Tacos, Tostadas, Toffee Bars, and Chicken

I just finished a take-home final, and now I only have 2 more to go until I graduate! I'm taking the rest of the day off to regroup and re-motivate. 

We haven't been doing a ton of cooking because of final exams; instead we've been cleaning out our freezer. We have some frozen soup, frozen mac and cheese, and a frozen pasta dish that are ready for us for dinner this week. I also have some unhealthy frozen mini pizzas to get us through final exams :) 

Tacos:

Last night we had tacos for dinner. We make our own taco seasoning instead of buying the packets from the store. I've noticed that the packets from the store either have too much salt (bad for E) or MSG (bad for me). We have a ton of spices & seasonings at home, so making our own is pretty easy. We use this recipe, but we cut the salt in half. We usually buy whole-wheat tortillas. Then we shred up some monterrey jack cheese, buy pre-shredded lettuce, and then serve with taco sauce or salsa, fresh tomatoes, and maybe some sour cream.

Tostadas:

To use up the shredded lettuce and cheese, we try to make tostadas within a few days of making tacos. We buy pre-made tostadas, and then either make refried beans out of pinto beans, or just buy a can of refried beans (not that healthy - oops!). We also either buy guacamole at Chipotle or make some at home. A typical tostada for us is: tostada shell (warmed in the oven), refried beans (warmed on the stove), guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese and lettuce. They are really easy to make & it's a good way to use up some of the taco fixings. 

Toffee Bars:

We had a potluck in my last law school class ever. When my cousins and I had a girls night about a year ago, my cousin brought over the ingredients and recipe for chocolate toffee crescent bars. They were delicious, and pretty easy to make, so I decided that they were a good thing to bring to a potluck :) Here is the recipe that I used. Just remember to let them cool for a while; otherwise the chocolate will make a big mess :)

Chicken:

A few months ago, I made chicken stew with white beans and spinach. When I made it, I froze 3 slices of bacon, 4 chicken thighs, a diced onion (you have to freeze this in a ziplock bag inside of an airtight container so it doesn't stink up your freezer!), 2 TBSP. of tomato paste, and a cup of chicken broth, so I could make it again another time. I made it again this Thursday, and only made one change: instead of adding oregano (I really don't care for oregano), I added 1/2 tsp. of dried basil. It was delicious. The best part was that thanks to my obsessive meal-planning and freezing, I had all of the ingredients except for the beans and spinach, so it was really inexpensive to make :)