Spinach Salad with Cayenne Chicken, Avocado, Pistachios and Pomegranate

Cayenne Chicken Salad

I found this gem of a salad in the Jan/Feb edition of the Clean Eating Magazine subscription I receive, and so far I’ve made it twice.

Sometimes we just like a big salad for dinner and this one is like a party in your mouth of flavor sensations!

Pomegranates which are a winter seasonal fruit add a surprise tangy, sweetness when they pop in your mouth. Tender pieces of cayenne chicken add your protein and a whole other taste sensation that’s a bit spicy and warm. Firm avocado with their good-for-you-fats, are the smooth background that all the tastes play off. Add pistachios for a salty nutty flavor and crunch… and the Greek yogurt dressing with lemon… oh my goodness… just go make it, it’s sensational!

It’s a super filling, nutrient packed supper salad. Buy pre-cooked chicken for a super duper fast and healthy dinner. Enjoy!

 Ingredients:

2 pkgs- of precooked chicken, plain

Bag of Spinach, chopped

lemon juice (about 1/4 cup PLUS 3 Tbsp.)

sea salt – to taste

ground pepper – to taste

1/4 tsp. – ground cayenne pepper

olive oil or cooking spray (to heat the pre-cooked chicken)

1/4 cup –  Greek yogurt, plain

2 tsp. olive oil

1/2-red onion, cut into half moons

1/2 cup- pomegranates

1 ounce (or one handful, divided) of pistachios

1-avocado, peeled and diced, divided

Directions:

In large skillet, heat few tbsp. of olive oil or cooking spray, add chicken, 3 Tbsp of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper and warm through. Set aside.

While that heats through, make your dressing: Take 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 tsp. of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 tsp salt and 1 tsp. pepper) and whisk together. Set aside.

Take two handfuls of spinach and chop for each person and plate that. (I use a manual food processor from Tupperware that chops it great.)

Cut up your avocados and red onion and place on top and around the beds of spinach

Add your pomegranates and pistachios in and around that

Divide your chicken in half. Top each plated salad with the cooked chicken

Drizzle with the Greek Yogurt lemon dressing, devour and feel good about it.

Added bonus: The combination of spinach, avocado and pistachios, make this salad a nutrient superstar, packing 51% and 46% of your daily recommended intake of vitamins B6 and C, respectively. The latter is essential for normal brain function and helps your body create chemical neurotransmitters that sends signals among nerve cells.

Makes 2 very large one-meal salads or 4 small dinner salads. You decide.

Creamed Egg on Toast: A Favorite from Childhood

Creamed Egg on Toast

It’s a cold, snowy day in North East Ohio today. Twenty-one degrees with a wind chill of eleven, to be exact.  Burrrr! But, I have to say, these kinds of days where you stay all warm and toasty inside while putzing around the house, have to be one of my favorite kind of days, ever.

It’s past one in the afternoon and I’m still in my pajamas. Oh yeah… I deserve this.

So today, I made one of my childhood favs for a late brunch, it’s the one breakfast my mom made that my brother and I would scarf down. It’s creamed egg on toast. And it’s pure comfort food. When I visit my mom to this day, she still makes it for me.

When I tell people about it, they always say, “Creamed what? I’ve never heard of that.” Well, let me tell you… It’s the simplest and tastiest thing you can make. My boys and my husband love it so much, they will lick their plates. No kidding.

So without further ado. Creamed Egg on Toast. Hope you love it as much as we do. And if you don’t. I don’t want to hear about it. LOL! Not much from my childhood is a great memory, this however is. Enjoy!

Ingredients: 

6 eggs, boiled and peeled, and sliced – (or as many as you need. This was for two servings, for two people. If my sons were here, I would have had to make a dozen eggs and increase my milk and corn starch, below. You can play with it to make what you need.)

1 and 1/4 cups milk

1 Tbsp. corn starch

Pad of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Bread, toasted and buttered.

Directions:

Boil your eggs. (For those of you who don’t know how to boil eggs properly: place eggs in pan, cover with water, add some salt, bring to a rolling boil, bil two minutes, shut off burner, cover pot with lid and let sit for 20 minutes.)

After 20 minutes, drain, let sit in some cool water for a few minutes, remove shells, rinse and set eggs aside.

