Frugal Meal Series: Southwest Baked Chicken and Spanish Rice

Welcome to my new series aimed at helping families on a budget with some new and cost effective ideas for meals! I aim for around $5-7 per meal while trying to highlight dishes from scratch, meatless options, common ingredients, and whole grains. My typical weekly grocery bill for 4 was $50-60 just a couple years ago, but with the current economy it has increased to about $80-90/week. This series shows you my average family dinners including cost breakdown, links to recipes, and other details to help inspire you!

Step 1 of saving money on your grocery bill is to MAKE A MENU! Once a week I sit down and write out a dinner menu for the next 7 days. I take into account what I have in the freezer, what our schedule is like for that week, what the weather is (hot/cold), and any leftovers. It also stops everyone from asking "What's for dinner??" From this you can easily make your shopping list to only get the items you need while keeping an eye out for any markdowns/clearance items you can stick in the freezer for a different meal. I do 90% of my grocery shopping at Aldi as I find that they have the best prices on most items. For a few other remaining items I go to Walmart.

Some meals I make are easy, some are more complicated. I mostly stick to tried and true dishes that I know everyone likes, but occasionally I like to try out a new one and experiment! I cook many style from American to Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and lots of Tex Mex. Variety is the spice of life!

For my cost breakdowns I will show real or estimated prices of items (based on current prices in western NY), but I don't include typical pantry ingredients i.e. spices/oil/butter/milk etc. unless it's a significant amount.

For this meal I made Southwest Baked Chicken with a side of Spanish Rice

Total cost of meal for 4: $7.75

Cost per serving: $1.94

Click here for inspiration recipe I based this on!

Price breakdown:

2 boneless chicken breast, cut in half lengthwise: ~$4

1 can of black beans: $0.65 (I make mine homemade so my actual price is a bit less)

1c of frozen corn: $0.50

1 can of Rotel: $0.60

1/2c shredded cheddar: $1

1 bag Spanish Rice side mix: $1 (I make mine homemade for much cheaper!)

spices/seasonings/optional toppings

This is a flavorful and simple recipe to throw together on a busy night! It's very flexible for what ingredients you have and like, and you can get your total cost down even more by making what you can from scratch. For a long time I was able to buy my boneless chicken breast for only $1.89/lb, but within the last year that price has increased 48% to $2.79/lb! Any time I buy meat I try to make it stretch as much as I can.

"Healthy" Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe

This delicious recipe is a guilt free way to enjoy some fettuccine alfredo at home! There's no cream, no butter, and I add broccoli to kick up the nutrients a bit. You can also use whole wheat pasta. It's pretty flexible so you can alter the seasoning as you like, as well as adding some grilled chicken or even some cream cheese for extra gooeyness.

Ingredients:

1lb fettuccine or linguini (use whole wheat for added nutrients!)

2c hot water or chicken broth

1c milk

1tbs minced garlic

1 bag frozen broccoli

8oz shredded parmesan

S/p

1/2tsp Garlic powder

1tsp Italian seasoning

1/4tsp Nutmeg

In large skillet sauté minced garlic in a little olive oil or butter. After a couple minutes, add the pasta, water, and milk and turn heat up to med-high. Bring to a boil and stir frequently to prevent clumping, turn heat down a bit to a simmer. If liquid reduces a lot before pasta is cooked you can add a 1/2c more hot water. Steam broccoli in microwave while pasta is cooking.  When pasta is al dente add seasonings and parmesan. Stir to mix well and turn heat down to low. When cheese is melted and sauce is thickened, taste sauce for flavor then add steamed broccoli and mix. Serve while hot! Goes well with garlic bread and grilled chicken.

Easter 2023

I hope everyone had a fun and special holiday with their family! Ours was simple and quiet since we had just gotten back from our first BIG family vacation (read about that here!)

First the boys colored some eggs!

Easter morning they got to check out their treat baskets and see all the goodies that they got.

We finally had some sunny weather so after lunch they hunted for hidden eggs outside! They each got about 25. I gave Brad the option of helping us hide eggs instead of doing the hunt, but he wanted to look for eggs! Not too big yet!

After that they opened up all the eggs for the candy and enjoyed some of the bounty! For dinner we had a roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies.

Jacob's 8th Birthday

My littlest little is now 8 years old! Time is flying. He also lost a tooth on his birthday, and got an award for reading at school! Big day.

His best friend at school is out of town, so once he's back he will come over and play with Jacob. Otherwise we just had a quiet party at home with his favorite meal (hamburgers and mac and cheese), favorite desserts (chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream with sprinkles), and lots of presents!

Yes that's a Tomagotchi! Ha what other 90s kids had one of those growing up? He's currently putting together a motorized race car that he picked out. He's showing good skill in building and using his hands!

Pierce Family's First MSC Cruise

Happy Easter! We are home safe and sound after a fun and busy week on vacation for spring break. This was our first BIG family vacation and also a getaway to celebrate our 20th anniversary. The boys got to break in their new passports and we visited 3 countries this trip! We decided on a cruise for the all-inclusive benefits and security of staying on the ship instead of in a foreign hotel.

When planning the trip, I discovered that flights from western NY to anywhere in Florida were INSANE due to spring break mania. I ended up booking us flights out of Toronto for the first time! They actually had a direct flight to Ft. Lauderdale for a fraction of what the US airlines were charging. Otherwise the boys would not have needed passports. But they have them now, so of course more trips will be in the future!

We flew out a day early on Sunday to prevent any rushing, and we stayed overnight in Ft Lauderdale. There was a pool so of course the boys snuck in a swim!

