minxybaby | The Challenge

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The Challenge - Day Three

I updated my food inventory post tonight. It's going great so far. Woohoo, we made it past day 3! lol

Some of you have really taken an interest in this challenge. At first I thought you might find these posts annoying, but since the interest is high, I'll continue to post updates now and then. If any of you take on this challenge yourself, please let me know! I'd love to have a challenge buddy. hehe

For the first 3 days I didn't sit down and do up a menu. Bad, minxy! I did have a menu in my head though, but today is the last day I planned for, so now I must write one up for reals. I'm thinking I should have rules for this too. Like a cap on the amount of fresh items I can spend every week or two weeks. And how often we can buy junk food like chips, or items to make junk food like my cheesecake. Maybe I'll just put a general allowance on what we can spend per week, and if we go under it, then great. What do you think? If you'd like to share how much you spend on groceries, please do! I'd like to know some of your grocery spending habits too.

Due to our different work schedules, my husband and I won't always eat our meals together. We will most likely eat separate lunches, but there will be times we don't eat dinner together either. I will list our foods separately when we don't eat together. If our name isn't beside the meal, then we ate the same meal together.

Here's what we had for lunch and dinner the first 3 days:
Challenge Day	Lunch	Dinner
Day One	leftover pizza (from dinner the night before)	Seasoned Chicken pieces, Sidekicks Rice, the small bag of mixed veggies from the freezer
Day Two	minxy_baby: leftover chicken (the only thing leftover from dinner) & a Bowl Appetit cheese pasta nodeg: tuna sandwiches & baby carrots	Perogies! Cheesecake for dessert.
Day Three	minxy_baby: tuna sandwich & a Thai noodle bowl nodeg tuna sandwiches, baby carrots, and a piece of cheesecake	Pork ribs marinated in the Tex Mex Marinade (packet), homemade seasoned fries (a mix of fresh sweet potatoes & white potatoes), and corn Cheesecake for dessert? ;)
And here's what I plan for our meals for the next week:
Day Four	minxy_baby: Staggs Chilli & toast nodeg tuna sandwich, baby carrots, and a piece of cheesecake	Hamburger Helper ~~& mashed potatoes~~
Day Five	~~Pea soup & toast~~ Brown sugar & honey breakfast sausages, fried potatoes & onions, eggs, toast, and coffee	Tilapia filets either ~~baked or~~ fried (seasoned), lemon and dill sauce, homemade rice of some kind, and brussel sprouts
Day Six	Breaded chicken burgers sliced up and made into chicken Caesar wraps (will have to buy romaine lettuce and wraps)	Skillet Sensations Teriyaki Chicken & a Caesar salad
Day Seven	Homemade ~~Cannelloni & tossed salad (will have to buy more veggies)~~ pea soup & toast	Indian Night: ~~something with ground beef (have to google a recipe!)~~ Kofta!, ~~seasoned~~ Basmati rice, ~~maybe both mixes for Vadai &~~ Pakora, tomato & onion & cucumber salad, and Onion Uttappan
Day Eight	minxy_baby: ~~Homemade Meatballs & Rice (frozen dish)~~ Leftover chicken Caesar wraps nodeg ~~Homemade Taco Casserole (frozen dish)~~ Leftover Brown sugar & honey breakfast sausages, leftover fried potatoes & onions, eggs, and toast	~~Hamburger Helper & mashed potatoes or a salad~~ Leftover Indian food
*Day Nine*	Homemade Cannelloni	Hamburger Helper & mashed potatoes ~~or a salad~~
Day ~~Nine~~ Ten	Kraft Dinner	~~Homemade beef empanadas & Greek salad~~ Pub style chicken strips & fries
Day ~~Ten~~ Eleven	minxy_baby: flakes of ham sandwiches nodeg tuna sandwiches & baby carrots	~~Pub style chicken strips & fries~~

And if anybody has any good recipes for ground beef (preferably using a minimal amount of ingredients) please post it or link it for me! Thanks!! I want to make a tuna casserole or a tuna pasta dish, but with all the tuna sandwiches hubby has been taking to work, I think he'll want to wait at least another week. lol

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wow! I admire the dedication to tuna and (mmmmm) baby carrots! ... but will you stop mentioning CHEESECAKE in every post... you're making me very jealous and hugely hungry ;-) ... the pic of the 7 deadly sins looked awesome!

