Wednesday Night Dinners

A couple of months ago, my friend and I were sitting in his kitchen talking about how busy our lives were going to be this year. We made a decision that we would try and catch up at least once a week for dinner. After more discussion we also decided that we would make a rule that each meal we made for this dinner would be something we had never made before. This event quickly grew from the two of us to our whole group of friends. So each week we gather together for dinner at a different person's house and we eat a meal that this person has never made before. 

This week it was my turn to host and I decided to make a dish that took me back to my pilgrimage to Spain in the summer of 2011. So I decided to make Paella and Sangria. I was very nervous about how this was going to turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised! 

The recipe that I created produced about 10-12 servings. I have had several people ask for the recipe so here it is.

Paella:

3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

7 Mild Sausages

1 lb Uncooked Shrimp

2 Red Bell Peppers

2 Green Bell Peppers

1/2 Onion

4 Cups Chicken Stock

Short Grain White Rice (I used Verde Valley, you can find this in the Hispanic Food Section)

Smoked Paprika

Tumeric

Saffron

Garlic

Salt and Pepper

A few hours before I started cooking I chopped up everything I needed. I knew that I was quickly going to be adding items to my pan so I wanted to make sure they were ready to go when I needed them. I chopped up the peppers and onion and tossed them in one bowl,  I cut up the chicken and sausage and put them in one bowl, I covered the bowls and put them in the fridge. The last thing I did for prep was peeled the shells off of the shrimp. 

When it was time to cook I started about 45 minutes before we wanted to eat by tossing some olive oil in my pan and sautéing my veggies. As the onions and peppers were sautéing I started the rice in another pan with two cups of rice and four cups of chicken stock in hopes of relaying some of that flavor into the rice. After the peppers and onions have done their work I tossed in the chicken and sausage to start cooking. At this point in time I added the smoked paprika, saffron, garlic, salt, and pepper. I sprinkled all of these items over the top of the chicken and sausage. I didn't measure any of these items out, but I would suggest using about a teaspoon of each at first and add more later if needed. After the rice finished cooking I added it to my large pan to cook with the meat and soak up some of that flavor (this is why I chose short grain rice, it has the ability to soak up more flavor than long grain rice). Just a few moments before we were ready to eat I tossed in the shrimp in 3/4 of the Paella (some of the people eating didn't like shrimp) and let them cook for about 4-5 minutes (until the shrimp turned pink and had a "C" shape to them). I served the Paella with bread and Sangria. 

Paella is definitely a dish I will create again in the future.  Hope you enjoy!!!

*NOTE Saffron is about $17-$20/ container, if you decide to opt out of saffron you can add more tumeric which will help with that yellow coloring.

3 hours, many laughs, and 18 meals later...

If I had to use one word to sum up my life lately the word would be CHAOTIC. My life is pretty much a huge slab of chaos. This is a rough outline of my daily schedule. 

Daily mass at 7:00am followed by breakfast.

Work at 8:00am

Lunch at 12:00pm

Studying for graduate school at 12:30pm or staying and working all afternoon.

Going home for a short dinner break at 5:00pm before going back to work  

Back to work at 6:00pm

Get home from work at 9:30pm

Study for graduate school a little more and go to sleep around 11:00pm or 12:00am. 

Wake up at 5:30am and do it all again.

My days off are generally Friday and Saturday and I usually sleep in a little, do some school work, quilt, clean house, do laundry, and catch up with some friends. 

Pretty much every moment of my day is planned out and because of that cooking has sort of fallen to the back burner. It was much easier to grab some Taco Bell on the way home from work for my short dinner break than it was to make a whole meal and have to deal with the clean-up too. It became a pretty easy and expensive habit to have, but you can only eat so many bean burritos (or enter other fast food option here) before you are totally sick of them. 

One afternoon I was scrolling through Pinterest looking for recipes I had never made before for our Wednesday Night Dinners (that's a post for another time) and I came across this idea of frozen crock-pot meals. WHAT?!? So I kept reading and searching and here is what I found. There are tons of people who come up with a list of meals they would like to make, do all the prep work, freeze them, and enjoy. This makes eating better super easy because in the morning all you do is pull out a frozen meal, toss it in your crock-pot on low, and come home to a delicious dinner all ready to go!

