Hi, I’m Karlene & welcome to my channel. This week we’re turning Rice Bubbles into dinner! Why? To show you how you can make a delish dinner using an ingredient you probably already have in the pantry. Also, why not!?

I’ll link the recipes that I used or tweaked below however, some I just created through experimenting and taste testing. If you have been watching my channel for a little while and you would like me to start writing all these recipes down somewhere please comment below, I’m toying with the idea of blogging again so that I have somewhere to store recipes, activities, projects etc.

Feel free to check out some of my other videos centered around creating a beautiful life on a budget. Please subscribe for more family-friendly food, seasonal homemaking, DIY & more.

Thank you for stopping by, Karlene.

THIS WEEK’S MENU:

02:51 – Red Rooster Dupe – Strip Sub Combo’s
14:16 – Honey Mustard Chicken Schnitzel’s
20:16 – Greek Meatballs with Greek Fries, Tzatiki sauce & Greek salad.

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Other videos you may like:

Cook once & eat twice VOL 1 – one week’s worth of recipes: https://youtu.be/567ghD7PR3U

Cook once & eat twice VOL 2 – https://youtu.be/eBtW2ZJEWxM

Make ahead family meals on a budget: https://youtu.be/ZA81GsGA57g

20+ ways to save $$$ on your groceries: https://youtu.be/GIo5UIlW_vI

Back to school – Easy make ahead brekkies & snacks: https://youtu.be/_FTev_kci6I

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Links:
Greek dressing: https://www.loveandlemons.com/greek-salad-dressing/
Greek fry seasoning: https://www.acouplecooks.com/greek-seasoning/
Greek fries: https://www.acouplecooks.com/greek-fries/

Find me on Instagram for more day to day content and shout outs to let you know when I find good sales related to family life – @themakeovermumma

Hi I’m Kleen and welcome to the makeover mama here I enjoy sharing ways to makeover everyday meals and prepare family food that is minimum effort and maximum payoff on a budget we are a family of five with boys aged 9 5 and almost 1 in this current season of life

I really want to embrace the little things to create a memorable childhood for our children and we’ll share How We Do Family Life hom making and seasonal events on a budget and how you can Too good morning welcome to my kitchen if this is your first time here I normally do clean up this mess before we get rolling but we’re going to roll with the punches today cuz I’m working off about 5 hours sleep anyway if you are returning I so appreciate you clicking

On this video and spending some time with me here in my kitchen in this week’s video I’m I’m going to make three surprisingly delicious meals using drum roll one-handed doesn’t have the same ring to it rice bubbles yes I’m serious no I don’t mean straight from the packet

These are familyfriendly meals they are made on a budget they are so good I will be making them again so the first one we’re going to make is a dupe dup for Red roosta Chicken Strip Subs because for our family to go and get takeaway is

Like 50 bucks so we’re going to do homemade strip sub combos with red rooster style fries we’re going to be making Greek meat balls along with Greek fries slathered in siki sauce and crumbled feta and all of the goodness and we’re also going to make honey mustard chicken snitel with a delicious

Crumb think back to I feel like every High skill canteen do you remember those those crispy sweet chili chicken STS that you would get in like your high school canteen that’s the vibe that I was going for I’m like I just want like crispy chicken so I came up with the

Recipe for that but we’re going to do a honey mustard sauce instead some of these meals are cook once and eat twice part of these meals you can make a head so I’m going to try and make it really easy for you to recreate these dinners

At home if you have a bunch of kids like I do even if you don’t you’ve got leftovers to last year all week and you can cook once and eat three nights now I think that’s everything that’s on the agenda let’s get cooking here is our magic ingredient so if

Somebody says they’re having cereal for dinner this is this is not the same okay we’re going to go with I’m doing in quotation fingers here rice pops uh rice bubbles same thing and we’re also going to need some nice baguette style bread I got this two pack from CO’s for like

$250 $240 and then we’ve got some chicken breast so this is going to last us a couple of nights but that’s um about a kilo and a half of chicken breasts as well so I’ve just just pop that to the side and we’re going to make

