December 2015 Food Report

Groceries: $210.30
Unnecessary Outside Foods and Snacks: $30.70
Total Spent for December 2015: $241


You know… hehe. I kept saying to myself that I did good for December, considering that I spent 75% less on unnecessary foods than November. But deep down, I knew that was bullshit. I still ended December over $200 and spent way more on unnecessary foods than I usually do.

The beginning of the month started off great. I was determined to get under $200 per month and try some new foods. The first was making ground chicken tacos:

Grounded Chicken with paprika and fried onions.

I used whole wheat tortilla bread from BJs, but Trader Joes has a better bread with more fiber and protein

The final result, with added FRESH SALSA. Three of these were enough to fill me up and put a massive smile of contentment on my face.

This was a major success, and I’ll definitely add it to my monthly rotation.

Rice and Chicken

Since the ground chicken tacos tasted so good, I figured that I had solved my fried rice problem. Ever since I started cooking for myself, I’ve never been able to make delicious rice that I could truly enjoy. With ground chicken, it should be a great new taste, right? Wrong. For some reason, even with the chicken in the rice, it still had an overall bland taste. Ugh. I then tried making it with Chinese rice seasoning, and I really had my hopes up. The taste was…

The worst rice I have ever made. It had no taste whatsoever. I bought chicken wings from the store to try and make this taste good, but didn't work. I'm pretty sure I made it wrong and maybe I'll try the season again later, but this was just a disaster.

I was so pissed off that even Chinese rice season couldn’t make my rice taste like Chinese rice, and that led to the inevitable:

Marshmallow Devil's Food cake. Eating the whole thing made my stomach hurt. My body is really not used to eating this much sugar in one sitting, and that's a good thing.

Many years ago, I remembered going over to my brother’s house with the family to hang out. He had this awesome apartment on the 17th floor of a building in Flatbush Avenue that overlooked most of Brooklyn. He made rice with salmon, and I remembered how good the rice tasted. I texted him for the recipe for making it, and he said to simply Sazon Goya for seasoning:

Alex: You mix it in with the water just before you start the cooking process. Not sure which rice you’re using but remove as much starch from the water as possible. You want the water to look clear after you swirl the rice around.

Me: Using Uncle Ben’s rice. So I start stirring until it dissolves and then I put in the rice, right?

Alex: You was the rice first in cold water. Rinse until the water is clear. Then add the Goya stuff and stir. Cook.

I followed his instructions to the letter. The result?

I used the Azafran seasoning, but I have many others to try. 2 packets are good enough for the amount of rice I make.

This was incredibly easy to make.

With some added seasoned salt, the taste was excellent! Eddie (bank job boss) also told me to add sofrito and seasoned tomato sauce before I cook it, so I’ll try that as well.

Like rice, I’ve struggled to make the perfect chicken on the weekends. In the 15 months since I started cooking, I think I’ve only made good chicken 3 times. It’s usually too dry, not enough spice, etc. For example:

This dried up piece of garbage is how my chicken usually turns out. Looks like a dead animal on the street

I asked Alex how he made his chicken, and he said he makes it in a pan. That was my “aha” moment. What if that was my issue? What if it wasn’t the spices or the cooking time, but rather the actual cooking appliances like my George Foreman grill and my precious air-fryer. So I went to work:

My main chicken spices: Garlic powder, seasoned saly, ground cumin, and ground black pepper. Always mixed into the raw chicken tenders before cooking

I added paprika near the end of the cooking process for extra flavor

This combo tasted so good. I ate some that night, then saved some for the weekend. I kept it in a refrigerator for FOUR DAYS, warmed it up at the microwave at the shipping depot, and it still tasted good! That's good eatin'

I will NEVER make chicken in anything except a pan for the rest of my life. What's funny is that I use the exact same spices when making chicken in the air fryer or GF grill, but never had these results. EVER! The chicken was so juicy and the flavors weren't just on the outside of the chicken. Don’t get me wrong: the air fryer and GF grill are still very useful. But not for chicken. Now that I’m on the right track with my weekend foods, I can try out new foods to cook and add to my food rotation.

See, that’s the key. The more variety I have at home, the less temptation I’ll have to buy outside foods. After all, what’s the point of buying outside foods when I make it better at home?