Yeah, the economy sucks, but that doesn't mean that you have to eat crappy food. I've been experimenting, and I have come up with one dish that is easily turned into 3 dishes so you don't have to have the same old, same old leftovers each night.
Night one - Chicken Stew with Brioche - or should it be Brioche with Chicken Stew? You decide.
I found a good recipe for Brioche using your bread maker to mix the dough and for the first rising. Oh, and you do need to change a couple of things with that recipe before you make that bread - make the yeast 1 1/2 or 2 teaspoons and definitely add 1 tsp of salt to the dough. Also, it took closer to 35 minutes in my oven for the bread to be properly finished.
So, you have this bread - rich bread - very rich bread. I made a fairly simple chicken stew to go with it -
Cut up a couple or three onions, a couple of cups worth of celery (definitely including the nice leafy parts), a couple or three carrots and saute them all briefly in a bit of olive oil. After a breaf sauteing, pour in about 8 cups of chicken stock. Bring it all to a simmer. Then add about 3 or 4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into chunks.
I just know you are wondering where the heck the chicken is - it's coming.
I used frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts - 4 pieces. I honestly just threw the frozen pieces into the pot along with about a tsp of thyme, tsp of rosemary, tsp of sage and 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, a can of mushroom pieces and stems and some garlic powder.
Just let it all simmer together for awhile - maybe 40 minutes or so. Then, take some of that brioche bread and put it in the bottom of a big soup bowl and ladle some stew over the bread - believe me, it is totally comfort food - and very filling.
Next night - I put the leftovers in the pot and thought, gee. I think I'll cut up the potatoes and chicken into smaller pieces and make some soup. So I took the big pieces of chicken and potatoes, cubed them all, and put them back into the pot. But then it looked like I needed to get more liquid in. I had a half pint of cream in the fridge, so that went in. Only, gosh, then I thought, the flavor is going to be way diluted. So I added about another tsp of thyme and 1/2 tsp of rosemary.
Still, It needed more - So I added a couple of handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese and to make it more like a soup, I broke a handful of broken whole wheat spaghetti into it and let it simmer about 10 minutes.
Umm. Good. Filling! Yet, still leftovers!
At this point, I have enough left to make a large chicken pot pie - simple - just put it in a pie pan and cover with some puff pastry and cook. Pot pie.
The three meals cost less than 12 dollars for 2 people - so, 2 bucks a night per person for some really good food.
Night one - Chicken Stew with Brioche - or should it be Brioche with Chicken Stew? You decide.
I found a good recipe for Brioche using your bread maker to mix the dough and for the first rising. Oh, and you do need to change a couple of things with that recipe before you make that bread - make the yeast 1 1/2 or 2 teaspoons and definitely add 1 tsp of salt to the dough. Also, it took closer to 35 minutes in my oven for the bread to be properly finished.
So, you have this bread - rich bread - very rich bread. I made a fairly simple chicken stew to go with it -
Cut up a couple or three onions, a couple of cups worth of celery (definitely including the nice leafy parts), a couple or three carrots and saute them all briefly in a bit of olive oil. After a breaf sauteing, pour in about 8 cups of chicken stock. Bring it all to a simmer. Then add about 3 or 4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into chunks.
I just know you are wondering where the heck the chicken is - it's coming.
I used frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts - 4 pieces. I honestly just threw the frozen pieces into the pot along with about a tsp of thyme, tsp of rosemary, tsp of sage and 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, a can of mushroom pieces and stems and some garlic powder.
Just let it all simmer together for awhile - maybe 40 minutes or so. Then, take some of that brioche bread and put it in the bottom of a big soup bowl and ladle some stew over the bread - believe me, it is totally comfort food - and very filling.
Next night - I put the leftovers in the pot and thought, gee. I think I'll cut up the potatoes and chicken into smaller pieces and make some soup. So I took the big pieces of chicken and potatoes, cubed them all, and put them back into the pot. But then it looked like I needed to get more liquid in. I had a half pint of cream in the fridge, so that went in. Only, gosh, then I thought, the flavor is going to be way diluted. So I added about another tsp of thyme and 1/2 tsp of rosemary.
Still, It needed more - So I added a couple of handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese and to make it more like a soup, I broke a handful of broken whole wheat spaghetti into it and let it simmer about 10 minutes.
Umm. Good. Filling! Yet, still leftovers!
At this point, I have enough left to make a large chicken pot pie - simple - just put it in a pie pan and cover with some puff pastry and cook. Pot pie.
The three meals cost less than 12 dollars for 2 people - so, 2 bucks a night per person for some really good food.
