This really makes grocery shopping much simpler for us. I shop the periphery of the store and always keep milk, eggs, wheat berries, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and meats put away for use later. For instance today was shopping day. Fareway had a sale on spices so I got 3 for $2.00 and I stocked up. Bananas were .29 a pound and I got a couple of bunches of those. Pineapples were 1.99 so I bought 2 of them and chicken breasts were 1.99 per pound. .. Looking at food differently than ever before, I left the store with under $40 and had enough food to feed us for most of the week.
Now this real food diet is not a boring diet... it is quite delicious and fun to make. Today, for instance, Mike came home after lunch and I served him a gourmet-type lunch (our main meal of the day). He was greeted with Orange Chicken on a bed of rice pilaf with a side salad of fresh baby spinach and pineapple chunks with homemade Orange and pineapple vinaigrette dressing.
This was not a hard meal to prepare at all. And I always make enough to have leftovers so we have food for a couple of days time or I can choose to freeze some for another later meal.
When you keep the staples around, you have a world of opportunity in front of you as far as food creations! If I see a recipe that looks good, I can make it! So here is the recipe I used for the orange chicken. When I don't have one ingredient I substitute but I have most raw ingredients at hand now.
Baked Orange Chicken
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken breasts
- salt and pepper
- 1/2-3/4 cup orange marmalade
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp mustard
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- a little bit of garlic powder
- 1 tsp curry powder
Prep:
Use a good quality oil to spray or coat the baking dish.
Wash, trim, and cut the chicken breasts into serving-sized pieces.
In a separate bowl, combine the marmalade,
lemon juice, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and curry powder and mix well.
Arrange the chicken breasts in the baking dish and pour the marmalade mixture over the top. You can marinate the chicken first if you would like but I did not do that and it was wonderful. Cover the pan with foil or a lid.
Bake the chicken, covered, in the oven at 375 for about an hour or a little longer. Baste the chicken in the juices ever once in a while during baking and baste again right before serving.
This recipe was perfect after today's shopping. Last week I had about 6 pounds of oranges that I turned into orange marmalade so I had plenty to use today. The pineapple worked well mixed with fresh baby spinach and the Orange Vinaigrette dressing delicious! Making your own dressing is really SO easy! I bought a couple of dressing servers at Goodwill a while back and use the heck out of them. Here is that recipe:
Orange Vinaigrette Dressing
2 T
orange juice ( I used the orange marmalade and some pineapple juice)
2 T
red wine vinegar
½
cup extra virgin olive oil
1 t
dijon mustard (I used a dash of regular mustard)
½ t
salt
fresh
ground pepper
Mix
well.
So.. I am always on the lookout for more tasty "real food" recipes... if you have any great menu ideas, shoot me a message or if you try one of these recipes and find a new secret ingredient, let me know! I would love more ideas... and I love being able to say to my family "the menu today includes orange chicken on a bed of rice pilaf with a side salad of baby spinach and fresh pineapples with an orange vinaigrette dressing".
This is just like going to a fancy restaurant at a fraction of the price and I am assured of the best ingredients... wow.. should have been cooking for us a long time ago. This beat Totino's pizzas HANDS DOWN!!
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