I love to try new recipes, and couponing as well as the Eat from The Pantry Challenge that I did in January in February has helped me continue to stretch my creative muscles to use the food we have on hand or what's cheap. This year I've already found a couple of great go-to recipes that are easy to fix and extremely tasty. My current fave: Shrimp Fried Rice. When you're able to get shrimp and rice on sale, it's a fairly frugal recipe to prepare, with sesame oil being a possible exception if you don't use it much.
If you like to make things ahead, this is a recipe for you. It's SUPPOSED to be prepared with leftover cold rice, so I just cook that and dice the vegetables earlier in the afternoon during my daughter's nap. Near dinnertime, just saute the shrimp and follow the directions. Dinner on the plate within 15 min. At least to my taste buds, this rivals takeout...mmmm!
Mini Apple-Cheddar Meatloaves is another recent find which can be whipped up in a short amount of time to rave reviews. It's ground turkey-based, so there's an added level of healthfulness. To cut the prep time, opted to put my onion and apple in the food processor to get it into small pieces rather than shred them. You can also substitute regular breadcrumbs for panko.
I've been able to get amazing deals on pork tenderloin in the past couple of weeks, but I really didn't have any pork tenderloin recipes. Enter Pan Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Blue Cheese and Olive Stuffing. This isn't a cheap recipe to prepare, nor is it quick; but it's easy and tastes fan-freaking-tastic. Think restaurant-quality-impress-your-guests delicious. I'm still dreaming about the sauce. From all the money we've been saving, it was a bit easier for me to fork out the extra cash for olive tapenade and blue cheese to make this splurge meal. Well worth it for a dish that makes me miss going out to nice restaurants just a bit less. ;)
Best of all, my 2 year old will eat all three of these! Woo hoo!
photo courtesy of dearbarbie on flickr