The herbed Mayo that red rooster like to put on their subs and it’s also great for dipping sauce so we’re going to go in with about half a cup I’m probably a bit more generous but I was about half a cup of whole egg mayonnaise something

Nice and creamy and we’re going to add some pickle juice if you saw my last video I pickled some cucumbers and you just want that sweet Tangy pickle juice there so if you’ve got sweet gerkens or you’ve got something else like that a cocktail onions you can using that mine

Was like a sweet pickle so that’s why I wanted to use it and we’re going to go in with about half a teaspoon of dried dill if you have fresh dill that’s fine use that and I was going to go in with about a teaspoon like a heat teaspoon of

Mixed herbs but that’s all that I had left so we’re just going to make do with that we’re going to season that with salt and pepper now if you don’t have pickle juice you just want something Tangy so you can use apple cider vinegar normal white vinegar white wine vinegar

You know use something acidic anything that you have is fine because mine was a sweet pickle it wasn’t sour enough to taste like for my taste so I just added a little squirt of lemon juice there but you don’t have to do that once you’re happy with the flavor pop that in the

Fridge until everything else is done next up we’re going to make a simple batter so that the rice bubbles have something to stick to we’re going to go in with about half a cup of plain flour and we want to make this really flavorsome so we’re going to be adding

In about a teaspoon of garlic powder 1 teaspoon of onion powder and we’ve got some salt and pepper as you can see so I season everything as I go as a way to make everything really flavorsome and we’re just going to add a small Touch of

Water so that it’s nice and thick almost like a really thick custard we’re going to take six potatoes and cut them into home style fries and we’re going to add two PS of water into our glass dish and microwave that for 10 minutes to soften before roasting them

And I’m going to just tread up some iceberg lettuce cuz that’s what red rooster normally put with their subs uh to go along with our herb to Mayo and I’m just going to prep everything else while the potatoes are getting pre-cooked next up is our homemade red rooster fry seasoning we’re going to

Need chicken stock smoked paprika salt pepper garlic and onion powder if this isn’t your first time in my kitchen you would know that these are sort of the similar things that I like to use all the time uh that way I’m not spending a whole lot of money on ingredients that I

Would never use again I used two teaspoons of salt for this I don’t know why I should have just used one teaspoon and I was going to and I doubt it myself don’t uh because the chicken stock powder has salt in it anyway as one of like its main ingredients so 1 teaspoon

Of salt is fine 1 tpoon of stock Powder season it with some pepper to taste and we’re going to do 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and we’re also going to do 1 teaspoon of onion powder and with the smoked paprika I don’t want to go too heavy-handed there it’s really just to

Help it add a nice golden color to our fries I want this to be a really fine powder because you know Red Rooster fries normally don’t have visible chunks of herbs and spices on them so I’m just going to mix that through and use my mortar and pesel that accidentally

Matches my bench top and we’re going to grind that to a really fine powder so that we can toss that through over our fries to make this super fine crumb we’re going to need 3 cups of rice bubbles I started with two but after I threw them in the blender I thought oh

That doesn’t look like as much as I’ll need but I went with the two cups but yeah I went back and had to do more so just start with three cups and throw that into your food processor or blender whatever you have and I’m just crunching

Up the little bits that were sort of missed by the blades and just making sure there’s no like huge chunks of rice bubbles in there cuz I want this to be a super fine crumb pop that aside while we prep our chicken so for this we’re just going to

Use two chicken breasts to feed my family of for will’ll be eating this meal because chicken Subs a bit much for uh not even a one-year-old to process so we’re just going to go ahead and we’re going to slice them in half to thin them out instead of smashing them out because

That just splatters cell Manilla everywhere and this is just quicker so I’m just going to slice them in half and the subs normally have almost like little tenderloins little pieces in them so we’re just going to go ahead and slice them in half again so that we’ve

Got um four pieces coming from one chicken breast and I’m just going to do that for both pieces we got one little tender line attached there so I’m just going to leave him as ear and then I’m going to do the same with the other chicken

