Cheesy Chili-Mac or My Chaotic Life Part II

     Welcome and thank you for checking out my blog. Today's dinner is Cheesy Chili-Mac.

     A few weeks ago I wrote about my chaotic life and how Thursdays tend to have a semblance of normalcy, today I'm going to write about my Mondays and the routine that I have to maintain in order to cook all of these dinners and succeed at my diet. My Mondays start early with a visit to the different venues that I work at to make sure that everything is torn down and put away. After that I go to the office and go over the schedule for the rest of the week. I usually finish around noon and take the rest of the day off to do personal errands.

     Next I run to the store to buy groceries for the week, this usually takes about two hours. After the grocery shopping is done I head home. Next on my schedule is to put the groceries away and clean the kitchen, once that's done I am ready to cook dinner later in the evening. If I have time and energy I will do as much work around the house as possible before Ellen gets home around 4:00. From 4:00 to 5:45 we have together time and get ready for the rest of the evening. At 5:45 we go to our weekly weight loss meeting, we are typically there until 7:00. At this point it is 7:00 pm, we are tired and we are both hungry; this is when I make something quick, easy, and delicious. If you can relate to this you will appreciate today's dinner.

                                      Cheesy Chili-Mac 

Prep time    16 Min.     Cook time    28 Min.     Serves    8

Ingredients

1 spray, cooking oil

2/3 pound uncooked lean ground beef

2 medium uncooked onions, chopped

29 ounces canned stewed tomatoes, mexican-style (undrained)

2-1/2 cups canned tomato juice

4 ounces canned green chili peppers, diced, drained

2 tsp chili powder

1-1/2 servings uncooked macaroni, elbow-size

31 ounces canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup low-fat shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

Coat a large skillet with cooking spray; set over medium-high heat. Cook beef and onion until meat is browned, stirring and breaking up meat as it cooks, about 10 minutes; drain off fat.

Stir in undrained tomatoes and their juice, tomato juice, chili peppers and chili powder; bring mixture to a boil.

Stir in macaroni and beans; return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until macaroni is tender, about 15 minutes. Spoon chili into bowls and sprinkle with cheese.

This recipe yields about 1 cup of chili and 1 tablespoon cheese per serving.

     This is a great dinner for families, if you have kids they will enjoy this dinner. If you try this recipe check back here, leave a comment, and let me know how it turned out.

   Next week - Crock Pot Chicken, Mushroom, and Brown Rice Casserole or A Few of My Favorite Things.

Maple-Mustard Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Puree or Facing A Challenge.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. Today's dinner is Maple-Mustard Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Puree. These are actually two recipes that work well together.

     For as long as I can remember I've been making a mess in the kitchen, from the failure of Catchup and mustard with crunchberries to a twenty year experiment to master the perfect barbecue ribs I've never been afraid to put the heat to a bunch of simple ingredients, but I experienced my share of mistakes. At my house I do the large majority of the cooking but for the last decade or so I've really only been opening a bag of ingredients and dumping it into a pan or throwing a steamable bag into the microwave until done. This is not cooking, it's surviving. It leads to a food spiral that ends in a routine of eating the same few things over and over again. Can you see why Ellen and I like restaurants so much? When we started our diets I knew that I was going to have to break the cycle of eating prepared dinners and start to do some real cooking. The challenge that I've had to face over the last three and a half months has been to get into a regular routine and cook, really cook, as often as possible. To date I have cooked 90 dinners this year. The one thing that has saved me through all of this is that I've been able to draw from a large number of diet recipes. The first dinner that I made, going all the way back to January 2nd., was Maple-Mustard Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Puree which I'm going to share with you now. So let's look at the recipe.

                             Maple-Mustard Pork Chops

Serves    4

Ingredients

4 (6 ounce) bone-in center-cut pork chops

1/2 tsp salt, divided

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

cooking spray

1 Tbs. butter

2 Tbs. finely chopped shallots

1/4 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth

2 Tbs. Dijon mustard

2 Tbs. maple syrup

2 Tbs. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Instructions

Sprinkle both sides of pork with 1/4 tsp salt and pepper.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add pork to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until cooked through , but with a slight blush in the center. Remove from pan; keep warm.

