Maximizing Your Budget

Happy St. Patrick’s Day Everyone! Don’t worry this won’t be an Irish recipe…..there is a very good reason the Irish are famous for their whiskey and Guinness..... This post is about making the most out of your food budget, so hopefully you will have enough money left over for that pint of green beer! Slainte!
Recently, I was watching a DVR’d episode of Oprah and she had (Iron Chef) Cat Cora on talking about how to get the most value out of your grocery shopping. Chef Cora said when you “don’t eat leftovers or let produce go bad it is like folding up a $20 bill and throwing it away.” That really rang true with me! In a time where every dollar counts in most households, it can be challenging to make it out of the grocery store under budget and still have tasty meals. So I decided to do a 2 part blog about how to get the most out of leftovers by stretching a simple rotisserie chicken into 2 different meals. The idea is to utilize the same protein two nights in a row, but use completely different flavors & textures, so as not to feel like you are having two boring (ugh!) chicken dinners in a row. Rotisserie chickens can be found in just about every market these days, but I prefer to buy mine at Costco when I can. (At Costco they are priced at $4.99 versus the supermarket which is usually more in the $7 range.) The first thing you will want to do with the chicken when you get home is separate the white meat from the dark. Put the dark meat in a Tupperware container and save it for tomorrow’s recipe : Black Bean & Chicken Empanadas. Put the white breast meat aside and choose which recipe you are going to make: Chicken Salad with Lime Vinaigrette or Chicken Soup, Mexican Style.

The chicken salad is very simple, it really is what you want to make of it. What makes it special is the vinaigrette for the salad. I “borrowed” the fresh lime vinaigrette recipe from my friend Gavin, who is the author of the blog the Haute Kitchen. See sidebar or go to http://thehautekitchen.com/the-simplest-vinaigrette-ever/ for more details. For this salad, I mixed baby romaine, cherry tomatoes, avocado , cucumber , croutons and then topped with the vinaigrette. I just used what I had on hand, there is no real “recipe” to the salad. We like a lot of dressing on our salad so I doubled Gavin’s original recipe below:
Fresh Lime Vinaigrette:
Juice of 1 lime
4 TB Seasoned Rice Wine Vinegar
½ c Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper to taste
*Whisk together until well blended!

Chicken Soup, Mexican Style:
4 Tb Olive oil
1 Yellow onion , chopped
4 Cloves garlic , minced
2 Jalapenos , seeded & diced
1 (28 oz) can chopped tomatoes
Shredded Cooked Chicken (2-3 cups)
4 Cups low sodium chicken stock
1 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1 Lime
1 Tb Dried oregano
1 tsp Cumin
1 Cup cooked rice
Optional Toppings: Sour Cream & Cilantro
Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add onion & sauté for 2 minutes until translucent. Add jalapeno & cook another 2 minutes. Add garlic , cumin & oregano and cook another minute. Add tomatoes , chicken , Worcestershire & chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and cook 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook up 1 cup rice in a separate pot. (Instant is fine). After 20 minutes, squeeze the juice of the lime into the pot. Add cooked rice and simmer another 5-10 minutes. Season with S&P. Garnish with sour cream & cilantro. Enjoy!
Any extra white meat chicken that wasn’t used can be added to the Tupperware of dark meat chicken. Check back tomorrow to see how to use the leftover chicken in Black Bean & Chicken Empanadas!