Recipes – Page 18 – Fervent Foodie

Lazy girl’s guide to stir fry

June 21, 2011 6 Comments

Lately I’ve had very little motivation to cook anything. Not sure what the deal is—the heat, the sleep deprivation, the lack of time, or perhaps a missing muse—whatever the case my meals sure have been lacking.

A month or so ago (while still in this cooking rut), I made stir fry for the first time. I’m talking FOR REAL stir fry. Wok and all. (courtesy of five well spent dollars at Ikea)

I wasn’t really sure where to start with the stir fry. So I kinda just went with what felt right. Lucky for me what felt right was a super fast, super easy, super tasty lazy girl stir fry Surprised smile

Here’s what you’ll need:

Minced garlic and or green onion (obviously I prefer both)
Pre-packaged stir-fry veggies (I like FRESH not frozen)
Some sort of meat (shrimp, chopped chicken, beef, etc)
Some sort of sauce (something low sugar/low sodium.. teriyaki, Szechuan, or whatever your heart desires)
S&P
Minute Brown Rice

Ok, so first up, you get the water boiling for the rice. I usually go with 1/3 cup of rice and then overdo it on the veggies – but it’s really your call, lazy girl.. Your call.

Cook the rice according to the package instructions (aka, dump rice in boiling water, simmer 5 min, remove from heat 5 min, FLUFF!).

Meanwhile, heat up a wok (or sauté pan) on medium high heat. Get that baby HOT! Coat with nonstick cooking spray, toss in your garlic and/or onions, and then cook up your meat. I like to season the meat with some pepper and garlic salt. When the meat is cooked through, remove it from the wok, and toss in your veggies, and season with S&P. I use half a bag (6 ounces) of the Eat Smart vegetable Stir Fry mix for one serving.

I use a little spatula to toss the veggies about and get them slightly crisp. I’m still working on my wok-toss, so the spatula will have to do for now.

Occasionally add 1 tsp of water to the wok to help the veg get their groove on while simultaneously making you feel like a wok-BAMF. The pan should SIZZLE when you do this. I know you’ve got it in you!

When the rice is just about done, add the meat back to the wok, and add in about 2 tbsp of your sauce of choice. Give it a nice stir (or a few tosses if you’ll feeling crazy), then pour into a bowl along with the rice.

Then eat your face off.

Schezuan Shrimp:

Teriyaki Chicken:

Good wok, lazy girl. Good wok. Smile

Stats on 1 serving (1/3 cup rice, 6 ounces veggie mix, 4 ounces shrimp, 2 tbsp Szechuan sauce): 300 calories, 40g carbs, 5g fat, 27g protein, 5g fiber

Recipes

3 Ingredients to Breakfast Bliss

May 30, 2011 20 Comments

What do these three ingredients have in common?

Cottage cheese (bleghhhhhh), eggs, and oatmeal?

Despite being super healthy and good for your body, these three ingredients have one MAJOR thing in common.

A big ole plate of PURE breakfast bliss, that’s what.

I hope you are as excited as I am Open-mouthed smile

Thank you to Jessica from Warfield Ninjas for sharing with me one of the simplest yet tastiest belly pleasing recipes I’ve tried in a while!

For two good sized pancakes (similar in size to a toaster waffle), you’ll need to combine the following in a food processor:

1/3 cup uncooked oats (I used quick oats)
1/3 cottage cheese (I used fat free)
2 egg whites

Give all the goods a quick buzz in the food processor until the lumps are gone, and cook them up like you would “normal” pancakes!

get. in. my. bellllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I was feeling a little OVER THE TOP, so I decided to top mine off with some all-natural peanut butter, Dannon Vanilla Greek yogurt, strawberries, AND Smuckers sugar free syrup.

Feel free to use the toppings of your choice. To each her own pancake, I always say Smile

I made a smaller version of these for my mom over the holiday weekend, and she said they were surprisingly tasty and that she appreciated the “healthy and hearty” texture of the pancakes. I completely agree!

Pure breakfast bliss.

I’m looking forward to playing with this recipe a bit – and hopefully making it waffle-iron ready Open-mouthed smile Fingers crossed

Stats on two pancakes (without any toppings): 203 calories, 21g carbs, 2g fat, 22g protein, 3g fiber.

Recipes

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

Recipes

Finally

May 3, 2011 6 Comments

Today (finally) for the first time in I can’t remember how long I took the time to make myself up something tasty for dinner.

After going through an absolutely horrendous move and experiencing 9 days of the absolute worst customer service experience of my life, I figured I could use a little red meat in my life. Am I right?

A Cooking Light recipe for Beef Tenderloin with Horseradish Chive sauce caught my eye recently, and I decided to play off of this idea and make a grilled steak and onion wrap with some of this intriguing sauce.

I grilled up some hunks of red onion and popped them onto of of a Tumaro’s low carb tortilla with 1/2 a slice of Sargento’s pepper jack cheese:

Next up: Horseradish-Chive Sauce!

I scaled back the sauce a bit and combined the following in a petri dish Winking smile

2 tbsp fat free sour cream
2 tsp horseradish
1 tsp of spicy brown mustard
1 tbsp chopped chives
Sprinkle of lemon juice
Salt to taste

Once the sauce was done, I grilled up some thinly sliced steak, sliced up about 3 ounces of it, and added that to my wrap.

I rolled the wrap up and popped it back on the grill to melt the cheese through, and dinner was served!

With a delicious side salad of course!

This sauce was deeee-licious!

The box unpacking is moving along slowwwwly, so I foresee my meals being on the quicker lighter side. My jeans will thank me Smile

Stats on the steak wrap with 1/3 of the horseradish-chive sauce: 272 calories, 17 Carbs, 15g fat, 23g protein, 7g fiber

Recipes

Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

February 20, 2011 9 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for quite a while, but am just now getting around to it. Dang you tax season. Dang you!

This is an incredibly easy soup to throw together, and as and added bonus it’s pretty low cal (not to mention tasty). Boo. ya.

I searched long and hard for wild rice, but could not find any at my grocery store. What the heck is up with that? So, I settled on some Rice a Roni Long Grain & Wild Rice:

I cooked the rice up according to the package directions (subbing in chicken broth for water and omitting the butter).

Then I heated up a large pot, sprayed it down with some cooking spray, and sautéed the following:

1 cup prechopped onion
2/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup cut carrots
3 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
8 ounces baby bella mushrooms

My grocery store doesn’t have “gourmet” mushrooms, but these baby bellas always do the trick:

All the kids into the pool:

Once the veggies were softened, I added in a splash of chicken stock to decaramelize the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Once I worked them all off the bottom, I tossed in the rest of the stock, and stirred in: