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$10 Meals – Chili-Lime Chicken

Posted in 10 Dollar Meals, cooking, health, tagged $10 Meals, 10 Dollar Meals, Cayenne Pepper, cheap recipes, cherry tomatoes, Chicken, chicken tenders, cooking, garlic clove, Lime, Loren Cordian, Quinoa, recipes on November 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Today’s recipe is actually a modification of one of my favorite recipes. The original recipe is from Loren Cordian’s The Paleo Diet Cookbook. To be clear, I am NOT an adherent to any “diet”. My personal belief is that if it is yummy and relatively healthful? I’ll eat it! The original recipe calls for shrimp, but with cost in mind, I went with chicken tenders that were on sale for $2.99 per pound.

Here are the ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes slice in half (I like to use a full cup)
1 pound of chicken tenders, cut lengthwise then chopped into 1/2″ pieces
1 teaspoon of paprika
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro (I use a handful)
Juice from 1/2 lime
Cayenne Pepper, to taste

It’s pretty straightforward.

1. Heat oil over a medium heat

2. Add garlic and sauté for one minute.

3. Add tomatoes and continue cooking for 2 more minutes.

4. Toss in chicken, stir for a couple of minutes and then cover for two more until chicken is cooked through.

5. Turn off heat and toss with paprika and cilantro.

6. Squeeze lime juice over the chicken and sprinkle with cayenne.

7. Serve either over or next to one cup of cooked quinoa

Serves 4

Going forward I am going to have to assume that you have supplied your kitchen with a few essentials – olive oil, butter, spices like paprika, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper. These will not be included in my pricing in part because they are investments that should last you at least a month or two even with daily use. So this is how the pricing breaks down for this meal.

$2.99 – one pound of chicken tenders$0.66 – 1/3 of a bunch of cilantro ($1.99 per bunch)
$2.00 – cherub tomatoes (a little less than 1/2 a package at $3.99 per package)
$0.25 – juice from 1/2 lime at 50¢ per lime
$0.30 – one clove of garlic at $2.99 per bulb
$2.35 – 1/2 package of TruRoots Quinoa at $4.69 per package

GRAND TOTAL – $8.55

If you still have the salad supplies from earlier, you can make a nice side salad somewhere between $1.50 ~ $2.00 bringing you total to just a touch over $10.

The final numbers (per serving):

Calories: 370 cal
Fat: 8 g
Cholesterol: 65 mg
Sodium: 105 mg
Carbs: 44 g
Dietary Fiber: 8 g
Protein: 35 g
Iron: 25%
Vitamin A: 68%
Vitamin C: 41%

As always, let me know what you think! If you have a recipe you think I could use for this series, please let me know.

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$10 Meals – Tuna Noodle Casserole

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged $10 Meals, Cherub Tomatoes, cooking, Cream of Mushroom Soup, Frozen Peas, Kalamata Olives, Quinoa Pagodas, Romaine Lettuce, Salad, Tuna, Tuna Noodle Casserole on November 13, 2013| 7 Comments »

So Lord only knows if this is going to work or even if people are going to like it, but here goes…

I would like to introduce you to the $10 Meals Series – hopefully an ongoing weekly series here at Run Luau Run. For the premiere of the series, I am going with an old standby in our household, Grandpa Bill’s Tuna Noodle Casserole…honestly, Grandpa Bill’s Casserole isn’t that different from anyone else’s. In fact, last night I received an email from one of my readers, Tristen, who offered up a very similar recipe. Tristen adds a 1/2 cup of milk to the recipe.

Is it healthful? Relatively speaking, yes. Here are the vitals:

Ingredients:

TUNA NOODLE CASSEROLE

2 Cans of Tuna – drained $2.50
1 Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup – $0.75
1 Box Quinoa Garden Pagoda Pasta – $2.99
8 oz Frozen Peas – $0.50
TOTAL: $6.74 (In the Youtube video below I misread the price on the soup at $1.33 when in fact it was 75¢.)

