#grocerybudgetchallenge2024 #grocerybudget #morrocanfood
This is week 4 of the Grocery Budget Challenge 2024 at Publix. With a $120 a month grocery budget, we’re going to cook delicious high protein meals for the next 4 weeks.
In this challenge, we set out to master Publix grocery shopping and figure out how to shop on a budget at Publix. Sometimes it’s hard to go grocery shopping on a budget for one and it’s even harder cooking for one.
In this video – Grocery Budget Challenge 2024 Meals Week 4 – we use the last of the chicken breast we bought in the first video and the last of the chicken stock we created to prepare two delicious meals – a Moroccan Chicken Stew and an Italian Skillet Chicken. We also discuss how I did in this series and the things I learned from completing this challenge.
Thank you for coming along with me on this journey. I hope you found it to be an interesting ride.
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Recipes:
Italian Skillet Chicken – https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/recipe/italian-skillet-chicken-1/5626a61d3d92b3c10eb8c555
Moroccan Chicken Soup Harira – https://recipe30.com/moroccan-chicken-soup-harira.html/
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[Music] hey there this is your girl Candace coming at you all the way live from Sunny South Florida this is the final video in the series of you know $120 a month budget from Publix and I’m so sorry if I haven’t gotten you this video sooner I haven’t been well and that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t gotten it done but all is well here I am fully recovered and I’m going to give you this final video now in this video I only cook two meals and um so you’re going to see two two of the last dinners that I made uh in this series or what have you but before we get to that let’s talk about the overall series first of all what did I learn what did I not learn right first of all I learned a lot during this process I learned it’s very hard to budget $120 for a full month even even as a single person if you don’t plan heavily beforehand and I kind of won it right or Winged It um whatever the case is I always worry about being grammatical and I think W it is not an is not a word so I kind of winged it and I didn’t actually plan it out the way I should have um and if I had there are some things I could have done to make it cheaper but I went over budget I went way over budget I went like more like 160 in terms of what I used um during this series or what have you and I did use some of the things that I um had in the house already you know I I used the oil that I had in the house for the most part C the seasonings that I had in the house and what have you and um maybe one or two of the food food items but I have things left from my shopping trip I have one pack of the bird’s eye stir fried vegetables and I have two packs of the kilbas sausage so I got the Smithfield and I got the erlick so one of the biggest things that I learned is that you have to plan these things meticulously in advance and know exactly what doing before you do one of these challenges I want to do this again I want to do it right but I want to plan it properly and before I do that I will let you know and um and I will only let you know when I planned it properly the second thing I learned is that I need to set the rules really clear before I start a challenge like this and so I’ll do that I’ll I’ll tell you up front I’m going to use my own seasonings I’m going to use my own oil you know and if you had to buy your own then this is how much it would cost if I could do it that way the other thing I learned is that I don’t like I mean I like the taste of kobasa I love to cook with it but it’s not that n that very nutritional in terms of protein so this here has 8 g of protein per serving supposedly there are seven servings in the container which is like these two long kassas and that means 56 gr of protein but over seven servings is it’s not a lot so unless you’re eating a lot of kobasa say I divided this even into four I still wouldn’t get even 15 g of protein you know in my meal unless I’m pairing it with another protein like chicken which is what I did so I learned that there are some proteins you got to pair with other proteins some proteins may be like a flavor agent versus a natural protein source so if you look at it that way if you pair it with for example protein pasta then the two combined can be enough protein in a meal and in a meal you want to go for you know like 30 gr of protein 30 or so grams of protein in a meal that way you’re not having a hard time getting up to like 100 grams by the end of the day or 120 or more so I try to go for 140 150 but you know hey that’s me and I do that because I’m a postmenopausal woman who you know has to worry about things like bone density building muscle uh to strengthen my bones and create more strength would have you um and for my wellbeing but you know depending