quick dinner – Fervent Foodie

Change of plans! Due to the torrential down pour that’s being dumped on us in northeast Ohio, there was no cooking out today.

Instead, I was left with the task of cooking myself a dinner using only ingredients I had in the house. I opened up the pantry to find a bag of Carba Nada pasta begging to be eaten:

I also happened to have some grilled chicken breast leftover from Tuesday night’s cookathon, and in the deep dark depths of my freezer I was lucky to find a single serving of Classico Fire Roasted Tomato & Garlic pasta sauce. Just another perfect example to validate my love and obsession for freezing foods in individual servings 🙂

Batch cooking your meats saves a TON of time throughout the week, but towards the end of the week the meat (especially chicken) can start to get a little dry. When I make pasta sauce with any sort of meat, I like to steep the meat in the sauce, which makes it nice and juicy and tender.

So, while I was waiting for the pasta water to boil, I put the pasta sauce in small pan and added about 3 ounces of grilled chicken and my typical pasta sauce barrage of spices: S&P, Red Pepper Flakes, Dried Oregano, Dried Basil, Onion Powder, and Garlic Powder. All you really need to do is open up your spice cabinet and toss in a few shakes of whatever sounds good to you 🙂

Once the water was boiling, I dropped a serving of the Carba Nada pasta into the pot. Carba Nada only takes 5 minutes to cook (awesome!) and is only 140 calories (AWESOMER!), 24g carbohydrates, 12g protein, and 6g fiber. And it ACTUALLY tastes good.

While the sauce and pasta were getting their grooves on, I made a small side salad with some lettuce, tomato, onion, and Ken’s Steakhouse Light Balsamic Dressing.

Dinner is served my friends!

Pastalicious

Chow time!

Dinner in under 10 minutes… sure tastes good!

Stats on dinner: 398 calories, 48g carbs, 8g fat, 32g protein, 13g fiber

If you are interested in trying out the Carba Nada pasta, I recommend ordering from Netrition because they have $4.95 flat-rate shipping. (I also order my Mama Lupe low-carb tortillas, PB2, and Joseph’s Bakery products on this site)

QUESTION: What’s your favorite done-in-under-ten-minutes dinner?

What’s better than a dinner that only takes 15 minutes to get into your belly? A dinner that only takes 15 minutes AND is healthy AND tastes delicious!

Lately, I’ve been craving bread. Buns, muffins, bagels, pizzas, you know the deal. So tonight, I thought I’d make a healthified chicken parmesan sub.

I topped a Joseph’s Low-Carb Pita with a 1/4 cup of Classico Fire Roasted Tomato Garlic Pasta sauce (leftover from yesterday’s pizza), and 3 ounces of grilled chicken (leftovers from the weekend). I added some red pepper flakes, dried oregano, black pepper, and garlic powder.

Then I thinly sliced a light mini babybel cheese round into four thin discs and tossed that on top along with some banana pepper rings:

In another pan, I added 2 cups broccoli and a ¼ cup of garbanzo beans (leftovers from the couscous garbanzo bean salad).

Everything into a 415 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Beautiful.

So friggin’ tasty:

I love roasted veggies

Melty and amazing

So is it still considered a chicken parmesan sub if I didn’t use any parmesan? Chicken Babybelesan sub perhaps 😉

Stats on the sub: 228 calories, 13g carbs, 7g fat, 33g protein, 5g fiber

Stats on the broccoli/beans: 110 calories, 22g carbs, 2g fat, 8g protein, 9g fiber

Altogether: 338 calories, 35g carbs, 9g fat, 41g protein, 14g fiber

Dinner in under 10 Minutes

Healthified Chicken Parmesan Sub