Breast now it’s taken 10 minutes uh to prep everything else so now our potatoes are pre-cooked like cooked through so I’m just going to drizzle I’ve just drained out the water like the two PES of water that I’d thrown into my little Pyrex dish from the ’90s I’ve dragged

About that before if this isn’t your first time here and I’ve drained out that water and tossed through some vegetable oil and then we’re going to add our seasonings as well and then I just like to I’ve just looked at that eyeball it and I thought oh that you

Know looks like enough I don’t want it to be too salty cuz you know sometimes Red Rooster fries like so much salt we’re just going to give that a toss through and then we’re going to dump that out onto our prepared oven tray and we’re going to get that in the oven to

Crisp up and make it nice and golden so I like to use these washed potatoes because it just saves me time having to peel a bunch of potatoes and you know prep everything so that’s just the way that I like to cut Corners to get dinner on the table

Quickly now that all the prep work is done we’re going to go ahead and drop our chicken into the batter and then into that crumb mixture there so I’m just going to use one hand to sort of coat the chicken in the batter and then

Trying to hold it by the little end and making sure the little tip is covered in it as well I’m just going to drop that into our rice bubble like our Blended rice bubbles to act like a Crum and using my other hand to try and cover

That on and then press it in and it’s okay if the batter is on the thicker side cuz it kind of has that sort of drippy kind of look about it like you when KFC has their like their batter sort of coated in there so that’s okay

If it’s on the thicker side because once it Cooks up it doesn’t taste flowy at all so I’m just making sure that that’s covered really well and then I’m going to just pop that on a plate while my oil is getting preheated so it is a bit of a

Messy job but it is well worth it and yes I do wash my hands very well in between touching anything else while I’m throwing my chicken into some oil on the background there I want to go ahead and warm up our bread Subs in the oven but I don’t want them to dry

Out and get so hard and crispy that it hurts my little kid’s teeth so I’m just going to go ahead and wrap that up in some Al oil you reckon it’s big enough you reckon I ripped off a piece big enough for it to warm up without no no

You guessed it not big enough it’s like trying to wrap a Christmas present over here flashbacks from last year I’m just going to go ahead and rip off another bit because I didn’t use enough but anyway works fine got to throw that in the oven to warm that through ready for our

Subs okay the chicken is nice and golden so it is time to assemble our red rooster strips up combos uh you can see I’ve got some wax paper in the background there that I just cut into little square pieces cuz I’m going to wrap these up which I

Thought would be a really nice way to have a picnic lunch or you know just make it feel a little bit more special for the family cuz you know it’s the little things that make a meal special so I’m just going to go ahead and use our herb Mayo that’s been marinating in

The fridge and I’m going to add some crispy lettuce and I’m going to go ahead and cut these in half cuz I you know the kids aren’t going to eat a whole one of course and I wanted to add the Mayo onto both sides of the bread uh just so that

That nothing feels dry that’s one of our little chicken pieces there so you can see that that crumb has really adhered well and it has crisped up beautifully and it was not dry at all side note on the Mayo we did have a little bit left just to dip our fries

Into but you so could have easily made more of this it was so delicious so I’m just going to take my little squares of wax paper and I’m just going to fold it over so it ends up having Four Points like this so it doesn’t need to be perfect so I’m just

Folding it over one more time just because of the length of my little uh little Subs my little baguettes and I’m just I’m just going to go ahead and wrap that up and then I’m going to tie it off with some twine that I had on hand and

I’m going to assemble all of these ready for dinner and here is our dinner all ready to go I put it together as if you could take it like away for a picnic being at Springtime and it’s beautiful weather outside my kids were so excited just to

See it looking all you know pretty paying you know a bit of attention to the detail there so dinner wasn’t boring they loved it and this is how much and we had left over for tonight’s dinner we’re going to use our mad knife skills to chop up some potatoes that’s just a

Cop out of my husband who says that I look like I’m going to cut a finger off at any moment he watches one of my videos what’s this then Dan what’s this then anyway just having a little fun there so uh we’re going to do crispy potatoes tonight with some honey mustard

