From the Baby Shower

Because this is mainly a food blog, I wont post a bunch of pictures of my lovely friend, her family, the beautiful gifts, or decorations. I will focus on the food.

The meal was staged as a tea, and I had a lot of help. The main dish I made was finger sandwiches. My mom helped a lot, and we made four varieties: cucumber cream cheese, egg salad, salmon, and curried chicken. The curried chicken is one we picked up from attending teas at higher echelon establishments. It is delicious, lightly curried chicken with raisins and a bit of mayo. And there is something about the way my mom makes her salmon, even though it is made with the same canned salmon I use, that is to die for.

I also prepared a tray with high protein nibblies: cheese (Havarti, Monterey Jack, and Cheddar), sausage rolls made fresh (with help from Pilsbury), and olives and gherkins.  

My friend, Maureen, knows I love her extra now though. I baked her TWO products, as readers already saw: mini-cupcakes and owl cookies (the shower was owl themed). The cupcakes were butter pecan flavor with cream cheese icing, coated in coconut, with two mini-eggs on top to look like a nest. The cookies were cinnamon sugar cookies, with an almond for the beak and two chocolate chips for eyes.

Other guests brought lovely treats as well. My grandma did deviled eggs. A sister of the mom-to-be did veggies and dip and fruit. The other sister and mother did sushi. The other grandma-to-be did an almond puff pastry and mini-cheesecakes, which I had three of, oops! An auntie did a layered dip and brought a lovely lemon cake. Another auntie did all the dishes, cutlery, napkins, small snacks, etc. A friend did the cold beverages (and wine, lots of wine). It really was a group effort.

Cheap Chicken Lunch Fo Dayz Yo

We are working on being better with meals other than dinner. It is difficult for me especially, as my schedule changes day to day and we have a FANTASTIC cafeteria (like, truly fantastic--steak, scalloped potato, and cauliflower for $5.50 fantastic).

We picked up a rotisserie chicken yesterday that was marked down. We buy marked down meat all the time, either to use immediately or freeze. It saves a significant amount of money. The only problem from this, historically, has been that a portion of this either spoils or is forgotten about.

Regardless, we bought this rotisserie chicken. Those cold chickens are fairly small, but look how much meat you can get off one. (That was minus 1 leg, and I don't bother with the wings; it just isn't worth my time.)

That meat made 6 sandwiches (5 pictured, but there was just so much more, we added a whole sandwich and stuffed the rest). We probably could have made 8 nice sized ones.

Eight sandwiches and the protein only costing $5.50?! That is a great price point. Deli meat, even at its best sale price, cannot compare, especially not when comparing nutrition. We generally only buy the "natural" meat, but now are hearing that it is not any better than the old nitrate loaded variety. Using REAL unprocessed meats is more comfortable for me. I don't want to feed my family crap.

You could make chicken salad with this; Matt was disappointed that I didn't. I prefer to take bread, lightly mayo both pieces, add a touch of salt and pepper, and put finely chopped chicken in the middle. I think it really saves on calories to not make traditional mayonnaise-loaded chicken salad.

So, we made lunch for today and tomorrow for the three of us (Charlie only gets 1/2 a sandwich per meal) and a sandwich for the grandparent tomorrow. Add in the minimal cost of mayo, salt, pepper, and bread (we like the cheap white crap, sue me, I'm a hypocrite), and it is still under $7 for 7 lunch entrees.

I love these sandwiches. My mom would send me to school with this as a kid if there was left over chicken. It is so simple and easy. The taste is clean, and the calories are low.