Where's the chicken?

My wonderful friend Becki inspired me to also write about my recent cooking ventures after reading her post here.

I would say I'm an average cook. I'm no Paula Deen but I can read directions and execute them properly. Josh would say I'm really good at it but I think maybe that comes from him only really knowing how to make mac 'n cheese and a couple of other things that he would probably eat on a daily basis if I didn't cook (which actually might be ok with him but nonetheless he still likes to eat my cookin').

Over the past few weeks we've been delving into our finances because we are planning to and are sooooo close to being able to pay off all of our credit cards (another post for another time) and realized we spent WAY to much money on crap food. Throughout my entire pregnancy and the first month thereafter I had no desire to cook and sometimes it's just hard to cook for two so we would just pick up food here and there. And now I'm just sick of it all. I also want to get back in the habit of cooking at home because it not only saves money but it's also good for family quality time!

My mom and I took a trip up to Arkansas to visit my sister a few weeks ago. She and her husband cook every night. Most of the time they are quick and easy meals but they also mix in some really good homecookin' nights. So when we got back I was so ready to get groceries and cook some grub! I called my sister to get some ideas and with list in hand we went to the store.

Of the almost $200 worth of groceries was a nice big pack of chicken tenderloins that I was excited to bake sometime that week. We got home and to make room for the new stuff I took out the old stuff and put it on the counter for Josh to empty and put in the trash while I finish putting up the groceries. I leave the chicken out because I planned on placing each tenderloin in its own bag to freeze so when we were ready to eat it we could just thaw out what we needed. Well I finished putting the groceries up and moved on to something completely forgetting about the chicken.

The next day rolls around and I remembered that I never divided up the chicken nor did I remember putting it in fridge or freezer. So I'm thinking where the heck is the chicken? I looked in the fridge and freezer (hoping Josh put it up) and could not find it. Well turns out Josh put it up alright....IN THE TRASH! Not once did it ever dawn on him that throwing the 'brand-spanking-new-right-there-when-I-put-it-in-the-grocery-basket-unopened chicken' in the trash along with the old stuff out of the fridge was the wrong thing to do. UUUUGGGGHHHH!

The only thing that got me through it without making him go back up to the store and get more chicken (besides me not trusting that he would get the right thing) was knowing that I had all the ingredients for some homemade chili that I was equally...maybe even a little more... excited about cooking. So I made the chili and all was right with the world!

I nibbled on the chili all week long. It was sooooo deee.lish! I also made a sausage and baked potato dinner that was pretty good and worth making again!

I'm looking forward to keeping up with this cooking kick so I welcome any and all good, easy, and cheap recipes!

p.s. thanks Becki