If you have some leftover bacon in the frig or freezer, this goes together almost as quickly as just toasting a bagel. If your bagel is frozen, pop it in the toaster or microwave for a minute or two first thing. If your bacon is frozen, pop it in the microwave for a minute or just make sure you pull it out first thing to get up to room temperature.

Pop your split bagel(s) in the toaster while you heat a skillet on medium low heat.

Put a pat of butter in the skillet and when it has melted  add your egg(s).

Scramble the egg with just a bit of salt (the bacon will add plenty!).

When the bagel is done, spread one half with cream cheese, then top with the scrambled egg, then the bacon (or ham) , then the other bagel half. That’s it! Bit into and enjoy.

Just me for dinner tonight and it’s cold out!  I was thinking about making Coconut Rice Noodles and Chicken Soup or this very good Thai Noodle Soup but then remembered I had a dinner size portion of taco soup left in the freezer.

I find it easy to stick stuff INTO the freezer sometimes and harder to remember to use it up, so since it’s just me tonight this is perfect!

And this time I have some tortilla chips to go with it!  I also have a bit of avocado left so am adding that once the soup warms up. If avocado goes great with chicken tortilla soup, I’m thinking it will add a nice cool bit to taco soup too.

Of course, it’s not really a “loaf” when you form it into patties, but the flavor says meatloaf! There are so many good variations of meatloaf. This one has Parmesan cheese in it, a new variation for me, and it was a very good one. The recipe came from Desperation Dinners, still one of my favorite cookbooks for getting a meal on the table fast! And only $5.44 right now on Amazon. Such a deal!

You could of course mix this into a loaf and bake it that way for about an hour, or form into muffin tin loaves and bake half an hour or so, but the fastest way to cook them up will be forming into patties and cooking in a skillet on the stove.  In the picture above, I have one packed for my daughter’s lunch tomorrow with some of the leftover cheesy mashed potatoes.

• 1 pound of ground beef or turkey (I actually just used 3/4 pound)
• 1/2 cup or so diced onion
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs *
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley and a bit of dried
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• ketchup or tomato sauce as needed

Mix everything but the ketchup together in a mixing bowl. Using your hands is best so you won’t overmix but you can also use a mixer if you don’t like touching the meat.

Form into 6 patties, no more than 1″ thick.

Cook in a medium hot skillet about 4-5 minutes per side, until cooked through. Put some ketchup or tomato sauce on top of each patty, cover the skillet and cook 1-2 minutes until the ketchup is heated through.

These were very moist and tasty. I really liked the flavor and having meatloaf taste on the table in 20 minutes or less is pretty fantastic.

* NOTE: Whenever I have leftover bread about to go stale (or already stale!) I grind it up into bread crumbs, bake them in a low oven on a cookie sheet until dried and store them in the freezer.

I had some great homemade chicken broth, all jellied up and good, and poached chicken and I had a craving for some chicken tortilla soup. When I say chicken tortilla soup, it has to include lime juice and avocados (and chicken of course!). Much else is negotiable. I started here with this recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup from Emeril but made a few changes. I didn’t want it too spicy so skipped his whole Cajun seasoning thing. Also, I had some low fat tortilla chips and saw no reason to use 2 cups (!!!) of vegetable oil for frying corn tortillas up. If you do have corn tortillas you want to crisp, spray with a bit of oil and bake them. Sheesh.Even when I fry corn tortillas up for tacos, I do not use 2 cups of oil!  (If you do use 2 cups of oil, make sure you strain it and save it for another use.)

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2-3 cloves chopped garlic (about 2 tsp)
• 1 Tbs chopped jalapeno pepper (I had some in the freezer)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 Tbs tomato paste (freeze leftovers in spoonfuls on wax paper)
• 6 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 cups cooked diced or shredded chicken
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 1 avocado, peeled and chopped
• sour cream at the table

I think a great snack involves just a bit of effort, a spreading of something, a building up of something, a blending… Sliced apples and peanut butter fit the bill !