upon whether you’re active whether you’re not active how much you weigh all those things would bear into how much protein you need and you don’t need to get all this protein from me which brings me to my next um issue actually it would have been cheaper for me believe it or not if I wanted to have a vegan high protein month for $120 and I think that’s something that I’m thinking about doing I know it’s something I’m thinking about doing I’ve been wanting to do another vegan week ever since the um the Three Rivers challenge that I did so I and I still have quinoa you know left over and I still I mean lots of it I still have tbp and other um you know textured vegetable protein and other things you know left over that I need to use up cuz they’re from last year and I used to buy new sources so I’m pretty sure I’m going to do a vegan week and and spend 120 bucks and make it a high protein vegan month um I think that’s a challenge I want to do if you’re interested that let me know in the comments below if you’d like to see that all right and the other thing is that uh with the price of meat or whatever we know going up crazily I need to stock up on a few things you know and have them in my freezer before we get into and before it hits next January and February and I’m doing another three R challenge anyway but those are the things I learned you know if I want to budget I have to plan better and I have to make sure that I’m using up everything in my Arsenal without waste and I have to make sure that their Synergy and all the you know um ingredients that I buy and that the meals that I plan you know fit in that way and that way I can I can I can definitely do this for 120 but I have to be less halfhazard about it all right without further do I’m going to show you the meals that I made they were delicious um during that last week and we’ll pick it up from there all right so we’re making a dish that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time all throughout that challenge I wanted to make this um dish but I didn’t have all of the ingredients so here we’re using 24 oz of diced chicken breast and I didn’t dice this as much as I could have but we’re going to just do what we have here all right and then I started cooking it in some olive oil and now it’s time to add the other ingredients so we’re going to add the equivalent of a large chopped onion and we’re going to add the equivalent of three sticks of celery this celery was not fairing so well in my refrigerator so we’re going to add that I’m going to turn this back on cuz I had to turn it off for a while cuz it was getting a little bit overcooked and I didn’t want that to happen or cooked too much it’s not overcooked yet cuz it’s not the chicken’s not done yet all right so I just turn this back on and basically the chicken cooked in its own juices and what I’m doing is breaking the chicken up into slightly smaller pieces cuz this is a pretty large dice I have here [Music] but I just added the onions and the celery and it’s weird because normally most recipes when you’re doing a soup and by the way this is a Moroccan soup most recipes have you like put the onions and the um celerian first but not this soup this soup tells you to cook the chicken first and then throw in the onions and the celery so I’m like okay [Music] if that’s what it takes that’s what I’ll do so all right so we broke this up a little bit at least and if I need to I’ll break it up even more but I don’t want to like damage my pots or anything so [Music] all right so that’s starting to cook and then we’re also supposed to add the seasonings and the seasonings are 1 taspo of no half a teaspoon of turmeric 1 tspoon of smoked paprika 1 teaspoon of chili flakes I’m supposed to add a small piece of Ginger which I don’t have so I just added some ground ginger and I’m also supposed to add a cinnamon stick which I don’t have or actually I do have I have no idea where it is so what I’m going to do is just add in a tiniest little bit of ground cinnamon and you can definitely tell this is a Moroccan dish with the cinnamon and ginger in here ooh the smell is [Music] amazing I’m just going to make sure that this seasoning gets throughout the recipe oo this seasoning smells amazing and it looks amazing who the heck new so it’s it says here fry until I smell the aroma which I do and then it says add the tomato paste so this recipe calls for three tablespo of tomato past and y’all if yall remember from my um from The Challenge The Three Rivers challenge I just finished doing I still have some tomato paste I need to like use up so what I’m doing here on the stove but you can’t see right now is squeezing in a tablespoon of tomato paste into my spoon so that’s one I can definitely smell the aroma wow let me tell you this is a recipe 30 um recipe recipe30.com or something and the guy’s a chef he’s like amazing and he I mean his videos are like I mean I can only aspire they’re like choreography I mean