recipe – Page 12 – Fervent Foodie

White Chicken Chili

January 5, 2011 3 Comments

Last night was my first night back from Charlotte, AKA my first night home alone. I knew I needed something healthy after the Charlotte Restaurant Binge but I was really craving comfort food. Soooooo, I decided to go with a healthified version of the white chicken chili the BF made a few months back.

I started off by heating 1 tsp of olive oil in a large pot. Once hot, I added 1 large chopped up onion (the larger the better.. I’m talking softball size).

I tossed four cloves of minced garlic on top (to keep the garlic from burning), and once the onions were soft and translucent I added:

2 4 ounce cans chopped green chilies
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp black pepper
32 ounces reduced sodium free-range chicken broth
2 cubed up grilled chicken breast
1 diced jalapeno
3 cans great northern beans, rinsed and drained

Chopped up chickies!

I let everything simmer for 15 minutes or so:

Thennnnn I stirred in 3/4 of a cup reduced fat Mexican blend cheese. (I probably could have got away with 1/2 a cup of cheese—ohhhhh well)

How easy is this by the way????

Once the cheese was melted, I divided the soup up into 6 even portions:

I popped a couple of the portions into the freezer and some into the fridge for lunch this week. And of course one was for dinner tonight! I poured that lucky portion into a bowl and topped with some sliced jalapeno:

Dinner is served!

D-E-L-EEEEEEEEEESH 😀

Stats on 1 Serving White Chicken Chili: 277 Calories, 37g carbs, 5g fat, 29g protein, 11g fiber

Ramblings

First Impressions

December 13, 2010 13 Comments

First impressions are EVERYTHING. How often have you heard that expression in life? Work? Relationships? First impressions. They either make ya or break ya.

When I first got the Betty Crocker 300 calorie cookbook, I was beyond excited.

I was SO excited, that I spent my lunch break thumbing through the pages and flagging all the recipes that sounded delicious.

(Overzealous, much?)

Could it be true? 300 calories of home cooked goodness? Sounded like it was right up my alley!

Shortly after, I tried out my first recipe in the book: Chicken and Spinach Skillet. I picked the recipe because it used two of my favorite ingredients (chicken and spinach, obviously) and it was an extremely simple recipe. How can you go wrong with that?

It seemed as though the stars were aligning. Hundreds and hundreds of healthified recipes at my fingertips. All hinging on this first recipe. This first recipe that was, well, a big fat flop. It was blah. So blah, in fact, that I threw the leftovers away… and that is simply UNHEARD of in the Fervent Foodie household.

And so the book sat. Poor little Betty Crocker and her 300 calorie recipes sandwiched between a bright green cover with fun yellow letters… dozens of pages flagged with anticipation…

Months passed. FINALLY, this week I pulled the cookbook down from the bookshelf and my heart churned over the little yellow flags peeking out of the book. And I decided to give it another go. I decided to give Better Crocker a second chance.

This time around, I went with the Chicken Enchilada Pie:

Annnnnddddd it was….. meh.

Better than the Turkey Spinach Skillet, but not good enough to even bother posting the recipe on the blog. I mean, I’m not throwing away the leftovers or anything, but let’s just say the tour de Chicken Enchilada Pie won’t be coming round my house again.

Hmmmm… well…. crap.

So, do I give Betty a THIRD shot, or what?

Pondery.

Recipes

Szechwan Shrimp

December 5, 2010 2 Comments

Whelp, I haven’t been doing much blogging lately BUT I have been doing a decent amount of cooking! Time to play catch up!

Three things that I look for in any good recipe:

Easy.
Healthy.
Onions.

ok… The recipe just has to be friggin delicious (usually that comes with the addition of some onions, but not always).

This recipe for Szechwan Shrimp has been a favorite of mine for a couple years now, simply because it meets my three criteria (even the onions!). Even though it has lots of ingredients, most of them are things I always have on hand. Can’t complain about that!

First up, I mix up the sauce ingredients in a small bowl:

2 tbsp water
1 tsp ketchup
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp honey
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp olive oil

Then I sprayed down a skillet, heated it over medium heat, and added 1 large sliced green onion and one clove minced garlic. I let these sauté for a bit, then added 3 large raw shrimp:

Once the shrimp was cooked through I added the sauce and used a rubber spatula to combine.

I let the mixture heat up until it started to bubble and thicken and then tossed on top of 1 serving of brown rice. I also added some steamed oriental veggies and a Chung’s veggie spring roll:

So pretty!

So delicious…

Recipes

Mini Pumpkin Muffcakes

November 14, 2010 3 Comments

Oh so simple, and oh so delicious.

In the past week or so, I realized that my year-to-date pumpkin intake is severely below goal this year. It dawned on me that I have only enjoyed ONE Starbucks pumpkin latte this year and I’ve only made pumpkin cookies ONCE. Sad! The very next day, I received an email newsletter from Hungry Girl that was ALL ABOUT PUMPKIN. Fate? I’m thinking yes.

Do any of you get the Hungry Girl email newsletter? I am a big big fan. She always has simple healthy recipe ideas and offers up tips on healthier options to make at chain restaurants. She’s also coming out with a show in January, which I’m pretty pumped about.