Chicken schnitzel not creamy style nice and sweet and I’m just going to go ahead and stick it in Mom’s Pyrex dish from 95 with two Palm fulls of water and we’re going to microwave that for 10 minutes these potatoes were so popular around the dinner table the kids were

Asking for them again and again this week so they did appreciate the flavor and the texture so I hope your kids will too on the side we’re just going to do simple steamed veggies tonight cuz I just want something really easy and quick using broccoli and zucchini just

Cutting them into little batons so that baby can you know hold those and feed himself I’ve added some water to the bottom of my sauce pan there to steam them so that when it’s go time everything’s ready to go I can just flick them on and then just walk away walk

Away b the baby or do something helpful but yes we’re going to make the same batter as we did the night before but we’re going to use about 3/4 of a cup of flour as opposed to half a cup to make sure that each piece is really well coated

Adding just enough water so it’s a nice thick consistency just like this next up I’m going to prepare our crumbs so we’re going to use our rice pops our rice bubbles to do that and we’re going to go in with two cups this time and I’m going

To not make it so fine so like I mentioned before it’s kind of like those sweet chili chicken tenders that you remember from the high school like Tu shop that had like little bubbles in them and they were like crispy but they weren’t like a crumb as such they had

More texture about them that’s what I want for tonight’s dinner I use the end of my rolling pin just to crush them partially always breaking my wrist there doing that but I mean you could use you know cocktail muddler or whatever you like to meat m whatever you got you can

Use that to crush them up but you just don’t want to crush them all up so that it’s not super fine next up I’m going to prepare the last two chicken breast that I had left over from the packet that I bought earlier so there is a little

Tender line attached there that I’ve just sort of SED and set off to the side so I’m just going to um slice them in half so that that they’re nice and thin but I’m going to use our little meat mallet just to thin it out that little

Bit more to make sure that our schnitzels will cook uh quickly and evenly for tonight’s dinner I’m just throwing them back into the Container they came in just to help me try and streamline this process as I prepare things and I’m just sort of separating that little extra little section um off

To the side of the chicken breast there so then they’ll be like the little kids size little portions and like the larger portion will be for like hubby and myself now that’s all the pieces prepared from two chicken breasts I’m just going to pop that to the side while

I get other things ready now the 10 minutes are up so it’s time to drain the potatoes we’ve drizzled them with some olive oil and we’re going to season them with a decent sprinkle of some salt pepper onion powder garlic powder you know the drill right a Sprinkle of smoked paprika

And tonight we’re going to add a dash of oregano mix that through well and dump it onto a preprepared tray and bake for about 180 until nice and golden on all sides next up is our assembly line for our snitel and we are just going to go

Ahead and cover that in that thick batter first and then we’re going to roll them in our crumb mixture you want to go ahead and press the chicken firmly into all of those little rice Bubbles and um sort of thin it out as you go if that makes sense sort of flattening the

Meat out as you go so that way it’s really pressed on there firmly and they won’t just fall off once you get them into that hot oil to shallow fry Them next up we’re going to assemble our honey mustard sauce so we’re going to need honey mustard I’m just going to use my little Pyrex dish here and I read a little trick when you want to measure out honey to give it a light Spritz of cooking spray first with

However you’re measuring it and it’s meant to stop the honey from sticking so that when you’re measuring other ingredients it’s not just a sticky mess so we’re going to go in with just under half a cup of honey my mom brought this home for me from the farmers market

Which was lovely locally saued honey so we’re going to use almost half a cup of honey and then we’re going to also use some chicken stock powder as well we’re aiming for about 1 cup of liquid we’re going to add half a cup of water I’m

Just using it and stirring out the rest of the honey there so it’s not wasted so half a cup of water and then that’s our sort of liquid portion and then just to flavor that we’re going to add a teaspoon of chicken stock powder I still

Want this sauce to be nice and thick so I’m going to go in with Ye Old Faithful corn flour I’ve got two heaped teaspoons of corn flour there but I think I end up going back in with an extra one just because I wanted it to be nice and thick

