A Few Recipe Ideas

Grilled Chicken Taco Salad
Adapted from:
http://becauseipinnedit.blogspot.com/2013/06/mexican-chicken-marinade.html
Grilled Taco Chicken Marinade
Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium sized yellow onion
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/4 cup canola (vegetable) oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Tobasco
• 1 4-oz. can diced green chiles

Place ingredients in food processor. Process until becomes a paste. Dump marinade and 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts into freezer bag and marinate at least 4 hours or overnight. Grill chicken 6-8min per side.

We compiled regular green leaf and romaine lettuce, corn, black beans, salsa and chicken for our salads.

It was great!

Turkey Meatloaf

My Mother has the most amazing meatloaf recipe. And probably like most of our mother's recipes...it's not the healthiest. I used her recipe and many others I found online as a base for our meatloaf.

1 1/4 lb ground turkey

diced veggies: green and red peppers, onion, garlic, grated carrot, about 1 cup spinach.

1 egg

1/4 c. dried bread crumbs

1 tsp sage

salt/pepper

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Saute veggies 3-4 minutes adding spinach the last 45 seconds to allow it to barley wilt, mix all ingredients: ground turkey, cooked veggies, egg, breadcrumbs and spices-with your hands! After all ingredients are incorporated, make into a loaf and transfer to a foil lined 9x13 pan or loaf pan.

Ok, I have to admit, there's a catch to this meatloaf. I did make the topping, because I love it. So, I know, shame on me.

about 1/2 c. Ketchup, 1/8 c. mustard, 2 TB brown sugar, 2 TB Worcestershire. Mix well and spread on meatloaf.

Bake 50-55 minutes.

YUM!

This was NOT my meatloaf, but one the the recipes I followed from Pinterest and mine looked similar.

Breakfast Burritos

Who doesn't like breakfast for dinner? Of course for it to be filling enough, there needs to be lots of substance to the burrito. I complied the ingredients below:

-1 lb sweet italian turkey sausage (regular turkey sausage probably would have been better but this is what I had)

-diced veggies: 1/4 onion and 1/2 green and 1/2 red peppers

- about 8 eggs

- 1TB almond (or regular) milk

- tortillas

(Cook tortillas if needed.) Brown sausage on med-high heat, drain and remove from pan to a bowl lined with paper towel. Use sausage grease to cook diced veggies in same pan. Saute veggies on medium high heat until onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Remove pan from heat and wisk eggs w/ few TBs of almond or regular milk, salt and pepper. Place pan back on medium heat and add eggs to veggies, scramble until cooked, add sausage.

It may be difficult to tell from the picture you may notice my scrambled eggs look a little white.  When I crack my eggs, I remove the yolk in at least half, maybe more of the eggs. If I'm using 8 eggs, I'll crack in 3 yolks and 5 egg whites. As I've mentioned before, we buy the raw tortilla dough from Costco and cook those up before I start the meal. We top off our burrito's with fresh salsa from Sprouts. Because there's only two of us, we had enough left-overs from lunch tomorrow and it re-heated very well! 

Slow-cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken

Some days, I am able to come home from work on my lunch. This is perfect because I can grab a bite to eat, and start dinner in the crock pot! This time of year in AZ, the citrus trees are in full bloom and my sweet friend brought me over some oranges, tangerines and lemons from her trees. They were delish! I decided to use the lemons she brought for one of my favorite crockpot recipes: Lemon Garlic Chicken. I adapted this from a website that used a whole chicken and other ingredients but I liked mine better!

4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 lemon

4-5 garlic cloves (we love garlic so this may be a little excessive)

1 small onion

salt/pepper

Slice onion in half and lay cut-side down and slice length-wise. Peel apart slices and place in the bottom of the slow cooker. Peel garlic cloves and press with the side of a knife so the cloves flatten, place on the onion. Slice half the lemon and put it on top of garlic. Salt and pepper the chicken well and place chicken breasts in the cooker. Use other half of the lemon and squeeze some of the juice on the chicken, then slice the lemon and place it on top of the chicken. Cover with the lid and cook on low for 6 hours or high heat for 3 hours. After cooking, remove lemon skins, shred and enjoy!

We ate this with a side of plain roasted sweet potatoes. 

In the old days, I would have cooked up a batch of rice to eat this with, but since we are trying to cut down carbs, I withheld. :)  No judging if you eat it with rice, it's wonderful!