A different kind of taco meat.

August 5, 2011 12 Comments

Mexican food = my fav.

Ok, maybe it’s second fav (right after Italian)… but it’s pretty high on the things I’d like to eat this very moment list, that is fo sure.

Whenever I make tacos at home, I always go with ground turkey or ground beef and a packet of taco seasoning. It’s tasty and super duper easy, of course, but it can get a teensy bit boring week after week.

Then I stumbled across this Cooking Light recipe for Chicken and Black Bean Stuffed Burritos.

Enter totally tasty un-boring taco meat:

This was pretty darn easy to pull together, and the meat is tasty and versatile. Perfect for busy season batch cookin!

All you need to do is combine the following together in a saucepan and bring to a boil:

1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

Once it boils, stir in 1/4 cup of sliced green onions and 1 pound of shredded chicken – you could use rotisserie chicken, but I just grilled a large chicken breast up on the George and gave it a good shred using two forks.

And just like that, the meat is done!

I planned to make a burrito, but the tortillas I had at home were teeny tiny so I decided a quesadilla was the way to go:

This is 1/4 of the chicken:

A top a Trader Joe’s Low carb tortilla:

Plus 1/4 cup black beans, 1/4 cup fresh salsa, and 2 tbsp fat-free cheddar cheese:

Then I tossed another tortilla on top, and popped that puppy back on the George. I let it hang out on the grill until it was crispy and the cheese was melty, then I sliced the quesadilla up and served it up with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt (FABULOUS sour cream substitute):

So yummy!

Stats on the quesadilla: 350 calories, 36g carbs, 7g fat, 42g protein, 17g fiber

The next night, I decided to use up some of the leftover chicken by making a huge arse salad. I used 4 ounces of the chicken and all the same toppers as I did with the quesadilla and just threw everything a top a bed of mixed greens:

Hello two totally tasty totally healthy dinners that DO NOT taste like cardboard! I truly believe you can throw ANYTHING on top of lettuce and call it a salad 🙂

Stats on one giant salad: 275 calories, 19g carbs, 4g fat, 35g protein, 5 fiber

So in summary, this meat was just as easy to cook up as ground meat, but had a TOTALLY different taste. And it was delish on tacos, quesadillas, salads. Two thumbs up in my book!

Recipes

I say frittata, you say… ?

July 24, 2011 8 Comments

If I ever volunteer to come to your house and make you breakfast, you should consider yourself very lucky. You should also consider yourself forewarned:

For no dish, no matter how simple, will the kitchen be left unscathed. What can I say? I like to become one with my food Winking smile

And yes, that IS a bottle of wine next to the eggs.

I’ve always wanted to make a frittata, and this Sunday morning I was in the mood to get my cook on so I decided to give it a shot. Once I started googling frittata recipes, I realized I was lacking a major piece of equipment: a skillet that could go from stove top to oven without causing a fire. Dangit. That’s going on the T.J. Maxx list.

Since I had my heart set on eggy bliss, I decided to just use a standard glass pie pan. Does that mean it’s not a frittata anymore? Hmmmm what would its proper classification be? I say frittata, you say….. frrrrreggcasserole?

Something to ponder as the man pours your mimosa.

This frittata consisted of:

6 egg whites
3 eggs
2 Hot Chicken sausages (casings removed, cooked and crumbled)
1 large handful chiffonade spinach
S&P, to taste
Frank’s Red Hot, to taste (plus more for garnish )
1/4 cup diced tomato
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
2 tsp minced garlic

While I cooked up the sausage, and sautéed the onion, mushroom, and garlic, I got to egg crackalacking. Once the sausage was cooked and the veggies were soft, I stirred all the goodies into the eggs then poured into a pie pan that I’d coated with cooking spray.

Into the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, and you’ll end up with this beauty:

The frittata set up PERFECTLY. Perfect temperature, perfect cook time:

I started off with just a slice:

But ended up eating precisely half of the frittata…

Good news is the stats on half the frittata: 318 calories, 11g carbs, 11g fat, 41g protein, 3g fiber

Molto bene Red lips

Recipes

I say frittata, you say… ?

