Blog

This is where the meat and potatoes are 😂

I have NEVER in my entire 34-years living on this planet liked Brussel sprouts.  I’d call them baby cabbages (which ironically I love cabbage) and push them around my plate when I was little.  Why?  Because they were bitter, mushy, an ugly yellow on the inside, and smelled like feet.  Woof.

So why on God’s green earth did I just purchase a bag of these bad boys from Aldi?  How in the heck did they end up in my cart?  What am I going to do with these?

These questions plagued me for days when I decided…. ok… I love salads.  I love bitter greens.  This technically (in my head at least) is what I consider a “bitter green.”  So I figured, what the hell? Let’s put them in a salad. (Pretty much like putting my toe in the water to check the temperature of a pool.)

I’m terrible at pictures right now (imagine a one-year old clinging to your leg while trying to get the “perfect” shot… this will do for now!) so ignore the fact that this is half sunlit and half dark.  Or can we call this “artsy?”   But… see the Brussel sprout bag in the left hand corner?  Yep.  Half of that bag was cut by hand and added to this delicious salad!  We are talking butter lettuce, peppers, mini-cukes, and carrot ribbons!

Pro-tip #1: After you peel your carrots, just keep peeling and peel ribbons out of your carrots – makes them so thin and not that awkward hard, crunchy thing in your salad like they normally are!

Pro-tip #2:  When I’m chopping veggies for anything, I ALWAYS chop more than needed.  I keep a ziplock bag in the freezer of carrots, onions, celery, peppers, etc.  Everytime I chop extras and just add them to the bag. When I’m making a soup or chicken and dumplings (Jim’s favorite), I have it all precut and ready to throw in the pot! See the bag of carrots on the left hand side below? Yep- surplus goes in the freezer!

Pro-tip #3:  I NEVER throw away my veggie scraps!  AGAIN, I keep a ziplock in above mentioned freezer and fill it with the junk you normally would toss (in the above picture on the right).  I’m talkin’ onion peels, celery bottoms, carrot tops, those gross white veins inside peppers, any kind of stem, corn husks…. I think you get my drift.  Once the bag is full, I make a killer veggie stock!  Spoiler Alert—See tomorrow’s post about my homemade stocks!

P.S. if you noticed that “pro” in “pro-tip” was in italics, you win total bragging rights and street cred.  I’m no “pro” but these are what I have come to love to do. If I were to say “Amature-tip,” ya’ll would of skipped em.  Amiright?!

Back to the brussel sprouts… I still had a half bag left.  What the heck am I going to do with them now?!  I’m Polish (which will come up A LOT) and I’m obsessed (as most Polocks are) with pierogies.  This past Christmas season, my husband and I made 25 dozen of them.  He may have a hit out on me for that 2-day adventure, but they were a hit and I still have about 5 dozen left after gifting and, well, eating them!  I’ll be posting my pierogi recipe at some point although it almost pains me to share that secret!

I tossed the cut-up Brussel sprouts and green onion in a pan with some oil, butter, and some yummy, delicious pierogis!

So, needless to say, I’m newly converted.  I love me a Brussel sprout or two!  Just don’t, please—-please—-please, don’t make me eat them whole and mushy again.  I don’t feel like writing an amendment to this blog post or eating my words.  Pun intended!

Happy Cooking (and eating)!

Remember that time in your life  when all you wanted was mac-n-cheese….wait… that’s techinally daily in the McDonald household!  So the deal is, if I can somehow use leftovers to jazz up mac-n-cheese, we can have it roughly once a week.  Well my hubby was in luck tonight!

I made baked chicken breast in the oven yesterday and had a ton leftover. (PS I bought this sounthwestern flavored frozen chicken breast from Aldi. Ick.  Not what I thought it would be like so really when I say I had a “ton” left, what I actually mean is I have an entire package of cooked chicken left.  This stuff was not a hit!)

Knowing full well that this mama is on a budget, you bet your sweet dupa I was going to figure out how to use this “leftover” chicken.  I always have peppers and onions so fajitas it is!  But…. I am craaaavvvviiiiinnngggg mac-n-cheese!!  This is when it hits me…. let’s do this dirty dance, mac-n-cheese, and add the fajitas to you!

While the noodles were boiling, I sautéed about 10 mini sweet peppers and about 8 green onions in oil along with salt and pepper.  I then added the dreaded chicken.  To mask that southwesternly odd taste, I added about 1/2 large jar of chunky salsa to the chicken and veggies.  When the noodles were cooked, I added those then squeezed that heavenly cheese sauce into the pan.  As if this wasn’t enough cheese, I added a 1/2 bag of shredded cheese.  Mix. Mix. Mix.

I poured it into a greased 9×13 glass baking dish, sprinkled breadcrumbs and shredded cheese on the top folllowed by cilantro (which ended up being pointless in my book) and baked it at 400* for 20 minutes.

Holy cow was this Delish!  I wasn’t pumped about the chicken still but I’m sure with regular chicken breast that I flavor myself, this dish will be off the chart!

Grocery list:

• 2 packs shells and cheese-any brand, but let’s be honest, Velveeta S and C is the bomb.com.
• 1 large jar chunky salsa
• A small bag of mini sweet peppers (10 needed)
• Bundle of green onions (8 needed)
• Leftover chicken – do yourself a favor and don’t buy the southwestern flavored from Aldi.  I did the tastetesting for you already.  You’re welcome.
• Oil
• Salt and pepper

Happy Cooking (and eating)!