Ground beef with not too many ingredients - if you have the spices then I love 2 curry dishes - and apart fromt hebeef and spices you only need onion, garlic and rice or chips! - I'll post 2 "off the top of my head" recipes in a few hours (it's 2am and I need to get up in 6:30 so i best run and get some sleep... I'll give you the recipes as soon as I get to work!)

I have a tonne of spices, and lots of rice in the cupboard. My husband and I both love spicy foods like curry. It sounds perfect! I'll check for your recipe, thanks for your help!!

I've done these for approx 1lb/450g mince, but it should be fine for half as much more or less... increase the quantities if you're using even more than that! These are both off-the-top-of-my-head-as-I-like-em rather than anything hugely authentic! ;-)

Kofta (meatballl curry)

meatball spices:
½tsp each: paprika, ground corriander, garam massala, cumin, black pepper, pinch of salt

mix and then add to mince - mix thoroughly and shape into balls (approx 2cm size)
leave in fridge for 1 hour

sauce spices:
1tspn paprika,garam massala, ground corriander, turmeric (and fenugreek if you fancy a coconut sauce)
½ tspn: cumin
chilli powder (hot as you like it!)

mix together and add 1 tspn red wine vinegar (or white wine/malt vinegar), add vegetable oil until it is a stiff paste

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 tim tomatoes, liquidised (or passata)
100ml water
optional: coconut milk (I don't use this, so it's your guess how much - probably about 125ml)

Fry onion in veg oil (or ghee if you've got it) on a high heat for a couple of mins. Add garlic and push it all to the side of the pan (so it's not directly on the heat)... pour the spice paste into the pan and cook for 1-2 min (you should see some of the oil from the paste float come to the top of the paste)... stir to make sure it doesn't burn.

Stir the paste into the onion/garlic and add the water. Add the tomatoes and then add the meatballs. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30mins-1 hour, turning the meatballs (gently!) from time to time. (sometimes I liquidise the sauce before adding the meatballs, just if I fancy a smoother/thicker sauce)

If you're adding coconut then do so with the tomatoes.

When you're ready to serve, add a generous handfull of chopped fresh corriander.

it doesn't use too much ingredient-wise... so long as you've got the onion, tomatoes, meat and most of the spices then you'll have a tasty meal!

Keema (mince curry)
use the same sauce spice mix as above. Add cassia bark if you've got it - this is generally a milder curry than the above, so maybe curb the chilli!

1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tin tomatoes
(+ a small tin of tomato soup is a good addition if you've one to use up)

Fry onion and garlic and then do the spice paste in the same way as for Kofta.
When they've cooked, add the mince and continue to saute till the mince is browned.
Add 100ml water plus tomatoes/soup
Add cardamon pods if you've got them (2 green and 2 brown)

leave to simmer gently for 30mins. Add fresh corriander before serving.

serve with chips/rice/bread as preferred!

hope you like 'em!

Wow thank you so much for these! I think I'll try one of them for dinner on Day Seven. :)

For ground beef you simply must look at

trashy_eats!!!

Seriously there are a ton of ground beef ideas! And all minimum ingredients and effort.

The name aside of course. It's a great community!

Sweet, thanks. I've seen that community mentioned a few times, but the name kinda scares me. lol But, this 3 month challenge is going to be totally trashy. I might just make a klik stir-fry one day too. lol Thanks, I'm gonna go check it out. :)

You always have such yummy ideas!! I love reading about(and seeing) your creations :)

Yay! :)

This may or may not work for you, but this is what we do. We plan the menu one week at a time and we figure out five days worth of dinner. We don't bother with lunches because we're both at work during lunch and either take leftovers or frozen meals. Doing only five days worth allows us a little room for creativity, dining out or lazy days we just don't want to cook. We're also flexible about what we eat on what night. If we feel like eating Tuesday's dinner on Monday night, we do it. As long as we eat Monday's dinner some night of the week, we see no reason to not switch the menu around as we see fit.

