Macho Salad

There is a restaurant in Corona del Mar that I really like.  It is called Bandera and they have a salad that I crave.  They also have a cornbread that is superb and they make that into cornbread croutons.  Or, at least they have cornbread croutons.  Those I don't have and can't eat.

But I can eat most of the rest.  There are various sites that give the recipe.  I made a few changes to suit me and this is the salad I made

Macho Salad

1 or 2 chicken breasts.  I made two, used about 1 1/2 and and saved the rest for another salad.
Big ol' bowl of Romaine.  I used most of bag of chopped Romaine.
1 or 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 avocado, chopped.  Not too small. 
 a big hunk of goat cheese.  Chill and chop in big pieces. Notice my precise instructions.
1/3 cup roasted almonds, chopped

And for Lee
1/4 cup corn
3 chopped dates


The Dressing

1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/8 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Splenda.  The recipe I used called for 2 teaspoons brown sugar.  Currently avoiding sugar.
pinch Kosher salt
5 grinds pepper
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup EVOO

 

Use any left over chicken you have from a whole chicken at the market, one you cooked or do like I did and boil some water and poach a couple of chicken breasts.  Cut one open and see if it is still pink after about 10 minutes.  Cook until no longer pink.

 

Remove from the water and let cool.  Give them a rough chop and set aside.  Or just chop up any chicken you have , at least a cup.  Maybe two.  You decide.  Precise instructions, remember?

Dump the bag of Romaine in a large bowl, or just fill a bowl with as much salad as you can eat at one sitting.  Once you dress this, it won't keep overnight.

 

Place the tomatoes, avo, goat cheese and the chopped almonds on top.  Add the now cooled chicken.

 

Whisk all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. 

 

It will make more dressing than needed for this salad.  I drizzled 3 Tablespoons over the top and tossed.  Save the rest of the dressing for another time.

 

I served some for me and some for Lee.  Then I added the corn and the chopped dates on Lee's salad and tossed his a bit more to get it mixed

 

A great salad and I didn't feel deprived...much. I think I have to work on my attitude.

Chicken and Vegetable Soup

Yes, I know.  I have been on my diet for 12 days and I haven't lost the ten pounds I want to lose. I'm tired of dieting and want a cookie.  Or a loaf of bread.  A whole loaf of fresh baked bread, slathered in butter.  Well, to be fair, I CAN have butter on Atkins.  I just can't have any bread, potatoes, or rice to put it on.  sigh

It is cold so I made some soup.  Not a soup with rice or noodles or barley.  But it was delicious, so I should quit complaining.  Lee did not gain 10 pounds last year, or if he did he went on a diet for a week and lost it, because he is a man.  And life is not fair.  Ever.  But particularly when I am on a diet.  Good thing I have such a SUNNY nature.

I did mention to Lee that he could have a happy, fat wife with no wrinkles or a thinner, grumpy wife with wrinkles.  But we have been married almost 35 years and he knows better than to enter a no win argument. 

And it was cold.  So I made soup.  He got crackers with his.  I got Sprite Zero.  sigh


 

Chicken and Vegetable Soup

32 ounces of chicken broth
3 chicken tenders, you can use more, but I had these left over from another meal
1/4 onion, chopped
2 or 3 ribs celery, sliced.  I chopped up a bit of the celery leaves, too
Broccoli and cauliflower, I bought a frozen bag or just chop about 3 cups of fresh
Italian Herbs
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped

 

Pour the broth into a Dutch oven and add the chicken tenders.  I trimmed off the tendon first.  You can use chicken breasts, but the tenders will cook faster.  Add the onions, a pinch of salt and a few turns of a pepper grinder.

 

Bring to broth to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes.  If there is no pink in the middle of the largest tender, they are cooked.  Remove the chicken and add the celery, broccoli and cauliflower. 

 

Sprinkle in about 1/2 teaspoon of the Italian Herbs.  I didn't measure, just sprinkled about that much in the palm of my hand, crushed it a bit with my finger to release the flavors and dumped it in the pot.

 

While you bring the vegetables to a boil, use two forks to shred the chicken.  Return the shreds to the pot and reduce to a simmer for 10 more minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Sprinkle with the cilantro just before serving.

 

Serve with crackers.  Unless you are eating low carb.  Gaze enviously at anyone at the table that DOES get crackers.  Remember the 10th Commandment.  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's crackers.

Feel virtuous and, dare I say it, just a tad bit thinner.

My New Favorite Coleslaw

There is a restaurant in Corona del Mar that I really like called Bandera.  One of my favorite dishes is the peanut coleslaw.  I have no idea what the recipe is, but I have discovered a close cousin and we have it about twice a month.