The cruise wasn't due to leave until 7pm Monday evening so we had plenty of time between checking out of the hotel and getting on board. We took a taxi from Ft Lauderdale to Miami port and it only took a couple hours to get through the long boarding line and actually onto the ship. Let the adventure begin!

The rooms were not ready yet so we just explored the ship for awhile then found the buffet and grabbed a late lunch.

I started out with a piña colada! What a view to enjoy lunch by.

Before we knew it, they announced that the staterooms were ready! Ours was #10037 (a running joke in my family because our address growing up was 1037 and we see that number a lot) which was actually an upgrade to a balcony room!!

For tight quarters, the room was pretty comfy. The boys slept on the pull out sofa so during the day we folded it up and had a couch for lounging. We got unpacked and put clothes and such into the closet so we didn't have the luggage taking up room.

After that we continued to explore the ship while we waiting for the ship to set sail.

View from our balcony!

What a beautiful lounge!

For dinner we headed back to the buffet. Towards the end we felt the ship start to move so we headed out to the closest deck and watched the sunset as we cruised east.

Goodbye Miami beach!

The next day we docked in Nassau, Bahamas at 9am! I had already done my research on what to do for our short time there, and we decided to walk to a public beach for the afternoon. We had a late breakfast and let the chaos die down, then we headed off the ship around 11am. It was about a 20 min walk through the craziness of the tourist district and the dock. There were 4 other cruise ships docked by us, so imagine if each one has 2000-3000 passengers EACH all getting off!

We carved ourselves a little spot on Junkanoo beach and enjoyed the next few hours playing in the beautiful water and enjoying some sunshine!

View of the back of our ship on the way to get back on.

We got cleaned up in our room and rested for a bit, then changed clothes to head to the Villa Rossa restaurant for dinner! The inside of the restaurant was beautiful, and our seat was right by a large window so we had a nice view as the ship left the Nassau port and headed off to our next destination. The family we sat next to at our table were from New Jersey and very nice.

The food in the restaurant was very good, but service took way too long so after that we ate the rest of our meals in the buffet!

The next day we weren't due to our next destination until around 2pm so the boys got to swim and have fun before that. We found the waterslide so they did that over and over for about an hour!

After lunch we started getting closer to our next stop and boy was it beautiful! Those colors are so striking. The cruise company has their own private island called Ocean Cay in the Bahamas, and we were the only cruise ship docked there so we had it all to ourselves.

We headed off the ship and walked all around the island to explore what it had. We ended up settling on a beach on the far end of the island where we could spread out. Brad and I did a bit of snorkeling and we found a couple small jellyfish by the shore!

After a few hours on the beach we headed back onto the ship to clean up and get dinner. After dark we enjoyed the beautiful full moon rising over the ocean from our balcony.

That evening the island lighthouse put on a light show after dark so Nick and I left the kids to play and we went up to the top deck with a couple drinks to enjoy it.

The next day we decided to try a different beach closer to the ship. We were all walked out so we headed to the trolley pickup and got to ride the transport car around the island. On the ride we found the lunch buffet and made plans to head there after swimming. 

We went to the beach by the lighthouse and it was just perfect! The sand was soft and white, the water was crystal clear. I took Brad for some more snorkeling and we actually saw several different fish! Of course I didn't have my waterproof camera with me that time so I couldn't take a picture under water.

We all cooled off with some beachy drinks then we got back on the trolley to go the buffet lunch. After eating some yummy island food we went back to the ship in the evening to let the boys swim in the pool some more. After that we all cleaned up and rested for a bit before having some fun with a short 4D movie in the arcade! When that was done we went down for to our last dinner on the ship.

Our last night we got packed up as much as we could and set our alarm for the early morning disembarkation. However we did not need to set an alarm because as we got into the Miami harbor around 4:30am the bright lights and movement of the ship navigating woke us up haha! We ended up getting up early and watching the ship get maneuvered into it's parking spot on the dock before we packed up the last of our room and headed down to the exit line at 8am.

Unfortunately our flight home didn't leave until 6:45pm so we had a looooong day of waiting in the airport. We took an Uber from Miami to Ft Lauderdale airport and hunkered down in the pre-security area from about 8:45am until 3:45pm when our flight counter finally opened and we could check our bag then go through security!

We happily grabbed our first meal of the day around 4:30pm and headed to our gate to wait for boarding. Before we knew it, it was our time to get onto the airplane and by 6:45pm we were in the air saying farewell to Florida and heading to Canada!

The flight home was uneventful and we landed a bit early around 9:45pm in Toronto. After getting my bag we managed to find a phone and call the parking service for a shuttle back to our car. It was not enjoyable watching for the shuttle in 30 degree weather! But they finally came and we picked our car up without trouble around 11:30pm. We did have to swoop into a Marriot lobby so I could steal their wifi signal because my Google map was a no go despite having downloaded an offline map....however I got it to work after that and we hit the highway for the 2.5hr drive home.

Thankfully there wasn't much traffic out in the middle of the night, the border crossing back into the USA went well, and we did not hit any deer on the way home! We pulled into our driveway right around 1:45am and I'm pretty sure we were all in bed shortly after 2am. Cuddles was very happy to see us and we have been giving him lots of love since being home.

All in all we had a fun vacation and I was very happy with our first experience with Flair airline and MSC cruise. Our only complaint was the sheer volume of people on the ship but unfortunately that is to be expected during spring break time. We are a slave to the school calendar for a few more years!

Now I have a couple weeks at home before leaving for my next big solo trip! Check back soon for more posts....