We’ve got some whole grain mustard so we’re going to go in with a heaped teaspoon of that for some Flavor dejon mustard we’re going to go in with maybe a like a smaller teaspoon of that or maybe even half a teaspoon I didn’t want it to be too overpowering for the kids I find that using whole grain is a lot more of a milder flavor and we’re just going to whisk that

Together before warming that up on the stove top to thicken that up in the background so I finished shallow frying all of our chicken and then I’ve just popped it into the oven at 180 just to help cook that through and that just buys me some time to juggle you know

Bath time feeding the baby in between pulling dinner together so that was me just checking with the meat the momer that it was definitely cooked all the way through I could have just hacked into a bit but I sort of wanted it to be nice and pretty on the table so it

Wasn’t so much of a wh bam thank you ma’am kind of appearance you know what I mean I ran out of rice bubbles to do my last little bit so he just got shied in a little bit of that batter and just cooked through so I sort of left him to

The side cuz I’m thinking you know one of these things is not like the others flashback to play school um and don’t forget this is just two chicken breasts that I’ve prepared so it looks like a lot more than what you would think for two chicken breasts so we’re

Just trying to stretch that out now it’s time to Plate it up I’m just going to surround my chicken with our veggies and I’m going to drizzle our sauce on top and then dinner will be ready now dinner is served I finished off the potatoes on

Our oven sake plate that it’s on with a little bit of cheese on top just to melt that covered it with some shalots and here is our dinner ready as you can see the crumb like the rice bubbles did not fall off because of that nice thick

Batter and the kids thought it was delicious and I will definitely make it again now the last meal we’re going to make together is some Greek meatballs and we’re going to bulk it up with 1 Cup cup of oatmeal soaked in one cup of water that we’re going to put aside to

Absorb while we prepare everything else this is a trick that you can use to help uh extend your meat make your meat go further if you’re interested in other ways that you can save money on your groceries and make your food go further I will link a popular video below next

We’re going to start preparing our Greek fries these looked so beautiful and they tasted amazing so we’re just going to go in with a mandoline because I want them to be nice thin fry compared to the normal like home style um like chips that I would normally

Do the mandolin missed a few so I’m just going to go and just hand slice those to match the others add a couple of palm Falls of water to these and I ended up microwaving this for a little bit longer cuz there’s quite a few potatoes in

There it it was closer to 14 minutes until they were nice and softened now that that oatmeal has been soaking in milk for a little while it’s time to create our meatballs now I adapted a few recipes because I just wanted to use what I had season that generously with

Some salt pepper I’m going to use an Italian herb mix cuz that’s got parsley uh basil oregano that whole mixture in there and I’m going to go in generously with that about a tablespoon and a half I’m going to add a bit of extra oregano through there as well by about a

Teaspoon two garlic cloves I Juiced some lemons knowing I’d need that for a few recipes today so I’ve added about a tablespoon and a half of some fresh freshly squeezed lemon juice one egg to bind it together and we can’t forget our rice bubbles cuz that

Was the whole point right we’re going to make dinner with rice bubbles so we’ve already beefed it up with one cup of oatmeal and instead of using you know yesterday’s bread or anything like that we’re going to go in with a cup of rice Bubbles as well to geekify these

Meatballs further we’re going to go in with half a piece of feta from the deli reserving the other half for our Greek fries later on we’re just going to crumble that in and then we’re going to mix that all together once you’ve finished shaping these I’m going to roast them or bake

Them for uh about 25 minutes on 180 you can use an air fryer and rotate them but because I had so many I just found that easy just to whack it in the oven leaving me handsfree to do other things at dinner time now that our potatoes are cooked

Through we’re going to add some Greek seasoning before we put it in the oven and crisp them up so I’m going to link over recipe below for the Greek seasoning I just tweaked it a little bit because I didn’t want to make a whole batch I just wanted enough for the fries

So I’m just going to drizzle some olive oil on it season it generously with some salt and of course some pepper now I’m just going to go in with about a teaspoon of each of the seasonings so I’ve got some onion powder garlic powder oregano and Dill if