A simple sliced apple and a spoonful of peanut butter make a great after-school snack and has become my 15 year old’s newest favorite.

My eldest is suddenly taken with eating a sliced apple at breakfast, along with her Raisin Bran.  She skips the peanut butter though.

I like this for a late night snack/dessert. It would also make a good lunchbox addition. If you spritz the sliced apples with a bit of lemon juice and water they won’t turn brown so quickly.

Oh, and my pediatrician said the apples that do NOT turn brown are generally lacking in iron, among other things. So you actually WANT to eat the ones that do turn brown, but use the lemon juice spritzer trick to keep them from turning brown!

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

I’ve always loved chicken enchiladas with a green sauce at Mexican restaurants and was hoping this would be a good substitute!

I found them lacking something, although my children enjoyed them. I think it was onions I was missing. But if I’d added them that might have meant the children did not like them, as they’re not big fans.  So if you’re looking for a mild chicken enchilada type recipe, you might like this.  Personally, I liked these green enchiladas with the store-bought sauce better so I need to experiment a bit to find a good green sauce. I already have found a good red enchilada sauce recipe.

But if you tend to like blander foods, I think you’ll like it. I took the basis from The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook: 200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare and it was good, just not quite as “sharp” somehow as what I was thinking. Or maybe it need some tomatillo sauce.

I served this with rice and beans so cut her recipe in half  to try to fill a 9×9 pan instead of a 9×13.  This made 6 enchiladas but the last two were a bit stuffed so you could easily make it 8 I think and add a bit more cheese. Oh, I also put some cheese inside each one rather than having it all on the top.

• 8 ounces sour cream (I always use light)
• 1 6 oz can chopped green chilies
• 1/2 cup or so homemade chicken stock
• 1 cup shredded or diced cooked chicken
• salt and pepper to taste
• 6 corn tortillas
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese or a Mexican mix

In a skillet, heat the sour cream, chilies and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Stir as you heat it. If it seems too thick, add a bit more chicken broth (or water if you used frozen broth and 1/2 cup is all you’ve got!).

Remove 1/2 cup or so of the sauce at this point and set aside to top the enchiladas.

Add the chicken and stir in, then simmer 15 minutes or so to blend the flavors.  Add salt and pepper to taste, which will depend heavily on how seasoned your broth was.

Preheat the oven to 350 F while your chicken mix is simmering.

When it’s close to the 15 minutes, heat your corn tortillas so they’ll be more pliable. I have a Styrofoam tortilla warmer that goes in the microwave that I picked up for $1 at the grocery store years ago.

Lay a tortilla on your cutting board or on a plate, place some of the chicken mix in the middle  in a row across the tortilla, then add a small bit of grated cheese, then roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in a small baking dish. Repeat until all the chicken sauce is used up. Top with the 1/2 cup of sauce that you pulled out earlier. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

Bake uncovered at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

In terms of timing, if you’re serving rice and beans, canned (or precooked) refried beans will take just a few minutes in the microwave so I would do those after the enchiladas come out of the oven.

If you’re cooking rice in a rice cooker, like my Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 5-1/2-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Warmer, Premium White, just start it when you first start dinner and the rice will be ready and waiting! I do love the rice cookers for that “keep warm” feature. In fact, today with a sick child at home, I made some rice at lunch because the doctor recommended plain white rice as her first solid food after the stomach flu. She ate some and I left the rest on the “keep warm” setting until dinner, 6 hours later. It was still perfect! If you cook rice on the stovetop, just allow about 30 minutes, so start it while the sauce is simmering.

Chicken was on sale here for 77 cents a pound, so I spent $4.70 for a chicken that made the broth and provided two or three times as much chicken as I used here in this recipe.   I’ll use up some of the rest in the next day or two and freeze the rest of the cooked chicken and broth (separately) for various dishes.  She calculated the cost for a double of this recipe as $4.75 total (to feed four people) but that included $1 for corn that I didn’t use, but would cover a can of refried beans easily enough. I’ve fed two of us and easily have another two servings so think that’s pretty accurate.  I haven’t ever calculated the average cost of rice per serving but will try to do that at some point.  For us, 1/3 cup of cooked rice per serving is adequate and that can’t add much.

