Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Oven Baked "Fried" Chicken

I have had this recipe once before, about 4-5 years ago, and I lost it.  It took me forever to remember where I got it from in the first place.  This recipe is from Robin Miller's (Food Network) Quick Fix Meals "To your health" episode:





Ingredients

Cooking spray

2/3 cup instant oats

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon mustard powder

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

4 (4-ounce) boneless skinless chicken breast halves

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 cups frozen green peas, steamed or microwaved until hot

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.



Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.



In a resealable plastic bag or shallow dish, combine oats, garlic powder, onion powder, mustard powder, paprika, oregano, thyme, salt, and pepper. Mix well and set aside.



Brush each chicken breast with Dijon mustard. Add chicken to oat mixture with tongs and turn to coat both sides. Transfer chicken to prepared baking sheet and spray with cooking spray.



Bake 30 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. Serve with peas. Serves 4.





OMG, YUMMY!!  Let me start by saying that the house we moved into does not have a working oven.  Believe it or not, even with me loving to bake, it is not a top priority.  We have all manner of cooking appliances plus a roaster oven (for large jobs) and toaster oven (for little ones).  I baked these in the toaster oven outside (since I didn't want to heat up the whole house) and had to vary the times a bit. The only other variation from the recipe was I used bone-in chicken thighs instead of boneless, skinless breast meat.  Frankly, I can eat only so much chicken breast before it just flat out looses any chicken flavor and becomes cardboard tasting to me.  Sometimes you just hafta switch it up and save calories elsewhere.  DH agreed and would like to add this recipe as a staple :D



PS- just a warning, some people actually tried using oatmeal instead of oats (yuck).  Stick to rolled oats and you should be just fine.

*****

Friday, May 13, 2011

Hamburger Stroganoff

Several things.  One, Blogger has been down for over a day so the oven fried chicken recipe from Wednesday night should be back online this weekend.  Now I know that this is like the third stroganoff recipe, but this is one of my go to recipes which is not healthy in and of itself, but with some substitutions, can be made that way.  Here's the recipe from Betty Crocker's New Dinner for Two circa 1968, page 46:

1/2 Cup minced onions
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 Cup butter
1 lb ground beef
2 Tbl flour
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced or 1 (8 oz) can sliced mushrooms
1 can (10 1/2 oz) cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 Cup sour cream
parsley

Saute onion and garlic in butter over medium heat.  Stir in meat and brown.  Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and mushrooms.  Cook 5 minutes.  Stir in soup.  Simmer, uncovered 10 minutes.  Stir in sour cream.  Heat through.  Garnish with parsley.  Serve over egg noodles. 4-6 servings


Substitutions:  First the recipe was halved.  All the substitutions made were to make it healthier rather than for taste preferences.  I used ground turkey instead of ground beef.  I used low fat cream of mushroom soup and sour cream as opposed to the full fat versions.  You would never have been able to tell the difference!  YUMMY :D.
*****

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Caribbean Broccoli Chicken Salad

This recipe is from a Publix Apron Meal card.  I took HUGE license with it and only loosely based the salad on this recipe:


Ingredients
3–4 Deli chicken tenders (.75 lb)
1 mango
Juice of 1 lime
1 head Bibb (or iceberg) lettuce
3 tablespoons mango chutney
2 tablespoons peach preserves
3 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt
2 tablespoons light mayonnaise
1 (12-oz) bag broccoli slaw
1/2 cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds

Prep
Cut chicken tenders into thin slices.
Peel and slice mango (1 1/2 cups).
Squeeze lime for juice (1 tablespoon).
Remove lettuce core; separate individual leaves.

Steps
Prepare dressing in medium bowl by whisking chutney, preserves, and lime juice until smooth. Stir in yogurt and mayonnaise until blended.
Add slaw, chicken, mango, and raisins; toss to coat.
Arrange lettuce leaves on serving plates and top with salad; sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Serve.

CALORIES (per 1/4 recipe) 470kcal; FAT 14g; CHOL 60mg; SODIUM 700mg; CARB 61g; FIBER 6g; PROTEIN 27g; VIT A 90%; VIT C 150%; CALC 10%; IRON 10%


There were the following substitutions:I have no mango chutney nor do I like chutney so instead of the chutney and peach preserves, I used mango/passion fruit preserves.  Instead of yogurt, I used low-fat sour cream.  I couldn't find the broccoli slaw so I used cole slaw mix instead and since the hubby hates raisins, I used craisins.
I really liked this one!  It was very light and refreshing but still filling.  This would be a handy recipe to have around for those hot summer days.  I don't know how easy the ingredients are to find outside of the south, but I'd imagine you can make substitutions where necessary


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