Another Successful Meat Less Chili

Budget tip for the day: Use up all leftovers. Just add chili powder and cumin to make a delicious chili!
Well, I haven't been posting a lot lately. Mostly because life got really busy again, and we haven't been sticking to a budget. My husband got "The Four Hour Chef" for his birthday and has been following all of Tim Ferriss's directions to a "T." I have been really enjoying his amazing creations!!! I am actually going to write Mr. Ferriss a letter thanking him for writing such a wonderful book. The book is perfect for people who have never cooked before - it gives pictures with directions in paragraph form and the food recipes are absolutely delicious. The only problem is, Mr. Ferriss doesn't really teach what to do with leftovers. I have to admit we have wasted a lot of food lately, mostly because I didn't have time to deal with the leftovers. Now that I've been off school a couple of days due to the beautiful snowy weather (welcome to Virginia!) I've been able to work on how to avoid waste in cooking. Last night, we used leftover beef from his roast that he made to create yet another delicious chili. So easy to make, and so great to use up leftovers!



Here's what I did:
2 cans chili ready diced tomatoes
1 onion (I used 1 cup frozen chopped onions)
1 tbs garlic
2 tb chili powder
1 tb cumin
1 lb beef (we used leftover roast, cut up)
1/2 cup beef broth (came with the leftover roast)
1/2 cup mushrooms (came with the leftover roast)
I actually staggered the recipe so the beef wouldn't be over cooked. So I put the tomatoes, onions, and spices in the crock pot for about 2 hours on high. Then I added the rest of the ingredients and cooked on low for about 3 hours. The nice thing is, this meal is even more delicious the next day after you put it in the fridge over night! Hope you enjoy, and let me know how it works out for you in the comments!

A nice paleo lunch, and inexpensive, too!

Budget tip of the day: Peppers are on sale this time of year! Stock up on red peppers, slice them up, and then freeze them for months. Did you know that it takes a lot longer for peppers to turn red? This is why they are so expensive.




Just wanted to share another delicious paleo lunch. This is about $3.30 and will hold me over till I get done with work. I prefer it to any other type of lunch! All the fruits/veggies are skinned to minimize pesticides. The ham is leftover from Christmas. The dates are part of a 3 lb bag from BJs that was a great value. This type of lunch is really working for me.

Have a great day!

Paleo Breakfast Casserole

Paleo budget tip of the day: use frozen veggies to save time and money. In this case, I used frozen organic spinach and frozen pre-cut peppers and onions. Another option is to buy spinach at the salad bar - it's light weight keeps the cost way down, even though it's being charged at $7.99 a pound! This also works for mushrooms. :)

Paleo Egg Casserole

This was delicious! This recipe was adapted from Jason Jacob's slow carb breakfast recipe from his Finding My Fitness blog. I am so excited to share because it was absolutely delicious! Jason is an awesome resource to check out as well - he does a lot with paleo and slow carb. Honestly, I think it was the mango jalapeno chicken sausage that did me in. I picked that up at BJ's (east coast warehouse store.) Any kind of sausage would do, though, the spicier the better! Chorizo, andouille, or chipotle sausages would be good. The Johsonville chicken sausage is cheap and they always have a coupon. I have to wonder about the treatment of those chickens, though. Unfortunately we couldn't afford the organic eggs this week.
From my calculations, this cost me about $1.15 per serving, assuming six servings. Most of the cost is in the eggs and meat. This recipe could be stretched by buying the spinach at the salad bar, adding additional egg whites from a container, adding more onions, and using one less link of sausage.
Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

7 eggs and 3 egg whites
1 tb butter
1 1/2 cups peppers and onions
3 links spicy chicken sausage
2 cups frozen spinach
1/2 cup coconut milk (I had to use rice milk)
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp sage
1 tsp oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil



Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sauté peppers and onions in a small amount of olive oil until onions are translucent.
3. While that's heating up, melt butter in a big bowl using the microwave.
4. Cut up pre-cooked sausage (or cook sausage first if you are using fresh.)
5. Add eggs to the bowl and whisk until combined.
6. Once onions are done, add everything to the bowl except spinach.
7. Heat up the spinach in the saucepan until it's just wilted, then transfer to a cutting board and cut it into small pieces. The frozen spinach has big chunks.
8. Add spinach to the bowl and mix together.
9. Pour into 9x13 pan and cook at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
Voila! Put leftovers in separate containers and eat throughout the week. This was enough for 4 people who eat seconds - add more veggies and eggs for more people, especially if they may want seconds. This would be great to take to a potluck and freezes well. My husband had thirds, and would have had more if I let him.
What do you think? Do you have any breakfast ideas? I never tried sage with my eggs but I've found it to be quite good. Thanks, @FMFBlogger!

More no-bean chili...

Paleo Budget tip of the day:
Regarding grass-fed beef:
Local grocery store: $6 - $10 per pound, but possibly good variety
Local warehouse store: $4 per pound (but only available as ground beef)
Local humane farmer: $4 per pound if you buy a share of a cow (if you buy about 30 pounds at once, about $120)
tip #2: Use a big ol' tomato instead of canned to save on BPA exposure.




