Cooking – Page 4 – Fervent Foodie

Couscous Crusted Chicken

January 26, 2011 5 Comments

Talk about a happy accident!

Once I got home from the grocery store, I was on a mission: to make the couscous stuffed chicken featured in this month’s Cooking Light. I had even pre-snipped the recipe out and hung it up at the stove:

Hard core.

I was pretty excited to try this recipe for a few reasons. First, I have a giant tub of Rice Select Tri-Color couscous in my cabinet that has been begging to be used. Second, I love any excuse to use my meat mallet.

Let’s be honest… I like any excuse to type “meat mallet” Smile with tongue out

Even though the ingredients list is fairly long the dish came together pretty easy. First, I pounded the chicken breast out to about 1/4 inch thickness and sliced in half. For the couscous mixture, I brought 1/4 cup of fat free low sodium chicken broth to a boil then added 1/4 cup of the couscous. Then you cover the couscous, remove it from the heat, and let it hang out for about 4 minutes.

Then add in the flava:

1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1 tbsp Athenos Feta Cheese
1 tbsp chopped sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup thinly sliced spinach
1 clove minced garlic

The Cooking Light recipe called for olives (BLEGH!) and olive oil, which I omitted and instead subbed in sundried tomatoes and spinach. Divide the couscous mixture between your chicken breast halves:

And them roll them up jelly roll style…. Easy right?

Ummm not so much. I had a couscous blow out and half of the filling fell out! So, I went with my guts and seared the chicken on all sides, then plopped into a baking dish and kind of mashed the extra couscous mix on top of the chicken.

Then I popped it into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

And VOILA!

Couscous crusted chicken!

The couscous got a little crispy in the oven, and it reminded me a lot of breaded chicken!

Of course I had a salad on the side.

Overall, the couscous crusted chicken idea is AMAZING. Now I just need to come up with some sort of sauce to go along side… Hmmmmm……

Stats on 1/2 of the Couscous Crusted Chicken Recipe: 203 calories, 16g carbs, 4g fat, 26g protein, 1g fiber

Couscous Crusted Chicken Ingredients List (Serves 2)

8 ounces chicken breast
1/4 cup couscous – I use Rice Select Tri Color Couscous
1/4 fat free low sodium chicken broth
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1 tbsp Athenos Feta Cheese
1 tbsp chopped sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup thinly sliced spinach
Black pepper to taste
1 clove minced garlic

Recipes

Quinoa!

January 25, 2011 5 Comments

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about quinoa lately (pronounced keen-wah), but not surprisingly MANY people still have never heard of this food. Quinoa has been dubbed a super grain — though I think it’s actually a seed not a grain — because it is high in complete protein (meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids). In addition to the protein, it’s got a whole list of other benefits–it is rich in magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, and selenium (which help to control weight and reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes) AND quinoa is rich in lignans (found to reduce the risk of heart disease as well as certain types of cancer). (source)

Pretty impressive resume, eh?

Way back in August, I attended the Healthy Living Summit in Chicago and while there I ventured off to Trader Joe’s with Haya. At the time, I was PUMPED to buy my very first box of Quinoa. Fast forward 5 months, and the box of quinoa was still sitting unopened in my cabinet just waiting to be used.

So sad!

I’d only had quinoa once before (at the HLS) so I wasn’t entirely sure how to incorporate the seed into a meal. After months of staring at the box, I finally decided to go with TJ’s recipe printed right on the backside. Why the heck not?

One important thing about quinoa is that you have to soak and rinse it before you use it:

While the Quinoa soaked, I got to chopping some bell peppers. The recipe called for one yellow and one red pepper:

And one medium onion… I threw in some green pepper for good measure.

Ready, set, go!

Once I was done chopping, I cooked up 1 cup of quinoa according to the package instructions (though I subbed fat free low sodium chicken broth for the water). Then I threw the veggies into a saute pan along with 4 minced cloves of garlic and some S&P and let them hang out for a bit.

Meanwhile, I cubed up 8 ounces of grilled chicken:

Gettin their sizzle on:

Once the quinoa cooks through it gets pretty fluffy. It kind of reminds me of fluffier couscous:

Once the quinoa was cooked, I combined it with the veggies and chicken, about 10 leaves of sliced up fresh basil, and 1/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese:

I topped my plate off with some black pepper and red pepper flakes for good measure:

This specific recipe was a little on the bland side, but despite that I LOVE quinoa. Since we were lacking in the flavor department, I topped myself off with some Frank’s Red Hot to add a little kick.

