Frugal Friday: Chicken On The Cheap

Do those "extreme value" or "value pack" trays or bags of boneless, skinless chicken breast really save you money?

Why pay for the chicken skin when you are just going to throw it away, right? The best way to judge the best deal with chicken is to consider the price per pound instead of the cost per chicken breast because some chicken breasts are bigger or smaller than others. Two small chicken breasts can weigh the same as one extra large chicken breast.

In my neighborhood grocery store the "value pack" of boneless, skinless chicken breasts is $3.49 per pound while a package of "boneless, skinless Breast Fillets" will run you $6.49 per pound.

But you only need 4 chicken breasts for dinner and the value pack of chicken contains anywhere from 6 to 8 breasts. So what do you do with the extra 2 to 4 breasts? The way I see it you have two good options:

Option #1
If you are roasting or grilling the chicken, you might as well throw on the extra breasts. You can use the extra cooked breasts for lunch or dinner the next day (chicken enchiladas, chicken quesadillas, chicken pot pie, chicken salad sandwiches, chicken Caesar salad, etc…)

Option #2
You can wrap the extra-uncooked chicken breasts in a freezer bag (make sure you have pressed out any air in the bag) then keep it in the freezer. The next time you are making chicken for dinner, you can just defrost the frozen chicken breasts by placing them in the refrigerator the night before.

The savings add up!
If you have chicken a couple of times a week and use about 1 pound of chicken each time, you could potentially save around $24 each month!

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Homemade Honey Wheat Hamburger Buns

Buns You Can Make With Your Bread Machine!

It would give a big boost to our health if we could all switch to whole grains most of the time - just say "no" to white bread products. One of the hardest products to find whole grain options for is a hamburger bun. So, just in time for the BBQ season, I developed a recipe for bread machine honey wheat hamburger buns. These tasted so good fresh from the oven; my family ate half the batch of buns before I could even make the broiled chicken breasts I was planning to serve with it. Each bun includes a half-tablespoon of ground flax too!

Honey Wheat Hamburger Buns
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic members: Journal as 3 servings of whole grain bread OR 3/4 cup "starchy foods with 1 teaspoon fat"

Ingredients:

1 cup water (hot from the faucet)
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon Molasses
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed (also called flaxseed meal)
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons yeast (rapid rise, active dry, or bread machine yeast)

Preparation:

1. Set bread machine to the "dough" cycle. Add all the ingredients in the order listed here (or according to the manufacturer's directions), but add the salt to one of the corners in the bread machine pan and make a well in the center of the flour and add the yeast there.
2. Press "start" - a nice dough should form in a few minutes. After the dough cycle (usually 1 hour and 40 minutes long) place dough onto a floured work surface and cut dough in half; cut each half into 4 equal portions (to make 8 portions total).
3. Shape each of the portions of dough into round disks about 3 inches wide. Place on a nonstick jellyroll pan or cookie sheet and cover with a kitchen towel. Start preheating the oven to 350-degrees. Place the pan near the warming oven or in another warm spot in your kitchen. Let dough rise about 30 minutes (or until double in size).
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked throughout and lightly brown on top.

Yield: Makes 8 hamburger buns

WebMD Weight Loss Clinic members journal as: 3 servings of whole grain bread OR 3/4 cup "starchy foods with 1 teaspoon fat"

Nutrition Information per serving: 245 calories, 7 g protein, 44 g carbohydrate, 6 g fat, .5 g saturated fat, 2.6 g monounsaturated fat, 2.3 g polyunsaturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 5 g fiber, 296 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 22 percent. PLUS: 1.3 grams of omega-3 fatty acids.

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Taste Test Tuesday: Dueling Multigrain Tortilla Chips

A side-by-side taste test!

I'm a fan of "2-minute Nachos" that you make in a microwave. You make a bed of tortilla chips then drop spoonfuls of canned fat free or vegetarian refried beans, sprinkle some shredded cheese over the top and top that with chopped tomatoes, green onions, or anything else that appeals to you.

