Bacon Wrapped Shrimp Lemon and Herb Linguine...7$ Dinner for a family of 5

We're back for another Money Monday! Let's just dive right in to this week's ideas...

Money-saving shopping tips

• Shop the discount stores like the 99cent Only Store chains for veggies and pasta. They have fresh produce, including a lot of organic choices.
• Use salad shrimp. It costs a lot less because of the size.
• The biggest cost on this is the bacon. The pre-cooked bits are going to save you money and fat grams.

Ingredients

• 1/3-1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (lemon infused)
• 1 small red bell pepper, julienne
• 2 leeks, trimmed, halved, cut lengthwise, sliced thin, washed, rinsed, dried
• 2 cloves Garlic, pressed
• 2 lemons, zested and juiced
• 1 2.5 oz pre-cooked packaged diced bacon
• 1/2 lb salad shrimp, frozen
• 1/2 lb linguine, cooked according to package directions 
• 2 zucchini, sliced thin in ribbons
• 6 oz  extra large black olives, drained (optional) 
• smoked paprika, salt and pepper to taste
• Fresh parsley to taste (about 1/4 cup chopped)

Instructions

• Trim off the dark green parts of the leeks  and use the light green stuff. Chop in half lengthwise and then slice thin.
• In a large 14 inch skillet, heat the oil. Add the bell pepper, leek, garlic, lemon zest and bacon. Cook until vegetables are just tender.  Push the vegetable to the side of the pan.
• Add the shrimp and cook until pink, about 3 minutes. Don't overcook the shrimp. I'm a nerd here, but honestly, I'm not a fan of rubber shrimp. If food bounces back when you chew it, you should spit it out. That's just my humble (yet highly accurate) opinion.
• Add the cooked pasta, and olives and lemon juice. Toss with the vegetables. Season with pepper. Taste. Season as needed.
• Transfer to a serving platter or bowl. Garnish with chopped parsley and sprinkle with smoked paprika.
• Serve hot.  

There you go darlings!

Always My Very Best,

Your Friend Chef Tess

Green Chile Chicken-bacon and Macaroni Skillet Meal

It's Wednesday...a crazy day wedged right in the middle of a busy week. If your days are anything like mine, you need fast meals in the middle of the week.  Well...this is one that never fails to make my family happy.  It's fast, hearty and satisfying.  Ace will even eat it if I don't mention the chicken too much.  It has a short enough list of ingredients, you might already have everything in your cupboard too!  So...speed walk over to your kitchen, throw open your cupboard doors with reckless abandon and swoon dramatically so your family thinks you are actually thinking about dinner.  I've got you covered.

Green Chile Chicken-bacon and Macaroni Skillet Meal

14 oz cooked macaroni noodles (well seasoned with Chef Tess All purpose Seasoning)
15 oz prepared alfredo sauce (use my condensed soup mix--prepared or store purchased of your choice)
16 oz chicken breast, cut in cubes (seasoned with salt and pepper)
2T butter or olive oil
1 onion
7 oz can diced green chile (or fresh peeled and chopped)
1/2 cup cooked crumbled bacon

2 cups shredded sharp white cheddar (or regular sharp cheddar)

Directions:
Saute the oil, chicken, and onions until onion is clear and chicken is cooked through.  Add the alfredo sauce, green chile and bacon.   Mix until smooth. Fold in the noodles.  Top with cheese.

Serve hot.

There you go.  Have a fast middle of the week skillet dinner. Smooches!

Little Man's Skillet

I'm a baker, but I'm also a full time mother. We eat real food. Part of being a good mother is giving children practical skills. The last couple of weeks during summer vacation I've been working at teaching Little Man to cook(Kids cooking). I don't mean just following a recipe, I mean really listening to his instincts and cooking from his heart. I want him to be able to look at raw ingredients and make a meal. Last night I was not disappointed. This is Little Man's Skillet Dinner. It had lean meat, lots of vegetables, fiber, carbohydrates, and amazing flavor. My husband Ace ate 3 plates full.
I asked him to write down his recipe as he went, and this is what he came up with. Note that it won't be as good without 1 billion pounds of love:

Saute :

1 medium onion, minced

1 yellow bell pepper, minced

1 cup carrots, minced (he forgot to write that part down)

1 lb lean Italian Turkey sausage

4 cloves of pressed garlic

After vegetables are tender and meat is browned, add 1 can (15 0z) Italian stewed tomatoes and simmer on low 15 minutes. While sauce simmered, he cooked the pasta. Now at this point I could have easily taken the flavorful ingredients off the burner and sucked them down. They tasted awesome. Or...cooled them a little and put them in a one quart freezer bag. I call it a "pasta toss" when all the ingredients for a skillet meal are in a freezer bag. Once frozen they will just need to be defrosted, heated, and added to a pound of cooked pasta. It saves space in my freezer if I do it that way. I have one of those small above fridge freezers so I try to maximize my space whenever possible.