This soup is great with frozen or fresh broccoli. I always use homemade chicken or turkey broth, and I think that helps with the flavor, and vary the spices now and then. Sometimes I don’t use any cheese or I use 1/2 cup of cheese and 1/2 cup of half and half like I did tonight. (You can leave out the cheese and half and half altogether or use 1 cup of milk or whatever you around if you’re watching your calories.)  My broth was a bit bland this time around so I added the Worcestershire and mustard, a new addition. But if you have good broth, you can just use the cayenne and nutmeg for seasoning (plus salt and pepper at the table).

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tsp oil
• 20 oz frozen chopped broccoli
• 1 quart chicken or turkey broth
• 1 cup water (or just use 5 cups broth if you have it)
• 1/3 cup oatmeal (not instant, but 5 minute or so) * you can also substitute rice
• a pinch of nutmeg
• a pinch of cayenne
• a few grinds of the pepper grinder
• 1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• 1 tsp dry mustard (optional)
• 8 oz grated or diced Cheddar cheese (optional)
• 1/2 cup half and half (or milk for a lighter soup)

Heat the oil and saute the onion. (Or if you’re really in a hurry I have skipped this step and just started with the broth and added the raw onion straight to it.)  After the onion has cooked a few minutes, add the broth, broccoli, oatmeal, and seasonings. Bring to a simmer and cook, partially covered, 20 minutes or so, stirring now andthen. Basically, you want the broccoli cooked through.

Use an immersion blender, also called a  Stick Hand Blender (affiliate link) to cream the soup. Just stick it right in the pot and blend!  No more transferring hot liquids to your blender and making a mess.

After blending, stir in the cubed cheese, if using, until melted, then stir in the half and half or milk, warm up a minute or two and serve.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

My youngest loves pulled pork sandwiches and asked that I add them to the menu this week. The pork shoulder was not on sale, but even so, it’s still very cheap per serving.

I’ve got a couple of different recipes for pulled pork. This had a less tomato-ey base than I’d hoped for so I’d love to hear your recipes!  Still, this was good! Especially so with the homemade hamburger buns I made.

• 1 T oil
• 2 chopped onions
• 6 minced garlic cloves
• 1 T chili powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 12 oz chili sauce (1 small bottle)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 T Worcestershire
• 3 lb. pork shoulder

Heat the oil in a skillet while you chop the onions. Add the garlic when it’s chopped and cook until the onions are soft, 5 minutes or so. Add the chili powder, black pepper, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer, stirring. Turn off the heat.

There’s usually a large piece of fat covering the bottom of the pork shoulder. Cut that off and discard. There’s  plenty of other fat in the roast to keep it all moist!  Put the roast in the Crockpot.  Pour the sauce over the top and turn to either low or high, depending on how long you have.

High will take about  6 hours.

Low will take 6-12 hours depending on how new your slow cooker is! (New ones cook at a higher heat and will take less time.

I always turn my roast over about halfway through, just so it’s all getting cooked in the sauce.

When it’s done, use two forks to turn it into shreds, pulling the meat apart in the slow cooker or pulling chunks out onto a plate if that’s easier. Let the pulled pork simmer in the sauce until you’re ready to eat.

Serve atop homemade hamburger buns or some other split bread or bun.

Goes great with coleslaw. Here a few of my favorites:

• Corn and Cabbage Salad
• Coleslaw with Peppers but no Mayonnaise

I just realized I haven’t posted my standard mayonnaise based coleslaw recipe!

How to Make Hamburger Buns

Unless I catch a good sale, I sometimes cannot believe the price of hamburger and hot dog buns. $4 and up around here. If they’re on sale, $2 is good but they’re often pasty limp buns.