No-bean Chili

This isn't a cheap dish, but I needed something to take to a potluck. I enjoyed my low-cost chicken version so much that I had to do a beef version as well. This is adapted from Stephanie O'Dea's "crockpot 365" blog - thanks Stephanie! I've done this several times with basic variations on the meat.

Recipe - No-Bean Chili
Ingredients:
2 lbs beef loin sirloin tip steak, cubed
1 lb ground beef
10 oz Spicy Mango Jalapeno Chicken Sausage (or andouille) - you see Italian in the picture, but I actually used both, it needed the spicy cajun style sausage
1 onion (I used 1 c frozen)
1 tomato (or can of diced)
2 cups of beef bouillon
1 tb ground cumin
2 tb chili powder
2 tsp garlic powder

Directions:
Combine everything in the crock pot and cook on low 12 hours or high 4 hours then low 4 hours.

The low-down: It was good, but I actually liked my chicken version better. I will state that several people got seconds and the pot was almost clean by the time we left.

Day 17 - Paleo Lunch for $3 or less

Budget tip of the day: make a big batch of something (chili, soup, casserole, etc.) on the weekend and then stretch it for lunch.



So today I decided to take a picture of my new favorite lunch, the paleo lunch. This is so much more filling and satisfying than cafeteria food. Here you will find:

1. Leftover chili - made with chicken instead of beef, and meat was bought at discount - $1.10
2. Leftover turkey cutlet - $1.00
3. 1 whole cucumber - $.48
4. Paleo granola - $.30
5. Date - $.20
6. Frozen Peaches - $.41 (would be $.62 for organic)
7. Banana - $.20
Total: $3.68

Of this, the granola, date, peaches, and banana would be the snack, so this is really a lunch plus a snack for around $3 or $4. I might add some paleo pumpkin "custard" to satisfy the 2:00 p.m. sweet tooth as well, still keeping things under $4. Delicious!

Day 15 - Cheap and Easy Paleo Chili

Budget tip for the day: Buy chicken at BJ's or Walmart. Both places have a large selection of vegetarian fed, free range, no antibiotics chicken. BJ's was cheaper, though, for the record.
Cheap and Easy Bean-Less Chili
I got this recipe from the Crockpot365 blog. We tried the "Meat Lover's No Bean Chili" and it was delicious. However, it's pretty expensive. So today I'm remaking it, using free range ground chicken (bought at Wegman's at half price for about $2.60) and some free-range chicken sausage. This is delicious! Chicken is less expensive than typical beef, so I wanted to try this out with all chicken based ingredients.



Recipe:
1 lb ground chicken
10 oz chicken sausage, pref. andouille, but we wound up using italian sausage and it worked
1 can tomatoes (I used generic organic)
1 onion (I used 1/2 cup frozen chopped onions)
4 cloves garlic (I used 2 tsp garlic powder)
1 tb cumin
2 tb chili powder
1 t salt (I omitted this, there's enough in the tomatoes for me)
2 c broth (I used "Better than Bouillon Organic Chicken Low-Sodium")
Put all ingredients in the crock pot and cook on low 8 hours. Delish!
Thank you Stephanie O'Dea for this paleo friendly dish!

Day 14 - Budget Granola

Budget tip of the day: Get your granola going with nuts bought at the lowest price. You can stock up this time of the year, and then freeze. Just remember that freezing breaks down the cells, so it's best to freeze and then use in some sort of recipe. Buy slivered almonds instead of whole (unless you really want to eat whole, in which case, ignore.) You could buy a pound of nuts for about $7 at a grocery store, or get two pounds for $8 or so at a large warehouse like Costco, BJ's, or Sam's Club. I'm making this as a gift for all my family this year, and BJ's will definitely have my business!

Budget tip #2: Dates are in season. I found 3 lbs for $7 at the local warehouse store!

Budget tip #3: Use bakers chocolate instead of commercially prepared dark chocolate. The only ingredient is chocolate, and it will last longer.

This recipe is an adaptation of the Paleo Diet Lifestyle's blog. The original recipe is here: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/chocolate-nut-granola/. 


Paleo Budget Granola
1 c walnuts
2 c slivered almonds
pinch of salt
1/4 cup honey
3 tb butter (?)
3 tb cocoa powder
1/2 c coconut
1 oz bakers unsweetened chocolate square
3 pitted dates

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Melt butter and chocolate at half power in the microwave in a glass bowl covered with a plate.
3. Chop dates in the food processor.
4. Add walnuts and almonds and chop with dates in the food processor.
5. Add cocoa, vanilla, and salt to the butter/chocolate and wisk together.
6. Pour chocolate mix into the nuts in the food processor. Pulse briefly.
7. Add coconut. Pulse 1 time.
8. You may need to take it out of the food processor and stir to mix - my food processor is not big enough for everything.
9. Spread over baking sheet.
10. Bake for 4 hours at 200 degrees. Break into chunks.