Easy Chicken n Biscuits

FINALLY a new post!

Between trying to recover from awful jobs and an awful cold, I haven't posted any thing new in weeks!

I decided to start up again and made it my goal yesterday to cook dinner.  This was so easy, even my sorry been-glued-to-the-couch-butt could do it.

Weight Watchers Points: 6 points when the recipe is made into 8 servings

Here's the ingredient list:

chicken (about 2 pounds)
can of cream of mushroom soup
bag of frozen vegetables
tablespoon of milk
2 tablespoons of ranch dressing
dash of Parmesan cheese
tube of reduced fat refrigerated biscuits
salt, pepper, oregano, basil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and get a cookie sheet and casserole dish ready.

2. Cook the chicken in a skillet with salt, pepper, oregano, basil and a little bit of oil until browned.

3. Cut chicken into bite size pieces.

4.  Mix together in a big bowl: chicken, can of soup, bag of vegetables, milk, ranch, and cheese.

5. Pour into greased dishes.  I did one small casserole and two cute individual ones.

6. Cover with foil and cook for 15 minutes.

7. Reduce heat to temperature on biscuit package.  (Mine were supposed to cook at 350).  Cook biscuits.  Leave the casseroles in there too!

8. When biscuits are cooked, remove everything from oven.

9. Place biscuits on top of casserole and sprinkle with some cheese if you please.

Don't know why the picture came out so yellow!

Single serve comfort food!

Wash it down with some yummy tree water.

ENJOY!

PS: CHECK OUT WASPY KNITTIN' SECTION!

Sweet Potato Soup

I must be on a soup roll.... two soup blog posts in a row!

This stuff is really good.  It reminds me of Ethiopian food or even mild Indian food.  It tastes like FALL.

I nabbed the recipe from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Potato-Carrot-Apple-and-Red-Lentil-Soup/Detail.aspx.  I followed the original pretty closely, but used less butter and regular lentils instead of red lentils.

Here's what you will need for the first step:

2 tablespoons of butter
2 sweet potatoes (pretty big ones, peeled and chopped)
1 onion  (chopped)
3 carrots (peeled and chopped)
1 large or 2 small apples (peeled and chopped)


Cook all those lovely harvest flavors together for 10 minutes on medium heat.

Sauteing the sweet potatoes, onion, apples and carrots.

 
Next you will need:

4 cups vegetables stock
1/2 cup of lentils
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
salt
pepper

Add these ingredients to the vegetables and bring to a boil for about half an hour or until veggies are tender.

Smelled soooooooooooooo good.

Transfer to food processor in small batches and liquify!

Pour back into original pot.  Add more broth, water or olive oil until you like the texture.  I added a little more broth and a few tablespoons of olive oil to mine.

DONE!

Check out the finished product:

Pesto (sorta) Tomato Soup

My favorite herb by far is basil.  If I could make it into a perfume, I would.  So when I saw that the letter "P" won the poll (yes, I am getting desperate when it comes to motivation/ideas/polls), I was excited to make PESTO!

For some reason pesto made me think of tomatoes and tomatoes made me think of tomato soup.  It is such an awesome tummy warming food for fall.  I decided to make my own recipe of pesto tomato soup.

What I did not account for was being able to make pesto in Asheboro.  The closest grocery store is a Food Lion and they only have dried basil.  So my plan was to go to an Asian market and get fresh basil, since these places usually have it for Vietnamese or Thai food.

Royall and I drove up to the biggest Asian market around and after getting over the usual "fish-smell-hitting-you-right-in-the-face" Asian store disorientation, I realized they did not have fresh basil. 

However, we did leave with octopus flavored chips (that was Royall's pick), assorted ramen noodles and dumplings, a box of crackers, and a big bag of rice.

We then decided to go to a regular grocery store.  We got lost and took a nice drive around town until we happened upon an organic store.  They did not have fresh basil and I refused to pay 6.99 for 5 oz. of pre-made pesto sauce.  I settled for a dry pesto mix and some other ingredients and 60 bucks later, we were heading back home.

There's no pine nuts or REAL pesto sauce in this, hence the "sorta" in the title.

