Twice baked sweet potatoes with chicken...

Twice-baked Sweet Potatoes with Chicken

This was an off-the-cuff experiment, and they were fabulous and very filling!  I'm putting recipe here so I can remember how next time!  I didn't serve anything with these, but a salad would go nicely.

Ingedients:

2 or 3 frozen chicken thighs

2 or 3 strips bacon

2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes

2 Tablespoons butter

1/4 cup sour cream

1 Tablespoon Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix

1 teaspoon of Tajin seasoning

1/2 cup Monterrey Jack cheese

Directions:

Lay the frozen chicken thighs side by side in bottom of slow cooker.  Lay strips of bacon across the tops of the chicken.  Set on Low for 4 hours.

When the chicken has been cooking for 3 hours, flip the chicken and bacon, so that the bacon is resting on bottom of slow cooker, and chicken is on top of it, and continue cooking for remaining time.  Wash and place the sweet potatoes on a foil lined baking sheet.  Cover with foil, and place in a 350° F oven for 50 minutes.  (Rather than individually wrapping the potatoes, the bottom and top covers simplify the preparation later.)  At the end of 50 minutes remove from oven and set aside the top layer of foil.  Pierce the sweet potatoes to be sure they are cooked through, if they are, place them on what was the top layer of foil, then pick up the foil and potatoes and place over the first piece of foil on baking sheet.  This is just to make sure that any sweet juices that leaked from the potatoes during baking won't harden and make potatoes stick to that first layer of foil.  Let sit for a few minutes while you use a fork to shred chicken and bacon,

Slice one long side of each sweet potato and scoop out most of the flesh (leaving about 1/4 inch to line the skin) and place flesh in a medium size bowl and mash.  Add the remaining ingredients (except for the chicken/bacon) to the bowl and stir to combine.  Add the flesh back to the skins, top with shredded chicken and bacon, and sprinkle a little more cheese on top.  Return to the 350° oven for about 10 minutes or till heated through and cheese on top is melted.  Enjoy!

 

A minor home project...

 

I have hated the dated look of these vanity lights since we moved in thirteen years ago, but they've never been a real priority.  Never really found anything else that could be configured for our need.  Though this mirror (shown above) only has one bar of lights, the other vanity in the room has a bar like this, and then another on the perpendicular wall.  So for the three light bars, there are 20 or so bulbs.

I found these socket inserts.  They screw into the light bar, and they have a swivel extension that allows the bulb to be oriented downward.

I replaced the round bulbs with Edison bulbs.  It's a small change, but is a slight update.  I'm living with it for awhile, trying to decide if I want the chrome fixtures removed from the wall and painted more of a bronze color.  Thoughts?

Frugal Friday File 2024, January 26...

1.  Right before the end of the year, I added "stop using 'baby' carrots" to my 2024 Bucket List of Hopes.  Not because of any scary article I've read, but because I'm retired now.  When I was working I fell back on some conveniences that I don't really need to rely on anymore.  After doing a rough price comparison at my grocery, it seems that I can save 1/3 to 1/2 of what we spend on carrots by buying old-fashioned, unprocessed, whole ones.  I'm retired; I have the time now.  And they taste better!  

2.  The new grocery credit card is doing its job so far.  We've only had it since the new year started, and the rewards (5% back on store brands, and 1.5% back on all other purchases) already amount to $15.33, and the $50 sign-up bonus for charging a certain amount within initial period has already paid into the account.  This really highlights just how much we spend on food...approximately $600 so far this month, and $75 of that was for meals out.

3.  After a week at home trying to stay warm, when the sun started shining, I went and did some impulse shopping at Dollar Tree (so it wasn't too much of a splurge).  I bought some Betty Crocker sugar cookie mixes and some Rolo candies to pop on top of the cookies after they come out of the oven, a small tin of shortbread, a lip balm, 2 pair of socks, and a few other items.  Some of these were to include in a birthday box I was mailing to a friend, some of them were for Valentine treats, some of them were for the pantry.

4.  When I mailed my friend's birthday package, the postage cost more than anything that was in the box.  We've been exchanging birthday boxes of goodies for years, and never anything big.  My favorite thing she ever included in my box was one of the coffee cups from her set of dishes; when I use it I feel like I'm sitting in her kitchen. 

