Chicken Dinners with Katy

By now I'm sure that most of you know my dear bloggy friend Katy from Food for a Hungry Soul. I can't talk about Katy without just gushing, she so full of happiness and love that reading her blog is like being wrapped in a warm blanket (I told you I was going to gush!). And not only that, but her recipes are always fantastic.

So she definitely came to the rescue, not once, but TWICE a few weeks ago when I was in need of some great chicken recipes. I had a freezer full of chicken thighs and needed some great ways to use them. The first thing I made was this.

It's called Simply Great Chicken, which is exactly what it is. It involves three ingredients, and about five minutes to prepare for a chicken dish that my husband immediately requested again. It's sweet, tangy and a definite repeat. Check out her recipe here.

And only a few days later I pulled out more chicken thighs and made this delicious dish.

This is Slow Cooked Ginger Orange Chicken, and it is delicious! I've made quite a few orange chickens in the past, and this is my favorite. It's healthy, rich and has a wonderful citrus flavor. It also teases you all day with it's amazing aroma as it cooks. Go here for the recipe.

Thanks so much Katy! Keep those fantastic dishes coming, we have loved them!

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Do you ever make a dinner, that's so good that you feel like the household culinary champ of the world? It's not too often that I make a dish that every single person in my family not just likes, but absolutely loves, sending them back for seconds. This was that meal for us, and I know that it's nothing fancy and new, but let me just tell you about these meatballs.

I had made meatballs in the past, and was totally turned off by them. Since I browned them before baking them, I felt like I was basically eating spaghetti, with big hunks of burger on top, and it wasn't very good. So, I didn't make any for a while. But when I got my Newman's Own Spaghetti sauce, I thought it might be fun to give meatballs another chance.

I found a great meatball recipe on recipezaar. Nothing fancy, just your regular meatball ingredients. But I didn't brown them this time, instead, I rolled them into balls and placed them on a cooling rack, on top of my baking sheet, which was covered in foil to catch all the fat that the meatballs rendered off when baking. The result were soft, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth meatballs that my family couldn't stop eating. They were also wonderful as sandwiches in your favorite marinara a few meals later. These are a definite new favorite at our house.


And the Newman's Own sauce? Not bad! I'm normally not one for jarred spaghetti sauces, I always feel like they are too sweet and lacking a lot of flavor, but this stuff was much more robust and full of great flavor. I still added a bunch of minced onion and garlic, but I just can't help myself there! I also used some of it for a Shepherd's pie that I'll post soon. I'm all about the classics right now baby!

Spaghetti and Meatballs
Adapted by Recipezaar

Ingredients

Hot cooked spaghetti noodles
Newman's Own Spaghetti Sauce, or preferred Spaghetti Sauce
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper

Directions

1. Cover a large baking sheet with tin foil and place a cooling rack on top of that. Preheat oven to 375.

2. In a large bowl, blend bread crumbs, beef, eggs, cheese, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on top of baking rack. Bake for 15 minutes, or until cooked through.

3. Assemble spaghetti, meatballs and sauce, and be sure to have lots of napkins!

CEiMB:Dark Chocolate Mousse

Update: It's been a few days since I've eaten this, and I don't know if I'm just in a better mood, or if sitting for a while has helped, but I'm really growing to LOVE this mousse. It's almost gone, and I'm getting a hankering for some more!
This is another treat to indulge your sweet tooth when you're trying to be healthy, sort of. I have very mixed feelings about this dessert. It's pretty, it's chocolatey, it's rich, and you can reeeeally taste that tofu. So, if you are a fan of all of the above this is the dessert for you! If not, you may just want to stick with chocolate pudding.

I didn't hate it, didn't love it, probably won't make it again, but I did enjoy making it! Check out the recipe here. Thank you Edible Ventures for hosting!

