Chicken Curry (without Chickpeas) with Tomatoes

This one comes from Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals, and also can be seen here. (Robin answered my question about substituting the chickpeas! WOW!) As is well known, my husband does not eat chickpeas. So, I just left them out here.

Serves 4
TOTAL TIME: 15 minutes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Active cooking time: 5 minutes

2 cups quick-cooking white or brown rice
2 roasted chicken breast halves
15-ounce can chick peas, drained
15-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup lowfat sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt and ground black pepper

Cook rice according to package directions.
Meanwhile, using a fork, pull chicken meat from bone in shreds. Transfer chicken to a medium saucepan. Add chick peas, tomatoes, sour cream, curry powder, and cumin and mix well. Set pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer 5 minutes to heat through. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve chicken curry over rice.

I thought this was pretty flavorful, and was very happy to use up some of my leftover cilantro (since fresh herbs go bad so fast and get forgotten so easily in my house) from Sunday's pico de gallo. My husband, however, had MAYBE three bites. I may have gone a little heavy handed with the curry, but it was still a tasty recipe.

The point of Robin's recipe is to use the leftovers from a previous roasted chicken recipe she made (you can also see it on the website linked above), but I imagine any leftover roasted chicken, including a store bought rotisserie would work well here.

The longest part of this recipe was taking the chicken off the bone. I wish there was something else I could add here to substitute for the chickpeas, they're so stinking good for you, but she was right that we didn't even miss them, but I suspect they would add a nice little flavor to the dish too... and of course, the protein!!

Pictures coming soon!

Pico de Gallo

I've never made pico de gallo, despite loving it a ton. I decided to make it for yesterday's Super Bowl party. I researched a bunch of different recipes, but sort of made my own way with it. Here's what I did:

4 Roma tomatoes, seeded, diced
red onion, diced--maybe 1/4 c
scallions, sliced--about 1 stalk
cilantro--about 1/4c chopped
lime juice from half a lime
chopped garlic--maybe the equivalent of 2 cloves

I meant to put in some diced jalapenos, but forgot. Oops.

I served these with both tortilla chips and pita chips. It was good on the tortilla, but EXCELLENT on the pita!!

I'll definitely be making this one again. So tasty and so healthy. I bet it would be really good on tilapia; I think I'll try it one of these nights I'm on my own for dinner!

Lauren's Mini Aloha Calzones

Ingredients

• olive oil I used Pam
  
• 1 batch pizza crust I used the Pillsbury kind
  
• 1 cup ricotta
• 1 cup mozzarella
• 1 cup diced ham
• 1 cup diced pineapple (if using canned, drain first!) I used canned crushed pineapple
  

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly coat a 9x9 baking dish with oil.

Roll out pizza dough and divide into 16 pieces. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl.

Take a piece of dough and flatten. Place a spoonful of the pineapple mixture into the dough and wrap the corners around to seal. Place seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bake uncovered for 16-20 minutes.

Happily stolen from Lauren's blog. We had plans to get together with some friends for our monthly get together, and it coincided with Super Bowl Sunday. Although none of us were big football fans (except my husband, that is), we decided to go football esque with our theme. I was in charge of appetizers, and planned several in anticipation of snacking throughout the game. I wasn't really sure what to make, but had my eye on these little buggers, which Lauren made as part of a competition she was in. They looked easy and TASTY, so away I went. They were most definitely tasty, and got raves from everyone who ate them. They weren't, however, very pretty. First problem, I may or may not have sprayed the second pan with Pam. Next problem, I may or may not have drained the pineapple well enough. I also had WAY extra filling.
Since I baked these at my friend's house, I didn't take any pictures--plus, not so pretty anyway. I'm going to try to reheat these to see how they turn out for a second day.

I'm really curious to know whether Lauren made this one up or if she found it somewhere--either way, though, it was GREAT and I will definitely be making it again!! YUM!

Sausage Strata

1/2lb Italian sausage I used hot, BAJ said he prefers the sweet
1/2c green pepper, chopped I I substituted fresh mushrooms
1/2c onion, chopped
can of stewed tomatoes, reserve juice
bread, crusts removed
3 eggs
milk
salt

1. Remove sausage from casings, brown in a skillet, breaking up. Add onion and green pepper, saute about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook about 15 minutes.
2. Spray an 8x8 microwavable pan with cooking oil. Place bread on the bottom (I used 4 here). Spread sausage mixture over, then top with more bread (another 4).
3. Combine eggs, tomato juices, and enough milk to make 2.5 cups. Pour over bread. Cover with Saran Wrap and microwave for 15 minutes.

