Spicy Pan-Seared Chicken

I have been concentrating on making major improvements in my health. I’m exercising almost everyday and trying to watch what I eat. It’s a daily battle, but it gets a little easier with each passing day.

Tonight I decided to make a super lean meal: chicken, mushrooms and salad. But as healthy as it was, it was also full of flavor.

Spicy Pan Seared Chicken serves 1 to 2

1 chicken breast (cut in half, lengthwise)
Buffalo sauce
Cayenne pepper
Chili powder
Red pepper flakes
Black pepper
Salt
Canola or vegetable oil

Directions

1. Cut your chicken breast in half, rinse and pat dry.
2. Sprinkle the spices over each side of the chicken.

3. Put a couple dots of buffalo sauce on one side. Spread evenly with a pastry brush. Repeat on other side.

4. Heat your oil on a large pan. Once oil is hot, cook your chicken. One chicken breast will take roughly 15 minutes to cook, but this will vary depending on its weight.

Meatless Monday – Broccoli Cheddar Soup

It’s Monday again…and you know what that means…it’s time for another Meatless Monday recipe. I’ve been wanting to make a really delicious broccoli cheddar soup for a while now and I may have found the best recipe ever. I modified it a little, of course, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

The thing I liked best about this soup is that everything was cooked in one pot, making clean up a little less cumbersome. Cooking every night is great, but I do get tired of the constant dishes.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup half n half
1 cup milk
2 cups filtered water (no tap)
2 tsp Better Than Chicken Boullion
1/4 cup orzo pasta
8oz sharp cheddar
1/2 lb broccoli
1 handful of carrots sticks
Chopped onions
Chopped garlic
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Melt butter over onions and garlic
2. Add flour and stir

3. Pour in half n half, milk, water, and chicken paste
4. Cook on medium-high heat until it’s just about to boil
5. Mix in broccoli and carrots, lower heat to a simmer for 20 minutes
6. Mix in cheddar, orzo pasta, and spices
7. Cook for another 10-15 minutes
8. Serve with bread or crackers

Breakfast Taco

I promised myself that I wouldn’t go grocery shopping this week. Mission accomplished. I didn’t think this left me with interesting menu items, but last night I came up with something pretty tasty for being so basic.

That’s right. I made breakfast for dinner again. But this time, I kept the focus on the veggies and less on the fried. Couldn’t resist throwing in a couple pieces of bacon though.

While this basically just an omelet thrown into a lightly fried tortilla, my boyfriend made a simple cooking suggestion that really perfected the overall texture of this meal.

Instead of mixing the sauteed veggies into the eggs, I cooked the veggies around the edge of the pan with eggs in the middle. This helped the veggies to stay a little crisp, which was really nice.

Etli Biber Dolması – Meat Stuffed Peppers

I’ve been looking forward to making this dish all week. It was my first time ever making biber dolmasi, so I needed a recipe to reference. Google came back with this. I didn’t have any reassurance that this recipe would turn out well and a Turkish man to please. The odds were against me. But I am proud to report that I was successful.

I had to adjust the recipe slightly: I used 4 bell peppers, 3/4 of a pound, and a 1/2 cup of Jasmine rice. I omitted all of the seasonings except for salt and pepper. Then I added some cumin, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder (only had a tiny clove of fresh garlic). Other than that, I followed the recipe as is.

The peppers came out nice and soft, but not too soft. And the stuffing was delicious.

And now I am stuffed! 🙂

And tired. Glad tomorrow is Friday.

Turkish Manti – Sort Of

I hate leftovers. I have a weird thing with eating the same thing twice in a row and most prepared foods just don’t keep well. But I also hate wasting food. That’s why I’ve been working so hard to figure out the right portions. I want to make sure we have enough to eat so that we don’t go on a Taco Bell run…but I also don’t want to have extra. Aren’t we lucky that this is a major concern in our lives?

There are a few things that I can tolerate as leftovers…one of those being ground beef. It’s a lot easier to make a pound all at once even though the most we usually eat in a night is about half of that. I just bag up the second half and save it for the next night. The best part? I can make an entirely different dish–and quick.

Manti is a classic Turkish dish that I absolutely love. It’s like dumplings or ravioli, but soo soo much better. It’s also pretty challenging to make. To be honest, my one attempt to make it was a complete fail. I’ll try again someday, but until then I have an easy substitute.

I simply make elbow macaroni noodles and top them with garlic yogurt, a little bit of ground beef and marinara sauce, melted butter, and red pepper flakes. You get a similar flavor for a lot less work –and I get to use up my leftover ground beef.

In case you were curious, here’s a picture of real homemade manti I ate while visiting Istanbul last July:

How do you deal with leftovers?

Kerry