French Dip and Cheesy Squash and Zucchini Casserole

Dinner last night was French Dip and Cheesy Squash and Zucchini Casserole.

I know, I know, this is the wrong bread for French Dip.  Well, the truth is that we had it the night before and used up the bakery bread, this is potato bread.  I can say, though, that potato bread is still good with French Dip!

Here is my French Dip recipe:

4 lbs rump roast
1 packet onion soup mix
1 can or bottle of beer
1 can of beef broth

Place all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low for around 7 hours.  I also added 1 cup of water with my onion soup mix, though I don't think I needed to with all of the other liquids.

For the beer, I used Florida Lager.  It was super good and I felt a little bad using it on a roast, but it turned out really great, so it's ok!

 

 

 

Next up is the Cheesy Squash and Zucchini Casserole, based on this recipe.  I would compare this to mac and cheese, but without the pasta.

 

Ingredients:

1 lb yellow squash, sliced

1 lb zucchini, sliced

1/2 onion chopped

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup Bisquick

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter

1 tablespoon sugar

10 saltine crackers, crushed

Breadcrumbs as topping

 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Add squach, zucchini, and onion and cook until tender, around 15 minutes.  Drain and pour into large bowl.  Add the cheese, Bisquick, eggs, butter and sugar and mix.  Fold in the crackers.  Place in large casserole dish and top with breadcrumbs.  Cook in preheated 325 degree oven for 30 minutes.  YUM and super cheap thanks to Publix deals this week!

 



Stuffed Peppers

Last night we had Stuffed Peppers.  I got the idea from this recipe, but I changed it so much that I'll just put my recipe below.  I wanted to use what I had and keep the costs down.  This was very good and I plan to make it again.  This recipe was really cheap because the ingredients are often BOGO, so stock up on diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, broth, and sausage when you can!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rice
1 cup water
1/2 onion
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup beef broth
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tube of Jimmy Dean ground sausage
1/2 can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green peppers
1/2 cup parmasean cheese
shredded mozzarella cheese to top

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Bring rice and water to a boil, turn to medium low and simmer for around 20 minutes or until rice is done cooking.

Cook diced onion in olive oil until tender.  Place half of the onion in a large bowl, leave the other half in the skillet.

Add tomato sauce, beef broth, and crushed red pepper to onion in skillet and cook for about 1 minute.  Pour the mixture into a casserole dish.

Combine rice with the other half of the onion and stir together with Jimmy Dean sausage, diced tomatoes, garlic, and parmasean cheese.

cut the 2 green peppers in half and take out seeds.  Stuff the rice mixture equally into the 4 pepper halves.  Top with mozzarella cheese.

Cover dish with foil.  Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Remove foil and bake an additional 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Seriously Huge Publix Steak Kabobs

Tonight we had the Publix Steak Kabobs.  W-O-W- these are HUGE.  I was planning on serving these with either corn, potatoes, or salad, but seriously, look at these kabobs!  They are so big I was actually speechless when I saw them.  I had no idea.  Are kabobs always this big or does Publix just not mess around?  They were on a skewer and had a mushroom at each end and the middle was filled with steak, onions, and peppers. 

Steak and chicken kabobs were on sale this week and we picked both of these kabobs up for $9.82.  I think that's a really great deal considering how much food you get.  If you are ever having a BBQ and want to impress, pick up some of these Publix Steak Kabobs!

Thursday= Quiche Night!

Tonight we had one of our favorite dinners ever!  I mean, even our toddler eats this and he hates veggies. It's so good, if you make this it will become a regular dish for your family too!

Frozen veggies and carrots are both on sale at Publix this week and there isn't much else involved, so give it a try!

WAIT!  Are you ready for the best part?  There are only 184 calories per serving (8 servings per quiche and it makes 2).  Well, that's using the monteray jack cheese, I used mozzarella because it's what I had!  That's a low calorie count for a quiche, I would know, I have looked for one that's less!

Ingredients:
2 pie crusts
1 onion, diced
2 boxes frozen spinach, thawed
1/2 cup diced carrots
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 eggs
2 cups monteray jack cheese (I used mozzarella)
A little or lot of red pepper flakes
A little or lot of ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the onions in a skillet and cook until tender.  You could use a tablespoon of oil here, but I didn't.  Add the carrots, spinach, and garlic and cook until the juice is gone from the spinach.

Remove from heat and add the eggs and cheese.  Mix.  Add the red pepper and nutmeg.  I only add a little because my toddler will be eating it, but the original recipe calls for 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper flakes.  You can also add salt and pepper, but I don't.  Stir.

Divide the mixture between the two pie crusts.  It won't fill them entirely, but they will puff up a bit while cooking (see my picture above).