This is an old recipe of my mom's...definite comfort food for me. I planned to make something completely different, but the meat was bad so I luckily had some sausage defrosted in the fridge so went to that instead. This time, the only bread I had was a whole grain something or other, which really wasn't a good choice--this recipe needs white bread! Otherwise, I was pleased with how this turned out. For some reason, despite following Mom's recipe, it doesn't come out tasting just like Mom's, but it was good anyway. I did like the substitution of the mushrooms, which would probably be good along with a bell pepper too.

Picture coming soon!

Roasted Chicken with Smokey Apricot Sauce

From Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals. See it online here. I love Robin Miller's cookbook and ended up getting my own copy after checking it out from the library. I really like her tips for cooking big meals and then using the leftovers to make something new... the epitome of once a month cooking. We all know that leftovers can be super fast but also sometimes pretty boring, so this really helps jazz things up.

Serves 4
TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Walk away time: 35 minutes

Cooking spray
10 (5-ounce) skinless chicken breast halves (with bone)
Salt and ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups apricot preserves I had about one cup
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke

Preheat oven to 400º. Coat a large roasting pan with cooking spray.
Season chicken all over with salt and black pepper. Arrange chicken in prepared pan and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine apricot preserves, soy sauce and liquid smoke. Mix until blended. Pour mixture over chicken.
Roast 35 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Serve four chicken breast halves with this meal and refrigerate remaining chicken until ready to use (or freeze up to 3 months).

We had two breasts with either roasted potatoes or sweet potato fries and sugar snap peas. This was a really JUICY breast of chicken, but (and perhaps it was because I didn't have enough sauce due to not enough apricot preserves) there wasn't a whole lot of flavor. Next time, maybe I'll use my Ronco flavor injector to get the flavor into the meat in some way. I used two of my ten breasts and plan to make one of her morph recipes later in the week (I'm thinking the quesadillas!)

Chicken Parm sandwich

This came from my ATK cookbook. Since ATK has caused other bloggers some issues, I won't copy it from their recipe, but tell you what I did.

First, I took 2 chicken breasts, and pounded them thin. I dredged in flour, then a beaten egg, then some Italian breadcrumbs. I heated some olive oil in a frying pan, added some garlic, then cooked the chicken for about 4 minutes on each side until brown. I then drained on a paper towel.

Next, I put the chicken in a baking dish, covered it with tomato sauce, Parmesan, and mozzarella. I baked it for a few minutes until the cheese was melty.

I then put it on a toasted roll.

It was good. Very good. So good that my husband, who gets frequent chicken parm cravings, said "You can make this any time." I guess he liked it. I think the rolls I got were particularly good, which makes a difference.

Lemon-Rosemary Chicken Thighs

Original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients

• 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 lb.), excess fat trimmed I had about 1lb of boneless, skinless
  
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary or 2 tsp. dried
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

Preheat broiler. Rinse chicken thighs; pat dry. Arrange thighs, skin side down, on a broiler pan. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, olive oil, rosemary and garlic. Brush 1/3 of mixture over chicken and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil 4 to 6 inches from heat until lightly browned, about 7 minutes.

Using tongs, turn chicken thighs skin side up. Brush 1/3 of lemon-juice mixture over skin and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil until thighs are browned, about 7 minutes.

Turn off broiler and set oven to 450°F. Brush final 1/3 of lemon-juice mixture over chicken (discard any leftover lemon-juice mixture) and return pan to oven. Bake until juices run clear when pricked with a fork and meat is no longer pink at the bone, about 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Because I had no bone, I modified the cooking time a little. I broiled it on hi for about 5 minutes each side (which was a little too long for the second side). I then baked at 425 for about 7 minutes.

I served with Alexia brand roasted red potatoes and green beans. Delicious. This was a fairly easy recipe to make, perfect for a weeknight. BAJ liked it too, although he did comment that he doesn't really like dark meat. My response was "it's SOO much cheaper, it's totally worth it."

In addition to being so tasty, everything (except the chicken thighs, that is) was on hand. Score!