Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, whole seedless watermelon is $1.98 at Ultra, and avocados are $.48 at Ultra and $.79 at Jewel, while tomatoes on the vine are $.89/lb at Jewel, roma are $.79/lb at Tony’s, or grape tomatoes are $.99/pint at Pete’s. Limes are 15/$.99 at Pete’s, 12/$.99 at Tony’s — OK, let’s just say: It’s summer, so buy produce, people!

So, I thought it would be fun to throw together a watermelon avocado salad today to take advantage of some of the summer produce sales in a sweet but savory way, and here it is:

Watermelon feta avocado salad

Ingredients

5 cups watermelon, seeded and cubed. (This was about 1/4 of the smallish seedless watermelon I have here.)
1/2 small red onion
2 avocados
1 medium vine ripe tomato
1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dried basil
juice of 1/2 a small lime

Directions

Slice half a small red onion into thin rings, then quarter those into triangles. Add to a medium container with tightly fitting lid. (You’ll refrigerate this at the end, so it’s easiest to just make it up in its own storage container rather than messing up another dish, lol.) Cut your tomato into decent size chunks and add.

Cube two avocados, add. The easiest way to do this, if you have a decently ripe avocado, is to halve your avocado and remove the pit. Then, just score your avocado into roughly equal sections, then turn over and squeeze them out gently into your salad.

Isn’t it pretty? I started with one avocado here, then added a second later when the proportions seemed off. Now, dice up 5 cups of watermelon into chunks about equal in size to your avocado and tomato, add, and toss gently to combine.

One thing to note about this salad is that the balsamic dressing will really mute the vibrant colors you see above. If you are making this for “company,” you might wish to add all ingredients except the dressing, chill, and then let guests dress to taste at the table.

Now, let’s make our dressing. In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, and basil. Add feta crumbles to watermelon salad mixture, pour on dressing, and toss gently to coat. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving.

• And yes, I still do love these Stainless Steel Magnetic Measuring Spoons!

There you have it

Watermelon feta avocado salad! This is a pretty versatile and adaptable recipe. You can, for instance, add cucumber for extra crunch, or serve over baby spinach for a heartier dish. You can add some black pepper at the end if you want to punch it up a bit, or use cilantro instead of basil for a different flavor. You can use grape or cherry tomatoes instead of a regular tomato. Adapt for your own family’s tastes, but overall, this is a nice and different mix of sweet and savory, soft and crunchy.

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So. GOOD! The 2-packs of these big portobello mushroom caps are $.99 at ALDI through tomorrow 6/11. I bought three packs, six caps. Just washed, pulled off the bit of stem (left the gills) and marinated for about 90 minutes in:

1 Tbsp chopped garlic
3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/3 C olive oil
sea salt
pepper
generous amount of oregano
splash of lemon juice

And then MashupDad grilled them for 10 minutes. You can eat these just like a hamburger if you want — I had some avocado and Swiss cheese with mine, and even Mr. 10 (the mushroom hater) ate, and enjoyed, about half a one. His comment? “These taste more like meat than a fungus!” So there you go, then.

Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, Jay’s potato chips are $1.27 each at Dominick’s after coupon, and chicken drumsticks are $.88/lb at Ultra Foods and $.99/lb at Angelo Caputo’s. (Chicken leg quarters are $.69/lb at Pete’s and $.79/lb at Jewel.) So I thought: What better week than this to scratch up some potato chip encrusted chicken legs? My big pack of Perdue (about 3.5 lbs, or 12 small drumsticks) cost me just $3.08 at Ultra.

A note on wheat free vs. gluten free

I used Jay’s potato chips here, which are the kind on sale this week. Jay’s potato chips are made without gluten ingredients, but they are not certified gluten free. So if you are making something similar but want to ensure you are using products without a possibility of cross-contamination, go with a certified gluten free chip. My guy is wheat free; he is not gluten free, so it’s not an issue for our family.

Wheat free dairy free potato chip chicken legs

Ingredients

3-4 cups crushed potato chips
3.5 lbs chicken drumsticks
1 egg
cooking spray
ground black pepper (or other spices) to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Add 3-4 cups of potato chips to a plastic bag, seal tightly, and use a rolling pin to crush them to your desired consistency. (Or go the Mr. 6 route, and just resort to fists!)