Take your cornstarch, and just a few ounces of your milk and mix together in a measuring cup with a fork until smooth. (This is how to thicken hot liquids and gravies without the clumping.)

Using the same sauce pan you boiled your eggs in, add the rest of the milk and this little bit of thickening you just made in the measuring cup and add it to the pan. Add your pat of butter and salt and pepper.

Using a wire whisk, whisk until thickened. (If it gets too thick you can thin it with more milk, and if it still too thin you can continue to add corn starch in small quantities by first add it to a small amount of milk first, not the pan of heated milk. This is where you can play with the mixture, but it should be a nice, pourable white sauce.)

When it’s the way you like, take the pan off the burner, slice your boiled eggs into sauce and stir.

Serve over hot, buttered toast and add more salt and pepper to taste.

Go ahead. Stay in your pajamas today. You deserve it. Oh, and thanks Mom!

Creamed Egg in the Saucepan

Moroccan Chicken Stew

Moroccan Chicken

This homemade comfort stew takes an exotic twist with curry and cinnamon and is so delicious my husband was trying to say, “this is a keeper” before he even got his fork out of his mouth. Yes, it’s that good.

The quinoa pilaf made with toasted almonds, apricots and parsley for the side, brings this dish home.

Seriously, it’s all gone and there’s only two of us here.

Anyway. Tomorrow is a new day, right? And it was mostly vegetables… yeah… mostly vegetables.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

4- bone in, skin-on chicken thighs

1 and 1/2 tsp. curry powder

1/2 tsp. – cinnamon

1/2- yellow onion, diced

3 carrots – peeled and chopped into chunks

1/2 – head cauliflower, cut into florets

2 cups – zucchini squash, cut into chunks

1 and 1/2 cups – chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or other heavy pan with lid to a medium heat

Sear the chicken thighs for about 5 minutes each side

Remove chicken to a plate after the second side sears for 5 minutes and cover

Add your vegetables and spices to the pan and cook until vegetable start to soften

Return chicken to the pot

Add the chicken stock, give it a good stir and cover

Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes until vegetables are tender and chicken is cooked but juicy

Season with salt and pepper.

For the quinoa pilaf:

2 cups- cooked quinoa, rinsed first, then cooked according to package directions. (Start this step as you simmer your chicken for 30 minutes)

As the quinoa cooks and soaks up the water, preheat oven to 350 degrees to toast almonds (or you could use a toaster oven…)

Cut, 1/2 cup- dried apricots into bite sized pieces

Add 1/2 cup- almonds to a pan and toast 5-6 minutes

1/4 cup- fresh parsley, chopped for the top

Mix the quinoa and all ingredients together to make a quinoa pilaf. (You can add just a smidgen of olive oil while mixing it,  then add salt and pepper to taste.)

For another variation you could use: toasted pine nuts, fresh mint and dried currants in your pilaf

Serve a side of the pilaf with the chicken stew and you have a decadent Moroccan-style dinner. Oh YUM!

Recipe from the Jan/Feb Experience L!fe magazine

Quinoa pilaf

Moroccan Chicken Stew with Quinoa Pilaf

Hashbrown Egg Nests

Hashbrown Egg Nests

I wanted something quick and yummy for Christmas brunch so I cooked up a batch of these cuties.

They’re almost too adorable to eat when they’re finished and with the turkey, red peppers and dillweed on top, they fit right into any Christmas decor.

Pssst… You can eat them anytime of the year. Go ahead. You know you want to.

You will need:

A muffin tin

cooking Spray

Ingredients: 

6- whole eggs, beaten

2 cups- frozen shredded hashbrowns, thawed (I put mine out the night before and it was perfect in the morning.)

1/4 cup- diced red bell pepper

1- handful of shredded Monterey jack cheese from the bag

1/4 cup- turkey diced small. (I used really thick slices of turkey deli slices from the pack and diced it small)

Dillweed for garnish

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Spray muffin tin with cooking spray

Combine potatoes, onion, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Fill each muffin tin with potatoes and press along the side of the tin so that it forms a nest or hole in the center and bake for 15 minutes. (My recipe made 12 muffins so I needed approximately  1- 1/2- 2 cups of potatoes.)