SALAD

1 Head Romaine Lettuce – $0.67
1/3 Package of Cherub Tomatoes – halved – $1.33
Handful of Kalamata Olives – halved – $1.00
TOTAL: $3.00

GRAND TOTAL: $9.74

The directions are pretty simple.

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F
2. Boil Pasta for 7 – 8 minutes depending on desired tenderness.
3. Drain pasta, place back in pot and mix with tuna, cream of mushroom soup and peas.
4. Spread in a casserole dish, cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes.5. Uncover casserole and bake for an addition 15 minutes or until top is at desire crispiness.
6. Take out of oven and let sit for 5 minutes to set.

While all of this is happening, chop of romaine head and toss with tomatoes and olives. Dress with a little olive oil and sea salt and you are good to go.

The nutritional information on the casserole:

8 Servings total.
Per Serving:
170 calories
2.5 grams of fat
30 grams of carbohydrates
3 grams of fiber
7 grams of protein
379 mg of sodium
Iron 7% RDI

Let me know what you think.

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Real Help

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged access, cheap food, cheap recipes, cooking, facebook, Food, food equality, food stamps, healthful eating, healthy eating, out of the box, real food, recipes on November 12, 2013| 4 Comments »

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen a few of my latest posts that take jabs at those who excoriate those who don’t eat “real food”. Whenever and wherever I see these “experts” and “gurus” inadvertently shaming others, the inevitable question of those on a tight budget comes up –

“How does someone on food stamps or someone who is struggling financially manage to eat only “real food”?“

This is a fair and appropriate question – as many of you have pointed out, access to these “real foods” can be 2 or 3 bus rides away, and that’s after at 12 hour work day. There is not only the immediate higher monetary cost because most of this “real food” is more expensive per volume, there is also the time cost, which unless you are a mother or father you may not know is simply priceless.

Whenever I see this question posed, the answer is almost always,

“well, it’s cheaper that getting sick.”

What kind of answer is that?

It isn’t.

It provides nothing other than letting the speaker feel they have conveyed some sort of positive message, while leaving those financially struggling, time strapped families with no real solution and a feeling of shame and embarrassment for not having the resources to provide their children “real food”.

This is what I posted on Facebook recently after seeing yet another “it’s cheaper than getting sick” response:

While I laud efforts that encourage people to move their bodies and eat a more nutrient rich diet, I can’t help getting a little irritated at, as one running Instagram friend put it, those who “look down on someone from the high pedestal of privilege.” Let’s be clear, if you have easy access and the financial means to shop at specialty markets then you are privileged, there is simply no arguing that. I was happy to hear from another friend that in her area there is an affordable indoor/outdoor farmer’s market located in the heart of her city that accepts EBT cards and food stamps and is open year round. The key words? Affordable and In the Heart of the City. That is a tremendous start, but we still have a long way to go before we reach food equality for all in this country.

So with that being said, I am seeking your help. I would like to post YOUR favorite, relatively healthful recipes for four that you can make for around $10 (US) or even less. I am hoping to collect around thirty recipes that I will price out, document my attempt to make and then post here on the blog. Quick recipes will obviously help the time strapped families, but I will gladly take all kinds, especially those that can be stretched – the key is that they need to be relatively healthy.

Relatively healthy…what does that mean? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. I suppose it means that it’s not made up entirely of processed foods and has elements that call for veggies or fruits (fresh, frozen or canned). If you are in doubt, send it to me anyway. I will happily credit all contributors (if wanted) providing links to blogs or websites as well.

If you have an inexpensive healthful recipe you love and are willing to share, please email it to me at runluaurun at gmail dot com or message me on Facebook.

The bottom line is that I would like to see more people NOT eating out of a box for every meal and my hope is that WE can help provide the means for more people to both think and eat “outside the box”.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Luau