Hot Artichoke Dip

You know, I'm just going to say it, trying to eat healthy just plain sucks sometimes. It's not that I don't like healthy food, it's that I really like the stuff that's not so healthy. And I'm not much of a sweets girl, I'm talking big bacon cheeseburgers, greasy cheesy pizza, and salty snack food, oh how I love it! But, I made a goal this year by golly, and even though it's February and I'm supposed to have forgotten about it, I really want to accomplish my goal of getting healthy. Come hell or a high mountain of potato chips!

That's why I'm always grateful for recipes like this. They make the whole healthy process suck just a bit less. I love artichoke dip, it's cheesy and has that fantastic sharp artichoke flavor. But, unlike a lot of dips, this one is not full of fat and calories. In fact, the bulk of this dip is white beans, which gives the dip the creamy illusion that you are indulging and being naughty. It's wonderful for parties, and tastes just as good cold or room temp as it does hot.

Hot Artichoke Dip
Cooking Light

Ingredients

1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/3 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 (14-ounce) cans artichoke hearts, rinsed and drained, divided
1 (15.5-ounce)can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup (4 ounces) grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided (I really like Pecorino Romano, I almost always sub it for Parm)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
Cooking spray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine first 4 ingredients in a food processor; add 1 can of artichokes and beans. Process until smooth. Add remaining can of artichokes, 3/4 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, 1 tablespoon parsley, and garlic. Pulse 20 times or until artichokes are coarsely chopped.

3. Spoon mixture into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray; sprinkle top with remaining 1/4 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and remaining 1 tablespoon parsley. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until bubbly.


4. I think this is best served with tortilla chips, sliced baguette, carrots, celery or cauliflower.

Serves 12: Serving size is 1/3 cups

Per Serving: 98cal, 4g fat, 2g fiber, 5g prot, 488mg sod

Points per Serving: 2!!


With the leftover dip, I made an awesome roasted zucchini and mushroom panini (what else!) Roast whatever veggies you have (asparagus would have also been excellent), spread dip on one slice of bread, top with veggies and any cheese if desired and press. Delicious lunch!

So here's my question...what helps you when you're having a particularly hard day staying on that straight and narrow path to healthy eating?

"Chicken" Southwestern Salad and Pierogies Alfredo

Ah, it's Monday once again and the month is already halfway over! I'm not going to lie, it's nice to have these winter months go fast. We've managed to keep ourselves busy, but I need some sun! I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. We ended up having a great roast dinner with the family. Nothing outrageously romantic, but I definitely got to spend my day with the people I love!

Do you remember this little box of goodies I got last month?

Well since then I put the Alfredo sauce and salsa to good use. Here are some of the ways I've used them.

The alfredo sauce was probably the hardest for me. I'm normally not crazy about Alfredo. I always find it a bit bland, thick and well, fattening! So I actually made these Pierogies for my kids, who happily chomped them down. I just cooked some store-bought pierogie in a large skillet, and then tossed them with the Alfredo sauce until warm and slightly bubbly. The sauce is actually not bad, it has a lot of flavor and I believe would make any alredo lover happy.

My second review is the salsa. I LOVE salsa. It's one of my favorite condimints and great for parties. My favorite kind of salsa is fresh, nice and salty with a lot of fresh cilantro and just a bit of heat. The Newman's Own salsa was delicious, but a different tasting salsa than I usually seek out. It was more of a smoky-sweet flavor, but it had great chunky tomatoes in there and a nice freshness to it. I have mostly been dipping into this with tortilla chips (the multigrain ones are my favorite), but I also used it for this salad.

Have you ever mixed Ranch dressing with salsa? It's actually very delicious, and cuts the fat in half. That's exactly what I did with the dressing for this salad, I also added a squeeze of lime and some chopped cilantro. The Newman's Own salsa was perfect for the dressing and made every bite of my lunch delicious (along with my Diet Coke of course). For the salad itself, I used a spring mix, black beans, chopped cilantro and scallion, tomatoes and shredded cheddar. Corn and olives would also be wonderful, but I didn't have either this time. But my favorite part of the salad was the "chicken"...