Tonight I made my own hamburger buns in my bread machine. I used arecipe I found in a bread machine cookbook I picked up 8 years ago when I bought my bread machine but I see they have a new edition out!   Bread Machine Magic, Revised Edition: 138 Exciting Recipes Created Especially for Use in All Types of Bread Machines. If you don’t have any whole wheat flour, you can probably use all white flour. I just like to sneak some whole wheat in where I can and these were totally light!

• 1 cup water
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs active dry yeast

Put it all n your bread machine and set the machine to the dough cycle.  When the machine beeps that the dough is ready, pull the dough out onto a lightly floured cutting boar.

Use your hands to shape the dough into a one foot (12″) rope.

Hamburger Buns

Rising Hamburger Buns

For hamburger buns, cut into eight pieces. (Cut in half, then cut each half in half, then cut each piece in half yet again.)  Form the pieces into balls and place on a greased cookie sheet, then flatten with the palm of your hand.

Homemade Hot Dog Buns

For hot dog buns, cut this into 12 pieces and roll each piece into 6″ rolls.

For either:

Cover with a clean towel and let rise 15 minutes or so, until doubled basically. If you need to create a warm spot for the buns to rise, turn your oven onto warm or low heat for a couple of minutes, then turn it off.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. (If you had the buns rising in your oven, remove them first!)  Bake 12-15 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack. Cut hamburger buns in half when ready to use. Split hot dog buns open.

Taco Soup without the Mixes

Another good recipe from Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds from Your Monthly Food Bill. I’ve seen various recipes for taco soup before but they all call for packaged mixes and seasonings, which I rarely buy. This came out great and she provides you with alternatives to the packaged mixes! Initially, the broth was a little salty but that was my fault as I was using a jarred soup base and mismeasured. ;( But adding some extra water fixed that in a jiffy. I modified her recipe a bit. She called for 2 cans of chili-style beans, which I didn’t have, so I used two cans of kidney beans instead. She also called for a 28 ounce can of diced or pureed tomatoes or 2 cups fresh pureed tomatoes. I used a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes and a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes with green chilies because that’s what I had in the pantry.

• 1 tsp oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 pound of ground beef or turkey
• 1 packet of Onion Soup mix (or make your own)
• 1 packet of taco seasoning (or make your own taco seasoning)
• 2 15 ounce cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed (unless you use the chili-style beans)
• 1 15 oz can of corn (don’t bother draining)
• 28 ounces or so of some sort of diced or pureed tomatoes
• 4 cups beef broth
• taco chips, sour cream and grated cheese for garnish

Heat the oil in a soup pot and start the diced onion cooking for a few minutes. Add the ground beef and cook until browned, using a wooden spoon to break it into small pieces as it cooks. Drain any excess fat, then stir in the onion soup mix and the taco seasoning. Add beans, corn, tomatoes and broth. Simmer, partially covered, for 45 minutes or so. Serve with sour cream, grated cheese and chips at the table.

All the other taco soup recipes I see call for a packet of Ranch dressing mix as well. All these packets would easily add $3 to the cost of the soup even if you managed to find them on sale!  I do wonder what the flavor of the Ranch might do, but if you’re curious you can always make your own with soda crackers!  But the soup was quite good without.

When I served this I had  no tortilla chips so made some cheese quesadillas to go with the soup.  I swung by the grocery store for some cat food yesterday so picked up some tortilla chips, knowing several of us would be eating this for lunch. I quite enjoyed dipping the chips into the soup or just crumbling them into the bowl.

She says this serves 6 and I don’t doubt it. So far I’ve gotten 5 servings from it and still have at least 2, probably 3, left. But we’re 2 teen girls and one woman here now so probably lighter eaters than average

Other recipes I’ve enjoyed from this cookbook or Mary’s blog OwlHaven (always a fun read, whether you have a large family or a small one, like me!):

• Chicken Chimichangas
• Mexican Migas
• Panda Style Orange Chicken