Salsa Seafood

Have you discovered Pinterest yet? I heard friends talking about it a while back and didn't really think too much of it. Then I got an invite and have become a Pinterest Addict. I love the inspiration it provides across the board. Whether from new dishes to try, new crafts, new ways to organize your house, inspirational quotes, humorous and beautiful photos, whatever your interest, Pinterest has it covered. All this to say, I came across an appetizer on there that was the inspiration for this dish. Following it's link back took me to some diet website, but since we don't do low-fat here on this blog, I glammed it up a bit... I mean, I want a dish that'll keep me full until breakfast, not have me searching the fridge for snack food at 10pm. Adding real, healthy fats to your diet, keeps you satisfied and keeps you away from sugary cravings. (Except chocolate... just kidding... sort of.)

(By the way, this made extra salsa, but I didn't really know how to scale back, and salsa is great on a lot of things, so it's okay to have extra in my book! It'll probably make an appearance on my eggs tomorrow.)
-Amanda

Salsa Seafood

Salsa
4 roma tomatoes
1/4 red onion
jalepeno (how ever much you want)
cilantro
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp avocado oil (or olive oil)
1/2 lime juice
salt

Cut tomatoes really small. I got rid of the juice from 3 of my tomatoes and left the juice of the last one. Mince up the garlic and the onion. Mix the tomatoes, garlic and onion in a small bowl. Add finely chopped jalapeno. Squeeze lime juice over top and the avocado oil. Stir, add salt as needed and refrigerate to let flavors marry.

Seafood

4 filets of fish, I used flounder. Cod or Orange Roughy would be good too.
1/2 lb of shrimp
lime juice
ground cumin
salt

Marinade the shrimp and fish in a few pinches of cumin, salt and lime juice for 15-20 minutes. Grill fish in a non-stick pan until it is firm and starts to flake off. Cook shrimp until plump and pink. Place on a plate, top with salsa, avocado and drizzle more avocado oil and lime juice on top.

Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Stuffed Baked Potatoes

Tonight was Menu Planning night for the week. But instead of going to the grocery store after the girls were in bed, I took an opportunity to go before dinner. But I didn't have anything planned or prepped and I walked in the house with all the groceries with t-minus 30 minutes until our very prompt 5:30 dinner. I walked in, popped 4 potatoes in our convection oven, quickly put away the groceries with hubby and whipped together a fast cheesy bechamel sauce to make this fast and tasty dinner.
-Amanda

Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli stuffed Potatoes

4 baking potatoes
3 slices of bacon
2 tbsp flour
1.5 cups of milk
3-4 oz cheese
1 cup frozen broccoli
1 cup shredded leftover chicken

Bake your potatoes in a convection oven at 400 for 35 minutes (yeah, dinner was a bit late tonight.) Or you can microwave them. A regular oven you'd probably have to add another 10 minutes to the baking time.

Cut up bacon into thin strips and cook it in a small pot over medium high heat. Stir frequently until crispy. Remove the bacon but leave the grease. You need about 3 tbsp of grease, if you don't have enough add some butter or other oil. Sprinkle in flour and whisk for a few minutes. Add milk and continue to whisk until sauce starts to thicken. Add shredded cheese. Stir until cheese is melted and remove from heat. Steam broccoli in another pot or in the microwave. In a small bowl, add shredded chicken, broccoli and enough cheese sauce to coat. Reserve the rest of the cheese sauce to pour on top of potatoes. Cut potatoes open, dallop with butter and salt. Smoosh in cheesy chicken broccoli. Pour extra sauce on top and then sprinkle reserved bacon. Enjoy!

Easy Cheese Bacon Chicken

File this recipe/idea under easy, fast and tasty! It was perfect for tonight where I didn't want to do anything super complicated. Took less than 10 minutes to assemble and then it cooked in the toaster oven for another 20 minutes, not even having to heat up the entire house with my big oven. Win/win!
-Amanda

Easy Cheesy Bacon Chicken

Chicken tenders (or chicken breasts cut into thin strips)
1 piece of bacon per chicken
1 slice of cheese (I used colby jack) per chicken
avocado

Salt and pepper each chicken breast. Wrap with bacon and place in a very hot skillet for about 3 minutes per side. If you are using an oven proof skillet, top each chicken with cheese and place in the oven to cook all the way through and cheese gets bubbly and browned at 350 for 20 minutes. I transferred my chicken to a small brownie pan (one layer of chicken) and cooked it in my toaster oven for the same heat and time. Serve with sliced avocado and homemade ranch dressing to dip!

