Grocery Deals - February 25th

It has been a couple of weeks since I have been able to do a little Krogering, which is why I haven't been posting any grocery deals.

This shop ended up being the highest total I have paid for a while, but we were running low on a few things, DH was with me, and he loves to impulse buy! plus we bought a couple of expensive items, pork loin for $10, a jar of coconut oil etc.


Shelf price : $157.07
OOP : $69.78
Saved : $87.27
Pct : 55%







$1 donation
All laundry soap
2x Gortons shrip scampi
Zatarains frozen dirty rice
Puffs tissues with vicks
Healthy choice butternut squash ravioli
Healthy choise orange chicken
Organic green bell pepper
3 lbs onions
10 lbs potatoes
2x tomatoes
3x bananas
3x Purina one dog food
Dole pineapple chunks
3x fuze drinks
2x blistex
2x caffeine pills
Sara Lee bread
Cottonelle
Pork loin
Glucerna cereal
Skippy PB
Pepsi 6 pack bottles
Pepsi 2 ltr
A&W root beer
Skinny cow ice cream sandwiches
Suave conditioner
Pam olive oil spray
Taquitos
3x starkist tuna
Mrs dash
McCormick pepper grinder
Frozen sugar snap peas
Truvia
3x 2% kraft cheese slices
Jello rice pudding
Country crock spread
Brummel and brown spread
Coconut oil
Milk

See other grocery deals at The Grocery Cart Challenge

Pancake Day

Yesterday was pancake day in England, so of course we had to eat pancakes for dinner. DH is really not that much of a fan of English pancakes, having grown up with the American kind, covered in butter and syrup, and I'm not a fan of the American kind, as I grew up eating English pancakes covered in lemon and sugar. Which pretty much sums us up, food wise, it is hard for us to agree on much of anything!

English pancakes:

4oz plain flour, sifted
pinch of salt
2 eggs
7fl oz milk
3 fl oz water
2 tbsp melted butter

To serve:
Caster sugar
Lemon juice


Sift the flour and the salt together into a large bowl, make a well in the center and break the eggs into it and begin whisking the eggs into the flour


Gradually add the milk and water until batter has the consistency of thin cream, then add the melted butter into the batter.
Use a little butter in a hot pan, add around 2-3 tbsp of batter for a 7 inch pan. As soon as the batter hits the pan, tip it around to get the base evenly coated. It should take around 30 seconds to cook, then flip the pancake and cook for just a few seconds.


To serve, sprinkle each pancake with freshly squeezed lemon juice and caster suagr.

Weight Watchers Colcannon

I have been looking for more healthy sides, and found this recipe in my weight watchers cook book so decided to give it a try and with only 144 calories per 1 cup serving I was pretty pleased with it. Of course my hubby was only interested in it covered in butter which kind of defeats the purpose!

Ingredients:
3 medium potatoes, peeled, cooked and cubed
1/2 cup plain fat free yogurt
4 cups chopped, steamed green cabbage
3-4 leeks trimmed, chopped and steamed
3 tablespoons chives (I didn't have any so left them out)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
2 teaspoons olive oil


Preheat the oven to 350
In a large bowl combine the potatoes and yogurt and mash until fairly smooth


Stir in the cabbage, leeks, chives, salt, pepper and nutmeg


Put mixture into a baking dish, sprinkle with the oil and bake until lightly browned, about 30 minutes

Thanks to my Hubby

I don't know how I managed it, but at some point last Wednesday I managed to get my computer infected with a rather nasty little virus or two, and by Thursday my poor little PC wouldn't even load unless it was in safe mode, and even then would completely lock up after a few minutes, and as for being online - well, let's just say it was a rough few days (apparantly I am quite addicted to the internet!)

But, my wonderful hubby performed miracles and has given the internet back to me and along with it restored the health of my computer. This task took him pretty much all day Sunday, and then as if he wasn't wonderful enough, after having spent all day in the study working on the computer for me, he then makes Sunday dinner for us - chicken fried steak, steamed potatoes, creamed corn, cream gravy and rolls. Yum!



