Mongolian Chicken

This is amazingly delicious! My family loves it. This was originally a beef recipe but for a change I make it with chicken as well. It's one of those "clean out the fridge" kind of meals. I always have beef on hand since we get 1/2 a beef every year for Christmas. I usually have chicken breasts on hand as well. Tonight as I was looking through the fridge I found a few mushrooms, a small head of broccoli and some green onions and realized I had all the fixings for this great tasting dinner. I don't usually add mushrooms but since they were reaching the end of their life, I needed to use them or throw them out. Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as my family does.

Here are the ingredients for this yummy dish.

Chop the veggies

Coat the chicken in cornstarch and fry until done. Add the brown sugar mixture.

When sauce thickens, add the vegetables

Serve over rice.

Mongolian Chicken

Calories 283

• 1 pound chicken breast sliced into thin strips
• 2 tbsp corn starch
• ½ cup water
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 soy sauce
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• ½ tsp fresh grated ginger
• sliced green onions

Combine chicken strips and corn starch in a bowl, toss to coat. Combine water, sugar, and soy sauce in small bowl. Set aside. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and ginger, sauté 1 minute. Add chicken and cook until done. Add brown sugar mixture and cook until sauce thickens, approx 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. At this point, add any vegetables that you want, broccoli, mushrooms, ect..Cook until vegetables are tender crisp. Serve over rice.Top with sliced green onions.

Serving size is 1 cup of chicken/veggies over 1/2 cup rice. Calories listed do not include vegetables.

 For those of you doing Weight Watchers, this recipe is adapted from a WW magazine I picked up awhile ago, before they started doing points plus. The original recipe with beef and 1/2 cup rice was 8 points.

Chicken and Spinach Soup

Finally we had a day with no rain! It has been soggy the last week with major flooding in areas around us. Thank goodness we didn't have to deal with any of that. It was chilly today and my first thought when I went to scrape the ice off the windshield was SOUP! I love soup. I could eat soup every day. I have done Weight Watchers off and on and this was a recipe I found on their website. One of the original ingredients is escarole.It is very difficult to find here where I live. So I substitute spinach. I love spinach in soup.




Here are some of the things you will need .

 

Dice 1 oz of the pancetta and fry it until crisp in a large stock pot or soup pot. Drain on a paper towel. You will be using this as a topping so set it aside.

Dice 1 onion and add it to the pan you fried the pancetta it. Add 4 cloves minced garlic. Let cook until golden brown. Add chicken broth and scrape the bits off the bottom of the pan.I rarely add raw onion to soups, they have much better flavor if you carmelize them a bit.

 

Add the chicken thighs, which you have removed the skin and all visible fat from. Also add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes covered.

 

When chicken is tender, remove from soup, let cool and remove the meat from the bone. You can also use the boneless skinless thighs or even breasts to make this a little less work for yourself. I like the flavor of thighs and they are alot cheaper with the bone and skin on so I use those.

Add the meat to the soup, add 1 can drained cannellini beans, spices and fresh spinach. When the spinach is wilted, its ready to serve.

Top with pancetta and 1 tblsp parmesan cheese. I think you will like it!

Chicken and Spinach Soup

Servings 4 

Calories 325 

Fat 11 g

• 5 chicken thighs, skin and visible fat removed
• 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 can italian stewed tomatoes
• 1 can cannillini beans (white kidney beans)
• 1 oz pancetta diced
• 1 10 oz package fresh spinach
• 2 Tbsp fresh basil or 1 tsp dried
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 Tbsp parmesan cheese

In a dutch oven or other large pot, fry pancetta until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towel. Add onion and garlic, cooking until golden brown approx 7 minutes. Ass broth, tomatoes and chicken. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until chicken is tender and cooked through about 30 minutes. Remove chicken, cool and remove from bone. Return to soup.

Add spinach, beans and spices. Return to a boil and cook until spinach is wilted. Sprinkle with crispy pancetta and 1 Tbsp of cheese. 1 3/4 cup serving size.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burrito

I rarely cook the same meal twice in a month. If I do then it is an incredible dish. This my friends, is an incredible dish. It is a fantastic low fat meatless option. I am trying to do meatless once a week. This may become the dish we eat once a week. It is THAT good! I got the inspiration for this from Here. I love looking for recipes and then changing them up a bit. Once in a while I will make it exactly but not often.

 Here is the cast of character for this delicious dinner.

Dice the onion, peeled sweet potato/yam and peppers. These are those cute little sweet peppers that you buy in a bag. They are delicious. Next time I will add more. And what IS the difference between a sweet potato and a yam? I think this is a yam but I am not sure. Doesn't matter, its yummy!

Add olive oil and seasonings and dump on foil lined cookie sheet. I like foil lined because it makes for quick
and easy cleanup.

 

Bake in the oven until carmelized.

Wrap in tortilla and fry until golden brown. I didn't oil or spray my pan and the tortilla browned nicely.

I served this with light sour cream, you can use greek yogurt if you like to lighten it up more. I also put a tablespoon of fat free cheddar inside. OH SO GOOD! Enjoy

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato or yam, peeled and diced
1 sweet onion diced
1 cup julienne sliced red peppers (or use the mini sweet peppers)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix in bowl and dump on foil lined baking sheet sprayed with a bit of non stick spray. Bake at 375 until browned, about 30 minutes.
Drain and rinse 1 can of black beans. Put 3/4 cup sweet potato mixture and some of the beans on tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese (non fat cheddar is delicious) and chopped cilantro. Fold into burrito. Heat a non stick pan and fry burrito on both sides until nicely browned. Serve with sour cream.

My first post

Welcome to my blog. I have wanted to start a blog for some time. You know how it is, trying to find the time to do anything once Words with Friends and Bubble Witch Saga have taken all your free time. This blog is going to be about a few different things, mostly my love of cooking healthy food (and a little bit of not so healthy food) and scrapbooking.

I love to watch cooking shows. Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef, Cupcake Wars are among my favorites. I actually submitted my application for Master Chef last year, got a phone call from them but just couldn't get to the audition. My Dad had passed away 2 months prior and I was in a fog, not able to really focus on anything. One thing I can say about my Dad, he loved food! I think I take after him in that regard. I am trying to lose weight, unfortunately that little food called Chocolate is my undoing. This blog is my weight loss journey as well. I hope you enjoy it.