I was pretty amazed at how well this turned out though, especially since I made it up all on my own!

Okay, you will need the following:

2 (28 oz) cans of tomatoes
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
white bread
chicken broth (about a cup)
salt, pepper
pesto sauce mix (1/2 packet)
splash of milk
2 tablespoons of sugar


1. Chop your onion and garlic and heat on medium in a skillet with olive oil for a few minutes.
2. Add cans of tomatoes and all the liquid and bring to a boil.
3.  Add a few chunks of white bread (leave out the crust).  I got this idea from when RH made gazpacho.
4. Add pesto seasoning and let boil for 5 minutes.
5. Use a food processor to get it nice and blended.  I had to do two batches in order to fit it all.
6. Return to stove and add chicken broth until the soup is as thin as you would like.
7.  Stir in salt, pepper, sugar and a touch of milk.
8.  Do a taste test to see if you need more salt, etc.
9. Serve with crusty bread or dare I say....GRILLED CHEESE! mmmmhmmm.

Enjoy!

Here's the photo play-by-play:

Ingredients

Adding the bread!

My old school can opener.  Gets the job done!

That's not mold!- it's the pesto powder.

Letting it all stew together

Before

After

Final product

I wish I had made grilled cheese to go with this! Oh well, keeping it low-cal.

PS: This would be awesome with a dollop of sour cream.

Healthy Chicken Packets

These chicken packets pack a lot of flavor, but not a lot of fat! My favorite part: no dishes to clean when you are done! Simply throw out the foil.

You'll need:

boneless, skinless chicken breasts
olives (I used chopped, sliced or whole would be fine too)
diced tomatoes
fresh basil (mine was stolen from the local pho restaurant)
salt, pepper, and garlic if you please
I also think this would be awesome with fresh mozzarella cheese, but that would up the calories and fat

Put the chicken on a piece of foil.  Layer with basil, olives, and tomatoes.

Gorgeous healthy colors!

Fold foil into packet and place on baking sheet.

Cook at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

STEAMY!!!

The final product.

Eat up!

spaghetti pie

I remember my mom making this when I was a kid.  I loved the dry crunchy pasta crust edges.  Mmmm.  Nothing like taking decent Italian food and making it totally waspy.  I LOVE IT!

Here's my rendition of spaghetti pie.  It's super-easy and possibly less messy than traditional spaghetti.  Royall loved it because he said it had the great taste of spaghetti, but in a more convenient way to eat it.

Here's what you will need:

box of spaghetti
jar of spaghetti sauce
mozzarella cheese (just a sprinkle)
ricotta cheese (1/2 to 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
cooking spray
oregano

First things first:
Boil some water and cook a whole box of spaghetti.  Also, preheat the oven to 350.

Once the spaghetti has cooked, rinse it off with cool water and spray it lightly with cooking spray or olive oil.

In a bowl, combine the spaghetti, 2 well beaten eggs, a dollop of sauce (maybe more like a 1/2 cup), and some ricotta and mozzarella.  I didn't measure the cheese very well, just used what I thought looked good.  Sprinkle some oregano in there too!

Pour the spaghetti mixture into a pie pan.  Press it down so it is even and if you can, press some spaghetti up on the sides to form a pie crust.  Leave a shallow well in the middle and add more ricotta and mozzarella in the middle.

Pour spaghetti sauce on top and press/rub it into the pie.  Try and use the whole jar or else you risk a dry pie.  If you don't like dry crusty pasta on the edges, cover well with sauce.

Bake for 25 minutes and then add mozzarella on top.

Let it cool a little bit before cutting into the pie.


Here's the photo play-by-play:

YUM!!!

PS: You can spice this up by adding the following: veggies, ground beef, olives, or different cheeses!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This was an attempt to make chicken wings healthier.  I'm guessing that it is healthier because: 1. I used white meat chicken instead of dark meat, 2. nothing is fried, 3. cream cheese was fat free, 4. it tastes great with celery!