I sent a quick text to my friend Jess and asked if she would be interested in getting together that weekend to prep a bunch of meals and share the items we would make. She was on board because she loves crock-potting as much as I do! So we got together yesterday and spent three hours (from the moment we started shopping until we were totally finished) making 18 crock-pot meals. It was FABULOUS! 

We have never tried the recipes that we made (we may have tried things similar, but not these specific ones) so as I pull these out of the freezer and use them I will be adding more posts about what I liked and what I would change for next time. Here's the thing though, each meal will give us an average of 4 servings and each serving averaged out to be $1.33/serving. We did have some of the items at my house, but we ended up buying most of the things on the list. Below is a list of the bags we made and recipes for each. 

For ALL of our recipes we mixed directly into two gallon freezer bags to cut down on dirty dishes (I hate washing dishes). Note that these recipes are for both bags, so you would split them in half if you are prepping for 4 servings each bag. *NOTE: if you are cooking for a family and would like leftovers you shouldn't split each recipe in half like we did, you should bag each recipe in one bag* 

ENJOY!!!

Recipe 1--CHILI:

2 Lbs Ground Beef

1 can hot chili bens

2 cans tomato sauce (small)

2 cans tomato paste

1 green pepper chopped up

1 T garlic powder

2 tsp salt/pepper/sugar/red chili powder

Brown the ground beef, drain, and cool (this was the very first thing we did when we got home so it would be ready for our recipes when we needed to mix the bags). Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 hours.

Recipe 2--CHEESY GARLIC CHICKEN

2 large chicken breasts

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cheddar cheese soup

2 tsp garlic powder

2 T butter

1 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp pepper

Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 hours. 

Recipe 3--Tater Tod Casserole

2 lbs ground beef

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1lb string beans (fresh or frozen)

1 can cream of potato soup

8 oz velveeta cheese (could also use shredded cheese)

21 oz bag of tater tots. 

Cook on high 2-3 hours or on low 4-6 hours

Recipe 4--CHICKEN FAJITAS

2 large chicken breasts

2 green peppers

1 cup chicken brother

2 taco seasoning packets (or 8 T if you use the seasoning in the big container)

2 tsp red chili powder

2 tsp salt

Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 hours

Recipe 5--WHITE CHICKEN CHILI

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

4 cups chicken stock (one container)

2 cans white beans (drained)

1 can chopped green chile (we used roughly 5 frozen hatch green chiles)

4 tsp red chili powder

2 tsp salt/pepper

Cook on low 4-6 hours.

Recipe 6--LOADED BAKED POTATO SOUP

10-12 red potatoes (you could also use 5-6 russet potatoes)

1 container bacon bits (you could also use a pack of bacon, but be sure to cook it first)

2/3 c butter

2/3 c flour

3 cups chicken broth

1 c water

3 cups milk

Remainder of velveeta cheese

1 c sour cream

1 tsp salt/pepper

Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 hours.

Recipe 7--BUFFALO CHICKEN SANDWICHES

2 large chicken breasts

1 bottle of hot sauce

Cook on low 4-6 hours. Shred chicken. Serve on a bun with garnish and ranch or blue cheese.

Recipe 8-- GOLDEN CHICKEN AND NOODLES

2 Large boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can broccoli cheese soup

1 c milk

1tsp salt/pepper

Extra Wide Egg Noodles (cooked on day of serving)

Cook for 6-8 hours on low.

Recipe 9--TEX MEX CHICKEN

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

4 T taco seasoning (or one packet)

4 T flour

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

1 can corn

1 1/2 cups salsa

Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 6-8 hours.

Shopping list:

Gallon size freezer bags

12 Chicken Breasts

4 lbs Ground Beef

1 container sour cream

milk

1 box of unsalted butter

bacon bits

1 box chicken stock 

1 box chicken broth

2 cans tomato sauce

2 cans tomato paste

1 can hot chili beans

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 can cheddar cheese soup

2 cans white beans

1 can cream of potato soup

1 can broccoli cheese soup

1 can corn

1 bag extra wide egg noodles 

1 box of velveeta (the larger box)

1 bottle hot sauce

3 packets of taco seasoning 

1 bag frozen tater tots

1 lb string beans

4 green peppers

1 red pepper