Microwave for about 1 minute and your snack or meal is ready!

I ALWAYS use multi-grain tortilla chips for this and other recipes that call for tortilla chips. Well I found two new brands of multi-grain tortilla chips on my last trip to Whole Foods, so I thought my family would test them out side by side with some guacamole.

In one corner we've got Garden of Eatin' Multi Grain Tortilla Chips (with flaxseed).

And in the other corner we've got Kettle brand Multi Grain Tortilla Chips.

My two teenage daughters preferred the Kettle Chips but liked the other chips too. My husband liked the roasted flavor in the Garden of Eatin' chips but liked the other ones as well. I couldn't decide which ones I liked better, so I guess you could say I would be happy with either.

Nutritionally, they both have 7 grams of fat per ounce with 1 gram of saturated fat and zero trans fat. The only differences I could find were that the Kettle Chips contained 2 grams of fiber per serving while the Garden of Eatin' chips have 3 grams of fiber per serving (maybe from the added flaxseed?)

Next important question is, what type of oil is used to make the chips? Garden of Eatin' uses expeller pressed canola oil and/or safflower oil and/or sunflower oil...which doesn't really help me because they've given us too many oil possibilities here. Reading the ingredient list though does definitely show that these are "multi-grain" with ingredients like steel cut oats, organic brown flaxseed, barley grits, soybean grits, wheat bran, etc...

The Kettle chips list expeller pressed high monounsaturated safflower and/or sunflower oil as their oil with their "multigrain" major ingredient being multigrain flour, which contains organic whole wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, and millet.

Per ounce they contain:

140 calories
7 grams of fat
1 gram saturated fat
0 mg cholesterol
18 or 19 grams of carbohydrate
2 or 3 grams of fiber (Garden of Eatin' has the 3 grams)
2 or 3 grams of protein
100 or 140 milligrams of sodium (Kettle has the 100 mg)

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Frugal Friday: Make Your Own Snack Bags

Welcome to Frugal Friday!

You know how the latest thing in lunch box packing is these 100-calorie (or more) snack bags? Well, I did the math and they are a money waster that's for sure.

One of the best reasons to make your own snack packs is that you can choose the reduced fat or whole grain snack options whenever possible whereas the prepackaged bags tend to come in the "original" versions.

I wanted to calculate the money we would save if we made our own snack bags after bought a big box or bag of the snack and divvied it up into individual snack bags (using the snack bag size baggies).

I used the ever popular, strangely irresistible goldfish snack crackers as my example.

A 6.6-ounce bag of "Goldfish made with whole grain" costs around $2.39.

A box with 5 pouches of goldfish (100 calories each) costs around $3.49.

Here's how to make your own goldfish snack bag:

• A slightly heaping 1/3-cup measure is about 41 goldfish and equals about 105 calories.


• The 6.6-ounce bag of goldfish makes 8 servings total - just fill snack bags with slightly heaping 1/3 cup of the goldfish and they are just as easy to add to that lunch bag or box as the store-bought 100-calorie bags.


• $2.39 divided by 8 snack bags = 30 cents each!


• The box with 5 pouches= 70 cents per pouch.

What Could You Save?
If you made your own snack bags and put them in your children's' lunch bags every day for a week (5 days) and you had two children, you would save 4 dollars a week! And you were able to increase the fiber a little by switching to the "made with whole grain" goldfish.

Related Topics:

• Saving Money the Healthy Way
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5-Minute Chicken Caesar Salad

During the week, things can get a little ugly at the Magee house what with two tumultuous teens, a demanding work schedule and after school activities that would make your head spin...

So...one of my easiest weeknight dinners that seem to please all members of the family is 5-Minute Chicken Caesar Salad. I buy 4 charbroiled chicken breasts (skinless and boneless) at a deli/grill nearby but you can just as easily shred the meat from a rotisserie chicken you bought at the grocery store (sometimes these are on sale too).