July 24, 2011 8 Comments

If I ever volunteer to come to your house and make you breakfast, you should consider yourself very lucky. You should also consider yourself forewarned:

For no dish, no matter how simple, will the kitchen be left unscathed. What can I say? I like to become one with my food Winking smile

And yes, that IS a bottle of wine next to the eggs.

I’ve always wanted to make a frittata, and this Sunday morning I was in the mood to get my cook on so I decided to give it a shot. Once I started googling frittata recipes, I realized I was lacking a major piece of equipment: a skillet that could go from stove top to oven without causing a fire. Dangit. That’s going on the T.J. Maxx list.

Since I had my heart set on eggy bliss, I decided to just use a standard glass pie pan. Does that mean it’s not a frittata anymore? Hmmmm what would its proper classification be? I say frittata, you say….. frrrrreggcasserole?

Something to ponder as the man pours your mimosa.

This frittata consisted of:

6 egg whites
3 eggs
2 Hot Chicken sausages (casings removed, cooked and crumbled)
1 large handful chiffonade spinach
S&P, to taste
Frank’s Red Hot, to taste (plus more for garnish )
1/4 cup diced tomato
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
2 tsp minced garlic

While I cooked up the sausage, and sautéed the onion, mushroom, and garlic, I got to egg crackalacking. Once the sausage was cooked and the veggies were soft, I stirred all the goodies into the eggs then poured into a pie pan that I’d coated with cooking spray.

Into the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, and you’ll end up with this beauty:

The frittata set up PERFECTLY. Perfect temperature, perfect cook time:

I started off with just a slice:

But ended up eating precisely half of the frittata…

Good news is the stats on half the frittata: 318 calories, 11g carbs, 11g fat, 41g protein, 3g fiber

Molto bene Red lips

My Favs, Ramblings, Recipes

Recipe: Jambalaya {bad things happen when I don’t eat}

July 19, 2011 11 Comments

Somehow in the past few months I seemed to have forgotten my passion for cooking. Let’s take a moment to ponder how the heck this is even possible. Somewhere between leaving a job of over four years, attempting to sell a house, subsequently becoming a landlord, selling off and donating an insane amount of my possessions, a crazy condo hunt, leaving my family and home state of 26 years, a HORRIBLE moving experience, starting a new job, and immersing myself in the culinary delights of a new city I forgot how much fun and just how darn rewarding a home cooked meal can be.

Blasphemy!

Through these past few whirlwind months I’ve been a little *ahem* emotional. Ok, not just emotional. Let’s also throw in irrational, brash, and downright scary at times. This Saturday I actually cried over burnt pizza. I CRIED, PEOPLE. And then I sat on the living room floor with my knees clenched up to my chest and just stared off into nothingness as my body seethed in furry searching for some sort of carbohydrate to peak my bottomed out blood sugar.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: bad things happen when I don’t eat.

While I was in the midst of nuclear shutdown, the BF came over, sat down beside me, and put his arm around his little sugar feigning zombie. And we sat. And then he did what any good man would do: he didn’t talk, didn’t ask questions, he just got up from the floor sauntered over to the kitchen and made me a snack.

I know, right?

Why can’t I see things so simply? Is it really just a man thing? Are women really just crazy complex, overanalyzing, (often) emotional basket cases? Whatever the case may be (lord knows I don’t have the answers) the BF does a pretty darn good job of reeling me back from Mary’s Land of Anxious Gloom by trying to insert some of the simple things into my life. Sunday morning he convinced me to simply sit on the porch and drink mimosas, and Sunday night we simply made jambalaya for dinner.

This was simply stick to your ribs delicious, guys. I’m serious. It gave the jambalaya we had in New Orleans a run for the money!

Jambalaya

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light’s Jambalaya.