Ours, of course, had to be divided into two bags, one for each smashing kid. We went with regular wavy chips for one, and “hot” flavored chips for the other. Once smashed, add whatever spices you like to your crushed potato chips to jazz things up. Mr. 6 likes things plain-ish, so we just ground some black pepper into his — while Mr. 10′s, of course, were pre-flavored “hot.” Something like rosemary would probably also be nice, but your choice depends on your family’s tastes.

While your children are smashing potato chips, beat one egg in a shallow bowl.

Dip each chicken drumstick in the egg, making sure it is well coated. Allow excess to drip off. Place leg in bag of crushed and seasoned chips, and shake to coat.

Line a cookie sheet with foil, and spray lightly with cooking spray. Add coated drumsticks to cookie sheet, then bake at 400 for 35 minutes or until done.

Survey says…?

These had a good flavor, especially the plain + pepper version, which had a pleasant level of saltiness. The hot were less flavorful, oddly enough, although Mr. 10 was pleased with his creation. I think next time we might try Kettle Chips for a bit more crunchiness, and maybe broil them a bit at the end. The flavor was good, but they could use a little more crunch. I’d also spice them up more — the kids chose this time, but, you know, kid and adult palates sometimes differ.

The kids both had a blast helping make these, though — super easy, and kid friendly. Just make sure they wash their hands well, both before and after the raw chicken + egg extravaganza!

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Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, round sourdough French bread is buy one, get one free at $2.79 at Jewel, and sliced Kraft cheese is net $1.49 at Dominick’s or net $1.00 at Meijer. Well, bread and cheese got me a-thinking about: Paninis. Alas, I have no panini maker. So how do you make a panini with no panini press? Aha! I do have:

A grill pan. Remember when Jewel was doing that free pans promo a couple years back? Yeah. That’s the grill pan. And, a landscaping brick, here creatively wrapped in tinfoil. If you do not have a grill pan, and do not have a panini maker, you can just make yours in a regular pan. It’ll taste good even if it doesn’t have the pretty grill marks on it!

• Or you could pick up this Hamilton Beach 25450 Gourmet Panini Press for just $34 shipped on Amazon, if you have room for another gadget. This panini was darn good, so I’m tempted…

The advantage to a panini press — well, other than not using bricks in  your kitchen as cooking utensils — is that you can cook both sides at the same time, so the filling doesn’t all fall out when you flip it (like mine tried to do…).

A pack of 5 portobellos as shown above ran me $2.98 at Pete’s Market. (One turned out to be bad, which is why you see only four in the photos below.) One cooked portobello, along with the other ingredients, filled one sandwich, so you could easily feed four with a container this size.

Ingredients

4-5 large portobello mushroom caps
1 Tbsp minced or chopped garlic
1/4 C balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
baby spinach leaves
small jar marinated artichokes
small jar roasted red peppers
provolone cheese
sourdough bread
Dijon mustard
Additional olive oil (to brush on bread)

Directions

First you’ll want to marinate and cook up your portobello mushrooms. Wash mushrooms. Remove stems, and scrape out gills with a spoon if desired (I did here). Mix together 1/4 C balsamic vinegar, 2 Tbsp olive oil, and garlic, then pour over mushrooms, add a little bit of ground pepper and sea salt, and let marinate in nonreactive dish for about an hour, flipping occasionally.

Place marinated mushrooms on foil-lined cookie sheet and cook for 10 minutes at 400, then flip and cook another 10 minutes or until done. You can see on the right why you want the foil, since cleanup will be a big pain if you don’t use it!

Slice your cooked mushrooms into even pieces, and they’re ready to go in your panini. So, let’s get going with that…

Brush one side of a piece of sourdough bread with olive oil, then place oil side down on grill pan. Spread lightly with Dijon mustard.

Add two pieces of provolone and one sliced cooked portobello mushroom.

Add some marinated artichoke, baby spinach, and roasted red pepper. Then, top with a second slice of sourdough bread brushed with olive oil.

Now comes the “press” part, lol. Here, I used a second pan and weighted it down with my foil-wrapped brick to press my sandwich nicely. You don’t have to use a brick; just use heavy cans or whatever you have handy to weight it down. Cook for three minutes on medium-high heat, then flip over and repeat for another three minutes.

Here’s what it looks like after it’s first flipped. Be careful, because the fillings will try to spill out (and this is where a panini press would come in handy).

Behold, the panini

So there you have it: One vegetarian portobello artichoke panini, without a panini press. You can easily make four paninis with the above ingredients, and still have bread, spinach, roasted red pepper, and cheese left over. (I just sauteed up the rest of the spinach and gave it to the kids as a side tonight with their dinner.) This was one yummy sandwich, and I’ll be making these again.

