I know I have been blowing your culinary mind lately but, seriously, when is the last time you made Rice Krispie Treats? Ok, now when was the last time you bought Rice Krispie Treats?  Hopefully your answer to the second question was, “Buy Rice Krispie Treats?! Why would anyone ever do such a thing?”  And if you’ve never made them before either, then you should.  Warning: I don’t know the yield on these because we ate half the sheet before I could finish cutting the shapes. They keep well in individual ziplock bags in the pantry or you can also hide them in the freezer if you want them to last longer.

Rice Krispie Treats

• 6 cups puffed rice cereal
• 10 oz mini marshmallows
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp sprinkles (optional but aren’t they just the cutest?!)

1. Melt butter in a saucepan.
2. Stir in marshmallows, heat and stir until liquefied.
3. Stir marshmallow mixture into cereal, add sprinkles if desired.
4. Press mixture into a greased 8×8, 9×13 or jelly roll pan using waxed paper.
5. Firm in the refrigerator, then cut into bars or shapes with a greased knife or cookie cutters.

Cost Analysis:

• 6 cups Rice Krispies Cereal: $1.55
• 1 10 oz bag marshmallows: $0.97
• 2 tbsp butter: $0.25
• Total cost for 1 dozen: $2.77 or 23¢ per treat

One of the fastest, easiest meals you can make for picky kids is chicken.  Chicken nuggets, chicken fingers: there is something about the familiar, buttery flavor of a chicken breast that puts kids at ease.  Breading and pan-frying chunks of chicken breast takes very little time and served with some steamed veggies and my favorite sweet potato fries you’ve got a great, quick meal that everyone will eat.

Chicken Fingers

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
• 1 cup flour (can sub all or part whole wheat flour or corn meal)
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper
• oil for frying

1. Cut chicken breasts into small pieces, either small strips or nuggets.
2. Place egg in a bowl and place flour in another bowl, add any seasonings to flour like salt, pepper, garlic, or mustard powder.
3. Dip chicken pieces in egg, allowing excess to drip off.
4. Then roll chicken in flour until completely coated.
5. Set aside and dip and coat all chicken pieces.
6. In a heavy skillet, heat about 1 inch of oil until it bubbles when you toss in a bit of flour.
7. Cook chicken nuggets in batches, turning several times, until golden brown and juices are clear.
8. Drain on paper towels and serve.

I use light olive oil as my all-purpose oil.  You can use it to fry your chicken and your potatoes if desired, then strain it into a clean jar and store it in the fridge or pantry for another meal.  You can also omit the eggs and just soak the chicken in a bit of milk or buttermilk.

Cost Analysis:

• 1 lb all natural chicken breasts: $3.99
• 2 cage-free eggs: $0.37
• 2 cups organic frozen broccoli florets: $0.49
• 1 lb frozen julienned sweet potatoes: $3.39
• Total cost for 4 servings: $8.24 or $2.06 per serving

Chicken salad is another one of those foods I didn’t grow up eating.  My mother hates mayonnaise to the point of nausea.  So any kind of mayonnaisey “salad” was out of the question-no tuna salad, no egg salad, are there more?  Chicken salad was something mrChaos introduced me to because it was a common sandwich filling at his house growing up.  It is ok and occasionally I make it and we eat it and then I don’t make it for awhile.  On the other hand, I do make and take to work with me actual salad (like, with lettuce and stuff) every week.  I love the combination of bits of creamy, salty cheese, pecans, crunchy sour green apple slices and chewy sweet sour cranberries tossed with a tangy vinaigrette, like this.

So when I saw Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad on one of my favorite blogs, I knew I would love the combination.  And I do, very much.  It is slightly sweet and nutty, with a crunch from the celery and shallot.  There is just enough mayonnaise to hold it together, mixed with some red wine vinegar for some tang.  I currently can’t get enough of this stuff!

Click here for the recipe »

So, we aren’t exactly curry people.  As in, we don’t do curry.  We don’t like it and we don’t eat it.  Or at least that’s what we’ve been telling ourselves for years.  Then mrChaos ordered the green curry at our local thai place on a whim and after fighting over the leftovers we decided that maybe we are curry people after all-or at least this curry.  The ingredients listed for this dish were simple and nonthreatening: chicken, zucchini, bamboo shoots, peas, basil, and coconut milk.  The sauce was creamy and slightly sweet with the fresh scent of ginger and lemon grass.  It didn’t look too hard and I was craving it again almost immediately, so I set out to make it at home.  A search of the internet for “thai green curry” yielded lots of recipes containing exotic ingredients like galangal, keffir limes, and lemon grass.  Ingredients that looked amazingly flavorful but that I knew would be difficult to find in my local suburban grocery stores.

So I did what I always do when I want to make a cultural recipe that is unfamiliar-I go to the source.  Houston is a multicultural hub and I happen to work with many people from all over the world.  My coworker told me how she makes it for her family, using typical grocery store ingredients.  It sounded easy and simple and after picking up some coconut milk and green curry paste I was ready to go.

The flavor of our curry was spot on if just not as bright tasting as the original.  The success of this recipe will depend a lot on your curry paste so use the best you can find.  I would love to make my own curry paste one day soon but for now I will be playing around with this recipe.  It is a good, quick “curry in a hurry” even if it is not completely authentic or exotic.

Click here for the recipe »