2 links hot chicken or turkey sausage (cooked and sliced)
1 cup white onion (chopped)
1/2 cup celery (chopped)
1/2 cup green pepper (chopped)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1.5 cups uncooked long grain brown rice
3 cups fat-free low-sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp paprika (smoked, if you have it)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepepr
16oz cooked chicken breast (cubed)
14.5oz can diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions (undrained)
4oz shrimp (uncooked)
1/2 cup green onions (thinly sliced)

Note: I recommend Uncle Ben’s Fast & Natural Whole Grain Brown Rice and Harris Teeter hot chicken sausage or Jennie-O Turkey Sausage.

Step 1: Coat a large pot with cooking spray then heat over medium-high heat. Add sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 12 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Step 2: Stir in uncooked rice and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add broth and all the spices and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

Step 3: Add chicken and tomatoes, half of the green onions, and shrimp. Stir, then cover and cook 8 minutes or until shrimp are done.

Step 4: Remove from heat, sprinkle with remaining green onions, and eat your face off.

Stats on 1 serving: 344 calories, 45g carbs, 6g fat, 33g protein, 4g fiber

Looking for a Jambalaya-for-one recipe? Check out this post.

Looking for a crazy, borderline incoherent, slightly volatile woman? Catch me on a day when I miss my midmorning snack.

My Favs, Ramblings, Recipes

Jambalaya & Bad things happen when I don’t eat.

July 19, 2011 8 Comments

Somehow in the past few months I seemed to have forgotten my passion for cooking. Let’s take a moment to ponder how the heck this is even possible. Somewhere between leaving a job of over four years, attempting to sell a house, subsequently becoming a landlord, selling off and donating an insane amount of my possessions, a crazy condo hunt, leaving my family and home state of 26 years, a HORRIBLE moving experience, starting a new job, and immersing myself in the culinary delights of a new city I forgot how much fun and just how darn rewarding a home cooked meal can be.

Blasphemy!

Through these past few whirlwind months I’ve been a little *ahem* emotional. Ok, not just emotional. Let’s also throw in irrational, brash, and downright scary at times. This Saturday I actually cried over burnt pizza. I CRIED, PEOPLE. And then I sat on the living room floor with my knees clenched up to my chest and just stared off into nothingness as my body seethed in furry searching for some sort of carbohydrate to peak my bottomed out blood sugar.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: bad things happen when I don’t eat.

While I was in the midst of nuclear shutdown, the BF came over, sat down beside me, and put his arm around his little sugar feigning zombie. And we sat. And then he did what any good man would do: he didn’t talk, didn’t ask questions, he just got up from the floor sauntered over to the kitchen and made me a snack.

I know, right?

Why can’t I see things so simply? Is it really just a man thing? Are women really just crazy complex, overanalyzing, (often) emotional basket cases? Whatever the case may be (lord knows I don’t have the answers) the BF does a pretty darn good job of reeling me back from Mary’s Land of Anxious Gloom by trying to insert some of the simple things into my life. Sunday morning he convinced me to simply sit on the porch and drink mimosas, and Sunday night we simply made jambalaya for dinner.

This was simply stick to your ribs delicious, guys. I’m serious. It gave the jambalaya we had in New Orleans a run for the money!

We used an old Cooking Light recipe (with a few minor modifications—if you’re interested, check out the original here).

Jambalaya Ingredients List (serves 5)

2 cooked hot chicken sausage links, sliced
1 cup chopped white onion
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cups uncooked long-grain brown rice (such as Uncle Ben’s Fast & Natural Whole Grain Brown Rice)
2 3/4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground thyme
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
8 ounces cooked boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions, undrained
4 ounces raw shrimp, peeled, deveined
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions

Simplified instructions:

Coat a large pot with cooking spray then heat over medium-high heat. Add sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 12 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.
Stir in uncooked rice and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add broth and all the spices and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.
Add chicken and tomatoes, stir in shrimp, cover and cook 8 minutes or until shrimp are done.
Remove from heat, sprinkle with green onions, and eat your face off.

Stats on 1 serving: 351 calories, 54g carbs, 4g fat, 25g protein, 5g fiber

Looking for a Jambalaya-for-one recipe? Check out this post.

Looking for a crazy, borderline incoherent, slightly volatile woman? Catch me on a day when I miss my midmorning snack.