I’d guesstimate the ingredients I used here ran a bit under $10 in total for four sandwiches, which is higher than I’d normally go — but you could do things like watch for artichokes on clearance and roast your own red peppers to help bring down the cost, or make some ingredient substitutions to fit your own tastes.

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Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, pub burgers are $2.00/lb at Jewel! The ones I got this week were 85/15, and it’s actually cheaper to buy these and break them up for use in recipes than to buy ground hamburger. (You’ll want to save some for your Memorial Day BBQ, too, because they are awesome.)

So, this week I thought we’d revisit our old allergy and Atkins chili recipe in more detail — I’ve posted the recipe before, but not very thoroughly, and it was the first thing I thought to make with the pub burgers this week. (Instead of the crushed tomatoes I used, you could instead use a couple cans of the super cheap fire roasted diced tomatoes we picked up at Jewel and Dominick’s a while back, too.)

A note before we start — this is spicy the way I made it. You can adjust to your own taste by cutting down on the number of peppers, using less chili powder, cutting out the red pepper, or whatever works for you. I like spicy chili; you may not.

Buying some bulk-ish spices

• And by the way, if you use a ton of crushed red pepper like I do, you can currently pick up a 12 oz bottle of crushed red pepper on Amazon for just $4.20 shipped right now with subscribe & save. That’s a good sized bottle!
• And you can get a whole POUND of Frontier Chili Powder Blend for $7.01 shipped with subscribe & save. Really nice reviews, too.

Ingredients

1.5-2 lbs hamburger (err towards 2 lbs if you are pulling some beanless chili out for the Atkins eaters)
2 medium onions (I used one medium and two small), chopped
5 diced jalapeno peppers (these were from my garden last year). Cut down to 2-3 if you want it less spicy, or leave out altogether.
4 tsp minced garlic
3 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp crushed red pepper (again, leave it out or cut it down if you want less spicy)
small can tomato paste
28 oz can crushed tomatoes (or use diced if you want chunkier chili — fire roasted adds a nice flavor)
3 cups water
olive oil (for sauteing)
2 cans kidney beans, drained

Directions

Brown your hamburger in big pot (I used four pub burgers here, and just crumbled them up), then drain.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, saute onion, peppers, and garlic in a bit of olive oil til soft. Add vegetables to browned and drained hamburger. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, and spices. Add three cups of water. Stir until nicely blended.

Simmer for at least an hour on low, stirring occasionally. When it seems done, pull out a generous portion of the beanless chili and keep it separate for the Atkins part of your family. Then add two cans drained kidney beans to the rest and simmer til warmed through.

Bam!

Super-adaptable allergy-friendly and Atkins-friendly pub burger chili. The beanless portion is low carb, and Mr.  Mashup Atkins eats it by itself or over cooked cauliflower. The dairy-free wheat-free kid can have some without cheese, over a potato or with corn chips or gluten free crackers. The dairy-loving kid can have his with cheese, toast, chips, crackers, over a potato, or whatever suits his fancy (although he thought it was too spicy, lol).

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Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, chicken thighs are on sale: $.99/lb in the family pack at Jewel, Pete’s Market, and Dominick’s (on Deal Match). I’d recently run across this The Chew’s Baked Artichoke Chicken recipe via Stacey Snacks on Pinterest, and thought this was the perfect time to give it a try. (Here’s the link to the original recipe she used, if you’d like to take a look.)

• Hey, speaking of Pinterest — did you know Mashup Mom was on Pinterest? Come check it out!

I only made very minor changes to the original recipe: White wine instead of red, chicken on top of the veggies instead of vice versa, used 3lbs chicken (and just thighs) instead of four, doubled the artichokes and onions, used baby bella instead of white mushrooms ($.99 at Pete’s this week!), and upped the minced garlic to two tsp.

Mustard Mushroom Artichoke Chicken Madness

Ingredients

3 lbs bone-in chicken thighs
2 cans artichokes (I used one quartered and one whole)
2 medium onions, cut into chunks (I used Vidalia)
1 pound baby bella mushrooms, left whole
2 tablespoons brown mustard (I used Gulden’s)
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 bay leaf
Kosher salt and ground pepper (to taste)

Directions

Drain artichokes. Place artichokes, mushrooms, and onion chunks in bottom of roaster pan. (I started here with just one onion and one can of artichokes, then thought this totally needed more veggies — so added a second one of each!)