The only prep work you have to do is chop the chicken into bite size pieces then layer the following in a big salad-serving bowl:

• A bag of romaine lettuce (just open it and pour it in)


• Any vegetables you like to add to your Caesar salad like cucumber or cherry tomatoes (cherry tomatoes are easy because all you do is wash them)


• The chopped charbroiled or roasted chicken


• Some shredded Parmesan cheese (this comes ready to sprinkle in bags and tubs at most grocery stores)


• Drizzle some light Caesar dressing over the top - it's available in several brands in the salad dressing section of most supermarkets


• Any light croutons you have handy can be sprinkled over the top as well.

This is literally thrown together in 5 minutes! (Not including the chicken that you bought at the store.) I'm sure we'll get sick of it sooner or later, but for now, it's a hit with the family and we usually have this once a week.

Happy salad month!

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Taste Test Tuesday: NEW Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Links (60% Less Fat)

For the love of pigs in a blanket!

I know I've done quite a few Taste Test Tuesdays with various types of breakfast sausage (meatless and turkey products usually). But this is all because of my love of "pigs in a blanket".

There is something totally yummy about fresh buttermilk pancakes (I make them with part whole wheat) wrapped around a light tasty sausage link. Well this morning I made my light buttermilk wheat pancakes and tried out the new Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Links with 60% Less Fat.

They are packaged "fully cooked" so all you need to do is reheat them in a microwave or stove top (I chose the latter). This way adds a little extra browning. They tasted really good and my husband, who tends to be picky about his sausage, loved them.

The first ingredient is "boneless turkey" and the second is "water." There is less than 2% of the rest of the ingredients. The package says the serving size is 3 cooked links (68 grams) and this serving will add the following to your breakfast totals:

120 calories
7 grams fat
2 grams saturated fat
0 g trans fat
55 mg cholesterol
490 mg sodium
13 grams protein

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5 Tips To Save Money In The Kitchen

Photo Credit: Doug Floyd

Whether it's the higher food prices that have hit you hard or the April tax deadline that has left your wallet lighter than usual...most of us are more motivated lately to save as much money as possible in the kitchen.

Here are my top 5 tips to save money in the kitchen:

1. Get that last serving of dressing from the bottle! When you think you've gotten all the creamy salad dressing from the bottle, add a couple of tablespoons of fat free half and half to the bottle. Screw the cap on and shake it up well. Now you have at least one more serving of lite creamy salad dressing! I do this all the time with my light Caesar salad dressing.


2. Clean the inside of the jar to save money and recycle! Certain foods that are really sticky like peanut butter or light mayonnaise can be a bear to clean out and recycle. But here's a way to get at least one more serving from the sides of the jar AND make the jar clean enough to recycle without washing. Use a mini spatula/scraper to remove that last bit of peanut butter or mayonnaise on the inside of the jars. You will be amazed how much of it you are able to scrape out and use!


3. Save that bread! One of the foods that people end up throwing away most because it gets moldy or stale before they can use it all up is bread and bread products. So freeze what you don't think you'll use in 3-5 days and when you are ready for the next batch of bread, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost within a few hours. This works well for sliced bread, buns and rolls too.


4. Save money when you buy meat by making your portions of meat smaller. Dishes like stir-fries, meat and veggie kabobs and casseroles work well for this. Where as a pound of meat might have served about two people before, with smaller meat portions it can serve four well.


5. Keep your refrigerator and pantry well organized so you don't forget about products you've bought and need to use soon. For example, once you've cut into the block of cheese, it's days are numbered. Make sure you see it in the cheese drawer so you can use it up before you have to throw it out. Once you've opened up that box of whole wheat crackers, Keep the inside plastic well sealed (so the crackers stay crisp), and keep the box front and center in your pantry so you'll remember to include them in the near future. Same goes for the vegetable and fruit crisper. Know what's in there so you can use them within a few days after purchase.

And remember that going to discount food stores only works if you only buy what you truly need and will use. Those coupons and "2 for 1" deals only save you money if it's for items you really want and would buy anyway.

What are some of your best tips to save money in the kitchen?

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