I chose the pesto chicken and vegetables recipe because it allows you to get your daily amount of vegetables through an actual dinner meal. The DRI for vegetables is 2-3 servings per day. I feel like oftentimes when I go about trying to eat my veggies daily, I eat cucumbers or carrots as a snack with ranch. This recipe allows vegetables to be implemented into an actual meal. This recipe provides a good way to implement vegetables without going out of your way. The recipe also tasted very good and the pesto added a great flavor to the vegetables and chicken.

Cost Breakdown

About the Recipe

In order to make this recipe more budget friendly you could use cheaper vegetables that would fit well into the stir fry mix. You could also ask to use someone else’s salt, pepper, and cooking oil or just use the ingredients that you already have at home. In order to make this recipe more budget friendly you could also grow the vegetables yourself or buy the vegetables that are currently in season. If needed, you could also use canned chicken breast where it is cheaper.

The Snac Pantry supplies canned corn, canned green beans, canned diced tomatoes, and fresh celery sticks all which could be implemented into this recipe in place of other vegetables.

With some vegetables being more in season than not, I chose to use different vegetables than the recipe called for.  I added mushrooms, peppers, onions, broccoli, carrots, and celery to my veggie mix. This is a typical stir fry mix. All the vegetables tasted very good with the pesto sauce. I especially recommend adding mushrooms into your dish as they absorb the sauce very well.

Overall, I loved this dish and I would cook it again! It also stores and reheats very well! I had leftovers and ate them the next day and they tasted just as good as freshly cooked! This recipe gave me my daily vegetables and gave me a good way to incorporate vegetables into a meal rather than just a snack occasionally.

Recipe provided by Abby Sundell Family

PROCESS/MY EXPERIENCE

It was easy to manage my time with this recipe, especially since I prepared with Mise en Place before starting to cook the meal. This will save a lot of time and save you a lot of stress while cooking the meal. The cooking techniques aren’t overly complicated.

I loved how the Jambalaya turned out. It has a great flavor and has a good mix of meat, vegetables, and rice. It is something that you can have as a main dish and pair with many sides.

COST BREAKDOWN

Some Budget Friendly Tips:

• Get white rice from the USU SNAC Food Pantry
• Buy generic brands. Ex. Great Value brand at Walmart. All these ingredients can be found at Walmart.
• It is smart to buy in bulk. You can buy extra vegetables and use them in other recipes.

KNIFE CUTS

Knife cuts are an important skill to have. This skill can be used for the rest of your life. In this recipe, the knife cuts I used were dice and chop. Dice is to cut something up into cubes. A small dice is ¼ in. x ¼ in. x ¼ in. A medium dice is

½ in. x ½ in. x ½ in. The chop cut does not have any set measurements. I had to chop the chicken tenderloins after they were cooked. I cut them into about ½ in.

MISE EN PLACE

I decided to teach about Mise en Place. Mise en place means to put everything in its place. This includes measuring out ingredients, chopping ingredients, and getting out any equipment you may need before you start cooking. This is important because it helps save a lot of time and it makes things way less chaotic in the kitchen. It allows you to focus on properly cooking the food instead of having to do the steps all at once.

REMOVING THE TENDON FROM THE CHICKEN TENDERLOINS

Chicken Tenderloins have a tendon that can be removed from the middle. This tendon doesn’t need to be removed. It can be left in and cooked, however, it is more pleasant to eat when the tendon is removed. A simple way to do this is to grab the tip of the white tendon at the end of the tenderloin using a paper towel.