 

Orange Chicken and Vegetables over Rice
Based on recipes here and here

What you need:

Orange Sauce: (I made this twice, once for the chicken, once for the vegetables)
– 3/4 cup pulp free frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed (this is 1/2 can)
– 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
– 1 Tbsp soy sauce
– 1 Tbsp ketchup
– 3 Tbsp brown sugar
– 1/2 tsp sesame oil

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/4 cup flour
Vegetable oil
Vegetables to stir fry (I used carrots, water chestnuts, green onion, bok choy stems and leaves, and broccoli)
Cooked rice

How to make it:

Dredge chicken in flour.  Heat some vegetable oil in a skillet, and brown chicken just enough to get the flour to stay on the chicken.  Place chicken in slow cooker.

Meanwhile, combine all ingredients for the orange sauce in a bowl.  Pour over chicken in the slow cooker to evenly coat.  Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

Once you are ready to serve, heat some vegetable oil in a wok.  Start with veggies that take longer to cook (in my case, the carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, and bok choy stems), then add the veggies that take shorter to cook (in my case, green onions and bok choy leaves).

Meanwhile, again, combine all ingredients for the orange sauce in a bowl.  Once veggies are all tender, pour in orange sauce and stir to coat evenly.  Add in the chicken from the slow cooker.  Cook until all heated through.  Serve over the cooked rice.

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Fry’s Mega Sale and Deal of the Day

25 Jan

2 new promotions at Fry’s started today!  These promotions are going on at other Kroger Family stores as well.

First, today through 2/4/2012, there will be a Deal of the Day coupon that will be available for you to download onto your VIP card.   Click on the picture above to link to find the Deal of the Day coupon.

Second, today through 2/7/2012 will be a Mega Sale.  If you aren’t familiar with a Fry’s Mega sale, it works like this: you buy a certain number of participating products, you get a certain amount of your total.  So, in this sale, the amount of participating items you buy is 10, then you get $5 off your total.  You don’t have to buy 10 of the same item (although you can), you can mix and match participating items.  You can buy more than 10 items, but it must be in multiples of 10, so 10, 20, 30, 40, etc, and you will get $5 off for each multiple of 10.  So, $5 off with 10 items, $10 off with 20 items, $15 off with 30 items, and so on.  A while back, I created and shared a Savings Event Spreadsheet.  I would recommend downloading it from Google documents for use in Excel so it will work and print correctly.  This will help you plan a grocery store trip for the Mega Sale.  For this current sale, you will use the Buy 10 Event tab, and as you can see, it has sections numbered 1 to 10.  For the Event Savings, you will enter $.50 for each item ($5 divided by 10 items is $.50 per item).  For the Event Sale Price, you will enter the price after the savings are taken out, so if something is on sale for $1.49, then is $.99 after sale savings, you will enter $.99 in this column.  This is so you can make sure you get multiples of 10 and so you can see roughly how much you will be spending (before tax, of course).  A couple other tips for shopping a Mega Sale:

– Try to shop in the early in the morning or late at night when the store isn’t so crowded.  You will be able to focus on keeping track of your count.

– If you can, use the self check out to keep track of your count.  Every participating item will have a [+] next to it, so you know that you got the right item.  Also, after you scan in 10 items, you can click “Pay Now” and if you did get 10, it will take off the $5, then you can click Go Back to continue scanning the next 10 items.

– Don’t try to do too many sets at once.  If you want to use this as an opportunity to stock up on the sale items, don’t try to do it all at once.  Plan multiple trips, if you can.

– Look for a cheap item in the sale you can use as a back up filler.  That way if a certain item is out of stock, and you already have 9 items, you can grab your back up filler to fill in that last spot to make an even 10 and get your $5 off.

– Before you leave the store, check your receipt.  Usually at the bottom there will be a line that says “[+] = a number”  If you did it right, that number should be 10, 20, 30, etc.  If not, talk to customer service to see if you can get more items the right number to get your final $5 off.

That’s all I can think of for suggestions for the sale.  If you have a method you like to use, please share!  Happy Shopping!

 

1/27 edit:  Changed what you need to enter in the Event Sale Price column.  I haven’t used this spreadsheet in a while, and forgot how it worked.  It is corrected above what you need to enter.

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Pizza Sauce

24 Jan

 

In recent weeks of Bountiful Baskets, I have received a lot of tomatoes.  I like tomatoes in salads, but I also wanted to try some new things with them.  One of those things was pizza sauce.  Most recipes I found called for canned, diced tomatoes or canned, whole tomatoes, or tomato paste, and while I knew I could make those things with fresh tomatoes, I didn’t want to spend the extra time.  So, I finally found a recipe on AllRecipes.com that was exactly what I wanted, a recipe that used fresh tomatoes and didn’t require any extra prep to those tomatoes.  Perfect!  It also used up the rest of my fresh basil and fresh oregano, and some of the fresh parsley in my Italian veggie pack.  Even better!  This sauce was used on a Sausage Florentine Pizza.  It made about 1 1/2 cups of sauce, so was perfect for the size pizza I was making.

 

Pizza Sauce
Based on this recipe

What you need:

2 ripe tomatoes, quartered and seeds removed
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon white sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil

How to make it:

Place all ingredients in a food processor.  Do not liquefy, sauce should remain somewhat chunky.

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