 

Return pan to medium-high heat. Add butter to pan to coat. Add shallots; saute 3 minutes or until tender and translucent. Add broth; bring to a boil and cook 1 minute. Stir in mustard, syrup, and remaining 1/4 tsp salt; cook 1 minute or until slightly thick. Return pork to pan. Cook pork 1 minute on each side or until thoroughly heated (be careful not to overcook pork). Serve pork with sauce. Garnish each serving with 1-1/2 tsp parsley.

This recipe yields 1 pork chop and 1 Tbs. sauce per serving.

                                   Butternut Squash Puree 

Serves    4

Ingredients

1/3 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth

2 (12 ounce) packages frozen cooked

1 Tbs. butter

1/2 tsp grated orange rind

1-1/2 tsp maple syrup

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Place broth and squash in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cover and cook 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. Add butter and remaining ingredients; stir until combined. 

This recipe yields 3/4 cup puree per serving.

     These are easy recipes which is why I chose to make them first. The biggest thing to consider is the temperature under the maple-mustard sauce, keep an eye on it as it will burn easily. As always, if you try these recipes check back here and let me know how they turned out.

     Next week - Cheesy Chili-Mac or My Chaotic Life Part II.

Stuffed Grape Leaves or life in a World Without Restaurants Part II.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. This week's dinner is Stuffed Grape Leaves.

    

     I wasn't planning to write about this recipe yet but in a nod to how this experiment originally started I leaked a picture on Facebook and received some positive responses. So I'm going to post this one early for you Jenny and Connie, I hope you are doing well.
     Stuffed Grape Leaves or Dolmathes are a Greek dish of almost indescribable flavor, they are literally leaves from a grape vine stuffed with meat, bulgur wheat, and spices. Before making this recipe I had never had homemade stuffed grape leaves, I have only had them in restaurants. My favorite Greek restaurant is a little family run place called Yanni's. Yanni's is very similar to the restaurant, Villa Nova, that I wrote about a few weeks ago in that all of their food seems very simple but is very delicious. Also like Villa Nova I'm convinced that the only seasoning in their kitchen is a jar labeled "Goodness". The problem that I have , again, is that eating at restaurants is not conducive to a successful diet but I was lucky to find a few recipes that are very close to reproducing the deliciousness of the food at Yanni's. This recipe replicates the taste of Yanni's stuffed grape leaves so closely that I don't think I could tell the difference.
     When I first got this recipe I was a little apprehensive about attempting it. The difficulty level is a little higher than most recipes but if you follow the instructions closely you should get predictable results. The first hurdle I had to overcome was finding grape leaves, these are usually stocked in the Mediterranean aisle of the ethnic section of your grocery store. The next hurdle was to find bulgur wheat; look in the health food/organic section, you might have to ask someone where it is but it's worth the effort. The last hurdle I had to overcome was that about five minutes before I was going to start cooking I realized that I didn't know where my steamer basket was. I quickly decided that it would be easier to run to the store and buy a new one than spend an hour going through boxes in the basement. The lesson I learned that day was no matter how confident that I'm ready to start a new recipe make sure that I have everything and know where it is. Also, remember that you are cooking with steam; if your water evaporates off you are no longer cooking, you're burning.
     When you have all of your ingredients and utensils ready the next thing to consider are the grape leaves. Grape leaves generally come packed tightly in a jar and require a little extra patience to get them out without tearing. Once you have them out of the jar, boiled, and rinsed it's a good idea to separate them and try to spread them out as much as possible. When I got to this point I realised that because of the size and shape of the leaves that I had there was no way that I was going to be able to stuff them and wrap them, and have them stay together. My solution was to abandon the idea that I was going to be able to wrap each one of them in only one leaf. Instead I overlapped three leaves in a triangle shape, putting the stuffing on the bottom center of the leaves and wrapping them like cigars. Problem solved.

     Now that we've gone over all of the variables, let's look at today's recipe.


                                                           Stuffed Grape Leaves

Prep time  14 min.   Cook time  51 min.   Serves  6

Ingredients

14-1/2 oz. canned tomatoes, whole

3/4 cup uncooked bulgur wheat

1 tsp ground cumin

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 pound uncooked lean ground beef, (5% or less fat)

3/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 cup parsley, fresh, chopped

2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground

8-1/8 oz. grape leaves, about 24, rinsed and drained

1 cup water, boiling

1 medium lemon, cut into 6 wedges


Instructions

Place a strainer over a 2-cup measure and drain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid. Chop the tomatoes and transfer to a large bowl.