To add to his wonderfulness, I should also mention that he bought me flowers for Valentine's day, even though I told him many times I didn't want or need a gift (I'm way too cheap these days to expect the hubby to spend money on me) but he did anyway, and then he took me to see confessions of a shopaholic, even though it is totally a girly movie (wasn't as great as I was hoping, was a little sad that they removed the entire English part from the book, but Isla Fisher was great - I remember watching her on Home and Away years ago) and then to top it all off, he took me to central market, which doesn't sound like anything special (why would a grocery store on Valentine's day be a good thing?) well, because this isn't just any grocery store, I adore Central Market and I really wanted to do their couples cook valentine's dinner class this year but it was already sold out when we called to make reservations for it, but we went there anyway to buy dinner and just enjoy the store, and apparantly half of Houston had the same idea as the store was packed, it usually is busy, but it was crazy busy, to the point where at times you just couldn't move for a sea of trolleys. We don't go that often anymore, goes along with the being cheap thing, as CM is definitely kind of expensive, but it's totally worth it in my opinion.


So thanks for a great weekend, honey, and thank you for fixing my computer!

Spring Onion Pancakes

I wanted to make something new to go with the sweet and sour chicken, so I ended up making these spring onion pancakes.


Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely chopped spring onions
1/2 cup vegetable oil


Combine 2 cups of the flour and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in boiling water and mix until water is absorbed and mixture forms large clumps. Gradually stir in enough cold water so dough forms a ball


Place dough on a floured surface, knead for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Wrap dough in cling film and let stand for 1 hour


Unwrap dough, knead briefly and divide into 4 pieces. Roll 1 piece into 6-7 inch round


Brush with 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil


Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of spring onions


Roll up into tight cylinder


Coil cylinder into spiral and pinch end into dough. Do the same with the remaining 3 pieces of dough, cover and let stand for 15 minutes


Roll each coiled piece into 6-7 inch round


Heat oil in wok over medium-high heat until oil reaches 375 degrees, place one pancake into oil and fry 2-3 minutes per side or until golden, remove to paper towel and drain. Repeat with remaining pancakes


Cut each pancake into 8 wedges and serve immediately

Sweet And Sour Chicken

I found this recipe on another food blog http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com/ a few weeks ago and have been wanting to try it ever since. I love sweet and sour chicken and the recipe that I have always made is made all in a wok/pan on the stove top, so I was very interested to see how this baked sweet and sour would be.


Ingredients:
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil

Sauce:
¾ cup sugar
4 tablespoons ketchup
½ cup vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt


Cut chicken into chunks, season with salt and pepper


Dip chicken in cornstarch and then in egg


Fry in oil until brown but not cooked through


Place in a single layer in a baking dish, mix sauce ingredients together and pour over chicken.

Bake for one hour at 325 degrees. Turn chicken every 15 minutes. If you like extra sauce, make another batch of sauce and bring it to a boil on the stove top. Stir constantly and let cook over medium heat until thickened and reduced - about 6-8 minutes



I have to say that this turned out great, both the hubby and I loved it and we will definitly be making this again! We served it with rice, stir fried veggies and spring onion pancakes, I'll be posting the recipe for those soon.

Grocery Deals - February 8th

I didn't post totals last week as we didn't shop, so no totals to post! we just didn't really need anything and I didn't see any amazing deals that I just had to have so we didn't go.

This week I was really quite surprised that my totals were as good as they were, DH added a number of items at full price and I was really expecting to pay around $60-70, but in the end my total came to $43 so I was very happy with that.


Shelf price : $105.55
OOP : $43.04
Saved : $62.51
Pct : 59%

Altered Mailboxes For Valentine's Day

A friend of mine has the three most perfectly adorable little girls in the world, and I made these for her eldest 2, Payton and Parker (hopefully the baby won't mind not getting one as she is only 3 months old!)

The mailboxes are from the dollar spot at Target and they are so easy to alter into really cute gifts, just using paper, a 1/2 inch punch and some embellishments. I cut out the initials with my cricut and used stickles to colour them and add some glitter, and also used the stickles to add glitter to the flowers on the paper, you can't really tell but it looks very glittery in real life!

Caribbean Pork Chops

We have a lot of pork chops in our freezer, thanks to a great Kroger sale a month or so ago, so I have been looking for new recipes, this one actually turned out a little better than I thought it would, although the lime was very strong, so next time I would probably reduce the amount of lime juice.

4 pork chops
4 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tbsp. olive oil

place garlic, bay leaf, oregano, salt, pepper, cumin and lime juice in food processor and blend

Rub pork chops with the blended paste, place in baking dish, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat, cook chops to desired doneness, about 5 minutes each side.