Now that I’ve broken the quinoa seal, I’m feeling optimistic about trying out some different quinoa recipes. Any of you guys have suggestions?

Stats on 1/4 of the TJ’s Quinoa recipe: 288 calories, 38g carbs, 6g fat, 21g protein, 5g fiber

Restaurants, Travel

Making my Charlotte foodie rounds

January 24, 2011 5 Comments

This past weekend I jetsetted down to Charlotte to spend the weekend with my wildly-attractive recently-relocated boyfriend.

The plan was to go straight from the airport to dinner (no need to beat around the bush, right?), so I changed into my dinner clothes before catching my flight and was being SUPER careful to not wrinkle or otherwise launder my shirt before dinner. I was pretty impressed with myself because my shirt managed to make it through the flight unscathed. Once I landed, I headed to the bathroom to straighten up and when I lifted my arm to fix my hair I was greeted by a very unpleasant I-just-ran-a-marathon scent wafting up to my nose. I smelled horrible. So horrible in fact, that I’d like to apologize to the lovely old man who sat next to me in seat 8B. That must have been a rough flight for you…

Lucky for me, the BF finds humor in almost all random situations, especially those that involve me fumbling out of my intended picture of perfection. So, we rerouted to Target where the BF spent a few minutes sniffing out the best lady’s deodorant while I changed into a clean shirt in the bathroom. Just the thought of him standing in the deodorant aisle comparing Suave Sweet Pea to Secret Va-Va-Vanilla makes me chuckle. Lovely start to the weekend 🙂

After the stink debauchle we finally headed to dinner, which was courtesy of a Living Social deal I had purchased a couple months back.

I love coupons.

Intermezzo Pizzeria

First off, the atmosphere at Intermezzo was AWESOME. There wasn’t a ton of seating inside, but that was just fine by us. The whole interior of the building is brick and looks very old and is full of character. It reminded me of what I picture an old Italian cellar to look like. I loved the low lighting and of course the staff was very friendly.

Appetizers were half off (SCORE!), so we decided to order up the two that sounded most tasty. First was the bruschetta with tomatoes, scallions, house made mozzarella on top of house made bread:

Second was the garlic braided twists with garlic, herbs, and artisan olive oil:

Both of the apps were pretty good – but I preferred the garlic twists, even though they were over cooked. The bruschetta was bland and needed some balsamic glaze drizzled on top. Though, once I dunked it in the awesome tomato sauce that came with the garlic twists though it was quite tasty.

I ordered up the Intermezzo side salad so that I could squeeze in some veggies between the bread and cheese, but wasn’t a fan of the dressing so not much of it got eaten. Jarrod didn’t like the dressing either. That’s four thumbs down. Darnit… What a waste of veggies.

I was a little worried going into the dinner ordering because the apps were so-so and salad really was meh. After we eyeballed the menu one last time, we ended up ordering the Milanese pizza which came with mozzarella and romano cheese, red onions, and sausage (which we swapped in place of the grilled chicken):

The pizza was FABULOUS. Seriously delicious. Thank god because the atmosphere at Intermezzo was so awesome I definitely want to go back… though I’ll be skipping over the appetizers.

Harper’s

For lunch the next day, we headed to Pineville to grab some grub Harper’s courtesy of a Groupon purchase:

Walking into Harper’s I really wasn’t expecting anything interesting given that it’s attached to a mall. Surprisingly, the décor and atmosphere was unexpectedly cool and unique! I love when that happens!

The bar alone was HUGE and overall it seemed like a fun place to chill.

The BF went with the Chicken Caesar roasted wrap… *cough* BORING *cough*

I, on the other hand, ordered up the pimento mac and cheese:

Holy canoli. After a couple bites, I added a few dashes of hot sauce and I swear to you it was mac and cheese perfection.

For the main event, I went with the pulled chicken streetside tacos which were served with fresh corn tortillas, avocado salsa, red onions, cheesy goodness, cole slaw mix, chipotle cream sauce, and cilantro.