Add enough water to the liquid to make 2 cups, pour into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the bulgur and cumin; cook, covered, until the liquid is absorbed, 18-20 minutes. Add to the tomatoes.

Spray a large nonstick skillet with nonstick cooking spray and set over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring frequently until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the beef and allspice; cook, stirring frequently to break up the beef until it is no longer pink, about 6 minutes. Add the beef mixture, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to the bulgur mixture, and stir to combine.

Place the grape leaves in a pie plate, cover with the boiling water; then drain. Place a grape leaf shiny side down on a cutting board and trim off the stem. Spoon 1/4 cup of the bulgur mixture down the center lower third of the leaf. Tuck in the ends and roll up. Repeat with the remaining grape leaves and bulgur mixture to make a total of 24 stuffed grape leaves. Place a steamer basket in a saucepan and arrange the rolled leaves, seam-side down in the basket. Add 1/2 cup water to the saucepan and steam, covered, until the grape leaves are heated through, about 20 minutes. Serve with the lemon wedges.

     This recipe yeilds 4 stuffed grape leaves per serving.


     This recipe is a little more involved than most but if you like Greek food it is definitely worth the effort. I personally plan to make it at least once a month. Also, stuffed grape leaves can be covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days before steaming. As always, if you try this recipe check back here, leave a comment, and let me know how it worked out.


     Next week - Maple-Mustard Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Puree or Facing a Challenge.

Beef Crostini or Codename: Get Together.

     Welcome and thank you for checking out my blog. Today's dinner is Beef Crostini.





    

      Let me take a minute to correct myself, this is actually an appetizer or party snack. On Friday nights my wife(Ellen) and I go to our friend's house for a get together; that's code for we go to our friend's house for a bible study and fellowship. We usually have a bible study that lasts an hour and then we hang out for a couple of hours. When we first started our diets the question came up about how are we going to deal with sitting around a table full of snacks that we shouldn't be eating. Another thing that I considered (although it wasn't necessary) is that two members of our group are chefs and I felt that if I was going to take the time to make diet snacks I should step up my game.

     The solution was that I found some recipes for snacks that were not only delicious but that also fit into our diets. I stumbled across the recipe for Beef Crostini and based on the picture and description I thought I'd try it as a party snack.

     Beef Crostini is a wonderful finger food, the combination of roast beef and horseradish works together and compliments each other well. Pairing roast beef with something spicy (spicy mustard, horseradish) gives it more depth and brings out more of the flavor. This recipe is very easy and has very few ingredients, the trick is to do the assembly like a production line. Get everything together and ready to assemble, put the roast beef on the bread, put the arugula on the roast beef, and put the horseradish mixture on top. If you assemble them one at a time it will take three times longer than necessary. The two ingredients that need some consideration are the roast beef and the arugula. The couple of times that I've made this I used the kind of pre-sliced roast beef that can be found with the sandwich meats. There are many new pre-packaged "carving board" meats in the stores, I suggest that you spend a few extra minutes to look around your meat department and try a couple different varieties. Arugula as we discussed a few weeks ago can be found in the bagged, ready-to -eat salad section. I put three pieces of arugula on each crostini. This recipe can easily be doubled.

     So let's take a look at today's recipe.

                                         Beef Crostini

Prep time     12 min.     Cook time     10 min.     Serves     8

Ingredients

3 sprays olive oil cooking spray

6 oz. french bread, about an 8-inch long thin loaf, cut into 16 slices

1/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream

3 Tbs. uncooked red onion, diced

1 Tbs. store-bought horseradish

1/4 tsp black pepper (plus extra for garnish)

2 cups arugula, baby leaves

8 oz. deli-style roast beef slices, thickly cut into 16 pieces

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325f. Coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray.

Place bread on  prepared cookie sheet and lightly coat with cooking spray. Bake until lightly browned and crisp, about 10 minutes; let cool.

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, onion, horseradish and pepper.

 To assemble crostini, top each piece of toasted bread with beef, a few arugula leaves, 1 tsp horseradish mixture, and garnish with a grind of black pepper.

     This recipe yields 2 crostini per serving.