Cook in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

We eat one and freeze one for a busy day.

I based this recipe off of Spinach and Carrot Quiche.  4.5 stars and 55 reviews!

Menu for the week of April 18

I created a menu based on the Publix ad for the week of April 18th.  Here are the recipes for the week:

Spinach and Carrot Quiche-  Frozen spinach and carrots are on sale this week!

Stuffed Peppers: Using Jimmy Dean's ground sausage

Sirlon Kabobs- On Sale for $5.99/lb   Paired with salad- BOGO

T-Bone Steak or Sirloin Fillets- On sale for $7.99/lb  Paired with Corn on the Cob- on sale 5 for $2.00

Roast- On Sale for $3.99/lb Paired with Potatoes- on sale $2.99 for a 5 lb bag and Carrots- on sale 2/$3.00

Cheesy squash and zucchini casserole- yellow squash and zucchini both on sale $1.49/lb

There you have it!  My weekly menu based on the Publix sale items!

Wednesday Night, Stuffed Scallops

Publix Stuffed Scallops, Publix Cajun Shrimp, and steamed asparagus!  Yum!

Publix stuffed clams and stuffed scallops were on sale this week for $1.00 each.  I wasn't sure what to expect with these, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  It was almost like a stuffing with scallops.  It was very fancy and if I didn't know they were only $1.00 each I would have thought they were very expensive.  They were easy to make too- preheat to 450 degrees and cook for 15 minutes!

Next was the Publix Cajun shrimp.  These were not on my shopping list for the week, so they must have been BOGO last week or the week before.  They were VERY good!  We also have herb and butter, but wanted to try the cajun first.  They were easy to cook too, in a pan for 2 minutes on each side.  you can also make them in the microwave or oven- easy!

Last was steamed asparagus.  We ate it plain, with no butter or salt- it really didn't need it.  Even our toddler ate a bite- wow!

I really wanted something for dessert, but we don't have anything sweet.  I did find this in the pantry:

Chocolate Rouge Wine!  I bought this a looooong time ago when it was BOGO.  I wasn't crazy about trying it, it just never sounded good to me.  Well, I gave it a try and SOOO good!  It tastes like chocolate milk or chocolate syrup!  I would buy this again.  It would be so good with a chocolate cake, or brownie, or fruit, or, well, anything!  Give it a try!

Sunday- Ranch Chicken Tacos

Tonight we had Ranch Chicken Tacos.  This week deli Rotisserie Chicken is on sale for $5.99 at Publix.  I used this Ranch Chicken Tacos recipe.  This ended up being a super easy recipe because the chicken was already cooked.  I did use avocados (they were optional).  It was very good!  I would definitely have this meal again.

I have not bought rotisserie chicken in a long time because my husband doesn't like chicken on the bone.  I wasn't looking forward to this meal because I was afraid it wouldn't go over.  I was SO wrong.  The chicken is tender and tastes great.  I removed it from the bone and it was really amazing.  Usually we use ground beef with our tacos, but this was a nice way to mix it up.

Yesterday I wrote about Refresh Wine by Turning Leaf.  Today we opened the bottle of Red Moscato and it was equally as good as the Moscato we had yesterday.  Soooo good!  We thought it was better than wine- almost like a wine cooler.  I highly recommend this wine, I wish I had gotten more when it was BOGO!

A great meal to wrap up a great weekend!

Saturday Surf and Turf

Amazing!  That’s the word I would use to describe tonight’s dinner!  Today we had boneless New York Strip steak (on sale for $7.99/lb at Publix, a savings up to $5.00), shrimp skewers (on sale for 10 for $10.00 at Publix), and steamed asparagus ($2.99/lb at Publix).

We started off by marinating the steak in Ken’s SteakhouseTeriyaki sauce (which is BOGO this week) for 30 minutes.  We also defrosted a few of the shrimp skewers.  I thought the shrimp skewers were going to be fresh, but they came frozen in a box.  Ideally, I would have defrosted these the night before by placing them in the fridge, but that didn't happen. Instead, I defrosted them by running them under water. It worked great this way.  We also marinated the shrimp in the same sauce.  My husband fired up the grill while I steamed the asparagus.  Everything turned out amazing and I would definitely have this meal again!  It was a success and super easy!

To drink, I had a glass of the Refresh by Turning Leaf wine.  I had the Moscato.  Can I just say that this is my new favorite wine?  It was bubbly and so delicious.  It went great with the steak and shrimp combo.  Yum!!  I can’t wait to have another glass!  This wine was BOGO at Publix 2 weeks ago.  I love BOGO wine!  I liked this wine enough to buy it again even not on sale.

Friday Night, Salmon Night!