And I wasn't even asked to review this product, but seriously, this stuff is fantastic! It's a meatless chicken patty, which normally don't leave me very impressed, but if you were to just serve this to me on a sandwich, without saying anything, I would eat every bite thinking it was chicken. It's so tasty, and has a fraction of the fat of a normal breaded chicken patty. And since I have to have some sort of meat on my salads, I am in love with these things!

And there is my review! So far I've been very happy with the Newman's Own product. Stay tuned for more reviews and have a very happy Monday!

HBi5: Red Beet Cheese Buns and Chocolate Cinnamon Bread

Happy Valentine's weekend! I really love Valentines Day. I love the aisles at the store that are full of pink and red. And I think it's great that we have a day to celebrate love, which according to John Lennon, is all we need!


The breads for this week were chosen wisely as they both reflect the holiday in different ways. The red beet buns were an obvious for their red color. I'll be honest, I wasn't that excited about this particular bread, but my curiosity kept me from skipping it. As it turns out, this has been my favorite so far! Of course the fact that I stuffed the buns full of cheese probably helped, but seriously, I loved the red "beety-onion-y" flavor of this bread. And the best part...my veggie/fruit hating son ate about three of these! (evil laughter...you're eating beets little boy!)

I made the dough per the instructions, and when it came time to bake them, I rolled the dough out to about an inch thickness, and spread garlic powder, Parmesan, mozzarella and sharp provolone. I rolled it up jelly style, sliced and baked. Pretty much like a savory cinnamon roll. The only downside is that the dough made my fridge smell pretty funky, but it was worth it. I'll be making this again!


The second bread was supposed to be a chocolate-espresso combination, but neither of us are coffee drinkers, and my husband finds the flavor of coffee abominable. So, instead I added a good helping of ground cinnamon for a nice subtle bite to the bread. Before baking the bread I worked in some extra chocolate chunks, the zest of an orange and some dried cherries and cranberries. It came out a very fun and pretty loaf of bread, but I wasn't too crazy about the taste. Since it's still a yeast bread, it never got too sweet and lacked a bit in flavor. It's basically something that you have to turn INTO a dessert. So I did what any sensible chocolate lover would do, smothered it in Nutella and strawberries. Now we're talking.

I think this bread has a lot of possibilities for a lot of fun desserts, however, I don't see myself making it again. I just think if I'm going to spend my calories making and eating a dessert, it's going to be something a little less...uh healthy!

Be sure to check out the other wonderful HBi5 entries here.

Have a wonderful Valentine's weekend my friends!

CEiMB: Marinated Flank Steak with Gorganzola Sauce

Well, the snow has stopped falling and the sun is shining, now it's just a matter of digging ourselves out! I actually can't complain too much about the snow storms though, I've had my husband and kids home to myself for two great days, and we've done a lot of playing and tromping through the snow.

I was really excited about this one, because I love steak, and I love blue cheese. My husband is not a fan of blue cheese, but he like Gorgonzola...I know, apparently he can REALLY taste a difference.

I made a few changes with this recipe. Rather then grilling the onions, I caramelized them. I also made my sauce with fat free half and half instead of buttermilk, added fresh parsley and lots of ground black pepper. This was a really good dish, and the flavors were outstanding. I was still the only one that liked the Gorgonzola sauce, but I'm kind of used to that :) Thanks for hosting Blair, from Deliciously Golden!

The recipe can be found here.

Is everyone getting ready for Valentine's Day? Glenn and I are thinking about making our own dinner at home? Does anyone have any good suggestions for a nice dinner at home for two?

Blogtastic Eats

I've said it once and I'll say it again, the best things I've made have come from other people's food blogs. I mean, you guys really know your food! The tragedy is that there are SO many great bloggy dishes, and only three meals in a day, I never feel like I'll be able to try them all. But even if I don't, rest assured, your pictures and descriptions always leave me drooling, and hungry! Here are two great finds that I recently tried, and must be shared.

I found these fantastic meatballs over at Gina's Weight Watchers blog. And while I'm not quite as strict on the diet as I should be (ahem), I still really try to eat delicious but healthy foods like this. Have you ever tried the potstickers from Costco. No, not the ones in the freezer, the fresh one, made with chicken, yeah, those! Aren't they awesome? These meatballs taste A LOT like them. They even come with a similar tasting sauce. They are juicy and full of flavor and were a hit with the whole family. You can find the recipe here.