I am thinking I should allow this to be flexible too. We might end up changing dinners around a couple nights a week, but I'd like to make the ones on my list no matter what order. As for lunches, those are the most flexible too. Especially when I am at home and can cook anything I want. But when my husband is working, we need to plan a meal for him otherwise he'll buy one from the cafeteria. My lunch is provided at work, or I can buy a meal and get reimbursed.

I don't think I will be a lot of help in this endevour. ;-D But, I will offer support. 90% of the time we buy what we are having for dinner that night. We stop at the little store in the town we live in and decide there what we want to have for dinner. Easier in the summer with the BBQ (I hate doing dishes). We both buy our own lunches (at the little store) which can include Chunky Soup, Chili, little pizzas they make at the store, smokies in a blanket, sausage rolls, etc. Dinner could be anything depending on how creative I am feeling. And by creative I mean do I want to throw it in the oven for 20 minutes or actually have to be in the kitchen to cook. We eat more chicken than anything, then pork chops or roast, then beef.

I created a perogie recipe that we really like. I call it Ukranian Lasagna:
Bake Chedder Potato perogies for 10 minutes at 375 (or which ever kind you like)
Place in single layer in baking pan
Sprinkel shredded cheese over (I use tex mex)
Pour spagetti sauce (flavour of your choice) over perogies just enough to cover
Sprinkel more cheese over and bake for another 30 minutes or until cheese is done to your liking.
You can add browned ground beef to this as well, but I havn't tried that as yet.

Sometimes I'd get an idea for dinner and decide to make it that night. Then I'd go buy the groceries I'd need for just that meal. It didn't happen to often though. Most times we'd argue about we're having, what we have to buy in order to make dinner, and then who's cooking.

This recipe sounds really good too. All our perogies are homemade. I usually make a huge batch of about 12 dozen, and we eat them for dinner that night. The rest of them go in the freezer. I will show this to my husband. He might like it. Thanks for sharing!

Here's a recipe for minced beef (ground beef) that I love to make.
You'll need to convert from Aussie Kilograms though... :S

Porcupine Meatballs.

1kg of mince meat (beef)
1 onion (finely chopped)
1/2 cup of uncooked rice (long grain)
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 tin of condensed tomato soup (make with water..not milk)

Mix meat, onion, rice and salt and pepper.
Bring tomato soup to boil then reduce to simmer.
Shape meat mixure into meatballs (not too large) and place into soup.
Cook for approx 30-40 mins in a covered saucepan. Move the meatballs around every so often to prevent sticking on bottom of saucepan.

Serve meatballs with soup poured over the top.

Devine with mashed potato with the sauce poured over that too and really nice cold or reheated the next day. :D

How is an Aussie Kilo different than a Canadian Kilo? ;-)

HAHAHA! I guess it's not...for some reason I thought you worked in pounds... :S HAHAHA! Shows how much I know. ;)

We work with both. It's weird that way. They advertise and sell you in pounds, but they price it by kg. I work in lbs though because that's what you see the most.

Awesome! Thanks so much for the recipe. I won't have to leave the house to make this. lol

wow that all sounds good... as for ground beef (i've got used to the irish way .. we call it mince! hehe)
what i do, is get a can of kidney beans, can of ordinary beans, packet of old el paso chilli seasoning.. whack it all into the pan of cooked beef...mix it up and then pile it into the middle of a plate of rice.. and add a dollop of sour cream on the top and sprinkle a bt of cheese.. mmm... i've got fintan hooked on that stuff!!!

Sounds good! Thanks for your help. :)

np .. anything beats hamburger helper! ;-)

True, but we have 9 boxes to use up so it must be cycled into 9 meals in the next 3 months. lol

:-O oh my... NINE boxes ?? WOW!
now if i had nine packets of lipton chicken flavour sidekicks.. ohh man.. i would love it!