Tonight was going to be steak and shrimp night, but I switched it up!  Instead we had salmon.  Salmon was on sale this week at Publix for $6.99 per pound.  I found a recipe on allrecipes.com called Grilled Salmon I.  If you read my post the other night, you would see that I have never made fish before and I was a little intimidated that I would ruin it, so with that thought in mind I read through lots of the comments on the recipe.  This is a 5 star recipe with over 2,400 reviews, so there was a ton of info to read.  I found one commented that said you can make this in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  The poster wrote that you can bake them in foil packets with a little extra room for air inside.  I figured, why not?  By the way, salmon fillets were on sale.  Did you know that a salmon fillet STILL HAS THE SKIN ON IT?  I didn't know that and since I was already feeling in over my head it scared me!  All was ok though, I realized there is a fillet knife in the knife set, so I got to use it for the first time! 

The recipe on the site is for 1 1/2 lbs of salmon which is 6 servings.  Since I knew we would never eat that much, I only made half.  I used the foil packet method and threw them in the oven on a cookie sheet and guess what?  It turned out amazing!

Here's the recipe I used:

Season 3/4 lb salmon with lemon pepper, garlic  powder, and salt.

Stir together 1/6 cup soy sauce (I used reduced sodium), 1/8 cup brown sugar, 1/6 cup water, and 1/6 cup vegetable oil.

My salmon had skin, so I went ahead and cut it off.  I wasn't sure if I should cut the skin now or after cooking, but I thought it would be easier before since it gets flaky after cooking.  I would do it this way again in the future.

Place the salmon in a freezer bag along with marinade and turn to coat.  Allow to marinade in the fridge for 2 hours.

This is where I did my own thing.  I didn't grill the salmon, but instead I preheated the oven to 425 degrees and cooked it on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes.

The salmon turned out great.  We agreed that we would make this recipe again!  I recommend it!

For sides, we had salad and creamed spinach.
Salad was 2 for $4.00 this week at Publix and Ken's steakhouse dressing was BOGO.

Creamed spinach was BOGO two weeks ago.  We used the brand Birds Eye creamed spinach.  When I sent my husband to the store to get frozen spinach for a quiche, he came home with this.  I had never had creamed spinach before, so I had no idea what to do with it.  We ended up trying it as a side one night and loved it, so we stocked up!  It's easy to make because it comes in a container that you toss in the microwave for 4 minutes.  Even our 19 month old likes it- a miracle!  Our toddler didn't like the salmon or the salad though, so that was a bummer.

Tonight's dinner was a success!

I learned an important lesson too, my phone doesn't take great pictures!!  Time to get out the real camera!

Menu for the week of April 11

Here is the menu for the week of April 11^th!  I did my shopping at Publix and based the menu off of the current sale items.  I have to add that I do realize my dinners this week are vegetable heavy.  I have a toddler who LOVES fruit and it’s hard to get him to eat his veggies.  We are trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet to encourage him to eat them.  Plus, veggies are zero PointsPlus on Weight Watchers (which I am doing), so the more veggies the better this week!

Here is my ultimate shopping list for the week:
Meat: New York Strip Steak, rotisserie chicken
Seafood: Large Shrimp Skewers, 1 1/2 lbs salmon fillets, stuffed scallops or clams
Produce: Asparagus, bagged salad (I'm getting 2), baby carrots, onion, garlic, tomato, green onions, avocado
Marinades/Dressing: Ken’s Steak House Marinade, Ken's Steak House dressing
Dairy: shredded monterey jack cheese, eggs, sour cream
Spices/Seasoning: Lemon pepper, Garlic Power, Salt, red pepper flakes, nutmeg, salt, pepper, taco seasoning mix
Baking: Brown sugar, vegetable oil
Extras: Soy sauce, Kraft freshtake cheese and breadcrumb mix, salsa, tortillas, sliced black olives
Frozen: Creamed Spinach, Boneless, skinless frozen chicken, 2 packages frozen chopped spinach, 2 pie crusts

Thursday-  Today we are going to have left overs from last night.  I snagged a large roast during last week’s sale and paired it with the red potatoes that were on sale.  It was awesome, but way too much to finish in one night.

Friday-Friday has always been our fun dinner night.  Usually we pick something up, so this dinner is a little bigger than usual, but will end up being cheaper than going out or take out. 

On the menu: Boneless New York Strip Steak ($7.99/lb- savings up to $5/lb) marinated with        Ken’s Steak House marinade (bogo), Steamed asparagus (bogo), Large Shrimp Skewers (10 for        $10)

Ingredients: New York Strip Steak ($7.99/lb), Ken’s Steak House Marinade (BOGO), Asparagus (one of the BOGO), Large Shrimp Skewers ($1 each)

Saturday- Fish is NOT something I cook often.  I’m excited to try this recipe for salmon because it has amazing reviews online.  I’m making the salmon recipe found here: Salmon Recipe   Maybe this will give me the confidence I need to cook fish in the future!

