dinner – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

Chicken Larb

May 23, 2011 6 Comments

Reasons why you should never judge a recipe by its cover.. err title:

Chicken Larb!

Say whaaaaa? What the crap is “larb”? Google tells me “larb” is a type of meat salad. Good to know, Google. Good to know.

Had I known this fun fact, I might not have hesitated to clip the recipe for “Chicken Larb” out of one of my issues of Cooking Light. But lucky for my belly, I looked past the gag-reflex-prompting title and filed this puppy away in my big black book.

I tweaked the recipe slightly and scaled it down to one delicious serving. First up, toss the following in a food processor:

4 ounces chicken breast
2 tsp red curry paste
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp minced garlic
sprinkle of black pepper

Give it a quick buzz in the food processor, and you’ll end up with this crazy orange colored ground chicken:

I’m still amazed that I can make my own ground meat at home. It’s the little things, I guess!

Saute the chicken in a pan coated with nonstick spray over medium heat. I occasionally added a tbsp of water to the pan to help moisten things up.

Meanwhile, combine the following:

1/2 cup diced cucumber
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tbsp minced shallot
The juice of 1/4 of a lime

Thing of beauty:

Once the chicken is cooked through, combine the chicken with the cucumber mixture and then spoon onto romaine lettuce leaves, and juice a quarter lime over top:

Looks crazy good, am I right? I had a big serving of roasted broccoli on the side:

This was super tasty and SUPER healthful. I decided mid-meal to grab a tablespoon or so of fat-free plan Greek Yogurt to dollop on top. It really was the icing on the larb 😉

This was my first time using red curry paste, and the paste along with the cilantro really made for a tasty combo.

There’s a recipe on the back of the paste bottle for Red Curry Shrimp. I need to try that STAT!

Roasted broccoli Smile

A delicious dinner enjoyed on my newly assembled patio furniture:

It’s nice to have a little helper. Or a 6’4” helper… either way Smile

Stats on the Chicken Larb + 1.5 cups broccolee broccolye brocco-lee-hee: 221 calories, 19g carbs, 1g fat, 27g protein, 4g fiber

I can’t believe how outrageously low cal yet still tasty that meal was – next time I may beef it up with some beans or avocado.

Soooooo did you catch the broccoli reference?!?! PLEASE take 4 minutes and watch this. You won’t regret it. And as an added bonus you will now know the song I sing to myself every time I chop up broccoli Laughing out loud

What I ate

No recipes, just deliciousness.

August 25, 2010 2 Comments

After work today, I went for a walk with my sister through the park near her house. I have to admit, walking and talking with someone is a whole heck of lot more fun than running by yourself. Just sayin.

After the walk, I headed to the BF’s to make up some dinner. That’s 2 times in one workweek! GASP! Anyway, I had no recipe in mind–I just wanted something TASTY and simple. And I had a crap ton of veggies to use up in my fridge. When all else fails, make fajitas. That’s my life motto actually 😉

First up, I chopped up a green pepper, red onion, a small zucchini, and some white mushrooms and tossed them with a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic salt, cajun seasoning, and black pepper:

Next I made some pico-de-gallo out of some fresh cilantro, tomatoes, red onion, lime juice, garlic salt, and black pepper. Pico-de-gallo. PICOOOOO-de-GALLO… Have you guys seen that Wendy’s commercial?? Makes me laugh every time.

I let the veggies cook for about 15 minutes on the George, then loaded up 1 Mama Lupe low carb tortilla and a big bed of lettuce with the veggies, PIIICCOOOO-de-GALLO 😉 ) , banana pepper rings, some shredded grilled chicken (which I cooked up Sunday night), some Tostitos salsa (leftover from last night’s Mexican Meatloaf), and some Stonyfield Farms Plain Fat-Free yogurt:

Fantastic.

Side note – Have you checked out the ingredients on Tostito’s salsa? It’s all natural, and I didn’t even realize it! Props to Frito Lay!

BTW – I’ve found that Stonyfield Farms Plain Fat-Free yogurt makes an EXCELLENT substitution for sour cream. This makes me very happy indeed 🙂

Recipes, What I ate

Dinner in under 10 Minutes

August 21, 2010 5 Comments

Change of plans! Due to the torrential down pour that’s being dumped on us in northeast Ohio, there was no cooking out today.

Instead, I was left with the task of cooking myself a dinner using only ingredients I had in the house. I opened up the pantry to find a bag of Carba Nada pasta begging to be eaten:

I also happened to have some grilled chicken breast leftover from Tuesday night’s cookathon, and in the deep dark depths of my freezer I was lucky to find a single serving of Classico Fire Roasted Tomato & Garlic pasta sauce. Just another perfect example to validate my love and obsession for freezing foods in individual servings 🙂

Batch cooking your meats saves a TON of time throughout the week, but towards the end of the week the meat (especially chicken) can start to get a little dry. When I make pasta sauce with any sort of meat, I like to steep the meat in the sauce, which makes it nice and juicy and tender.

So, while I was waiting for the pasta water to boil, I put the pasta sauce in small pan and added about 3 ounces of grilled chicken and my typical pasta sauce barrage of spices: S&P, Red Pepper Flakes, Dried Oregano, Dried Basil, Onion Powder, and Garlic Powder. All you really need to do is open up your spice cabinet and toss in a few shakes of whatever sounds good to you 🙂

Once the water was boiling, I dropped a serving of the Carba Nada pasta into the pot. Carba Nada only takes 5 minutes to cook (awesome!) and is only 140 calories (AWESOMER!), 24g carbohydrates, 12g protein, and 6g fiber. And it ACTUALLY tastes good.

