Hey everyone, how are you doing with your social distancing and stay home orders? If you are wondering how to stretch pantry ingredients so that you can make fewer trips to ShopRite, then take a look at my frugal cooking videos for some ideas on how to turn boring old leftovers into delicious awesomeness.
Here we are working with some basics: leftover chicken, creamed spinach, noodles, cream, bone broth and a few other things. Discover the secret that restaurant owners know about how to spend less while creating awesome meals and letting nothing go to waste!
Please excuse my videoing skills, I hope to do a better job of making myself look pretty next time haha.
For this recipe, you should be paying more attention to the strategic combining of ingredients, and not the actual ingredients themselves? Why? Well, this is all about being frugal and using what we have. You wouldn’t really be doing that if you took notes on what I put in here and then made a special trip to the store for those exact things.
Of course, it’s always a good idea to stock up with the intention of stretching the ingredients for several meals. So if spinach, chicken, pasta and cheese are some favorites of yours, by all means pick these up the next time you head out to Shoprite. But I will caution you: even the frozen veggies are in limited supply! The last time I was there I only saw the kind of veggies that not many people eat. They had green beans, asparagus, and collards. So get there early and don’t forget your face mask!
This Recipe – Ingredients:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1.5 cups leftover chicken, cut into pieces
- 2 cups pasta cooked al dente
- 2 cups frozen spinach (mine was creamed spinach)
- 1 cup broth (mine was simmered in the slow cooker from the same chicken used in this recipe)
- 1/2 cup cream, milk or half ‘n half
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 to 1 cup shredded cheese
To make:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add garlic and oil to a Pyrex pan and heat for 2 to 3 minutes until you get the aroma of the garlic. Remove pan from oven and set on stove top. To the pan, add cooked pasta and mix thoroughly bit by bit until garlic and oil is combined. Add in chicken bits and some salt and pepper. Add the frozen spinach and mix everything together.
Add chicken broth and cream. Stir again. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Cover with foil and let cook for about 20 minutes.
Serves: 3