they’re they’re ridiculous all right this is three tablespoons of tomato piss now this recipe also calls me to put in which I’ll be doing soon um a few we ingredients [Music] let me move you in here more so you can see this better the tomato paste is down in here turn this down a little bit and I’m supposed to add a can of tomatoes that’s my can of tomatoes and I’m using these hunt um no salt added diced tomatoes try this is going to be a soup for the AES I’m still glad I’m making in [Music] stash all right now I’m supposed to also add the chickpeas the lentils and the chicken stock okay this recipe calls for 1/4 cup of dried chickpeas soaked and 1/4 cup of green lentils green or brown lentils I soaked on the bottom of the lentils and on top of the chickpeas I soaked these overnight so now I’m putting them in here and they swell up when you soak them now this is a high protein soup for your I mean for real for real lentils chickpeas chicken all right okay and then I’m supposed to add chicken stock now this calls for two quarts of chicken stock and I’m using one of the quartz of chicken stock that we harvested in the very first video so I’m going to go ahead and pour that in here and it’s still kind of Frozen which is unfortunate so hopefully it will go ahead and oh def Frost fast [Music] enough but I had that in the freezer this entire time so that’s one of the quarts and that will definitely defrost as this Cooks down and then a multip to add another cord now this is was probably like 2/3 of a quart cuz I actually use some of this earlier in the week this is um organic chicken broth from Sprouts no salt add it so I’m going to add this side quarter of Veggie broth that I have left and then I’m also going to add a little bit of this better than Buon it’s way in the back of the refrigerator a little bit of better than Buon all right so it’s not the boy the tears um all right so I’m going to add a little bit of this better than buan and then it’s it says season with salt and pepper bring to the boil turn the heat down and cook it for cover it and cook it for 60 minutes so what I’m going to do is add some of this Goya adobo and then we’ll adjust the seasonings afterwards and then I’m going to cover it and simmer it for 60 minutes and bring you back then okay all right so the alarm has gone off and now it’s time to check out this soup [Music] that’s all right so there’s nothing stuck on the bottom that’s good and what we’re supposed to do now is to throw in a small amount of pasta It’s supposed to be vermell and it’s supposed to be broken up but I don’t have any vermell so I’m throwing in some pasta I do have and probably a little bit more than what they require but let me check this for seasoning M that is really good I mean that is and I’m going to admit I actually forgot when when I put in the tomatoes they were supposed to be pureed and so I went back and I took the remainder of that can of crushed tomatoes that I had earlier with the basil and I went and put that in here so this is really tasty um it’s really tasty it’s flavorful and it’s got that Moroccan Spice in here so I’m just checking to see how the cuz these were kind of hard I checked them out earlier how the chickpeas are cooking mhm the chickpeas need about 10 4 minutes so we’re going to let that pasta cook down and then we’re going to come back and adjust the seasonings a little bit more as a matter of fact while I’m here let me adjust some of these seasonings right now I’m going to add a little cuz it needs a little bit more salt little bit more of this the go Adoba and I’m not going to add like the Kinders Woodfire garlic because there’s no garlic in this whole recipe I don’t know why so I’m not going to like do that um I’m just going to continue with put a little bit more salt in here and then when the time comes I’m going to add some lemon and I think that’s all it’s going to need it’s really delicious all right I’ll bring you back all right so let’s check on the soup let’s give it some lemon juice and stir it around let’s check the seasoning in the broth that is delicious all right so I’m going to turn this off and I’m going to serve up some of this soup and and I’m going to give it a full taste Us by the way this bowl is hot trying to get a little bit of everything I got to put this bowl down though cuz this bowl is hot y’all no joke all right m the past is cooked perfectly the flavors are popping in my mouth the chickpeas are a little bit out dented I made these from scratch I think what I’ll do next time is par boil these a little bit but everything else in here is delicious oh my goodness I mean delicious the chicken is overcooked though I mean it said to cook the chicken for an hour in this in this you know obviously it’s been cooking for an hour but the flavor is like out of this world everything in here is delicious the only problem I have is that the chickpeas are a little bit underdone and I’ve already thrown the pasta in here so