     This is an easy and delicious recipe that is great as an appetizer or party snack. The next time you are planning a get together, or bible study, consider making Beef Crostini. As always, if you try this recipe please come back here and leave a comment and let me know how it worked out.

     Next week- Stuffed Grape Leaves or Life in a World Without Restaurants Part II.

Crock Pot Red Beans, Andouille, and Rice or My Chaotic Life.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. Today's dinner is Crock Pot Red Beans, Andouille, and Rice.



      Normally my week is anything but normal, it's full of chaos and last minute changes. Most of the time I have no discernible schedule or routine and my family and friends have no idea what I do. And then there's Thursday. For me Thursday is my one day each week when I have a sense of normalcy and a regular schedule. Over the last four months I have been using Thursday to train and develop a new audio/video crew. My day is broken into two sections, 12pm-5pm I prep and maintain the equipment and run training sessions with the crew and 7pm-10pm when I do live training where I sit back and supervise the crew as they run a live show. The problem I had at first was that I was having a hard time fitting cooking dinner and wife time into an hour and a half. I quickly worked out that the solution was to use my free time in the morning to set up and cook dinner in the crock pot. If you've read to this point you've probably deduced that Thursdays at my house is crock pot day.
     I feel that I need to make a clarification at this point, I am using the term "crock pot" because that is what I grew up with, another acceptable and interchangeable term is "slow cooker". I don't care to debate semantics, use which ever term you are most comfortable with and enjoy the food you make.

     Cooking in a crock pot is very easy and is handy for dinners or potlucks. 
Crock pots come in a variety of sizes and can be as simple as one-dial heating control or completely programmable The common features that all crock pots have are an outer heating element with heating control and handles, an inner removable ceramic "crock", and a glass lid. I have two crock pots, one that is large with time-programmable controls and one that is medium sized with every bell and whistle available. The large one was a wedding gift from my sister-in-law, Carol, and is great for making large amounts of food to serve several people but it's not very transportable and due to it's size smaller dinners (3-4 People) only fill the bottom 1-2 inches and end up overcooked. The Medium sized crock pot is big enough to serve 6-8 people, has easy grip handles and a locking lid, and can be programmed for time, temperature, time & temperature, or probe temperature. I'm not saying that you need the latest, greatest crock pot on the market, I am saying get your crock pot out and let's make something delicious.
     Today's dinner is Red Beans, Andouille, and Rice. If you are confused by the word Andouille (pronounced- an-du-ee) it is a spicy Cajun sausage that can be found in the meat department with the other sausages and hotdogs. I recommend that you try the Andouille, if you find that it's too spicy for you ask your butcher to recommend a less spicy chicken-based sausage. Another thing to concider is what rice should you use. Due to the amount of time required for crock pot cooking most recipes call for "converted" rice, many rices will become very mushy and almost disolve. I've found through trial & error that regardless of the type of rice (white, brown, long grain) the best brand to deliver reliable results is Uncle Ben's.
Also, rice has to reach a high enough temperature before it will cook, if you find that after eight hours your rice is still hard, increase the temperature.
     With all of that under our hats, let's look at today's recipe.


                        Red Beans, Andouille, and Rice


Prep time     20 min.     Cook time    240min.     Serves     8

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, minced

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 rib celery, chopped

1 medium green pepper, chopped

15 oz. canned kidney beans, dark-variety, rinsed and drained

14 1/2 oz. canned diced tomatoes, undrained

9 oz. andouille, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp black pepper

6 cups fat-free chicken broth

1 cup uncooked white rice, converted-variety recommended


Instructions

     Place garlic, onion, celery, bell pepper, beans, tomatoes with its juice and sausage in a 5-quart crock pot. Add thyme and pepper; stir well.

     Pour in broth and rice; stir again. Cover crock pot and set on high power; cook for 4 hours.

     Season to taste with salt and pepper. To turn up the heat, add 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper with the thyme.


     This recipe yields about 1 1/2 cups per serving.


     This is a very easy to make dinner that will fill your house with wonderful smells, if you haven't used a crock pot this is a great place to start. As always if you try this recipe, leave a comment and let me know how it turned out.

     Next week- Beef Crostini or Codename Get Together.

Chicken Parmesan or Life in a World Without Restaurants.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. Today's dinner is Chicken Parmesan.     

