While cooking for the cowboys today, I had tons of interruptions that wasted so much time, leaving me in a cooking bind.  I had to think quick in order to get something served up for these hard working cowboys to eat.  Thankfully, I always keep convenience items on hand as I’ve said before so within 10 minutes, I had the main dish prepared and ready to eat.

Tyson Chicken Breast Strips saved my day!  I planned on making fajitas but realized that I still wouldn’t have time to do that so while hunting around in my freezer, I found some Deluxe Vegetable Stir-Fry (Great Value brand) and threw that together with the chicken….VIOLA, your meal is served.  I did make some flavored dirty rice to serve with it but the entire meal was fast, budget-friendly, and tasted VERY good!

What items do you keep on hand for emergency situations?

I am loving this menu planning! It’s no wonder so many people do it. It really simplifies the whole shopping and cooking process. I’m really bad about just buying whatever I see whether we need it or not but I told myself I was gonna stick to the 2-week menu planner shopping list from Kraft. I went in with my list, browsed a bit, then pulled out the list and began to shop. I found everything with no problem, with plenty to cook for more than two weeks.

It was time to decide on what to cook. There are a ton of recipes & tips and everything looked very good! Since the first day was a hurried mess, we cooked the pizza which was a hit with the guys! Please tell me I’m not the only one that spends an hour trying to decide what to cook….I’m not am I? This is what I loved about the menu plan, all the ideas were ready and waiting to be cooked. AND, it even gave me creative ideas for future meals. We all took turns picking out what we wanted to try from the 2-week planner. We even let little man pick one!

This week, we tried the South of the Border Chicken and Pasta Skillet and it was soooooo good! While my guys are meat eaters, they really loved this chicken dish. I think it’s because I don’t normally cook like this so it was a nice change for them. It was also a much simpler meal to make and *I* liked that. I usually go overboard when cooking a meal and I think with the hot weather, they appreciated that I didn’t with this.

South of the Border Chicken and Pasta Skillet

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups medium-size pasta, uncooked
• 2 Tyson® Boneless skinless Chicken Breast halves (about 1 lb.), thawed, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 6 oz. salsa
• 1 0 oz. frozen corn, unthawed (about 2 cups)
• 4 oz. (1⁄2 of 8-oz. pkg.) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, cubed
• 1⁄4 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 cup Kraft Mexican Style Finely Shredded Four Cheese, divided

DIRECTIONS

Cook pasta as directed on package.  Meanwhile, cook and stir chicken in large nonstick skillet sprayed with cooking spray on medium-high heat 6 min. or until done. Add salsa, corn, cream cheese and cumin; simmer on medium-low heat 6 min. or until corn is heated through
and cream cheese is melted, stirring occasionally.  Drain pasta; add to skillet with half the shredded cheese. Simmer 3 min. or until heated through. Top with remaining shredded cheese; cover. Remove from heat; let stand 5 min. or until cheese is melted.

You can download the 2-week menu planner and find out about in-store recipe demonstrations at a Sam’s Club location near you and do your shopping and feel free to join right in with me in making these recipes. We can swap stories!

OVER TO YOU

Give your top 3 tips for menu planning and shopping for groceries.  Share with us what works for you!