Chilli Leftovers

I made chili the other night, but it had too many beans in it. What was I going to do with the leftovers? (I've been cooking)

Since I didn't have any more tomatoe sauce to make it soupier...I improvised and made a casserole out of it instead.

I dumped the beany stuff into my dish....

I cooked up some macaroni noodles....

I added the cheese sauce from the macaroni, the noodles, and some milk and mixed it all up.
I baked it for 20 minutes, and volia!

Served with garlic bread and salad and fruit....it was just fine!

Coupon Deals

Well, I haven't found any spectacular coupon deals recently....but boy am I ready! Here are all the fun inserts I've got in the mail recently, plus a couple picked up at our local grochery store.

Butter Chicken

I tried this Butter Chicken recipe recently too. (I've been cooking) It's great...and really does taste like real India. The best part is....it's in the slow cooker and is ready when I get home from work! Now that's nice!

What is really delicious with this, is Garlic Butter Naan.....but I haven't figured that one out yet. :)

What now?

You know...it's been a little busy up here for me....and I had a lot of things to post about but no time....and now that I find myself with some time....I can't remember what I wanted to post about! ha!

The past week I tried some new recipes....and they turned out delicious! We had come down with colds, and so I made a special treat for our stuffy-nosed-sore-throated selves: Idli!

These are a bunch of idlis with the sambar (red gravy) alongside. They are basically a steamed rice cake that you use to soak up a savory sauce, usually of vegetables.

You use these pans to make them. But I don't have these pans, so I made up my own version. Thanks to a friend, I have a large soup pot with a steamer basket. I used some small dessert bowls and mixed up the batter (from a mix I had). I could only cook one at a time because of the sizing, but it was worth it! (Well, except for the one that tasted burnt because I let all the water boil away in my pot until the fire alarm went off...)

Here is a very informative article about them.

It was delicious and perfect for our achey bodies.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

The Good
Today I was able to get a gallon of milk and 2 boxes granola bars for .89 cents! Milk is on sale at Target for $2.29, and when you buy two of their Kashi granola bar boxes, with 4 coupons ($2 manufacturer and $1 Target), you get .50 cents overage. This brought my total down to $1.79, and I had .90 cents left on a gift card...so .89 cents for all! That was fun.

The Bad
Not so much fun was my "deals" on chocolate. I was all excited to go candy shopping, using some coupons I'd been saving for the after Valentine's Day clearance. It was a plan that didn't work. I can't believe how quickly the stores here sold out of all their good candy! I couldn't find any candy at all that matched my coupons at either Target, Walgreens, or Pamida! And 2 out of 3 of those were sold out of M&Ms too! *sigh* Though I did pick up a couple bags of clearanced chocolate, it was more a waste of my time than ever planned :(

The Ugly
And the Ugly....well, I don't really have anything ugly but it just seemed to go in the title so well. I guess it's an old movie title...but I've never seen it, just heard the music. :)

Valentine's Day Concert

Last week, pre-Valentine's Day, our community hosted a free orchestra concert that was a lot of fun and very good. One of our friend's was in it, so that was fun.

I really enjoyed the music....especially the Star Wars Theme, Selections from the Phantom of the Opera, and Gabriel's Oboe.

When I go to concerts like this, I'm reminded of my school days, and it brings back sweet memories....and it makes me want to play duets again, or accompany singers again, or just go play piano for a while.

Gluten Free

A couple friends of mine have Celiac....and they can't have gluten products. Recently, I have decided to find out more about it, and see if I can learn how to cook that way too!

Above is a Valentines/Anniversary Pizza Kit I made for one of the friends.

• Gluten free pizza mix (from health food store...although I found recipes to make it here and here)
• Pepperoni
• Cheese
• Red Apple
• Red M & Ms
• Red jello
• Tomato sauce
• Jasmine hand lotion
• Red coupon book to Perkins

Last week, when we had the Ladies Tea Party, I made these glueten free snickerdooles (made with rice flour), with raspberry cream cheese frosting. They were yummy.

In my research...I've run across Xanthan Gum alot.....in recipies. I thought it might be a rising agent, but as it turns out, it's a non-glueten stick-things-together agent.....so your baked goods don't fall apart without any glueten! Cool.

• This is a neat blog of gluten-free recipes.
• Here is another celiac informational site.
• Here is a site of 365 slow-cooker/gluten-free recipes.