What's for Dinner at My House: Sausage, Potato & Coleslaw

Yes, this is a bit (okay, more than a bit) carb heavy for a girl who is supposedly going low carb. I keep waffling on that. One day I'm low-carb, one day I'm moderate carb and the next I'm just "grain-free" but not actually low carbs. That's how I can justify potatoes, which are like one of my favorite food groups. (Potatoes should be their own food group, should they not?) Now, the loaf of white french bread hiding under the (nitrate free) sausage, slathered in homemade mayo? Yeah, um... no excuses for that lovely crunchy carb on my plate. The main thing for me is to try as hard as possible to stick with real food ingredients.

The coleslaw is a bigger portion than it looks, it's called perspective. I did NOT have three times as much as potatoes as cabbage... or maybe I did. Anyway, it's what we had for dinner and it hit the spot. By the way a few twists to mention: the coleslaw I used up the rest of the homemade Caesar Salad dressing I made the other night. The other twist is that the potatoes are the Salt & Vinegar recipe I tried out from Noble Pig's blog and man are they GOOD.

So... what's for dinner at your house?
-Amanda

My version of Coconut ChickenCurry

So yesterday, I finished up making a batch of chicken stock, and with the chicken from that stock I made Chicken Tacos. There was enough meat for two more meals. Tonight I used part of it to make a Coconut Chicken Curry.
-Amanda

Coconut Chicken Curry

1/2 onion
1 small bell pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups fresh cut up pineapple
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp lard/coconut oil
1 tbsp flour
1 can of coconut milk
2-3 tbsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded cooked chicken

Saute diced onion and bell pepper in lard or coconut oil. When onion starts to soften (about 10 minutes) add garlic and pineapple. Then put about a tbsp of butter in the skillet followed by the flour. Stir the flour in until it coats the vegetables and fruit. Add coconut milk and stir until the sauce thickens a bit. Last put in the curry and chicken and cook until chicken is heated through.

Frittata

 Last nights dinner was a simple frittata. I love making things with spinach incorporated because my girls like spinach that way. If I give them a side dish of spinach they turn their noses up though. This was super easy to put together and tasted delicious. It was one of those dishes that will be hard to recreate since I used leftover potatoes from a chicken roast from a few nights ago. The potatoes had soaked up all the chicken juices and they were divine. You could sub in some boiled potatoes that are mashed with butter, but they wouldn't taste exactly the same.
-Amanda

Frittata

6 eggs
1 cup of diced ham
1 cup of cooked spinach, drained
4 cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt & pepper
sprinkle of parmesan
2 cups of cooked diced potatoes
olive oil/butter


Preheat oven to 350. Fry the ham in your oven safe skillet in a bit of butter, bacon grease or olive oil. While that is frying, in a large bowl, whisk your eggs together. Add cream, salt and pepper. Add the cooked ham and cooked (drained) spinach. In the hot skillet, press down/smash your potatoes to form a crust. Let them brown for a few minutes and then remove the skillet from the heat. Pour egg mixture in the skillet. Slice your tomatoes and lay on top. Sprinkle with Parmesan and drizzle with some olive oil. Bake for 25-30 minutes until eggs set. Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting.

Hot Wings with a Fermented Hot Sauce

I'm not posting a recipe tonight because these still need a bit of work. That doesn't mean they weren't delicious! But the sauce did not "cling" the way I had hoped so I want to try some different ideas out. I cooked the chicken wings using Alton Brown's method, and then after they were cooked, I tossed them in the lacto-fermented hot sauce/butter mixture. I served them with homemade ranch dressing and store bought chips that had three ingredients: potato, avocado oil and sea salt. I let the kids taste the hot wings but since they don't like spicy foods yet, I just served theirs plain with the ranch dip. They ate all of their wings and wanted more!
-Amanda

What's For Dinner at My House: Strawberry Walnut Salad

This is the Strawberry/Walnut/Chicken salad that I made tonight. The dressing recipe is right here: http://thefrickinchicken.blogspot.com/2010/09/walnut-salad-dressing.html.

And the way that I did my menu planning this week, it made it really easy to do a break down of the cost of the meal. So for grins and giggles I did. For four portions it ended up being $2.11 per serving! Not too shabby for a delicious healthy meal!

What's For Dinner at My House: Pork Ribs!

I'm visiting a favorite tonight. I just put these ribs in the oven!

What's For Dinner at My House: Nachos!