Thanks Gina!


The second thing we made was Coleen's Pineapple Banana Bread. This was a bread that I just couldn't get out of my head, and I'm so glad I didn't! It's like summer in bread form. With the combination of banana, pineapple and coconut, it's the closest you'll come to eating a Pina Colada. Definitely try this, especially if you are buried in three feet of snow and need some sunshine in your house! The recipe can be found here. Thanks Coleen! And here's a picture of my daughter when I told her we were going to make banana bread.


She gets excited.

Is anyone else out there having a snow day? Not only is my girl home from school, but my husband is as well! I have to tell you, waking up to a lazy weekday morning, and having aebelskivers with my husband is not a bad way to start the day, although I'm not quite sure about having the deal with the snow everytime. Stay warm my friends, and keep cooking up those wonderful dishes!

Tuna Casserole

Hello! How was everyone's weekend? If you're from the east chances are you spent a lot of time shoveling off your car! Talk about snow! We ended up spending our entire weekend inside with the family, which turned out to be really nice. Of course, it was also nice to get out of the house this morning and back to the gym!

Ever since we've been home from our Christmas vacation I've been working hard to use up a lot of the food that's been sitting in our deep freezer and pantry. For some reason this has lead me to making quite a few classic meals that I grew up on. Maybe it's convenient to what we have, or maybe I'm just a bit homesick, but either way it's been really enjoyable for the whole family. My "meat and potatoes" husband is especially enjoying it.

I'm not a huge tuna casserole fan, but I really love this recipe. I think because it's not too gloppy or creamy and it's got a great tangy flavor. I actually found this in a diabetic cookbook that I received as a gift after being diagnosed with gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. I think what really makes this recipe is the mustard and just the right amount of sour cream and mayo that holds it all together well, but still gives it shape. If you are at all a fan of tuna casserole, give this a try!

Tuna Casserole
Adapted from The Type 2 Diabetes Cookbook

Ingredients

2 cans water-packed tuna
6 ounces uncooked egg noodles
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1/3 cup thawed green peas
2/3 cup light sour cream
1/2 cup lowfat mayo
3 teaspoons prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash Worcestershire, optional
dash hot sauce, optional
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Directions

1. Drain and flake tuna, set aside.

2. Cook and drain noodles according to directions.

3. Preheat oven to 350, combine noodles with tuna, celery, green onions and peas. Blend all remaining ingredients, except the cheese. Pour into a greased 2 quart casserole pan and top with shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serves 5: Serving size is 1 cup

Per Serving: 350cal, 15g fat, 18g prot, 20g carb

Points per Serving: (The recipe didn't have fiber, so I'm going to guess 2g fiber) 8points

CEiMB: Curried Chicken Salad

I think one of the best things about being in these food clubs is that it pushes me to make things that I would honestly never make on my own. This is a prime example of that, but I'm so glad I did! Curry and I aren't necessarily on bad terms, we just don't exactly see eye to eye. Every once and a while Curry and I will get together and have a decent enough interaction, but then it will be a long time before we get together again, making our next encounter fairly awkward. Luckily, we were both in a good mood yesterday and had an absolutely wonderful time.

I loved this salad! It made for such a perfect lunch and I can't wait to have it again. I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe. Rather than poaching my chicken in broth, I just roasted an entire chicken and chopped the breast meat. It came out so juicy and full of flavor. I also used a red curry paste rather then curry powder, since it's what I had. It had a slight spice and heat to it, but nothing overwhelming. The cilantro brightened the whole dish, the red grapes added a delicious sweetness with every bite, and the almonds brought in great crunch. I also squeezed lime juice over the whole thing for a bit of tang. I'm definitely a lot more sold on Curry, hopefully we'll be hanging out a lot more from now on.

Thanks to Sarah's Kitchen Adventures for hosting!

