Fiesta Chicken

I was thinking how it seems I am ALWAYS cooking "Mexican" type food... but actually I rarely make anything Mexican at all... its like the "one drop" rule, you know, where if you are 1 drop a minority, you are seen as that race... same thing, you toss a drop of Hispanic food into a meal and its all of a sudden "FIESTA" time, haha.

But let me tell you, this recipe is worth a party. And I always love a recipe that I can make ahead of time, and toss into the oven when we are finally ready to eat. so this is great, I'm actually eating the left overs right now, as I type, and they taste just as wonderful warmed up in the microwave.

I also love that this is one of those recipes you could totally adjust to your own personal preferences, add onion?  add ground beef? use brown or white rice, substitute for quinoa.  anything! plus it calls for a jar of Salsa, which might scare away my less than daring eaters, however salsa comes in a billion different flavors, try the mild kind, or go spicy, fresh salsa? jar? home made??  I love that in a recipe!

Fiesta Chicken

16 oz Salsa

1/3 cup water

1 can corn, undrained

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 C. instant rice

4-6 chicken breasts

1 package taco or Cajun seasoning

shredded cheese to top

salt to taste

grease a 9x13" baking pan.  Dump salsa, water, corn, beans rice and stir together.

Place chicken breasts on top and season with taco or Cajun seasoning. 

bake at 375 for 45 minutes. sprinkle with cheese, or anything else (like sour cream? green onions?)

Mexi- Mac and Cheese

I made this wonder meal late at night, so don't mind the funky lighting! 

         I can pretty much assume this is a Rachel Ray recipe, and while the bitch can definitely cook some bomb food, she's just got way too much time on her hands.. I mean seriously this recipe calls for THREE pots and pans to be used, THREE, my dish washer will not be able to hold THREE large dishes, and there is no way in H- E- Double Hockey Sticks I plan on hand washing dishes on a Friday night... it just ain't happening.. so I changed up this recipe, to be just a TWO dish recipe (I think you could easily do it in just 1 pan, but I was not up for trying..)

Now I'm always excited to share a rock star recipe with the world, because, well I want everyone to know of all the good things in the world, but this recipe I feel extra excited about.  This recipe is like, woahhh... now I love me some mac and cheese (who doesn't?) but this, this is life changing, no way can you have "just Kraft" after having this... seriously...

I did not make this recipe with meat, because well I don't eat meat, however I think most people would think its even better with meat, and I wish I would have made it with chicken, because, that would have been delicious, or ground turkey, or basically anything! 

hot dogs anyone?? 

Mexi Mac and Cheese

1 lbs elbow macaroni 

1 lbs ground beef

1 package of Taco Seasoning (or a little chili powder)

1 Red bell pepper- chopped

4 green onions- chopped

4 oz Chopped Green Chiles (Whoops I think I forgot this!) 

2. T butter

2. T flour

1 cup milk

1 cup shredded cheese

a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil

salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring water to a boil, and cook noodles until al dente

While your noodles are cooking, brown your meat in a large pan, stir in Taco seasoning, Bell pepper, Green onions, and Green Chiles. sauté until veggies are tender.

In a THIRD pan (or just place that last pan of meat and veggies on a plate, and reuse it, that's what I did) melt your butter, stir in the flour, and stir constantly for about 1 minute. turn down to Low heat, and add milk and cheese, stir until cheese has melted into sauce.

After draining your noodles, return them to their large pot, mix in meat and veggies, and cover in cheese sauce.  stir until well mixed. 

I really don't see why you need to make the cheese sauce separately? you could probably get by with just tossing the cheese milk and butter onto the warm noodles and it would melt itself! 

Skinny Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Well we have made it another day of "cleaner eating" (I did have a Freezer Egg McMuffin this morning for breakfast- but what ever, clean enough- oh and they really do freeze and microwave amazingly! I'm even surprised!).  But its actually pretty hard to find recipes that aren't just like plain baked chicken and plain brown rice... which I just cannot do every single day... so we are off to try this new recipe! 

Skinny Chicken Broccoli Casserole

1 cup of brown rice

1 cup cold water

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch chunks

4 cups of kale- finely chopped

4 cups broccoli- cut into small florets

1 cup milk 

2 T corn starch

1/2 T garlic salt

1 t Thyme, dried

1 t salt

1/2 t black pepper

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese- shredded

2/3 cup Colby jack cheese- shredded

In a large pot ( mine was not nearly large enough, so go big or go home) spray the bottom, add chicken and cook for about 5 minutes, or until it starts to get cooked.  add rice and water. reduce heat to low. 

cook for about 10 minutes. 

remove from heat and add broccoli and kale. 

in a small bowl whisk milk, corn starch, garlic salt, thyme, salt and pepper.

Add to pot along with  mozzarella cheese, and combine.  transfer into a baking dish and sprinkle with the Colby jack cheese.  cover with foil and bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

* this works great as a freezer meal as well* 

This is right before it went into the oven!