No recipe, but a quick and easy dinner idea. Homemade nachos really hit the spot for us tonight. I bought the corn chips, store bought tortilla chips are a treat for us lately, but when I do buy them I get the organic ones now because GMO corn is just scary. I topped them with some grass fed beef that I seasoned with a homemade taco seasoning blend of oregano, cilantro, chili powder and cumin with sauted onions and garlic too. Added in some of the roasted tomato salsa I just made and then whipped up a very quick "queso." The queso was basically a very thick bechamel sauce with lots of cheese! A dallop of sour cream on top and it was a yummy quick dinner. John added a bit of lettuce to his, but I went just ooey gooey tonight. The girls ate this UP.
-Amanda

What's For Dinner at My House: BBQ Chicken Pizza

For dinner tonight I used Almond Flour Crust Pizza and the BBQChicken Pizza I had made before and combined to make one dish. I did make my own  honey bar-b-q sauce this go around from some homemade fermented ketchup. Of course the probiotic aspects of the fermented ketchup get nixed when you heat it over 110 degrees, which I did while making the BBQ sauce, but still knowing it is a BBQ sauce without high fructose corn syrup, msg or other weird chemicals made me feel good about the dish.
-Amanda

What's For Dinner at My House: Chicken Cheddar Hoagies

It's been another busy week so far, and it's only Tuesday! I guess spring is that time of the year where things get crazy. Today I had a St. Patrick's day party planned for my twins' playgroup and I was trying to think of what to serve the moms for lunch. We typically do a "mom" lunch and a kids "lunch" even though I really think that the kids should be eating what we eat. Most days that's what my girls do. I decided to make these Chicken Cheddar Hoagies, a dish I made the first time almost two years ago. I think I've only made them once or twice since then even though they are really quick and super tasty!

Back then I was on Weight Watchers so I put a scant amount of low-fat cheddar cheese on each one and I sprayed my pan with a tiny amount of cooking spray. Now I follow the Real Food movement and I've learned that fats such as lard, coconut oil, olive oil, butter and other traditional fats are actually good for you. So this dish went through a bit of a revision. (Which is so funny since I used to take full fat meals and make them low-fat for Weight Watchers!) These days recipes still go through revisions. I don't cook with fake fats like margarine, canola or vegetable oils. I don't buy products that have MSG or any "natural flavors" listed. I've learned that "natural flavors" is not the same thing as REAL food, and that "natural" usually means some derivative of MSG.

So I sauted my onions and bell peppers in MSG, Nitrate free bacon grease and I grated a bunch of Real, raw-milk cheddar cheese on top. Ideally I would have used a bread that had been made with soaked or sprouted wheat, but I'm not perfect, and since I wasn't at the health food store when I shopped I did buy "regular" rolls. I haven't found sprouted rolls yet, and I haven't gotten adventurous enough to start sprouting and grinding my own wheat (yet!)

The Chicken Cheddar Hoagies seemed to be a hit with my friends and they were a hit with my girls too. I've never seen them down onions and bell peppers without inspecting them and whining a bunch. If you are looking for a good fast meal to put together, give this recipe a try!

This post was linked at Kelly the Kitchen Kops website.
-Amanda

Cheddar Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Here was an easy dish to throw together. I served it with a modified version of THIS broccoli salad. I used homemade mayo. And for this time around I used half the amount of mayo and the rest pure bacon drippings. I also switched out the refined white sugar for backstrap molasses. I served a homemade ranch dressing on top of the chicken.
-Amanda

Cheddar Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped Chicken

1 chicken breast per person
2 slices of (nitrate and msg free) bacon per person
few slices of cheddar cheese per person
salt & pepper

Cut chicken breast almost in half and stuff with the cheddar cheese. Pat dry and sprinkle salt and pepper on top. Wrap two slices of bacon around each chicken breast. Bake on a rack at 375 until chicken is all the way cooked through. You may need to broil the bacon a bit at the very end to crisp it up further.

What's For Dinner at My House: Chicken Nuggets

I think for the first several years of our marriage I rarely cooked the same meal twice. I was always fiddling and adding or coming up with something completely new. Well now, I've finally come to a point where I do recycle meal ideas (I mean, we have been married 8 years!) But I still tweak away. I figured occasionally I'll do a post called "What's for Dinner at My House." That way I can show you some of the tweaks I may make to recipes. For instance tonight I served homemade chicken nuggets, homemade fermented ketchup (full of probiotics!), sweet potatoes, and asparagus; bacon. I thought it was funny when I kept encouraging my kids to "eat their ketchup!"

Dinner around here isn't always fancy, sometimes it's just whatever happens to be in the fridge; but eating Real Food doesn't have to be fancy or complicated. Usually simple is better, the flavor of real, fresh ingredients shines through.

Recipes:
Chicken Nugget Recipe (tweak: instead of bread crumbs I rolled them in ground up almonds to make it low carb)
Ketchup (I made this about a week or so ago, but tonight was the first time I served it.)

I added this post to the Healthy Home Economist Monday Mania Blog Carnival.