Curried Chicken Salad
Original Recipe by Ellie Krieger

Ingredients

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
1 1/4 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast halves, no more than 3/4-inch thick
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 cup halved red grapes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 ounces mixed greens (about 5 cups lightly packed))
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

Bring the broth and water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add chicken to broth and simmer, covered, for 8 minutes. Turn the heat off and let chicken stand in the cooking liquid, covered, until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove the chicken from the broth and cool completely in the refrigerator. Cut into 1/4-inch dice. Toast the almonds in a small dry skillet over medium-high heat until fragrant and beginning to turn golden, 2 to 3 minutes.

In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt, mayonnaise, and curry powder. Fold in the chicken, grapes and cilantro and season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, toss the greens with the oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper, to taste. Arrange the greens on 4 individual plates, top with a scoop of the chicken salad and sprinkle with the almonds.

Serves 4: (serving size: 1 cup chicken salad and 1 1/4 cups greens)

Per Serving: Calories 325; Total Fat 14 g; (Sat Fat 2 g, Mono Fat 6 g, Poly Fat 5 g) ; Protein 37 g; Carb 13 g; Fiber 2 g; Cholesterol 85 mg; Sodium 175 mg

Points per Serving: 7

Broccoli Salad

When I lived in Idaho, one of my favorite places to go to lunch was a place called 5th Avenue Bagelry. They made the best sandwiches, with fantastic unique ingredients, and killer drinks. But one of my favorite things to get there was their broccoli salad. It was fresh broccoli tossed with all sorts of goodies like bacon (BACON!), sunflower seeds, craisins, and a sweet tangy dressing. There was no end to how much of this salad I could eat! Luckily, it's very easy to make and is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. It's a great dish to serve in the summer for barbecues, but also good for when it's freezing outside and you need a little taste of summer to give you hope! Definitely try this salad, it's great with just about any dinner.

Broccoli Salad
Slightly Adapted from Allrecipes

Ingredients

1 pound bacon
4 cups broccoli florets
5 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Place bacon in a large skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly browned. Cool, crumble, and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, toss together broccoli, green onions, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and bacon.

3. In a small bowl, mix together mayonnaise, sugar, and red wine vinegar. Toss with vegetables to coat. Add cheese and toss again, lightly. Cover, and chill until serving.

Brisket

My husband was raised in Texas, which has given him a taste of good old southern food. One particular thing he asks for quite a bit is brisket, a cut of meat that I'm not very familiar with, and definitely never cooked before. So finally a few Sundays ago we thought we'd try our hand at some good old southern brisket. We found a lovely cut at Costco (I love Costco, I really do), and I found a recipe for a marinade at Recipezaar. Now, from what I understand brisket is normally dry rubbed and then smoked, but we thought we'd try something different. We cooked it in the oven for about five hours. We went about our business while it was cooking, and when we walked into our apartment complex (mind you, we live on the second floor), we could smell the brisket in the lobby! And it smelled GOOD! I made two briskets and I shredded the first one, which I thought it would be okay since it was practically falling apart after being cooked for so long. Not a good idea, it was tough, stringy and dry after I shredded it. Slice it, against the grain, and it will be juicy and rich with a great bark on the outside. I'm definitely sold on brisket now, but I do think next time I'll be more traditional and make it with a dry rub.

Brisket
Recipezaar

Ingredients

4-6 lbs beef brisket trimmed
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons celery seeds
1 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Mix ingredients and cover both sides of meat. If you do this with your hands, you may want to use gloves so you don't smell like liquid smoke for four days, it's strong stuff!
2. Wrap in foil and seal.
3. Marinate overnight in refrigerator.
4. Bake in 300°F oven for 5 hours, or at 275°F for 6 hours. May cover with barbecue sauce during last hour, leaving uncovered. I suggest Sweet Baby Ray's!

I served this with a broccoli salad, which I will post later and these mixed fingerling potatoes, that I also found at Costco. They are white, red and purple little potatoes that are so good coated in olive oil, herbs and roasted. Look for them next time you're there, they're so fun!