I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do but I’m just going to eat this it’s really good and hopefully the chickpeas will be a little bit less all d as I warm it up because if I try to cook it more now I’m just going to like seriously overcook the pasta so but the lentils are perfectly cooked the chicken it’s delicious it’s you know been cooked for a long time the broth is out of this world you got to try this soup what I suggest is that you boil the chickpeas first get them somewhat tender and then throw them in here or just use canned chickpeas that would solve a lot of problems too all right I’ll see you and I’ll see you soon all right so this recipe is an old Weight Watchers recipe that I used to make called Italian skillet chicken and it is is the opposite of the other recipe in that it has me put in all the aromatics first so it calls for two onions which I thought was kind of excessive so I’m just going to put in this much onion it also calls for me to put in carrots it just says like one medium carrot and like one stalk of celery I always add extra vegetables because I like the way the vegetables taste in this dish so I put in like three small carrots and the equivalent of like maybe two stalks of celery so what we’re going to do here is let those aromatics cook for a bit um until softened so that’s about 10 minutes and so I’ll bring you back then meanwhile back of the ranch the soup is boiling away over here I’m trying to turn it down so that it simmers instead of like boils but you can see it’s boiling like crazy and this had to cook for an hour which I better set a timer it’s been about 5 minutes so let me set that timer and I’m turning it down so that it simmers instead of boiling over all right so I’ll bring you back once these aromatics have cooked in a little bit okay okay so now that this is cooked down a little bit we’re supposed to add the chicken so I’m going to go ahead and do that and this is 3/4 of a pound of chicken that I basically just kind of cut up and we’re supposed to cook it until it’s no longer opaque and we’re also supposed to add the seasonings so the seasonings are one teaspoon of dried basil now if I had fresh basil I would just use a tablespoon of it and then it calls for a half a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper but go you ad double has salt and pepper in it so I’m just going to basically season it with a GL and that’s we going to have to use the dishwasher anyway I’m just going to use the metal for to avoid melting anything and stir this around now I like this recipe because it’s fast it’s fast it’s tasty it always tastes really good and it’s versatile so I could actually eat this with pasta if I want to pair with pasta or potatoes if I’m going to move with that or um rice because it’s got that tomato sauce steing which you going to see I’m going to be putting in some um crusted tomatoes and just tastes amazing even though it’s very simple and made have very simple [Music] ingredients all right so while that cooks you can see this over here is boiling away and I turned it down I’m turn down to two now it was on four like I don’t know why it’s it’s so high I think this eye is pretty high but I’m supposed to from time to time Stir It just to make sure nothing on the bottom is burning which it does not appear to be and if I can tell you how good this smells oh my goodness I mean it smells amazing and that pot is hot I’m going to have to start using a pot hold up ouch so you can see here that the chicken is less opaque we’re getting to the part to the point where it’s not going to be aake anymore this smells so amazing with the basil oh my goodness very simple very simple I mean Weight Watchers knows how to um have you cook like pretty healthy food that tastes good so I think I’m going to start using some of those old recipes you know the first time I lost 50 lbs I lost it on we washer believe it or not okay so now that this is less opaque we are going to add the remainder of the ingredients which just includes 14 1/2 oz of crushed tomatoes and I’m using Tor Roo crushed tomatoes um and this one actually have happen to have basil so too so let’s get that you know Incorporated and then I’m supposed to turn this down cover it and cook it for like 10 minutes like I said really easy very delicious it’s a great week night meal all right all right so I’m going to bring that up to a boil and I’m going to cook it for 10 minutes and bring you back then okay okay so 10 minutes is gone by and why do I have the feeling that this has not been cooking the way it’s supposed to let’s see I turned this down at one point cuz it was boiling [Music] away so let me see if the chicken is done I do not want to be eating raw chicken I don’t know about you but so basically I’m checking oh yeah this is chicken is definitely done okay now let’s see how the carrots are the carrots feel cooked all right because this wasn’t bubbling when I actually um open this pot I’m