After one bite, all I could say was WOW. Actually it was “Woooowwwwwww you have GOTTTTT to try these!!”

Jarrod agreed the tacos were fab. Two thumbs up Harpers!

Black Finn

MUCH later that night we headed to dinner at Blackfinn. Our original intentions was to go to Libretto’s for some pasta, but we couldn’t even walk into the place since the Bobcats game had just let out. So we went with the backup plan of Blackfinn.

I was being a grumpy pants when we first arrived to Blackfinn, so thankfully the BF took charge and ordered us some delicious grub. Why was I being a grumpy pants? Good question. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.

We started off with some side salads with balsamic vinaigrette — and they were just delicious. Blackfinn’s salad really made up for the crappy salad I had at Intermezzo, and THANKFULLY started to pull me out of my illusive bad mood.

For the entre, we split the blackened chicken alfredo with fettuccine. The pasta had a really creamy alfredo sauce and diced tomatoes, red onion, parmesan cheese, and the piece de resistance–GARLIC BREADDDDD.

Note that no pictures were taken of this meal because of the aforementioned grumpfest, though somewhere between the salad and pasta I was back to my normal self.

Sunset Grille

Sunday Sunday Sunday… my last day in Charlotte (for this trip at least), so we headed to Sunset Grille for some Sunday Brunch, courtesy of a Groupon deal.

As soon as we walked in to Sunset Grille I was in love with the place. I was completely caught off guard by the decor and ambiance (in a very good way). I think the best way to describe it would be Southern Swank — horse hair covered stools, rugged high top tables with sleek white leather chairs, and white bull skulls on the wall. All of the staff seemed to have the slow southern draw down pat as well, which I adore about North Carolina.

My newfound love was only strengthened when they brought us a **FREE** welcome basket of fresh doughnut fritters:

Yes, please!

We decided to go with our breakfast standby–something sweet and something savory split in twos between us. For the savory, we had the three egg omelet with baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and provolone cheese plus we added in some of Neese’s homemade sausage and a side of scattered hashbrowns:

For our sweet dish, we ordered the buttermilk pancakes with chocolate chips

These pancakes were melt in your mouth delicious. I love this place and can’t wait to go back and try out their lunch and dinner dishes!

All in all a wonderful weekend in Charlotte! Can’t wait for my next trip 😀

Recipes

Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup

January 18, 2011 6 Comments

This time of year, my absolute favorite thing to make for my work-week lunches is soup. I’m sure you all can relate to the need to feed your belly warm comforting foods once winter weather rolls in. Unfortunately, the last few soups I’ve tried haven’t been very exciting. I made a chicken taco soup and came to the realization that corn just needs to stay on the cob and keep the heck out of my soup bowl. I also made chicken pot pie soup. I love chicken pot pie… but the best part of the pot pie is the flaky crust and by turning the pot pie into a pot pieless soup I had effectively cooked up a big batch of blah.

So, I’ve been searching high and low for a new soup to try and finally came across a promising recipe for White Bean Soup with Kale and Chorizo in the November 2010 issue of Cooking Light. It sounded pretty darn delicious to me, and even though I’d never tried Kale I figured I’d give it a shot.

I’ve never had chorizo either (though I’m sure I’d love it), and I happened to have some leftover Honeysuckle Hot Italian Turkey sausage I wanted to use up… So the starting point for my soup was two of these links:

I used a knife to remove the casings on the sausage, then tossed them into a soup pot that I’d heated up over a medium high flame and sprayed down with some cooking spray.

I let the sausage do it’s thang for a bit, stirring occasionally. No need to worry about the hard brown bits on the bottom of the pan – these will turn into little nuggets of flavor in just a bit:

Once the sausage was no longer pink, I added four large cloves of minced garlic along with my beloved onion:

I seasoned this mixture up with some S&P.

I would have been more than happy (elated, actually) to have eaten this simple combo for dinner…

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t grab a spoon and savor a few bites of the sausage onion goodness straight out of the pot. Heaven!

Once the onions were nice and soft, I added about 1 cup of fat-free low sodium chicken broth to the pan and used a wooden spoon to sort of “massage” the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.