Here's the ingredient list:

two cooked chicken breasts, shredded
1 package fat free cream cheese
1/2 cup of reduced fat ranch dressing
1/2 cup of Frank's Red Hot or similar hot sauce
dollop of mayonnaise
a couple sprinkles of low-fat mozzerella

 Step by step photos:

Two shredded chicken breasts

Liquid ingredients

Combine chicken with liquid ingredients until it looks like vomit.

Cook at 350 for about 20-30 minutes or until nice and bubbly.

Serve with celery and crackers.

YUM!

PS: Tastes really good as a cold chicken salad if you add chopped celery!

Zucchini Casserole

Zucchini Casserole

Ingredients: zucchini, onion, garlic, can diced tomatoes, shredded mozzarella.

Got a little too brown on the top for my liking.  I think our oven runs too hot.

Didn't even get to take other pics because it was gobbled up pretty quick!

Here's how to make it:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a pretty dish with oil.

2. Slice up two medium/large zucchini (about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds), put aside for later.

3. Saute about a half a cup of chopped onion and 1 clove garlic in olive oil.

4. Add a can diced tomatoes, drained very well.  I used the kind with Italian seasonings in it.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

5. Create a layer of zucchini coins on the bottom of pan.

6. Add layer of tomato mixture.

7. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

8. Repeat until all ingredients are gone.  Don't put cheese on top yet- it will burn.

9.  Bake for 20 minutes.

10.  Reduce heat to 350 and add top layer of cheese.  Bake for 10 minutes.

DONE!

OKRA, part one

Okra. Not orca (as in whale) or oprah (as in tv host). The weird green sorta-looks-like-a-pepper vegetable that for some reason people adore in this state I am living in. Every barbecue joint around here serves fried okra.

The farmer's market bounty.  Looks like I need to buy a cornucopia.

I've eaten okra before, usually fried, but never actually touched a fresh one until today.  Royall got close to two pounds of it at the farmer's market this morning.  It has a fuzzy layer on the outside like a peach and a mysterious goo with a texture that is not un-like spit on the inside.  I tried it raw and it was nothing spectacular- kind of sweet, pretty bland.

Oooey-gooey.  This is why people use it to thicken soups.

Ooey-gooey, take two.

So, what is the first thing you do with a vegetable that you don't know how to properly cook?  If you live in the south, the answer is: fry it.

I googled how to fry okra and came up with this conglomerate of a recipe:

1. Cut okra.

2.  Place in ice water in the fridge for an hour.

Add salt to ice water.

3.  Drain and dredge in cornmeal, salt and pepper.

I double dredged: coated once, let it sit for a few minutes and coated again.  EXTRA CRISPY!

4.  Fry for 4-5 minutes at 375 or so.  

Our fryer is banished to the storage closet.  New house, new rules.  No frying inside, it makes everything smell!

Don't they look like tater-tots?

Don't worry, OKRA, part two is healthier.  Much healthier.

Basic Baked Rigatoni

This recipe is a healthy make-over of a dish I learned how to make in my 8th grade cooking class. Whole wheat pasta and low-fat cheeses make this better for you and more Weight Watchers friendly. This is also a basic dish, meaning you can add all kinds of different ingredients to it to shake things up if you want!

Ingredients:

1 box of whole wheat pasta
1 jar of pasta sauce
1 small container of low-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (again, low-fat)
Parmesan cheese
oregano
garlic powder
salt & pepper

First, cook the pasta. You could use ziti, penne, rigatoni or similar shaped pasta.


While pasta is cooking, make the cheese mixture. Use small container of ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, salt, pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Mix well.


Coat a 9 by 9 dish with non-stick spray.

Pour a small amount of pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan.


Add half of the cooked pasta. Sprinkle with oregano.


Add all of the cheese mixture and then top with half of the jar of sauce.

(be sure to smooth out the ricotta, not shown here)

Add the remaining half of pasta.

Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle with cheese if you please.




Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.




1/6th of the pan is 7 Weight Watchers points and is very filling! That is the serving size shown in the picture above.

Ideas for a more versatile dish: add ground beef or vegetarian crumbles, add spinach, mushrooms or other vegetables, use different varieties of pasta