You had some fresh herbs great to go for it I just have these um in the pantry so it’s just easier for me to cook with and I’m adding a Sprinkle of corn flour to create like a crispy crunch on the outside of all of those fries as well

We’re just going to shake that together to mix it all up and then pop that onto a prepared tray and pop in the oven I will link this saiki sauce recipe below and we’re going to need two cups of Greek yogurt I made ours in the easo

Because it’s like $4.70 for a kilo of yogurt as opposed to like $8 off the shelf and this system’s really like nice and thick like when you make yogurt it’s not runny at all so if you want to see me how I have made yogurt in this before

And how easy it is I will link another video below so I think I was just I don’t know why I merched it I knew it was going to be half a tub probably just didn’t trust myself so you need 2 cups of Greek yogurt to make my life easier

I’m just going to go ahead and add everything into a nice big jar and then I’m just going to shake it to mix it all together as opposed to you know using a mixing bowl mixing everything and then trying to get all of that into a jar that I can store and

Keep in the fridge I thought that this would last a lot longer than it did it was so good that we went through it really really quickly you’ll need two medium garlic cloves minced one cup of finely grated English cucumber I just used a whole cucumber I

Did plan on using the Cucumber for a salad as well and a Greek salad on the side but I ended up using the whole thing just to make up my one cup of cucumber because once I strained it over the sink in a mesh strainer and squeeze

Out all the liquid there really wasn’t much left to my surprise so I should have bought two for this you’ll need one tablespoon of red wine vinegar I didn’t have any so I just substituted balsamic vinegar and it was fine 2 tbsp of olive oil 1 t teaspoon of

Salt 1 tspoon of chopped fresh dill and I didn’t have that so I just went in with about a teaspoon of just dried dill okay maybe teaspoon and a half by the looks of that I was pretty generous and it asked for fresh ground black pepper as well

This is all the Cucumber that I have left after draining it on the sink squeezing it out repeatedly out of that whole cucumber I’ve got like a large handful and I needed a cup so yes if you want to make a side Greek salad to go with dinner you’ll need two cucumbers

Cuz pretty much one cucumbers is just for this sauce go ahead and shake up your jar so then you don’t need to worry about a mixing bowl on a spoon and then we’re going to set that in the mic microwave in the fridge not the microwave in the

Fridge just to help those flavors develop now the last thing we’re going to make is our Greek salad and our homemade Greek salad dressing now this is quite simple all of the flavors throughout this whole meal are all very similar so it’s not like you needed a whole stack of different ingredients

They’re all very similar so we’re going to go in with 1/4 a cup of extra virgin olive oil I will link this below 3 tbsp of red wine vinegar I use my balsamic you need one garlic clove that is minced you need 1/4 teaspoon of dejon

Mustard you also need half a teaspoon of dried oregano I didn’t have much left in the bottom of mine so I just threw the whole l in and you need 1/4 teaspoon of salt and some freshly ground black pepper as well same deal I’m preparing all of this

In a jar so I can just shake that and then serve it when I’m ready next up we’re just going to chop all of our ingredients for a simple Greek salad minus the Cucumber now dinner turned out beautifully I pulled out the fries out of the oven drizzled some siki sauce on

It crumbled some extra feta a Sprinkle of Dill finally chopped red onion and that was ready to go there’s our dipping sauce that I also put all over our meatballs and I finished it off with a glaze that I’ve used many times before on my channel I’ll show you in a second

And this is our really simple Greek salad because I ran out of cucumbers and I just wanted to keep it really simple and flavorsome and easy and dinner was a Win thank you for clicking on this video and spending your time with me in my kitchen I hope that you are inspired to create a delicious meal at home that will not cost you and your family a fortune something that the kids will love to eat as well thanks again for

Watching if you haven’t subscribed already please do so if you enjoy cooking on a budget minimum effort maximum payoff kind of meals that’s my vibe at the moment and I’ll see you on my next video thank you bye

4 Comments

  1. How does everything you make look so delicious?! 😍 I wish I had the confidence not to measure seasonings, etc. I’ll get there one day!

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