Work it….. Wooorkkkkk ittttttt. Winking smile

Then I tossed in the rest of the stock in a box (approx 3 more cups), 2 cans drained and rinsed cannellini beans, and another 1/2 tsp black pepper:

I let the soup jive on the stove for a bit, while I got to tackling the kale monster in my sink:

I’ve never had kale before. For those of you who haven’t had it—it’s kind of like broccoli and spinach had a baby… A really large overgrown baby who was a little rough around the edges. You follow? Smile

Luckily, my years of dedicated Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals watching had trained me how to handle this kale monster.

Fill the sink up with water, drop in the kale, give it a good swish and let all the gritty bits drain to the bottom.
Dry the kale.
THEN, hold the kale stem in one hand and slide the leaves of the kale through the fingers of your other hand (to rip the kale leaves off the tough stems).
Give it a rough chop.

Once the kale was ready, I dropped about 6 cups into the soup:

I gave it a good stir and let the hot soup wilt down the kale:

One nice thing about kale is it doesn’t get super mooshy and limp in soup like spinach does (not that I don’t love spinach in soup – the kale just adds some welcomed texture to the pot).

Once the kale was worked in, I popped a lid on the pot and let it simmer away for 15 minutes or so while I cleaned up the kitchen.

And dinner was served my friends!

I topped my soup off with 1 teaspoon of shredded parmesan cheese:

This pot of soup made 5 good-size servings, which was plenty for me because I wanted to have some ciabatta for dunking!

If you wanted your bowl to overfloweth with soup – well, then I’d say the pot serves 4.

Regardless of how many people the pot is serving, this pot SERVES it up. DELICIOUS, EASY, AND HEALTHY! That’s the trifecta in my book!

Now the only test remaining is how well this soup freezes… stayed tuned on that!

Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup Ingredients List:

2 links Honeysuckle Turkey Sausage, casings removed
1 medium size onion, chopped
4 large cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups (1 box) Swansons fat free reduced sodium chicken broth
2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
6 cups Kale, chopped
Black pepper!

Stats on 1/5 of the pot o’ soup: 236 Calories, 38g carbs, 4g fat, 20g protein, 10g fiber

Recipes

Mary’s Special Eggs

January 10, 2011 10 Comments

It’s no secret that I love eggs for breakfast. Every. Day.

Unfortunately, I just don’t have the time to whip myself up some eggs before work every day, so I like to cook a big ole batch on Sunday night. I was getting a little burnt out on my normal scrambled eggs and broccoli (not to mention the fact that my coworkers were getting sick of the broccoli stinking up the microwave), so I decided to switch things up a bit.

And so evolved Mary’s Special Eggs!

For a 5-serving batch, I start off with 2 links Jennie O’ Hot Turkey Sausage, casings removed. I pop those into a hot skillet and cook until no longer pink while crumbling with a spatula.

Once the sausage is finished cooking, I remove it from the pan and set aside while I get to work on the veggies.

In the same skillet (which should still be hot), toss in

A handful of sliced up baby bella mushrooms
1/2 cup diced red onion
2 cloves garlic

Season these guys up with salt and pepper, and let them cook over medium heat until soft.

Meanwhile, get to crackin the eggs. For 5 servings I go with:

5 whole eggs
10 egg whites
Splash of water

Give those a good whisk. The onions and mushrooms should be softened up by now and looking oh so tasty.

At that point, you pour on the egg mixture:

Season these up with S&P, and as the eggs begin to cook, use your spatula to scrape the cooked eggs off the bottom of the pan. Continue this process until the eggs are nearly cooked through,

then toss in the cooked turkey sausage:

And some more veggies!

1 diced tomato, seeded
2 cups spinach thinly sliced

Into the pan:

Then I just use the spatula to fold everything in and finish cooking the eggs through:

Soooo yummy.

Once the eggs are done cooking I divide them up into 5 containers—and there’s Breakfast #1 for the workweek!

I like to break my breakfasts up into 2 small breakfasts rather than one large meal, so I typically follow the eggs up with a serving of oatmeal about 2 hours afterward. On the weekends I like to take a serving of the eggs, pop them on a low carb tortilla with some Franks Red Hot, and give them a nice grill on the George Foreman. Trust me, it’s one delicious (HEALTHY!) breakfast burrito!

Stats on 1 Servings of my Special Eggs: 189 Calories, 9g carbs, 9g fat, 23g protein, 1g fiber

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