Leftovers, Use Them or Lose Them??

Some people are very funny about eating leftovers.  In our house however, we definitely USE leftovers!  I am a menu planner, and I write leftovers into the menu plan!  I can't imagine what our grocery budget would be if we threw away our leftovers!  However, there are some people out there... who just don't want to eat leftover food!

When I planning my menu, I have one lunch item that I MUST add to the plan!  My mom introduced me to it, and it is so easy to make... who wouldn't love it!  Last night I made a Chicken Tator Bake Casserole (OH SOOOOO YUMMY!!!  Thank you Kristen Reynolds for introducing me to it!!  Recipe Below) and I cooked 3 chicken breasts.  The recipe only calls for 3 cups of cubed chicken, so I put the leftover cubed chicken in to the fridge... I had BIG PLANS for this chicken!!!
Today, I ate an early dinner, thanks to Spring Forward (I have never liked springing forward!), and I decided it was the night to use the chicken!

BBQ Chicken Pizza is the item on my plan that I <3 so much!  It is SOOOO easy to make, and SOOOO delicious!  You only need 4 ingredients (5 if you want to add bacon), and about 5 minutes before it is ready to eat!!  Pitas, BBQ sauce, shredded chicken, and shredded cheese!!

The instructions for making this are pretty dummy proof!!  Even I can't mess this one up! 
Take a pita and top with BBQ sauce, add chicken, top with cheese, and stick it in the toaster oven.

It is seriously ready in about 2 minutes!  I keep pita's on hand, just in case we plan to have left over chicken!!  However, I have also made these with chicken lunch meat when I had no left over chicken!!!

YUM... may make another one for lunch tomorrow :)

 - Jessica

Organizing Life

Since Brady's arrival, I have felt very unorganized and scattered!  I guess a newborn can do that to you, and when it is your second baby... you dont stand a chance of getting things together for a while!

He is almost 2 months old now, and I felt it was time to try and pick up the pieces around here!  While shopping at Target, I came across some AWESOME baskets that I have fallen in love with!  I bought 4 sets of them (a set had 2 baskets) and the cost was $10 for 8 baskets!  I used the baskets to get my pantry and fridge in order.

One thing I have realized is that when we open the pantry or the fridge, we grab what is in SIGHT to eat.  I wanted to change the way the fridge and the pantry was arranged, and make the "healthier" foods become what we see first.  Usually in the fridge, the veggies & fruits hang out in a drawer which is supposed to control humidity.  Our drawer like this usually ends up holding fruits and veggies that are beginning to go bad!  So, I used the baskets to create a home for these items, so we see them immediately when we open the fridge.  Our leftovers also have a shelf all to themselves now!  This makes it pretty impossible to forget that we have leftovers, and they are actually being eaten!!

Same logic in the pantry... baskets hold groups of items that needed to be together. Items that need to be finished off are moved into ziploc bags, so that they boxes aren't creating clutter and taking up large amounts of space!

I think the pantry and the fridge look MUCH better, and I am hoping that my logic behind the purge & rearrange actually holds true!!!




Total Project Cost $10

- Jessica