Arrange chicken on top of vegetables.

In separate bowl, mix together mustard, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, wine, basil, thyme, and tarragon.

Pour mustard mixture evenly over chicken pieces. Add bay leaf, and a little Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste. Bake at 375 for one hour and fifteen minutes or until chicken is done, basting occasionally.

So how did it taste?

OK — here you need to imagine that we have invented scratch n’ sniff blogging. My house still smells amazing. The chicken itself is very good. But the veggies, in MashupDad’s own words, are off the hook. Mr. 10 hates mushrooms … but ATE THESE and asked for more veggies, lol.

(By the way? The magnetic measuring spoons tablespoon does NOT fit into a jar of spicy brown mustard — but the half tablespoon does… )

We’ll definitely keep this recipe in the rotation, both for a quick weeknight dish and also as something fancy enough to serve company — that looks more complicated than it actually is, lol.

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This dish is honestly a little pricier than most of what I post here (although it does make its own side of veggies) — but it’s good for a week when chicken thighs and mushrooms are on sale. Watch for artichokes on clearance, and you could also just use the original one can instead of two to bring the cost down further.

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The other day on Sunday Scratchups, I made up a fajita marinade using that canned Herdez salsa — but we didn’t actually have the fajitas on Sunday. So, here be the fajitas. (For the other fillings: sauteed up some mushrooms and Vidalia onions in a little bit of garlic and olive oil, warmed the chicken back up, and had on warmed tortillas with cheese and avocado). So. Good! Not really spicy at all, just a tiny bit of a kick — but perfect for fajita-making. If you’re not sure what to do with the salsa you picked up, I recommend this.

Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week, we have better-than-free Herdez canned salsa at Dominick’s. (Or, you might still have some salsa verde on hand from the recent Cinco de Mayo sales!) So, since I heard that this is better salsa for cooking than for eating chips with, and since MashupDad was grilling up stuff for our Mother’s Day BBQ anyway, I threw together this salsa verde fajita chicken marinade. We tasted a little today with the BBQ food (you know, cause you have to try it…), and then the rest will make great fajitas tomorrow with some onions and tortillas and guacamole and other fajita fixings.

Salsa Verde Fajita Chicken Marinade

Note: I’m guesstimating on the measurements of some of these ingredients, since I just shook in the chili powder and cumin, for instance, and didn’t measure exactly. This isn’t always an exact science.

Ingredients

One 7 oz can salsa verde
One small ripe jalapeño pepper, diced (this was from my freezer from last year’s garden)
1 TBSP chili powder
1/2 TBSP cumin
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
Juice of 1 1/2 small limes
2lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, sliced into strips

Directions

You can see how the salsa is better for cooking — it’s very liquid-y. On the left, just the salsa. On the right, the salsa with the rest of the marinade ingredients stirred in.

Combine all marinade ingredients in a casserole dish or glass dish, and stir well. Add chicken strips and make sure they’re all covered with the marinade. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours, then remove chicken from marinade and grill til cooked through.

MashupDad grilled these for about 5 minutes each side on direct heat, then moved them off the heat but left them on the upper part of the grill while cooking the rest of our meal for about another 15 minutes.

Use as is, or cut into smaller strips for fajitas.

Yummo!

These came out really well, if I do say so myself! The marinade was only mildly spicy, but had just enough kick for fajitas, and the chicken came out very moist and flavorful.

Update

This was really good on fajitas!

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Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups — AKA: Grocery matchups cooking from scratch.

This week,

• At Jewel: Select Post Cereals, $2.00. Print $1.00/1 here and get Pebbles for $1.00.
• At Dollar General: Save $2.00 automatically when you buy five participating Kraft products, including: Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallows, which are listed elsewhere in the ad at $1.00 — so would be 5 for $3.00 after instant savings, or just $.60 each!
• If you don’t have a Dollar General or don’t want so many bags of marshmallows in your house, Baker’s Corner marshmallows run around a buck a bag at ALDI.

This is not the healthiest or from-scratchiest recipe we’ve made here, but boy were the kids happy with it! Plus these are cheap when the cereal is on sale, and take all of about 15 minutes to make. So let’s say you forgot last minute you were supposed to bring a bake sale treats (not that this would EVER happen here…): WHAMMO, done.