Peanut Coleslaw

Angel Hair Coleslaw
1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Marzetti Original Slaw dressing

 

The Bandera cole slaw is finely chopped in addition to thinly sliced.  I don't bother, but feel free to chop it a bit more.  Mostly I just dump the bag of thinly sliced cabbage into a medium bowl.

Chop up a bunch of peanuts.  I usually end up with about 1/2 cup, but I don't measure.  I love me some peanuts, so you may use more or less to taste.

Chop up a bunch of washed and dried cilantro tops.  Try to avoid too many leggy stems.  I usually end up with about the same amount as the chopped peanuts, 1/2 cup.

Stir everything in with the cabbage.

Add about 3 rounded soup spoons full of the Marzetti dressing, found in the chilled grocery section.  There may be other dressings out there that will work, but this is a nice one and doesn't have a lot of sugar, so it fits with my low carb diet.

It may look like you don't have enough, but you don't want to over dress this salad.  Just a touch of dressing, not soaked.  If you toss it for a minute or two, you will see that this is plenty of dressing.

 

This may not be even close to Bandera's slaw, but the cilantro and peanuts match theirs and it tastes great.  It makes for a nice change of pace from a regular lettuce salad and is a nice side dish.

Piggy Chicken

Well, once again I have proven that I have the self control of a gnat.  I gained weight over the holidays.  And you can count the holidays starting with Valentine's Day, LAST YEAR.  So, I am trying to get a jump start on losing this weight by going back to VERY low carbohydrate eating.  You must understand that I think baked goods should be one of the most important food groups. Sugar?  White flour?  But, of course!

So now, I am trying to be good.  I like salad, but EVERY night?  Boring.  So I will be searching high and low for items to add in to my diet that are low carb.  And not boring.

Luckily I recent read Cinnamon Roll Murder, by Joanne Fluke.  She is one of my favorite "murder with recipes" author.  The other one being Diane Mott Davidson.  Joanne Fluke is best know for her cookie recipes.  And there are quite a few in this book that I will be making.  Eventually.  Especially the Cinnamon Rolls from the title.  Picture this, cinnamon rolls with chocolate.  I'm already drooling and I can't make these for months.  Unless I get a B&B customer.  Then I will have to eat one before serving it....to make sure it is OK...good business practices, and all.

 But she also throws in a bunch of other recipes and there is one she calls Piggy Chicken that will fit the bill.  It was our meal when watching the Super Bowl.  (Which bored me and I left half way through.)

Piggy Chicken is a chicken tenderloin pounded flat, spread with a cream cheese mixture, wrapped with a strip of bacon and baked.  I made a few minor changes to suit me in the cream cheese, but it is basically the recipe from the book.  I really liked them, but next time I make them, I will leave the bacon off.  Sure it was delicious, but I am trying to do low carb and not go crazy high fat, although it is allowed.  Can't be good for you, right?

 

Piggy Chicken

Chicken tenders   I used five from the package and will use the others in a soup later.
Bacon  Five strips for just the two of us. 
1/3 block of cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons finely minced onion
dash garlic salt
Pepper

 

Preheat the oven to 375°.

 

Place a piece of plastic wrap on your cutting board and put one of the tenderloins on top.  I like to cut off the thick white tendon with a pair of scissors. 

 

Put another piece on top and pound the tenderloin flat.  I used a rolling pin.  You don't want it so flat that it falls apart, but you can easily quadruple the width.
 
 

Place the chicken "pancake" to one side and repeat for as many pieces as you are making.  I made five.

Find an oven proof dish (or two, if you are making enough for a family) that will hold your pieces about an inch apart, so the bacon can crisp.  Spray it with Pam.

 

Mince the onions and add them to the cream cheese in a microwave safe bowl.  You may need to pop it in the microwave to get it soft enough to spread on the chicken.  I added a dash or two of garlic salt, but regular salt works. 

 

Place one of the chicken packets back on your cutting board and peel off the top layer of Cling wrap. 
Use a rubber spatula to spread a layer of cream cheese on the chicken.  Sprinkle with a bit of pepper.  Roll it up from the long side in the shape of a big, fat cigar.  This is where you will discover if you pounded them too flat!  Take one piece of bacon and wrap it around the chicken cigar  You may have to stretch it a bit and not cover the whole thing.  Place your Piggy Chicken in the prepared dish and continue with the rest of the chicken.

 

Bake at 375° for 25 minutes.  Then turn the oven up to 425° for 5 minutes to crisp the bacon.  My bacon didn't get crispy and I didn't want to overcook the chicken, so I took it out after about 6 minutes and it was fine.  The bacon did get a bit more crispy as it cooled.

 

Then disinfect everything you touched with your raw chicken and raw bacon fingers.  I wiped the pepper mill, the Cling box, etc.   I sent the rag I wiped my hands on to the laundry and washed everything else in hot soapy water. 