While the “nests” bake:

Whisk eggs

Add chopped peppers, diced turkey, salt, pepper, garlic, and cheese and whisk together (you can change these ingredients to anything you might like better… (broccoli, mushrooms and swiss, bacon, sausage and cheese… you get the idea.)

Remove nests from oven when they’re slightly brown and fill with 2 Tbsp. of egg mixture in each tin.

Bake for 20 minutes or until eggs are fully cooked and set.

Allow to set for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle each with dillweed and enjoy!

Makes 12 muffins.

Hashbrowns before baking

Cooked Hashbrown Nests

Filled with Egg Mixture

Hashbrown Egg Nests

Carrot Dip with Red Pepper Dippers

Carrot Dip with Red Pepper Dippers

Since smoked paprika is my new favorite flavor, I went searching for anything that had it in it.

I found this yummy little dip over on Meatified, a mostly paleo recipe blog.

Easy to make and healthy. Simple.

Ingredients: 

1 lb. baby carrots- peeled and steamed till fork tender

1 – clove garlic, peeled and minced

1/2- lemon, juiced

1 Tbsp. – olive oil

1/4 tsp. – ground coriander seed

1/8 tsp. – smoked paprika, yeehaw!

Black pepper- to taste

Directions: 

Boil your carrots until fork tender and drain

Add carrots, lemon, garlic and oil to a food processor and pulse into a rough puree

Add seasonings (and a little more oil for a thinner consistency if desired and pulse again)

Serve with any vegetable for dipping.

(Call me crazy, but this may even taste great on BBQ chips for a Western flair… Hence, the yeehaw!!!!

Raw Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread Cookies

Yeah, I know. Raw? That’s what I said too. But stick with me here…

These cookies, made with mostly dates, are one of the super foods Dr. Oz recommends adding to our diets. These are packed full of antioxidants, super healthy fats, and magnesium for a great heart healthy snack for Christmas time or anytime!

And… without all the sugar, molasses and flour, you can eat as many as you want without feeling guilty! Gluten free, grain free and vegan.

Oh boy! These are super yummilicious and really, they wouldn’t last long enough to bake anyway. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 full pkg- dates (6 oz. bag)

3/4 cup – raw almonds

1/4 tsp.  - ground ginger

1/4 tsp. – cinnamon

1/8 tsp. – nutmeg

1/16th tsp. – ground cloves

pinch – salt

1/2 tsp. – 1/4 tsp. vanilla

Directions: 

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until you’re able to form the gingerbread mixture into patties, balls, stars, Christmas trees, gingerbread men, etc.

Original post found here: http://dharmadesk.com/raw-gingerbread-cookies/ As you can see, I changed it just a bit.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Happy New Year!

Close up to show texture

Orecchiette with Ricotta, Pancetta and Peas

Orecchiette with Ricotta, Pancetta and Peas

Orecchiette means “little ears” in Italy. The round pasta is made to hold on to thicker sauces and ingredients and are a nice change from regular pasta.

Here, the pasta holds onto melted, thick ricotta cheese and tucked inside of each “little ear” is pancetta and healthy sweet peas; a sneaky way to get your veggies in.

Serve with a salad and garlic bread and you have a delicious meal.

Ingredients:

1 lb.- Orecchiette pasta

1 Tbsp.- olive oil

1/2 lb. pancetta, diced and fried

4 Tbsp.- butter

1 – small onion

2 Tbsp. chicken stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cup- ricotta cheese

1 and 1/2 cups- thawed peas

1/4 cup- reggiano cheese or parmesan, your choice for the top.

Directions:

Boil water and cook pasta according to package

Heat oil and add your pancetta, cut into bite sized pieces or strips

Add your garlic and sauté until pancetta is crispy and golden brown

Remove to paper towel lined plate to drain

In same pan, add butter, onion and saute these until translucent and soft

Add your chicken stock, and salt and pepper

Add back in the fried pancetta and cook 2 minutes

Add ricotta cheese and whisk, bringing it to a low simmer (about 5 minutes)

Stir in cooked pasta and stir to coat

Stir in peas last. Allow to sit for about 2 minutes to heat through.

Top with your choice of cheese and serve.

Note: This pasta tends to be a bit bland. Season yours to taste with extra salt, pepper and adding more garlic and onion if desired.

Candle lit dinner for Christmas Eve

Pasta with Salad