Nutritional Info

Servings Per Recipe: 8 (bull shit, Eric and I almost Ate the whole pan) 

Amount Per Serving = 1 + 2/3 cups:

Calories: 280.0

Total Fat: 5.0 g

Cholesterol: 47.5 mg

Sodium: 492.3 mg

Total Carbs: 31.8 g

Dietary Fiber: 4.0 g

Protein: 29.3 g

WW Points+: 7

Clean Eating Kabobs

As you may know, we are "attempting" to do clean eating... Eric is pretty much all in on this idea, and I'm just more wanting to do "cleanER eating" because, I'm a carb girl!  but this is pretty awesome.  I made most of them Vegetarian, with a couple with steak, I wanted to add chicken, but my lovely husband ate my chicken for lunch haha.

Clean Eating Kabobs

1 package of Mushrooms

2 cups baby tomatoes

1/2 green pepper

1/2 red pepper

1 onion

yellow squash

zucchini

feel free to add meat, make sure its partially or totally cooked before you kabob it!

feel free to use what ever you have around the house. use more or omit for what ever you want

Marinade

1/4 c. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 cloves of garlic- minced

1/2 t. dried oregano

1/2 t dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

Either Heat up the grill, or preheat the oven to 400.

Place veggies (and meat) onto the skewer. place onto a plate, or if you are going to cook it in the oven, place skewers onto a cookie sheet. 

 In a small bowl, mix all the marinade ingredients.  Rub the marinade over each kabob and let sit for at least 10-15 minutes (or feel free to make this ahead of time, and stick it in the fridge until dinner time) .  

Place in the oven for 15 minutes, or grill until tender!

ENJOY :) 

Freezer Egg McMuffin

Ill be the first to admit these don't look "pretty" but trust me they are yummy!

My husband and I have one of those reoccurring arguments (you know the kind, where no one is right, and no one is wrong, and it generally gets brought up after spending way too much time in a car together) over whether or not McDonalds breakfast is "worth it"... He says eggs aren't worth $5... I say, they are amazing and bring me to McDonalds (however I don't eat meat, so I haven't had lunch or dinner at McDonalds in YEARS)

We also constantly argue over him going out for breakfast EVERY MORNING... granted he spends like $2 and its not a big deal, however that adds up!! and it bothers me, because like he says, eggs are cheap! 

I was so excited when I stumbled upon this recipe... both arguments solved.  I get my McDonalds breakfast, he has no excuse to eat out before work! 

Toss these bad boys in the freezer, and quickly zap them in the microwave when you are ready to eat them! and my favorite part is that there is no "mystery ingredients" (other than the kraft cheese, which you could easily swap for some real cheese)

Freezer Egg McMuffins

6 English Muffins

6-9 eggs

1 T water per egg

6 slices of cheese

mix the eggs and water in a medium sized bowl. cook them as you please 

- I used a small fry pan and did them individually- however if you had one of those microwave egg cookers that would be awesome- or use a circle cookie cutter and fill the inside with egg and fry- or cook a large pan omelet style and just cut them into the size you need-

toast the English muffin. and assemble, the egg and cheese into the muffin.

You could easily add to this recipe too! onions and veggies in the eggs? add sausage, or bacon, or ham! 

To Freeze:  wrap in plastic wrap, and then tin foil and freeze

To Serve: place in a paper towel and microwave for 1-2 minutes! 

Oreo Brownies

I almost don't need a picture... this is obviously amazing... especially since two of my three pregnancy cravings are Oreos, and brownies.  It doesn't take a genius to decide they should be cooked together!  I made these really simple.  A bagged brownie mixture, and a few Oreos, and a very long contemplation of why in the world I had never thought to make this before!

Oreo Brownies

one bag of brownies (and what ever its ingredients are)

and a few Oreos (enjoy as many or as few as you would like)

spray the bottom of the pan with grease, place a layer of broken cookies along the bottom.  Fill with brownie mix, and cook according to brownie directions

Mine did take about 5-10 minutes longer than normal, but I'm not exactly sure why.  So keep an eye on them! 

Mouth Watering Parmesan Chicken

This chicken is life changing. No joke.  I almost died, and its unbelievably easy to make! (and very few dishes!).  I know I always rant and rave about all of my recipes.  But this hands down is the

BEST RECIPE YET!!!!

I don't want to keep you waiting any longer! so ill get right to the good stuff today!

Parmesan Chicken

1 c. mayo 

1/2 c grated Parmesan

1 t garlic salt

1 t. pepper

1 t. season salt (like Lawry's) 

4 chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a  small bowl (or regular sized bowl I suppose) mix mayo, cheese and seasonings.  

line a pan with tin foil and grease (because that makes life easier!).  place the chicken in the pan, and spread half of the mayo/cheese mixture on top of chicken.  cook for 30 minutes.  flip the chicken and spread the last half of the mixture on top.  cook another 20-30 minutes (or until golden brown). 

serve and ENJOY :)