Faux Chicken Parmesan

Do you guys every go through phases where you just don’t want anything to do with certain foods?  Lately, that’s how I’ve been feeling about meat. I just have not been craving it! 

While at Target over the weekend, I picked up a box of Morning Star Chick Patties.  I think I’ve contemplated buying these dozens of times before, but never sealed the deal.

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Over the weekend, I cooked one of these patties up in the oven and had it on a Pepperidge Farm 7 grain deli flat.

No sauce.  No veggies.  Just the faux meat and bun.

It was glorious.  It seriously reminded me of the chicken pattie sandwiches from high school.  I know that sounds disgusting, but in this instance it’s actually a very very good thing. 

Then, the other night I had a VISION: Faux Chicken Parmesan… Healthified, no less: 

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Shut the front door!!!!

First up, grab a spaghetti squash and halve it…

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I swear, every time I try and halve a squash I have flashes of severing a finger.  I think to myself, “is this it?”  Is this the day that I lose a finger in the name of squash??

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Once it’s halved, scoop out the seeds, and pop this puppy onto a cookie sheet into a 415 degree over for 30 minutes.  I ‘m no fan of mooshy squashoodles.

Next, I grabbed some leftover pasta sauce from the freezer.  This was Nature’s Basket Roasted Garlic:

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Why do I get such joy from stock piling individual servings of goods in the freezer?  It’s uncanny really. 

I defrosted the sauce a bit in the microwave, then tossed in a pan and added a hodge podge of seasonings including:  red pepper flakes, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, parsley.

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Once the squash was done, I pulled it out of the oven and used a fork to scrape out the innards.  Then popped 1 chicken pattie and some broccoli into the oven to do their thang.

Once the pattie was cooked through, I combined all my delicious and oh-so-easy ingredients:

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Faux-chicken-parmesan MASTERPIECE.

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I am in love with these patties… seriously, if you haven’t tried them DO IT.  Just make sure you cook them in the oven (and not the microwave) and you’ll get a crispy delicious bit of faux-meat-heaven.

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Mmmm hmmmmmmmmmmm….

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This WILL be making frequent appearance in my tax season dinner diet.  For sure.

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Stats on 1 serving faux chicken parmesan (1/2 squash, 1 pattie, 1/2 cup sauce):  274 calories, 44carbs, 7g fat, 12g protein, 8g fiber

Lest we not forget….. the winner of my Luna Bar giveaway is…….

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Meagan!  Yay!!!  Email me with your mailing adddres and I’ll get the bars to you ASAP!

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