Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Baked Tomatillo Chicken with Cauliflower "Rice" :)



Usually I try to plan what I am going to make at least one day ahead of time. It takes away the last minute scramble for something to eat which is not only stressful but leads me to want to grab something quick and easy and not usually something healthy. Yesterday I meant to take some chicken breast out to defrost for today and then totally forgot about it.


So this morning when I realized that nothing was defrosted and my plan of marinated chicken on the BBQ was out for today I went on a search through my cupboards for something I could put over the frozen chicken breast so I could throw it in the oven to bake and to give it good flavor.


I found a Jar of Roasted Salsa Verdewhich is made with Tomatillos which seemed to fit the bill just perfectly. I just lined my baking dish with the frozen chicken breast poured the whole jar over them, covered it with tin foil and threw it into a 350 degree oven and let it bake for 2 hours while I was getting everything else ready.


I decided to make a healthier low carb version of rice to go along with it. I heard someone recently talking about making "rice" with cauliflower and even though cauliflower is not something I typically like It did sound interesting, and since it is health and low calorie, I thought I'd step outside my box and give it a try. 

I took my head of cauliflower out, rinsed it and cut out the core. Then I gave it a rough chop so that the pieces were smallish (I found that bigger pieces would not process as well) then threw them into the food processor and gave it a few buzzes until the cauliflower was chopped into tiny peices about the size of rice. I had to do it in about 5 batches because I have a small food processor. Also just to warn you it was kind of messy because the tiny peices of cauliflower want to get everywhere!


Then I put them into a big frying pan with 1 TBSP of olive oil, half a green pepper and half a red pepper diced tiny. Then I put about 1 TBSP of garlic powder, 2 TBSP chili powder, 1 tsp each of cumin, smoked paprika, coriander, and oregano (these are estimates because I VERY rarely measure anything, feel free to adjust to your own tastes). Then I turned the burner on high and sauteed the cauliflower until it was tender. Resist the temptation to add water. The cauliflower has enough moisture in and of itself to fry in and if you add water it will make the cauliflower soft and mushy.


I served the chicken on top of the rice and topped the whole thing with a tsp of fat free sour cream and a small sprinkle of fat free cheese. like I said, I do not like cauliflower. Never have, but this totally rocked! It was really really good. Really did taste very similar to mexican rice. My husband loved it, and all I can say is yummmmmm!


What did you have for lunch today?

Monday, May 16, 2011

Kale Chips

I've been needing a healthy salty crunchy snack and saw someone online post about making Kale chips so I looked into it and decided that I must try it!



This is the recipe I used as a template. First I filled my sink with cool water and soaked my two bunches of kale for about ten minutes, then I made sure each leaf was clean by rubbing them under the water with my hand and making sure it was rinsed in between all the folds. I dried them with a few paper towels and then peeled the leaves off the stem. I put them into a big bowl, drizzled them with 1 TBSP olive oil and used my hands to massage in the oil and make sure they were coated well. The I laid them on a ookie sheet, in a single layer, and sprinkled them with season salt. I did not measure just eyeballed it.

The original recipe says to bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes but I found that by following that, the curly edges of the kale were getting crispy and browned too fast, and the middle flat part of the leaf was still soft and bitter (kale is bitter when raw but looses most/all of that when crisped up properly) so I turned the oven down to 300 degrees and baked them for 17-18 minutes and they were perfect. Crispy through and through.

One serving is about 1/4 of the final product. They shrink when they bake so it will be less than what you started with.

I loved them, Jeremy (my husband) loved them. My mom and dad loved them. I give them a standing ovation.

For some reason my 15 month old is currently avoiding most vegetables as if they were infested with the plague but he seemed to think these were great so if you have kids that you have a hard time getting veggies into you might want to try them ;)