While the sauce and pasta were getting their grooves on, I made a small side salad with some lettuce, tomato, onion, and Ken’s Steakhouse Light Balsamic Dressing.

Dinner is served my friends!

Pastalicious

Chow time!

Dinner in under 10 minutes… sure tastes good!

Stats on dinner: 398 calories, 48g carbs, 8g fat, 32g protein, 13g fiber

If you are interested in trying out the Carba Nada pasta, I recommend ordering from Netrition because they have $4.95 flat-rate shipping. (I also order my Mama Lupe low-carb tortillas, PB2, and Joseph’s Bakery products on this site)

QUESTION: What’s your favorite done-in-under-ten-minutes dinner?

Recipes

Shrimp & Bean Tostado

August 11, 2010 2 Comments

YOWZA! Delicious dinner alert! In my continued effort to use of more of the leftovers from last night’s dinner, I decided to make a tostado for dinner. A Tostado is an “open-face” enchilada that you can order at pretty much any Mexican restaurant. The base for the tostado is a flat hard-shelled taco shell, and it is topped with a variety amazing traditional mexican ingredients.

First thing first, I need to crisp up my tortilla. I sprayed a little cake pan with some cooking spray, and then tossed a Mama Lupe low carb tortilla into the pan. I rubbed the tortilla around in the cooking spray on both sides, then popped into a 415 degree oven. I cooked the tortilla for about 6 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Mama Lupe gone crispy:

Meanwhile, I got to work on the shrimpies. I sprayed a saute pan with cooking spray, seasoned both sides of the shrimp with McCormick’s Mexican blend seasoning, Cayenne pepper, and some black pepper. Then I tossed them into the pan with a few drizzles of lime juice, and cooked them until opaque.

Next I heated up a 1/4 cup of Old El Paso Fat-Free Refried Beans in the microwave and smeared them on top of the crispy tortilla.

Come to mama… Mama Lupe that is 😉

I also heated up some of the leftover grilled veggies from last night’s dinner (this was approximately 1/4 cup red onion, 1/4 of a green pepper, and 1/4 cup zucchini). Once heated, I added the chopped up shrimp and about 1 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro and gave it a good mix.

Poured the veggies and shrimp onto the bean loaded tortilla and topped with 1 Sargento Light Mozzarella string cheese that I had cut into sticks:

Into a 415 degree oven for 5 minutes until the cheese was nice and melty… Try not to drool on your keyboard 😉

Ohhhhh yes.

But that’s not all!

I topped the tostado off with some shredded lettuce, 1/4 chopped red onion, 1/2 a plum tomato, a few banana peppers, and 2 tbsp fat-free breakstones sour cream.

Yeah that’s right.

Check me out:

Soooooo f.r.i.g.g.i.n. delicious…

The entire time I was eating this I kept thinking “why does this taste SOOOO good?”

A.) Cilantro

B.) Spicy Shrimp

C.) Beans??

D.) VEGGIES GALORE??!?!?

Nope.. It’s actually E.) All of the above! 😀

Stats on dinner: 323 calories, 36g carbs, 6g fat, 29g protein, 10g fiber

Time to get my pack on for the HLS!!! Anyone have tips for packing light?? I’m trying to avoid checked luggage fees at ALL costs…

Recipes

Shrimp & Bean Tostado

August 11, 2010 2 Comments

YOWZA! Delicious dinner alert! In my continued effort to use of more of the leftovers from last night’s dinner, I decided to make a tostado for dinner. A Tostado is an “open-face” enchilada that you can order at pretty much any Mexican restaurant. The base for the tostado is a flat hard-shelled taco shell, and it is topped with a variety amazing traditional mexican ingredients.

First thing first, I need to crisp up my tortilla. I sprayed a little cake pan with some cooking spray, and then tossed a Mama Lupe low carb tortilla into the pan. I rubbed the tortilla around in the cooking spray on both sides, then popped into a 415 degree oven. I cooked the tortilla for about 6 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Mama Lupe gone crispy:

Meanwhile, I got to work on the shrimpies. I sprayed a saute pan with cooking spray, seasoned both sides of the shrimp with McCormick’s Mexican blend seasoning, Cayenne pepper, and some black pepper. Then I tossed them into the pan with a few drizzles of lime juice, and cooked them until opaque.

Next I heated up a 1/4 cup of Old El Paso Fat-Free Refried Beans in the microwave and smeared them on top of the crispy tortilla.

Come to mama… Mama Lupe that is 😉

I also heated up some of the leftover grilled veggies from last night’s dinner (this was approximately 1/4 cup red onion, 1/4 of a green pepper, and 1/4 cup zucchini). Once heated, I added the chopped up shrimp and about 1 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro and gave it a good mix.

Poured the veggies and shrimp onto the bean loaded tortilla and topped with 1 Sargento Light Mozzarella string cheese that I had cut into sticks:

Into a 415 degree oven for 5 minutes until the cheese was nice and melty… Try not to drool on your keyboard 😉

Ohhhhh yes.

But that’s not all!

I topped the tostado off with some shredded lettuce, 1/4 chopped red onion, 1/2 a plum tomato, a few banana peppers, and 2 tbsp fat-free breakstones sour cream.

Yeah that’s right.

Check me out:

Soooooo f.r.i.g.g.i.n. delicious…

The entire time I was eating this I kept thinking “why does this taste SOOOO good?”

A.) Cilantro

B.) Spicy Shrimp

C.) Beans??

D.) VEGGIES GALORE??!?!?

Nope.. It’s actually E.) All of the above! 😀

Stats on dinner: 323 calories, 36g carbs, 6g fat, 29g protein, 10g fiber

Time to get my pack on for the HLS!!! Anyone have tips for packing light?? I’m trying to avoid checked luggage fees at ALL costs…