And you don’t have to use Earth Balance to make yours; I just amused myself with the juxtaposition of all-natural Earth Balance with the not-so-natural fluorescence of Fruity Pebbles. Plus, since Mr. 10 is dairy free we can’t use butter, and the Earth Balance melts nicely.

Ingredients

5 cups Fruity Pebbles cereal
3 TBSP non-dairy margarine (or butter, if not dairy free)
10 oz bag of marshmallows (gluten free, if you are)

Directions

Directions

Microwave margarine and marshmallows for one minute forty five seconds. Stir. Microwave another 30 seconds or until all marshmallows are completely melted. Give another few good stirs, pour in Pebbles, and stir til combined. Press into greased muffin tins (I used cooking spray) and let cool. This made 18 — you could make 24 if you don’t fill as high.

One bite of these and I gave it up, since they were a little too tooth-achingly sweet for me. The boys thought they were the bees knees, though. And aren’t they pretty?

These are…

Dairy free, when made with non-dairy buttery spread. Gluten free, when made with gluten free marshmallows: Fruity Pebbles are labeled gluten free, as is the margarine I used.

Note on gluten free

ALDI marshmallows say gluten free on them. Kraft Jet-Puffed do not say gluten free on the bag, but don’t have any obvious gluten-containing ingredients. Here’s what the Kraft site says about that:

Kraft Foods products are labeled with very specific ingredient information to help you make accurate and informed choices. If a Kraft Foods product has an ingredient that is a source of gluten, the specific grain will be listed in the ingredient statement, even when present in small amounts. For labeling purposes, Kraft Foods products made with:

• a gluten-containing grain as a direct ingredient will list the specific grain using commonly known terms such as “wheat, barley, rye and/or oats.” For example: “wheat flour.”
• a source of gluten as a component of another ingredient such as flavors or modified food starch, will list the grain in parentheses after the ingredient in the ingredient line. For example, “natural flavor (contains rye).”

A small number of Kraft Foods products are labeled as “gluten-free” according to the proposed definition by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These are: Crystal Light, Kool-Aid and Tang powdered soft drinks and some Back to Nature rice crackers. We take this claim seriously and for such products, we are assured there is no unintentional contact with gluten during every step of the agricultural growing, transportation and manufacturing process. You might notice that many additional Kraft Foods products may have ingredient statements that do not list a source of gluten, but without the extremely specialized procedures in place to diligently validate gluten purity, we do not label the finished product as gluten-free. In this way, we are very serious and thorough when labeling products as gluten-free

So that’s a very long way of saying: If you are strictly gluten free, ensure that you are using marshmallows that meet your family’s dietary restrictions.

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So we had this pork roast I picked up from Ultra Foods the other day. MashupDad grilled it up with some foil potato packets on Sunday, and that was one  meal — oh, and broccoli on the side! We had a bit of leftover cooked up pork roast from that, so tonight I threw together these tortillas. Sometimes if you look at meat as an ingredient rather than the main dish, lots of goodness can happen; plus, it helps you stretch it out into more meals. This pork roast was just $1.60 after that expired $1.00 coupon from the Pork Board, so it did its job valiantly!

(And I used most of a bag of spinach and most of a container of mushrooms rather than the whole things here, simply because I’d already used some earlier, not for any strict measurement reason. Who measures?)

Leftover pork roast spinach mushroom tortilla wraps

Ingredients

Leftover cooked pork roast, diced
About 3/4 a bag of fresh spinach
About 5-6 oz of mushrooms, sliced
One Vidalia onion, sliced
Minced garlic
Red pepper flakes
Black pepper
Chili powder
Cumin
Olive oil
Flour tortillas
Shredded cheese
Avocado (optional)

Directions

Saute a little minced garlic in olive oil. Add onion, and cook until starting to soften. Add mushrooms, and cook til mostly done. Add spinach and stir in til wilted. Add diced cooked pork roast. Season to taste with red pepper, chili powder, cumin, black pepper.

Meanwhile, warm tortillas in separate pan. Flip over, sprinkle on some shredded cheese, and heat other side til cheese is melted. Dice up an avocado and divide among tortillas, then add spinach/pork/mushroom/onion filling and fold up burrito style.

 

The avocado is hiding under there, lol. But anyway, they turned out well for a bunch of stuff I randomly threw together in a pan, and MashupDad just ate his low-carb style in a bowl sans tortilla. So if you have a bit of leftover randomness in your fridge, why not mess around and see what you can put together with what you have in the house, too?

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