Fervent Foodie

Some like it hot

November 3, 2010 6 Comments

There is a small portion of the population out there that crave heat in their food. These are the people who actually enjoy the runny nose you inevitably get when eating something hot. The people who know when others say something is “hot” it won’t even phase them because of their extreme tolerance for heat. The people who’ve contemplated carrying around a bottle of hot sauce in their purse/bookbag/car. The people who have found a way to incorporate buffalo sauce in to breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. The people who constantly get asked “you put hot sauce on that?!”

You know who you are.

This recipe is for you.

I bring you slow-cooked buffalo chicken sandwiches:

When I first stumbled upon this recipe, I KNEW it was destiny. Buffalo chicken dip is a staple in my circle of friends and family, so how could a buffalo chicken sandwich NOT be amazing?

Simple answer. If you like hot food, you will love this sandwich.

The recipe was very easy to throw together.

Throw the following into a plastic baggie to marinate overnight:

4 raw skinless boneless chicken breasts
3/4 of a Quart (24 ounces) buffalo wing sauce (use your favorite brand–we used Gionino’s, of course)
1 package dry ranch salad dressing mix

The next morning toss the marinated chicken into a crockpot, and cook on low for 6 hours. Once the chicken is cooked, pull the breasts out of the crockpot and shred them up with two forks. Toss the meat back in and then add:

2 tablespoons butter
8 ounces of buffalo wing sauce (which is the remainder of the quart)

Cook for one hour more, and then serve on top of a toasted kaiser roll.

To make the sandwich even more amazing, add some pepper jack cheese.

Awwwwww yeeahhhhhhh.

WARNING: Things may get a little sloppy. But true hot sauce lovers like to become one with their food, am I right? 😀

Recipes

Eggcellent.

November 1, 2010 6 Comments

My kitchen is no stranger to eggs.

Shortly after starting this blog, it dawned on me that I really do eat an excessive amount of eggs. So I started thinking about possible substitutions I could make. Something healthy, clean, and full of protein. Something filling and delicious that gave me energy without spiking my temperamental blood sugar.

I searched high and low and ended up right where I started.

Eggcellent.

One of the MANY things I LOVE about eggs is that I can make them in a big batch. Typically, I cook up a 5 serving egg scramble Sunday night and that serves as my breakfast #1 for the workweek. Each serving of my scrambled eggs consists of 1 whole egg and 3 egg whites, which I season up with S&P, Red Pepper Flakes, and some Franks Red Hot.

I was feeling lazy Sunday night, so I ended up pushing back the egg-makin til Monday night this week. After work I headed to the grocery store to get the goods. I typically have some roasted broccoli alongside my eggs, but made a last-minute produce aisle decision to use up some of the frozen veggies in the freezer instead.

Low and behold I didn’t have any frozen veggies (dangit). You know, I actually think this was co-worker karma come back to haunt me. Recently, I discovered that roasted broccoli heated up in the community microwave makes the ENTIRE floor smell like butt. Apparently, I was oblivious to this smell for the last 9 months… Whoops! I guess it’s just pay back for those afternoon snackers who always burn their popcorn in the microwave leaving us with a 3pm funk. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! 😉

Luckily, I had 1 lonely large potato on hand (leftover from my Zuppa Tosacana). Eggs and potatoes. Can’t go wrong with that!

I tossed the potato into a bowl and seasoned it up with a drizzle of EVOO, some S&P, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper:

Then I popped them into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes to get their roast on. Once everything was done cooking, i evenly divided the goods up into four containers:

Tuesday through Friday B#1:

Now repeat 52 times and you have B#1 for the whole year… hahahah 🙂

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What are your go-to workday breakfasts?

Recipes

Jambalaya. Jealous?

November 1, 2010 9 Comments

Every time I think of New Orleans, I hear the Zatarain’s rice commercial in my head. You know… Zatarain’s! (Said with much sass and flavor while jazz music wails in the background). Even before my trip to the Big Easy, I had this funny mental quirk.

This thought popped into my head tonight when I began to think about what to make for dinner. I was presented with the following challenge: what do you make when you’ve got leftover meats out the wazoo?

JAMBALAYA of course! It seems like ages since I last made Jambalaya! Well at least four months anyway. I had some chicken leftover from last week’s lunch and the turkey sausage was leftover from my Zuppa Tuscana…

Lucky for me, I keep frozen shrimp in the freezer at all times in case of emergency. So whipping together a 3-meat entre was easy peasy tonight!

3 meats, one dish:

The meats were ready to roll, so I heated the oven up to 400 degrees and got to choppin 2 roma tomatoes, 1/2 a white onion, and 1 green pepper:

I tossed the veggies into a bowl with:

1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 tsp minced garlic

I gave everything a good toss, then added:

1 cup brown rice
1 cup low sodium chicken broth

I intended on using 1.5 cups of brown rice, but I ran out! Ooops! That’s what happens when I grocery shop without taking inventory first! Dangit!

I divided the mix up evenly among three foil packets that I had sprayed down with some nonstick cooking spray:

One for my dinner, one for my lunch, and one for the BF’s lunch because I’m clearly dabomb.com.

I popped the packets into the oven for 30 minutes, and VOOOOILLLAAA!

Oh so spicy, and ohhhhh so delicious!

