Busy B Chili

A few months back one of my old co-workers wrote a blog with a recipe for some great sounding chili. I had a dish she brought me to work a while back and it was awesome. So last night I realized that after thinking of it for a full day that I had to make this chili. I got all but one of the ingredients from Trader Joe's (found the chili powder at Gelson's). I also got cornbread as well as ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Oh, and I got twice the amount of meat so I doubled the seasonings. For less than $25 I made enough food for the next few days! CLICK HERE for the recipe and HERE to check out her blog The Busy B Creates for the full recipe as well as other posts. Her stuff is far more useful than the things I write about and contain far less swear words.  

Bacon Potato Salad

Today I dragged my jacked up body out of the house to do some shopping since I was down to one hotdog, and swallow of lemonade, and tortilla chips. And why am I jacked up? Broom ball. I'll explain on one of my other blogs some time. So when I went to Cole's and they had that bacon potato salad which I'd never had before I decided to try and make my own version. And I did it! Its pretty damned good and I have decided to show you how to make this easy ass meal.

Lemon Pepper Chicken & Garlic Fries

I told myself that starting this year I was gonna start cooking at home more often. I like to make simple yet good meals that don’t require a lot of preparation or ingredients. If you live near a Trader Joe’s there’s no reason for you not to make your own meals. If you have $20 you have dinner for a week. I bought the bag of chicken breasts for $6.99. I season it with lemon pepper that cost $1.99 and a little garlic salt that you can buy anywhere for cheap. I put it in the oven for forty minutes, turning and seasoning it once. Afterwards I slice it to make it look pretty. I’ve been working on Hell’s Kitchen for too long…

The garlic fries cost around four bucks. You are supposed to season and bake these but that takes way too long and I tend to wait until I am very hungry and incredibly impatient. There’s a pack of garlic sauce that comes in the bag. I suggest you thaw it in a cup of warm water while you cook. I ended up frying the fries which cuts the cooking time but a fourth of the time. I put it in a large plastic container and shook it like it owed me money. In less than an hour I had a delicious dinner that makes about four meals for around ten dollars.

Barbecue Pizza From Trader Joe's

Last week I grabbed a Trader Joe’s pizza. They have a lot of them there and I wanted to try out the barbecue chicken one. Damn, this thing is good! I had half of it and then realized that it was silly to try and save it till later. So I ate the rest of it. It’s a thin crust pizza which I normally do not enjoy but there’s so much chicken on it that I don’t mind. Its only about $4.99 which is pretty damn cheap for such a good little pizza.

Here's The Beef...Bacon!

This exists! Its beef bacon. About a month or so ago someone told me that Trader Joe’s sold bacon. I thought they were just messing with me because everyone knows that I would chase a old lady with a steel chair for a couple pieces of bacon. But I went and sure enough they have a lot of different flavors of the stuff. I know I may sound like a fool because there are some foods that have been around forever and my friends and family just never told me about them or how good they are. Like fried turkey. Took me like 30 years before anyone told me how amazing it was. Jerks. Or pho. Turns out I was going right past these places and not knowing how great it was. If good food exists, tell me!

Trader Joe's Chicken Breasts and Garlic Fries

So I got some chicken breasts and garlic fries from Trader Joe’s. Oh, its good! Julia N. made me the chicken breasts with seasoning and it was so damned good. The fries are regular fries but after they are done you put them in a container and pour the garlic packet on them. The packet is huge and you’d never need all of it. Maybe like 15% of the pack unless you don’t plan on kissing anyone for a few days. Between the chicken and the fries the total is about $10 and will make about five meals. You cant beat that deal!

Trader Joe's Chicken Fried Rice

I have made this chicken fried rice from Trader Joe’s about three times from one bag. It could have been four but I am a greedy bastard which you’d probably guess from the fact that I have a food blog. This bag was less than $4 and makes about four meals. That’ a dollar a meal! Awesome. It takes a couple minutes to make and tastes good. Actually the rice tastes better than most food places. Try it.

Simpler Times Beer

Before we headed to the Greene’s for awesome ass food we stopped by Trader Joe’s. I know I have been writing about this place a lot lately but damn it that place is great. We were looking for some wine to bring and saw this cheap ass beer called Simpler Times. Now I am not a huge fan of beer. It usually tastes like horse pee and does nothing but make me horny. This beer was actually very good and didn’t give you that weird aftertaste. And who can beat an actual good beer that costs only $2.99? Come on. I even made a theme song for Simpler Times.

Trader Joe's Mandarin Chicken

I made some Mandarin orange chicken that I bought from Trader Joe’s. This was way more delicious than half the mandarin chicken I have had at restaurants. Actually it was better than half of them. Very fast and easy to make. The part that took the longest was the long white rice I made with it.

Most problems I have with any food like this that comes with a sauce and chicken is that one of two things happen. 1. There’s a lot of chicken and a couple spoonfuls of sauce or 2. there’s an assload of sauce and a couple pieces of hungry ass looking chicken. Like the leftover pieces that you know is nothing but chicken knuckles. This was a huge exception. It had more chicken than I could just sit and eat alone and two (that’s right, two!) packs of sauce that tasted amazing and would be good as its own dipping sauce with something else. And it costs less than $5 and will last for about four meals (that’s bachelor speak for four people). I highly recommended this and will be buying it again!

Trader Joe's Pizza

I got some pizza from Trader Joe’s today along with a bunch of other healthy ass stuff. I got this pizza and it was awesome. It was a chicken barbecue thing with Gouda and some other cheese and red onions. I ate half for lunch and just writing about it makes me wanna eat the other half right now. Which I think I’ll do. Yay, Trader Joe’s! And it cost less than $4 thank you very much.

Eating Healthy An' Stuff

In an attempt to eat healthier I have started to get away from the sugary, sweet, amazing cereal I have eaten my entire life like Trix, Cap’N Crunch, Lucky Charms, and Fruity Pebbles and have started eating this healthy stuff. It actually not as bad as I thought it would be. This one I got from Trader Joe’s and is less than $3. You wouldn’t believe how expensive eating cereal can be! For the stuff I usually get its about $4.29 with milk being close to that price. That’s nuts and a half. Now I am eating healthier and saving money. Go me.