 

I liked them and Lee liked it enough for me to make again.  I may add some chopped herbs to the cream cheese.  Like I said, I may leave off the bacon.  Of course, then I will have to call it something else.  Cream cheese chicken cigars???

 

Serve with a salad.  I made cole slaw.

Chicken With Garlic

Once again I found a recipe in the Sunday Roanoke Times that I wanted to try.  I changed a few things.  It turned out pretty good.  We eat a lot of vegetarian meals, but other meals usually include chicken.  You can't have the same chicken breast day after day, so this made a nice change.  The recipe called for legs and thighs.  That means a lot of skin and bones that I have to deal with.  So I switched to chicken breasts.  You can choose your favorite.

 

Chicken With Garlic

1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, thinly sliced

3 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro  The recipe called for parsley, but I needed cilantro for something else, so used that.  Use what you like.

3 chicken breasts  Or use legs and thighs.

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
black pepper.  Just a few twists of a grinder or a pinch or two.
1/3 cup vermouth or sherry or white wine.  I used the sherry, cause I had some on a shelf in the pantry.

Two bulbs of garlic, separated and peeled  The garlic became soft and delicious and I wouldn't have minded more, but I got tired of peeling them.



 

Heat oven to 325°. Spray an 8X8 baking dish with Pam.

 

Place the onions, celery and cilantro in the baking dish.  Drizzle the chicken breasts with OO and sprinkle them with the S&P. 

 

Rub it in and place the breasts on top of the vegetables.

Do you know the trick for peeling garlic? 

 

I like to cut the stem end off first.  Then place the side of a large knife on the clove and give it a pound with the palm of your hand. 

 

MAKE SURE THE SHARP EDGE IS FACING THE CUTTING BOARD.   We don't want to interrupt dinner with a quick trip to the emergency room.

 

Little papers everywhere and sticking to my fingers!  Place the peeled cloves around the chicken breasts.

 

Pour the sherry, or whatever you are using, over the chicken.  If you don't want to use an alcoholic beverage, you don't need to substitute anything else.  There is plenty of moisture from the vegetables.  If you insist, pour a few Tablespoons of water on top.

 

Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.  Use foil if your baking dish does not have a lid.  Mine started to smell wonderful about 1 hour and 10 minutes in and I tested the temperature.  It was over 165 and so it was done.

 

Serve with a salad.  I used cole slaw.  A delicious and healthy dinner.

Better Thai Chicken Burgers with Vegetable Curry

I recently posted a recipe for Thai Chicken Burgers.  They were pretty good, but the "Thai" part was mostly coconut milk and some cilantro.  I mentioned that they needed some peanut sauce.   The recipe made enough for a few more meals for the two of us, so I froze the rest.  My daughter, Tara, suggested I use the rest of the coconut milk in a curry.  A meal is born. 

Best of all, this meal is very Atkins friendly.  I am currently tortur following that particularly boring diet.  But this was good!  And not just the same old salad!  Sure it's low carb, but if you aren't worried about that, serve the curry over some fluffy, aromatic jasmine rice.  Oooh.  That sounds good.  But that's not what we had.

   

Vegetable Curry

Well you're gonna be making the Thai Burgers, right?  You will end up with about 1 cup of coconut milk left over.  Use that for this dish.

2 Tablespoons minced onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
oil for cooking
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon curry
1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste
1 cup coconut milk
2 cups diced Vegetables  I used 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash and a small handful of green beans.  Cauliflower would be terrific, too.

   


Finely chop some cilantro leaves.  Remove the thicker stems.  Divided use.

   

Place a small amount of oil in a medium fry pan and heat to medium.   Add the onions and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes.  It will start to smell like an Indian restaurant.

   

 Add the diced vegetables and cook for one more minute, stirring to coat them.  They will turn sort of yellow.

   

Add the coconut milk.  heat to just below a boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer.  Cook for 20 minutes or until the vegetable are soft.

While they are cooking get to work on your ...


Better Thai Burgers

OK.  The recipe is two posts down.  Go there and make the burgers.  Not point is putting it here twice, but basically you put chicken breast with coconut milk and a few other things in a food processor and then fry up the meat into patties.  Here is where it gets REALLY delicious.  You are going to make a quick and delicious...

 Peanut Sauce

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar or for those trying to eat low carb, Splenda
1/4 teaspoon ground (or freshly minced) ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1/2 cup water.

   

Place everything in a small saucepan and heat over low heat.  At first you will think you did something wrong.  Well, I did.  It seems too thin for peanut sauce. 

   

Heat for about 10 to 15 minutes and it will thicken right up.  Serve over the finished Thai burgers.

   

Sprinkle the cilantro over the burgers with the sauce and the vegetable curry.  If you are lucky your husband will think it is delicious.  Mine did!