Yes, the jambalaya we had in New Orleans (and again) was a teensy bit tastier than my healthified version, but I’d like to see NOLA try and stack up to these stats:

Stats on 1 serving: 314 calories, 33g carbs, 9g fat, 27g protein, 3g fiber

Jambalaya Ingredients List (serves 3):

6 large shrimp, tails removed
2 links Jennie-O Hot Turkey Sausage
3 ounces grilled chicken
1 green bell pepper
2 plum tomatoes
1/2 a white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 cup reduced sodium low fat chicken broth

Recipes

Zuppa Toscana

October 29, 2010 15 Comments

It’s hard to believe that I used to hate soup. Whaaaattt???? I hated them. And I mean all of them. I found soup unsatisfying and uncravable. I needed something with substance (and by substance I mean a big hunk of meat or a big hunk of bread).

How could I resist this beauty???

Nowadays the soup and salad combo is one of my favorites, especially this time of year. I love the contrast: a cool crunchy salad and hot comforting soup. I went to lunch with my coworkers last week and tried Zuppa Toscana for the first time. It was DELISH, and I knew I had to give it a shot.

So first off, what is Zuppa Toscana anyway? Tuscan soup… not exactly descriptive. Google tells me Zuppa Toscana is supposed to include sausage, bacon, greens, potatoes and cream. Sounds like a good starting point!

After some futher googlin I found a few recipes that looked pretty tasty and after some tweaking and Maryfications I ended up with some mighty tasty results!

First up, I took some help for my girl Jennie O’, and grabbed 3 hot turkey sausage links.

I ran a knife along the back of each sausage link to cut through the casing, then removed the sausage meat and discarded the casings

Once my skillet was nice and hot, I tossed the sausage in and used a spatula to break out the meat. When the sausage was no longer pink, I removed it from the skillet and set aside.

Next up, I heated up a soup pot, once hot I added one large diced yellow onion, 1 tablespoon minced garlic, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and and 1.5 tsp red pepper flakes. I like it hot!

Glory in a pot:

Cook the onions until soft and translucent, then add 2 boxes of low-sodium fat free chicken broth (64 ounces). While you are waiting for the soup to come to a boil, slice up one large potato:

Bring the the soup to a boil, then add the sliced potatoes. Reduce to medium heat, and cook for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender. Next toss in the sausage and one cup of half and half.

Let the soup simmer away until everything is warmed through, and just before you are ready to serve it toss in 3 cups of spinach.

VOILA! Soup is served!

This soup was AWESOME. Only problem was my poor potatoes practically disintegrated in the soup. Next time I think I’ll chunk the potatoes rather than thinly slicing them.

Despite that potato problem, the soup was so tasty and it had a little kick which I loved! If you aren’t big on spicy foods, cut the red pepper flakes and black pepper back.

Serve with a delicious salad, of course!

Zuppa Toscana Ingredients List (makes 6 Servings)

3 links Jennie O’ Hot Turkey Sausage
1 large diced yellow onion
1 and 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
64 ounces Chicken Broth Fat Free Reduced Sodium Chicken broth
1 large potato
1 cup half and half
3 cups fresh spinach

Stats on one serving Zuppa Toscana: 207 calories, 15g carbs, 10g fat, 14g protein, 2g fiber

Fitness

The best laid plans

October 26, 2010 7 Comments

Coming off of ANOTHER big tax deadline followed by ANOTHER vacation, my body is craving some normalcy and home-cooked meals. I’ll admit, eating out is probably my favorite activity, but enough is enough already!

When I sat down Sunday afternoon to plan out my groceries for the week I was sad to see that I had 1 networking breakfast, 3 networking lunches, and 2 networking dinners this week! Argh!

Making healthy choices at restaurants is really difficult for me. Typically, I just order whatever I want when I am out to eat and then make sure to eat a normal size portion rather than the entire trough of food they bring to the table. When I am looking for a healthy meal at a restaurant, I have the hardest time making a decision. Even if I go with the “safe” salad option, it’s practically impossible to know what sort of calories/fats/carbs they’ve crammed into every nook and cranny of my leafy greens. I guess part of the problem is that I’m an anal accountant by nature. I need to see the numbers!

Despite being over-networked this week, I was super excited to attend my first CLE Blogger meet up Monday night! I made the trek from Akron to Cleveland to meet up with a group of lovely ladies at L’Albatros.

The group consisted of: Michelle of All Lacquered Up, Feeding Maybelle, Kali of Finishing Firsts, Suzanne of life on Mars, Alicia of Poise in Parma, Shannon of The Daily Balance, ME!, and Katie of Healthy Heddleston.

A special thank you to Alicia for organizing the meet up (and for sharing the lovely photo).

L’Albatros was FABULOUS. The wait staff was SUPER attentive and the ambiance was pure swank:

(photo from http://www.albatrosbrasserie.com/)

The best part of the meetup was not the food (gasp!) but getting to meet such great women. I’ve said over and over again on the blog that there is something uniquely energizing about entering a room full of chatting women. At one moment during dinner I paused and looked around the table—each of us were actively engaged in the conversation and the noise in the room reminded me of the loud rumble you hear and feel as a jumbo jet flies over head.

There were a TON of great options on the menu, but I ended up going with the Chicken Breast with Goat Cheese and mashed potatoes. Yes, goat cheese AND mashed potatoes. Insert drooling here. Oh and there were sundried tomatoes…..

Comforting yet swanky:

This was an absolutely delicious dinner. The mashed potatoes literally melted away in my mouth and the chicken was moist and super flavorful. I’ll definitely be coming back to L’Albatros!

Another great aspect of the restaurant was the cheese show. When you ask for a plate of cheese, they give you a PLATE. OF. CHEESE.

Notice that two of the cheeses must be eaten with a spoon. Mind = blown 🙂

QUESTION: For those of you out there who have a lot of work meetings that involve food, how do go about making healthy choices?

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