     If you've read my previous posts you will know that this all began with my wife and I starting a diet. One of the big problems that we had to face was "how are we going to handle going to restaurants?"

     The problem with being on a diet at a restaurant is that we have to figure out the nutritional values of each item that we are interested in, narrow those down to the ones that will fit our diets, and then decide which one we would like best. This is a long, tedious process that takes all of the enjoyment out of going out to dinner.

     Another thing that we had to face is the high frequency that we go out to dinner and our attachment to some of our favorite restaurants. One of our favorites is Villa Nova in Worthington, this is a small family run restaurant that makes the best Italian food around. We have been eating here regularly for almost twenty years. One of my favorite things about Villa Nova is the simplicity of their food, everything is made with just a few basic ingredients but the food here is so good that every bite will have you thinking it's the best thing you've ever ate. I am convinced that the spice rack in their kitchen has a lone jar simply labeled "goodness".

If you ever get a chance to eat there, do it.

     Where all of this left us was torn between the hassle of dealing with a diet and wanting to eat our favorite foods. The solution was to find recipes that fit our diets and also replicate our favorite foods as closely as possible. One of my favorite entrees at Villa Nova is Chicken Parmesan, this dish typifies the simple deliciousness that I described earlier. After doing some online searches I was able to find a diet recipe that closely reproduces the chicken parmesan at Villa Nova.

     One difference between the chicken parmesan at Villa Nova and this recipe is that Villa Nova's sauce is thinner (without chunks) and has no visible herbs and spices, this recipe calls for diced (chunky) tomatoes and an assortment of herbs and spices. The other difference is that I am serving this recipe over whole wheat pasta instead of the traditional Semolina pasta.

     This recipe calls for diced tomatoes with Italian herbs, this can be found in the canned tomato and tomato sauce section of you local store, it's worth taking the time to look for it. Also, this recipe calls for Italian seasoning which can be found in the spice section, Lastly, this recipe calls for Italian seasoned bread crumbs, you can substitute plain bread crumbs.

     Let's look at today's recipe.

                                                  Chicken Parmesan

Prep Time   10 min.     Cook Time   75 min.     Serves   4

Ingredients

29 oz. canned diced tomatoes, with Italian herbs (2 Cans)

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 Tbs. sugar

1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

1 pound uncooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, four 4-oz. pieces

1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs, Italian

4 tsp olive oil, divided

1 spray, cooking spray

1 oz. shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, fresh

Instructions

     Combine first 5 ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 35 minutes. Stir in sugar and vinegar; simmer 5 minutes.

     Preheat oven to 350f.

     Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to 1/2-inch thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Dredge chicken in breadcrumbs.

     Heat 2 tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 chicken breast halves to skillet; cook 3 to 4 minutes on each side or until browned. Repeat procedure with remaining oil and chicken breast halves.

     Arrange chicken in an 11 x 7 -inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Pour tomato mixture evenly over chicken and sprinkle with cheeses. Cover and bake at 350f  for 35 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes.

     Serve with your favorite pasta.

     This recipe yields 1 chicken breast half, 3/4 cup tomato mixture, and 1 oz. cheese mixture per serving.

     This is a classic Italian dinner that everyone should enjoy. If you try this recipe, check back here, leave a comment and let me know how it worked out for you.

     Next week - Crock Pot Red Bean, Andouille, and Rice Soup or My Hectic Life.

Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad or Musicians and The Art of Shameless Self-Promotion.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. After last week's post I received a request from Jenny (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) that I should include nutritional information and serving sizes. Although these recipes are considered "diet" I don't always have the nutritional values but I will post them when I can. Also, since these are diet recipes the serving sizes may not be what you are used to and if you are not dieting please don't feel that you have to adhere to them. Lastly, if the recipe says that it serves 4 that means that it makes 4 "diet" servings and if you would like more it would be a good idea to double the recipe.