On the menu: Fresh Salmon Fillets ($6.99/lb- savings up to $3/lb), Creamed Spinach (was bogo 2 weeks ago), Bagged Salad (2 for $4.00)

Ingredients: 1 ½ lbs salmon fillets ($6.99/lb), Lemon pepper, Garlic powder, Salt, 1/3 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, Creamed Spinach (as a side, I stocked up when it was bogo 2 weeks ago, feel free  to substitute), Bagged Salad (2 for $4.00), Salad Dressing (Ken’s Steak House dressing BOGO)

Sunday- We had the stuffed scallops once before from Publix when they went on sale.  They were good and I definitely wanted to try them again (when they were on sale, of course).  You could also add some of those awesome shrimp skewers that are on sale.

On the Menu: Stuffed Scallops or Clams (whichever my husband picks) (10 for $10), Bagged        Salad (2 for $4.00)

                Ingredients:

                                Stuffed Scallops or Clams (10 for $10)

                                Bagged Salad (2 for $4.00)

Monday- I have never tried the Kraft Fresh Take Cheese and Breadcrumb mix before.  I’m not sure if it requires any other ingredients other than chicken, but I’ll have to check the package when I pick it up.  I can’t pass it up since it’s BOGO!

On the Menu: Boneless, Skinless Frozen Chicken ($5.99), Kraft fresh take cheese and breadcrumb mix (BOGO), Steamed Asparagus (BOGO), Steamed baby cut carrots (5 for $5.00)

                Ingredients:

                                Boneless, skinless frozen chicken ($5.99)

                                Kraft fresh  take cheese and breadcrumb mix (BOGO)

                                Steamed Asparagus (part of the BOGO from earlier in the week)

                                Steamed baby carrots (5 for $5.00)

Tuesday- Spinach Quiche- we love quiche and we have it often because it’s one of the only ways we get our toddler to eat vegetables!  These items are not necessarily on sale this week, but I already have everything to make them.  I use this recipe: Spinach Quiche   It is so good!  My husband and toddler both love it!  I’ll list the ingredients in case you want to try it!   The recipe I linked is for 2 quiches, so only make half it you want one.  I’m going to make 2 and save one in the freezer for another day.

On the Menu: Spinach Quiche

                Ingredients:      

                                1 tablespoon vegetable oil

                                1 onion

                                2 cloves of garlic

                                2 packages frozen, chopped spinach, thawed

                                ½ cup shredded carrots (Baby Cut Carrots 5 for $5.00)

                                2 cups Monterey jack cheese (I use cheddar because it’s what I have)

                                6 eggs

                                ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

                                1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

                                Salt

                                Pepper

                                2 pie crusts

Wednesday-  I’m excited about today’s menu.  My husband hates chicken on the bone, so he gets bummed whenever he sees that I am buying a rotisserie chicken even though I take it off of the bone for the recipes I use.   I searched for the perfect recipe and I think this one will finally be the one to change his mind.

On the Menu: Chicken Ranch tacos using Deli Rotisserie Chicken ($5.99- savings of $1.40) and I   found it here: Ranch Chicken Tacos  

                Ingredients:

                                Deli Rotisserie Chicken ($5.99)

                                ½ cup ranch dressing (Ken’s dressing is bogo)

                                ¼ cup sour cream (1.25)

                                1 packet of taco seasoning mix, divided

                                1 tablespoon chunky salsa

                                8 tortillas (I get a big package of tortillas at the Dollar Tree)

                                Shredded lettuce (I’ll use the lettuce from the bagged salad)

                                1 tomato (on sale $1.69/lb)

                                4 green onions

                                1 can sliced black olives

                                1 avocado (optional)

                                1 cup shredded cheese (I’m using cheddar because it’s what I already have)

There you have it!  My menu for the week!  I’ll post pictures of what I made and how it turned out!  On Sundays I pack my toddler’s lunches

The Game Plan

Get ready to go shopping!  Every Thursday the new Publix ad comes out online and that's when I plan my menu for the week.   I really don't have time to dedicate to couponing, so I stick with what's already on sale.  I have been putting together weekly meal ideas to save money and make dinner a little more interesting. Plus, we were finding ourselves eating out waaaay too much and by eating out I mean running through the fast food windows.  Planning my meals was really fun, but I found it to be really expensive, so I started to plan around the weekly sales at Publix.  .

Tomorrow I'll post my shopping list as well as the recipes I plan to use!