going to give this a few more minutes and then I’m going to check it out but what I could do in the meantime is do a quick taste test to see if I need to adjust the seasonings that tastes as good as usual that’s really good the carrots give it a somewhat sweet taste but not really I think I just need to cook it for like two or three more minutes to make it melt more um but really the seasonings are almost spot on I think I’ll just do a little bit more of the salt just to make sure and then I think I’m going to leave it alone I mean it’s really good I just want to make sure that the flavors actually melt a little bit more so I’m going to let it cook down the tiny bit more and this will be done let me tell you the basil in here gives it such Aroma the carrots are tender um the flavors are pretty much melted and it always tastes and it tastes even better the second day and it’s so versatile I could just you know have this over some pasta and be a happy child with some vegetables on the side and it’s going make me like three dinners it’s 3/4 of a pound of chicken so to me is is really really good I’m going to let that cook down for like two or three more minutes just to make sure make sure and we will be good to go all right the funny thing is that after I ended the last segment I realized that I shouldn’t have put a cover on this this should have been cooking with a cover off and just says to cook until the chicken is cooked through which the chicken is definitely cooked through so I don’t want to overcook this so let me taste it again now that I’ve given it a chance to concentrate the tiniest bit more I’m just going to taste a piece of the chicken okay now this is hot y’all this is like Hot Tomato so give me a moment mhm that is delicious the chicken is tender the flavors concentrated you can taste everything from the Tomato on down to the basil on down to the other seasonings I put in here um this is delicious and this is why it’s such a good Weight Watchers recipe all right this dish y’all is done go ahead and make this it is so ridiculously easy it’s not even funny and it’s amazing because it’s so easy but it tastes so good Italian skillet chicken you know I’m tempted to make myself some pasta and have this for dinner tonight but I think I’m going to hold on to this and have it for dinner tomorrow lunch tomorrow and I think I’m going to have the soup tonight cuz I’m really curious to see how the soup comes out all right I’ll bring you back and there you have it now that we’ve come to the end of the video I’ve actually learned quite a few other lessons um number one lesson is when you cook chickpeas from scratch make sure you cook them for a full hour before you put them into any recipe you’ll be happy to know that I ended up maybe taking another 10 minutes of cooking that soup cuz I had the way really over cooking the chicken versus cooking the chickpeas but that was worth it because it was so delicious and I ate it over and over again in the days after like you know the second day the third day and the fourth day and it was really delicious and the chickas were a little bit less alen which thank goodness the other thing I learned is that those old Weight Watchers recipes are really good and a lot of them are high protein so I’m going to be whipping out those old Weight Watchers recipes and if you want to see that sort of thing let me know and that brings me to my next question which is what would you like to see next in the series would you like to see me do the vegan series for a month would you like to see me do different diets like keto or what have you for for a month would you like to see how I managed to get 150 g of protein in a day and do some meal props that way would you like to see me cook um meeting different uh like the the the big 12 or what have you or the Blue Sky diet where you you know where I’m meeting like certain criteria um the Mediterranean diet which you like to see me do that or would you like to see me just dive into a whole series of meal related topics right or um just do budget uh do grocery hauls would you like to see me do a series involving a different store I realize that Publix is not in everybody’s jurisdiction but maybe Walmart is maybe Aldi is maybe Whole Foods is you would to see me do like a budget getting all foods from Whole Foods let me know or Sprouts right let me know in the comments below and um I’ll definitely take all that into consideration and if you have any other video ideas that you’d like to see me tackle let me know all right with all that if you enjoyed this video go ahead and give me a thumbs up don’t forget it helps the algorithm and it helps my channel and if you haven’t already subscribed what are you doing go ahead and subscribe so you can see more videos like this and um you know please leave me a comment below they really help me in terms of knowing you know what you like and what you expect all right take care and I’ll see you in the next video