I keep a small clear bin on my desk with her name on it, and add things as I find them throughout the year.  We share a love of card making, so anytime I accidentally buy duplicate supplies, or intentionally want to share a favorite something, I pop it in her bin on my desk to go in her next birthday box.  We gift wrap each item, and it is so fun to both give and receive.  It doesn't cost a lot to make someone feel special.

5.  All meals were made at home this week.  Still managing to squeeze toothpaste out of a flat tube.  Reading library books.  Used styrofoam from packing material, cut in odd shapes, to create a drainage area in the bottom of a plant pot.  

On the menu this week: 

Saturday:  Fish sandwiches, coleslaw, leftover mac-n-cheese, onion rings

Sunday:  Sunday supper at Kasey & Beau's

**Monday:  Quiche with Hashbrown Crust 

**Tuesday:  Carey had leftover potato soup, I had avocado toast

Wednesday:  Virginia's Taco Soup

**Thursday:  Kale & Quinoa Salad, roasted beets/sweet potato/onion/bell pepper/chick peas

Friday:  Sausage w/ carrots/onion/bell pepper & Mushroom Rice

(**designates meatless meal)

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney

Mom is relegated to furniture...

It is absolutely ridiculous when I make myself sit still so that Rudy can have a good nap!

I think it may be time for me to make one of these...

I don't know who to give credit to for this idea, but whoever they are, they are brilliant!  Of course, everybody in my family has short legs, so ours may not be comfortable for a larger dog, but it might be worth a trip to goodwill for a used pair donated by a taller person.  :)

If I have any success, I'll let you know.

 

Just another manic Monday...

I actually got pretty much done today.  Sometime after midnight, I finished making my menu for the week and placing our grocery order.  Then after some sleep, I packed a box of birthday goodies for a friend.  I stopped at WalMart to pick up some potting soil, then picked up the grocery order.  I dropped off a library book and picked up two more.  I mailed the birthday package.  I stopped by my old office to pick up a plant that I wanted to repot for them.  I came home and put away all the groceries that needed refrigeration and then repotted the plant.  I returned the plant to the office.  I came home and cleaned the bathroom, and then read a chapter in one of my new library books. I put away all the rest of the groceries, started supper, then loaded the dishwasher with all the supper-prep dishes and handwashed a couple of things I don't like to put in the dishwasher.  Whew!

 

Quiche with Hashbrown Crust recipe by bellyfull.net

Apologies for the photo (actually for a lot of photos lately).  It's the dark days.

I saw this recipe on Instagram a day or two ago and thought I'd give it a try.  I made this one a little differently than the recipe that was given.  Hers had sausage, and I wanted to make it meatless.  Mine is so full of vegetables that I didn't even bother with adding a salad or separate vegetable to accompany it.  

The crust is easy.  I bought a bag of shredded potato which equaled about the 3 cups that the recipe calls for.  You just add a quarter cup (half a stick) of melted butter, the hashbrowns, and salt and pepper, then press it into a pie pan.  The author of the recipe said to grease the pie pan, but I just melted the butter in the pie plate in the microwave, so considered it greased.  Baked at 375° for 30 minutes.

I sliced an onion, a bell pepper, mushrooms and sauteed them till tender; then I added halved cherry tomatoes and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach to the pan and removed the pan from the heat.  When the crust had baked, I added the vegetables to it, then poured on the mixture of eggs, cream, shredded cheese, salt and pepper evenly and baked at 375 for an additional 30 minutes.

I liked it.  Carey sad he preferred a traditional pastry crust, but I was trying to really ramp up the vegetable content.  I don't think he has caught on yet that we are eating more meatless meals this year...at least he hasn't said anything.  ;)  I think tonight's quiche puts us at 5 meatless meals so far this month, which beats my goal of 2 per month.  And actually probably more, because some of the leftovers we've been eating were meatless as well.

Comfort food on a cold day...

Potato Soup w/ Cheddar Bay Biscuits

I wasn't feeling great yesterday.  When it came time to start supper, all I wanted was soup.  So I made a change to the menu.  Potato soup comes together so easily.  It was never something we had at our house when I was growing up.  A former brother-in-law taught me how to make it when I was about twelve.  It was so easy, I never wrote it down, and never forgot it.  And I never make it without thinking of him.