by Donna Reish
So if you’ve been following my Grocery Fast, you know we have HAD to eat steaks. Yep….in order to empty our food stores, we have to eat five years worth of gifted steaks that we didn’t know how to fix! (Who knew that you could spend $25-30 a week for groceries for two months and end up eating steak every week?)
I have been on the hunt for yummy steak recipes, and I found this one from Cafe Delight in a video tutorial on Facebook. I tweaked it for our liking, but the original recipe did come from that mouth-watering video!
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by Donna Reish
In cleaning out my pantries and freezers for my Eight Week Grocery Fast, I went old school to use up some tuna, peas, and cream soup. This was one of my family meals growing up. I don’t remember a lot of what my mom cooked when I was very young. I do remember roast, potatoes, and carrots; cubed steak with brown gravy and mashed potatoes; spaghetti and meat sauce; salmon patties and mac and cheese; hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill; and this tuna casserole. If you’ve been reading the blog for long, you know that I am super picky. (So this is a good place to hang out if you want to cook things in a healthier way that your ten year old will like!) Tuna casserole with canned soup and potato chips might not seem like the healthiest entree’, but let me walk you through some ideas to make it healthier and/or lower in carbs. Or make it as is and be happy that everybody in your family is eating tuna! Sometimes you take whatever you can get. (It really is a tasty casserole!)
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by Donna Reish
If you’ve been following my Grocery Fast, you know that I have been trying for eight weeks to not spend much money at the grocery store but instead use up my many food stores in my pantries, cupboards, freezers, and refrigerators. (And then I’m hoping to learn to shop and cook for two of us—wish me luck!) I found a few bags of “pork” (mostly turkey products) in my freezer that I couldn’t see using as main entrees since there were bits and pieces. But with my quest to really use up all of these “bits and pieces,” my mind went crazy trying to figure out how to make a meal (another benchmark is that I am making MEALS out of what I have, not just side dishes or “add ons” to meals) out of this combination. I had been so hungry for biscuits and gravy, but with our OMAD (One Meal a Day)/Daily Intermittent Fasting), I can’t fit all the meals in that I am hungry for. (IF problems!) So I set out to make “Mixed ‘Pork’ Gravy” with these little bags of frozen meats.
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by Donna Reish
When I began cooking and baking low carb, I knew that I didn’t want to add 50 carbs to a gravy or soup by using 1/2 cup of white flour to make a roux and thicken soups, stews, and gravies. So I began experimenting with various thickening agents. Since I have some upcoming gravy and cream soup recipes, I thought this would be a good time to share some of my findings with readers. You don’t have to eat specifically low carb to benefit from these tips. They are good ones for any health-conscious cook. So….if you would like to get some new tricks for thickening in less starchy/less carby ways, read on!
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by Donna Reish
Two of the most common praises you hear for the air fryer are chicken (tenders, nuggets, wings, thighs, breasts–you name it!) and French fries (or potato wedges–really any “fried” potato)–and with good reason! These two, formerly-forbidden-to-many, “fried” foods are absolutely amazing in the air fryer. I love popping French fries, mozzarella sticks, and chicken tenders in my fryer for my sons when they stop by–yes, all “premade” and found in the freezer section of the grocery! See my original Air Fryer Tips and Croutons here!
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by Donna Reish
We went on a grocery fast of $25 per week–so we had to start eating steak every week…..let me explain! The reason for the grocery fast was to try to empty our freezers, refrigerators, cupboards, and pantry of the excess food we had accumulated from gradually becoming empty nesters, but not really knowing how to shop, cook, or live like empty nesters! Part of this process includes using up five years worth of Omaha Steaks that were gifted to our business.
True confession: We have seldom ever cooked steaks. Sure, we made hamburger steaks, Swiss steak, chopped steak smothered with veggies, meatloaf steak, “poor man’s steak” (out of hamburger), and even ham steak. But with seven children on one income for over twenty-five years, meat was more of a “condiment”—in casseroles, soups, stews, and other combination dishes–than it was a “per person” type of meal element.
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