Oh, and much to my joy, Little Man wanted some green stuff. We are making huge progress don't you think?

Quick and easy main course that can also double as a freezer meal...all from the mind of my Little Man. Gracious heart! Life is good.

There you go.

Caramelized Lemon Creamy Clam Sauce with Fresh Tuna and herbed egg noodles.

I bet that my freezer bags where not the first thing anyone thought of when they read the title of today's entry...

Those bags have been my focus for the main part of this week.

Here's another freezer meal to knock you socks off! If you love me for my bread, not my brains, come back next week. For the residuals of humanity who love me for my sweet, loving, soul nurturing homemade food...

I dare you to click on this first picture:

Wasn't that fun?! You can almost taste the love right now huh?! Caramelized Lemon Cream Clam Sauce with Fresh Tuna is a long way of saying, "goodbye forever regular tuna casserole." In my humble, yet accurate, opinion...most tuna casserole is just nasty. It is painstakingly difficult to imagine what the obsession is with some women and tuna casserole. They serve it at least once a week. It hardly gets touched, or if the family does eat it, they choke it down with a bunch of milk. My mom didn't make tuna casserole very often. I remember. When she did, she didn't use fresh tuna. It was always canned. For the most part, it was my grandma who make tuna casserole...and it was also at every church potluck...in giant bubbly pans of slime and crumbs. Today's freezer meal will be different. I promise with all the vim and vigor in my sweet little left toe.

I start with fresh tuna. 8 oz steaks. 1 lemon, zested and cut in half. 1/4 cup sliced shallots. I put the tuna in a non-stick skillet along with the lemon, cut side down...after about 5 minutes I add the shallots.

In the meantime, I start a big pot of water boiling. If you use this recipe for freezer meals, omit this step until you are ready to serve. I freeze the sauce in quart size freezer bags...lay down flat so they maximize the space. Without the noodles, there is more space for toppers and thus more dinners are in my freezer. For my small family of 4, this recipe makes enough "pasta topping sauce" for 2 meals. Back to the noodles. I love egg noodles. What is is about these ribbons that provoke such feelings in me? I don't know, but putting some Penzey's Spices on them didn't hurt. Shallot pepper and tarragon plus some good fresh olive oil...about one tablespoon. Seasoning up pasta before putting sauce on it just adds an amazing level of flavor to a dish. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it.

Back to the sauce. To the pan I add 1 tsp baking soda to neutralize the acid in the lemon juice that would make the white sauce curdle. Then ...

4 cups prepared white sauce (of your choice, I use homemade but I won't yell at anyone for using a premade Alfredo...sorry food snobs... I am also real and sometimes folks just don't have the real homemade stuff). Random thought...I make this mix I use in place of condensed soup that is quite fast and easy. I'll be blogging that in the near future.

So...4 cups white sauce, 1 can drained clams (15 ounce size). If by chance you happen to live by the ocean or have it in your budget to purchase real clams...you do that. It's much fresher. I had a can. Sue me.

Just before the lemon was about to drown in the sauce, I rescued it and put it to death in a very graphic way...as if slicing it in half wasn't ruthless enough. Squeeze the juice and all into the pan...watch for seeds. Incidentally, caramelizing the lemon like that adds a smoky depth to the dish, as well as allowing the lemon to give up more juice.

My hand looks so tender and merciful right there...but it was all a trick. Poor gullible lemon.

Remove the skin and bones from the tuna. Add 1/4 cup chopped yellow bell pepper and 1/4 cup chopped pimentos (those are the red ones in a jar pickled).

See, that chicken...I mean tuna? Isn't that awesome how it's big and chunky like that?! Ahhh Yes!! I love it!

Now, three options present themselves:

1, serve half tonight and bag the other half in a quart size freezer bag labeled clearly. This will add one meal to you freezer.

2. Divide the sauce between 2 quart size freezer bags for 2 freezer meals. This step leaves you licking the pan out of sheer desperate need for a nibblet.

3. Sit down with that whole pan of sauce and drink it like a bad movie. I'm not responsible for juicy clams randomly rolling down your chin...or your dog sucking them off your face.

If feeling particularly artsy...pile some grapes and fresh thyme around the plates and garnish with lemon zest.

Incidentally, we don't normally eat like this. I did it for the picture and then put the rest on regular plates...right next to the plastic cups. Ahh feel that? It's the pressure to be perfect leaving your shoulders. Welcome to my world my friend. No pressure. No Martha Stewart here. However, that being said, I can put out a pretty breathtaking spread when given the opportunity. Regular life isn't always like that. Maybe it should be...

There you go.