Food Clean Out Challenge Week 2

Okay so keeping a daily log is next to impossible when life is as busy as mine trying to hustle to survive.  I mostly stuck with the plan.
Since my last update I made what I call dump soup.  It involves dumping semi-random selection of caned veggies into a pot for soup along with a few other things.  I also made a peanut butter oatmeal bake that was Eh, but it made several breakfasts. But it did finish off a jar of peanut butter that just had a little bit in it.  So I used up like 6 cans from the pantry and a jar of peanut butter.  Although the week started to get a bit spotty when I ran out of my almond milk creamer.  I went a couple days on Vanilla almond milk, but that ran out too.  Fortunately I still have plain cashew milk for my cooking.

Today I did do my grocery shopping.  I spent a total of $28.49 at Kroger, but $7.60 of that was on pepper plants and doesn't count.

I got
Red grapes (yummy on their own or in a chicken salad) 88 cents a pound
10 oz of baby spinach that was on sale
Brussel Sprouts (3.99 and the most expensive food purchased today)
Sweet potatoes
Malt-O-Meal Cinnamon cereal as a treat for the teen
Plain Gelatin because the  teen wants to make her own marshmallows
Almond creamer was on sale and I had a digital coupon!!!
Spinach artichoke hummus on sale and I had a digital coupon
A bag of lemons off the 99 cent produce bin
2 pepper plants

So as part of my hustle this past week, I did end up pet sitting for 2 night and that meant that I was driving an hour after work to get to my pet sitting gig and grabbed burger that night.  The girl child ate left overs or cooked from what was on hand.

I did make my lunches of jar salads with leftover chicken from Wednesday night with the teen made dinner of raspberry chipotle chicken and boxed mashed potatoes.  Used up the boxed potatoes, that are usually just kept around to thicken my potato soup when I make it too thin.


So everything out of the pantry and freezer?  6 cans of veggies, a box of potatoes, a jar of peanut butter several frozen chicken breasts.

Tonight I am cooking a whole chicken, the brussle sprouts and baked sweet potatoes.    I am also making another batch of good Southern sweet tea.

This morning was another omlette very similar to last weeks, more cherry tomatoes as I harvested 5 from the indoor plant this morning.

Leftover Magic - Chicken Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

This is one of the few recipes I do that uses convenience foods.  It is also easily adapted to be a vegan recipe, just use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and black beans instead of chicken.  This particular recipe is dairy free because we do not eat much dairy in our home due to my daughter and myself being allergic to cow milk and my husband being lactose intolerant.  Yes these are very different things.  Basically we can have goat cheese products and he can't.  But he is fine with yogurt made with cow milk most of the time and we are not.  So on with the recipe.

This is something I made that uses leftovers - hence a leftover magic recipe.   Homemade chicken broth, which I make from the bones from a chicken I cooked previously as well as veg scraps I kept in the freezer for just such an occasion.  I will discuss my broth making in another post soon, I promise.  You are getting this post today, because this is dinner today.

The other leftovers that are featured in this are the bits of chicken meat that were left from that chicken I mentioned cooking earlier as well as tortilla chips that had gone stale and no one was going to eat any other way.

I don't measure these things.  It is based on personal taste and what you have on hand.

I love this recipe not just because it uses up leftovers and is cheap, but because it is super easy for busy days.

Chicken or Vegetable Broth - enough to make this a very brothy soup
olive oil 2-3T
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Onion 1-2 depending on how big a pot you are making
peppers - Pablano and/ or Bell, but any mild pepper works how much depends on how big a pot you need to make
leftover chicken meat (or a can of drained and rinsed black beans)
Salsa - I use a half cup for a typical sauce pan size pot and a half jar when making a big pot of soup
Corn - canned or frozen
fresh oregano - optional
salt and pepper as needed to taste.
Tortilla chips

Chop the onion, pepper and garlic and saute in olive oil until tender then add everything but the tortillas and bring to a boil and allow to simmer for about 10-15 min.  Break the tortilla chips up and put them in the bottom of the bowls (you can add shredded cheese if you really have to).  Ladle soup over the chips.  And you have soup.