1 packet of Lipton Sidekicks rice & 12 packets of Lipton Sidekicks pasta.. I like their pastas better apparently. lol

well when i was growing up the "sidekicks" name wasn't there... it's a bit fuzzy to me, but the packets contain those flat noodles in a creamy chicken flavoured sauce.... are they still around? i miss those so much.. oh man i love those...
i'm visiting the canadian food shop in london on saturday, but am not sure how much stuff they have

I think Sidekicks has been around for about 10 years. I remember buying them when I first moved in with my husband. And my nephew wouldn't eat anything "grown-up" unless the meal had Sidekicks noodles. They have so many kinds now (different pasta shapes and sauces), and everytime I go I find a new one I like. My favourite right now is spicy tomato (spaghetti)... it's got a bit of a kick to it.

hmm.. will have to have a look out for that one when i'm home next!
am thinking about joing that community focus_focus .. you don't own it, do you? i think it would be interesting to do..

The community was created by

scotty2naughty. He wasn't able to keep it running so I've pretty much taken it over. It's now our community. You should join! It's loads of fun. :)

You're not on ICQ!! lol

i was on icq! but my mac is slow, so i need to restart it. i'm in the process of closing down programs! i will be back in a few minutes...
i just joined the community, but it says i need to contact you for access!

Oh don't worry about that. This community is run a little different from most photo communities. Members aren't allowed to make posts. They make their submissions using the new contest thread that I post. Anybody can leave a comment - even annonymous posters. The only thing to worry about is if we're on your friends page so that you don't miss our posts... and you've done that. We don't fill your friends page they way it's run, and I think it works out great like that. :)

I'm gonna head downstairs and make coffee, then take Vicki out. It sounds like it's raining. :( Maybe I'll see you when I get back (about 10 minutes). :)

Taco salad with ground beef is usually my favourite, you only need romaine lettuce, a taco seasoning packet, salsa, sour cream, cheese and nacho chips if you want... YUMMY!

but my favourite recipe is for Cranberry meatballs.

Cranberry Meatballs

Ingredients:

2 Large Eggs

1 Cup Cornflake crumbs

½ Cup Finely Chopped Onion

2 tbsp. Soy Sauce

1 tbsp. Parsley flakes

2 tsp. Salt

½ tsp. Pepper

½ tsp. Garlic Powder

2 lbs. Lean Ground Beef

14 oz. Can of cranberry sauce

½ Cup Chili sauce

½ Cup Ketchup

2 tbsp. Brown sugar, packed

1 tbsp. White Vinegar

Beat eggs with fork in large bowl.

Add next 7 ingredients. Mix well.

Add ground beef. Mix well. Shape into 1 inch balls. Put into ungreased 3 quart (3 L) casserole.

Combine remaining 5 ingredients in small bowl. Pour over meatballs. Bake, uncovered, in 350 F oven for about 1 ½ hours.

Makes about 78 meatballs.

Wow thanks so much for sharing your recipe! And taco salad is another wonderful idea. We haven't had in one years, and I never thought of it. I will try to cycle both these dishes in over this challenge. Thanks!!

the meatballs are HEAVENLY!

oh and the onion soup mix package has an EXCELLENT meatloaf recipe on the side... EASY!

this food talk is making me hungry!

Oh my husband loves meatload too. Another one for the menu! hehe

I'm making the meatballs and meatloaf this weekend!

brown one pound of ground beef
drain
add 1 -2 cans of ranch style beans
cover with cornbread mix (prepare per directions on box)
bake for 20 minutes (or whatever the box says)

Voila! You can add green peppers, tomatoes, onions, salsa, cheese, sour cream... or whatever. Very simple dish. Ultra comfort food.

This recipe sounds great, thanks! I don't buy cornbread mix, but I do have a recipe that I have all the ingredients for to make. I don't know what ranch style beans are, but there are quite a few different variety of canned beans downstairs. I could probably subsitute some of our beans for that.

I will be making this one for sure!

ha, your husband sure likes tuna!
i love this idea, and yes, keep posting! i'm gonna start today, first think do my inventory...and omg, i bet there is stuff old enough to be thrown out too.
i find Stagg brand Chili very salty.

Stagg's chilli is the only meal in a can we buy. I like it best of all the other chillis I've bought. My husband grabbed some canned ravioli for the first time in years. We don't normally eat canned food.

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The Challenge - Day Three

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Do not look at the icon hehe

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