     As I discussed in last week's post one of the inspirations for starting this experiment was the movie "Julie & Julia" which gave me the initial idea to post pictures of food on Facebook. The motivation to do this came to me through Facebook itself. Let me explain. In my professional life I work with musicians, some are well-known and have fame and success, some are not well-known and they struggle everyday to find work and draw an audience. The well-known musicians have public relations teams and promoters to get the word out for them, the unknown have to get the word out any way they can. I call this "the art of shameless self-promotion". It's through this self promotion that most musicians turn to social media to reach as many people as possible as cheaply as possible. Most musicians will post one or two announcements a few weeks before a show but a small group of musicians in their tenuous musician way will post ten to twenty announcements every day which results in my Facebook news feed being overloaded with fifty posts each day by three bands that I probably won't go see. With all of that white noise to sift through I started to wonder what harm it would be for me to post an occasional picture of the new recipes I was making. With that in mind I decided to go a head and post some pictures and see what happens. After posting a few pictures I started to receive a few positive comments and requests for the recipes and I started to think about developing the next step in this project. To make a long story short I cleaned out my Facebook, I cleaned out my kitchen and pantry, and I started this blog. If you've stayed with me so far I hope that you find this entertaining and maybe even insightful. Let's move on to today's dinner.

                    Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad. 

     Today I am discussing Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad, this is actually two recipes that compliment each other well and I will address them separately. Chicken Milanese is a tenderized chicken breast with what I can best describe as a breading, the difference is that instead of bread crumbs the breading is made from Romano Cheese and Parsley. I opted to buy romano cheese that has already been grated. The things that I noticed while making this recipe are - the breading process can be messy and it's important to be attentive while cooking so you don't burn the breading. The steps for making the chicken are very easy and you should have no difficulty. The Arugula Salad requires two special ingredients, Arugula and Fennel Bulbs. Arugula is a leafy type of lettuce native to the Mediterranean region. The problem I had was that although I went to an upscale store that has an extensive fruit and vegetable section, I couldn't find any Arugula.
After looking for about twenty minutes and forcing myself to overcome my male nature I asked an employee where I could find it. He pointed out that it is stocked in the ready-to-eat, bagged salad section.

With that behind me I was off to the much easier to find Fennel Bulbs. In our last recipe I wrote about Fennel Seeds, Fennel Bulbs are the other end of the plant.

Fennel Bulbs

 Fennel is also native to the Mediterranean region, the bulb is similar to a large onion with thick layers but with a sweet, mild licorice flavor. With all of my ingredients purchased I was ready to go home and cook.
So let's go over the recipes.

                                    Chicken Milanese

Prep Time   20 min.     Cook Time   14 min.     Serves   4

Ingredients

1 pound uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast(s), four 4 oz. pieces

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 Tbs. all-purpose flour

1 large egg

3 large egg whites

1/4 cup parsley, fresh, minced

1/2 oz. romano cheese, grated (about 1/4 cup)

1/3 cup dried plain bread crumbs

4 sprays cooking spray, divided

1 Tbs. butter, divided

2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Place chicken between two sheets of wax paper; pound until 1/3 inch thick. Rub salt and pepper into both sides of chicken. 

Place flour in a shallow bowl. Place bread crumbs in a second shallow bowl. In a third shallow bowl, whisk together egg, egg whites, parsley and cheese.

Dip a piece of chicken into flour, turn to coat and shake off excess. Next, dip chicken into egg mixture; turn to coat. Lastly, dip chicken into bread crumbs, shaking off any excess ingredients. Set aside and repeat with remaining chicken.

Coat a large skillet with cooking spray; place over medium-high heat. Melt half of butter in skillet; add two pieces of chicken. Cook chicken until coating is golden, flipping once, about 7 minutes; remove to a paper towel and cover loosely to keep warm. Off heat, recoat skillet with cooking spray; place over medium-high heat. Melt remaining butter in skillet; cook remaining pieces of chicken.

Sprinkle chicken with lemon juice and serve topped with salad.

                                                           Arugula Salad

Prep Time   10 min.     Cook Time   0 min.     Serves   4

Ingredients

1 1/2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

1 Tbs. olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 bunches arugula

1/2 medium uncooked fennel bulb(s), very thinly Sliced (about 1 cup)

1 cup uncooked red onion, thinly sliced

1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

Instructions

In a small bowl, whisk together first four ingredients; set aside

In a large bowl, combine arugula, fennel, onion, and tomatoes.

Toss salad with dressing

These recipes yield 1 piece of chicken and 2 cups of loosely packed salad per serving.


     These are wonderful recipes that I had never tried before and I am happy with the way they came out.
I hope you enjoy these recipes and if you make them please leave a comment and let me know how they worked out for you.

     Next week - Chicken Parmesan or Life in a World without Restaurants.