One of the pumpkin recipes in the newsletter that caught my eye was this recipe for Caramel Pudding Pumpkin Cupcakes. I truly am a baker at heart. Yes, I love to cook, but if I had to choose I’d pick baking any day. One of the reasons I rarely bake is that I possess little to no will power against baked goods. I’m the girl who has to try a “little bite” of each baked good at family get togethers… only to end up eating the sugar equivalent of 7 king size snickers bars… For those of you who were Sex and the City watchers, I could totally relate to the episode where Miranda ate chocolate cake from the trash can. Like I said. Little to no willpower. So rather than suscept myself to sugar induced comas, I avoid baking.

Unless of course I have plenty of people to pawn my wares off on… And when all else fails, I scale it down. I mean way down. I’ve been known to make a solitary no-bake cookie. Talk about proactive measures!

When I got to baking these pumpkin cupcakes, I decided to cut the recipe down to 3 cupcakes. Come on. You have to give yourself a little wiggle room Winking smile

I assembled the ingredients for 3 cupcakes in a large bowl (making a few minor tweaks from HG’s recipe):

1/2 cup Better Crocker moist yellow cake mix
1/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 egg white
1.5 tsp Smuckers sugar free breakfast syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 packet Truvia
dash of salt

I whisked everything together with a fork for a good two minutes:

Then divided evenly into 3 muffin tins, which I popped into a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes…. and VOILA!

Little bits of joy:

I’m so proud Smile

While the cupcakes cooled, I got to work on the caramel icing. For three cupcakes, I only needed 1 caramel candy (the little cube caramels you can find individually wrapped in the bulk candy section of the grocery store) and 1 tsp Almond Breeze Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk. I put both of the icing ingredients into a bowl and popped into the microwave on 50% heat for 1 minute, then stirred, and repeated for another minute.

Then I just drizzled the caramel goodness over top of the three cupcakes:

I had one of these little guys with my evening cup of Earl Grey tea. It reminded me of the pumpkin muffies you can get at Panera (you know, the ones that are dusted with powdered sugar?). These cupcakes really are a cross between a muffie and a cupcake…. A muffcake, if you will Winking smile

Not only were they super easy and scrumptious, but they made my kitchen smell absolutely heavenly.

Stats on 1 Mini Pumpkin Muffcake (as prepared by Fervent Foodie): 106 calories, 23g carbs, 1g fat, 2g protein, 1g fiber

Mini Pumpkin Muffcakes Ingredients List (makes 3)

1/2 cup Better Crocker moist yellow cake mix
1/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 egg white
1.5 tsp Smuckers sugar free breakfast syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 packet Truvia
dash of salt
1 caramel candy
1 tsp Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

Recipes

Black & White Chicken Chili

November 12, 2010 1 Comment

Every year, my company holds its annual Crockpot Fest where employees anonymously submit chilis and soups to a contest judged by our fellow coworkers. I’ve never participated in the crockpost fest from the submission side of things, though I have been more than happy to taste everyone else’s creations!

Given the recent relocation of my wildly attractive boyfriend Winking smile I suddenly have quite a bit of free time on my hands (which my Type A Personality is feverishly seeking to fill), so I thought this contest would be the perfect opportunity to start catching up on all the quality kitchen time I’ve been missing out on.

I decided to go with my spin on this recipe, which I call Black and White Chicken Chili.

As with any great recipe, it started off with a big fat onion:

Then it was time to bring on the HEAT. If you can’t take the heat… well… don’t eat the chili. Just sayin’ Winking smile

The heat in this recipe came in the form of chopped green chilis, jalapenos, and cayenne pepper along with some garlic, cumin, and dried oregano.

First up, I heated up a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot and then dropped in the chopped white onion:

Then I sat back and let the onions do their thang.

Once they were soft and translucent, I added the seasonings, chilies, garlic, and jalapenos and let everything jive together for a few minutes:

Then I tossed in my black beans:

And the white beans:

And gave everything a nice stir. Isn’t it beautiful?

Next up, I added the chicken broth, chicken stock, and shredded chicken:

I popped a lid on the pot, and let the chili meld together for about 15 minutes. Then I added 1 cup of shredded cheddar jack cheese:

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Once the cheese melted, I turned the pot off to let everything cool down.

As with all soups, making this chili the night ahead makes for EVEN BETTER tasting chili the next day. Here’s a shot of my hard work at the contest:

Gotta love an accountant’s humor hahaha…

Another great thing about this chili is that it freezes really well. Last time I made it, I portioned it out into six individual servings and popped four of them into the freezer. Gotta love that!

Next time I make this chili, I think I’ll start off with a rue to help thicken things up a bit. As it stands, it’s a bit more like a choup than a chili. 🙂

Black & White Chicken Chili Ingredients List (Serves 6)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 big fat onion
3 cloves garlic (and by 3, I mean 5)
8 ounce can diced jalapeno peppers
4 ounce can chopped green chile peppers
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
16 ounces reduced sodium chicken broth
8 ounces chicken stock
3 cooked and shredded chicken breasts
2 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup shredded Cheddar Jack cheese

Stats on 1 Serving: 351 calories, 38g carbs, 11g fat, 27g protein, 14g fiber

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