Oven-Fried Chicken Parm (Cooking Light style)

I love chicken parm but it’s oh so bad for you. Deep fried chicken, covered in cheese…mmmm. I thought I’d give Cooking Light’s version a try and it was soooo good! Perfect, really. Because Rocco DiSpirito (author of Now Eat This that i love) is such a fan of Whole Wheat Panko breadcrumbs, and because I searched through hell and high water to find some (I finally came across some on a dusty bottom shelf in a Cambridge Whole Foods and bought all they had!), I used that instead of regular white panko as the recipe called for.

Anyway, this chicken parm was crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, and covered in cheese. What more could a girl ask for?

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been making a lot of my recipes for 2 lately. I’m usually paring it down from a recipe that would normally serve 4, so feel free to double it with no worries. Just thought I’d mention that.

Zucchini with Oregano and Feta

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for a while and I just happened to have all the ingredients in the fridge tonight. This comes from weight watchers and is a great, easy side dish.

Happy 100th Post! Low Cal Shrimp Pad Thai

Yet another recipe from Rocco’s Now Eat This. I must admit, I gobbled this. Very delicious, very easy. If you can boil stuff, you can make this.

Portuguese Corn Bread French Toast with Berry Syrup

When I was growing up, my mom would buy this amazing round of corn bread from a nearby Portuguese bakery and make the most delicious french toast with it. I saw some in the grocery store today and knew I had to make it. The bread is so dense and sweet – it makes for a really sturdy french toast to soak up all the eggy deliciousness.

Mushroom Stuffed Chicken

I’ve been in love with mushrooms lately. For a while I convinced myself that I wasn’t a mushroom fan, but I totally flip-flopped and can’t get enough of them now. The original recipe (cooking light mag) called for breading the chicken, but frankly, I just didn’t feel like dirtying the 3 extra dishes. Instead I pan seared it and finished it in the oven. Next time I’ll make a pan gravy with thyme, lemon, and stock to pour over top. Yum.

Smooshed Potatoes with Lemon and Herbs

This recipe was a wee bit labor intensive, but who can resist a fried smooshed potato?

Garlic and Anchovy Asparagus

At the risk of sounding like Rachael Ray…I do agree with one of her sentiments. If you think you don’t like anchovies, you’re probably wrong. Give it a shot – it’s not fishy at all, trust me.

Tex-Mex Chipotle Sloppy Joes (Cooking Light style)

My BF and I were craving sloppy joes but wanted a healthy version. These have a lot of flavor, are definitely sloppy, and it’s just fun food. I served it with a green salad and carrots with ginger lime butter.

Baby Carrots with Ginger Lime Butter

I took a few liberties with this recipe…namely swapping out the real baby carrots (as in young carrots from an actual garden) for a 1 pound bag of frozen carrots that have been perfectly shaped into carrot-shaped nubs. I usually shy away from these carrots because overly-handled food freaks me out a little, but I just had a craving. These hit the spot.

Pork and Snap Pea Stir-Fry with Orange Peanut Sauce

Day 8 with no camera. Having no camera has actually shown me how much I enjoy blogging about my cooking…so much so that I’ve found myself not wanting to cook because I know I won’t be able to get a decent shot. Silly, right? Anyway, my new camera will be delivered tomorrow and I can start happily blogging (and cooking) up a storm again 🙂

On to the recipe…this is another one of Rocco’s recipes from that book of his that I’m so fond of. Once you put the sauce together, which I did over the weekend, it’s SUPER easy and really good for a work-night meal. I’m also planning on using this sauce in a low-cal Pad Thai over the weekend too.

Mediterranean Tuna Salad

First, I apologize for the picture. My poor little camera finally died and this was taken with my phone. New camera is on the way…

Now, THIS is a tuna salad. I’m typically not a fan of conventional tuna salad (I think it’s the goopy mayo with the fish…ew), but this is something I can get behind.

I’m trying to enjoy more salads as dinners, but I realized that I really hate lettuce. It’s just so boring. This tuna salad uses olive oil instead of goopy mayo and leafy celery hearts instead of lettuce. So good and perfect for summer.

Warm Potato, Green Bean, and Egg Salad

This is a perfect salad. You know me, I love anything with an egg – but this is so healthy, easy, and fast – it’s definitely going to be a new go-to. Add bacon or other veggies to mix it up.

Simple Grilled Chicken

There was a time when cooking chicken made me very nervous. I was always afraid of under-cooking and killing my dining partners or over-cooking and eating chicken that tastes like it still has feathers…turns out it’s the simplest thing in the world. Tricks are to season the chicken really well, sear it so it gets nice and browned, and chill out – it’s only chicken. It is barely a “recipe”, but, that said, this is a tasty, tasty piece of protein that, in my opinion, beats out time-consuming marinades and fancy spice blends. Eat it.

Simple Grilled Chicken
3 ww pts for a 4 ounce skinless breast

Here’s what I used:

• organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast (trimmed of any visible fat)
• kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper
• olive oil cooking spray

Here’s what I did:

1. Let chicken rest on the counter for about 10 minutes before you are ready to cook it. Season well on both sides with salt and pepper.
2. Preheat grill pan (or frying pan) on medium-high heat for a few minutes. Spray with cooking spray and place each breast in the pan. Do not touch it for at least 5 minutes. Do not wiggle it around or start flipping it; let it sear.
3. When 5-6 minutes have elapsed and side 1 is nice and browned, flip and do the same on the next side. You should be able to tell that the chicken breast is no longer pink and has firmed up. To check for doneness, you can make a tiny cut in the thickest part of the meat to have a peeksie inside. If it’s still raw looking, cook it longer.
4. When cooked through, remove to a plate to rest for 5 minutes (under foil to keep warm). Easy peasy.

Three Cheese Pizza with Bacon and Cheese-Stuffed Whole Wheat Crust

Round two of homemade pizza night. I was a little willy-nilly with the mozzarella in my first recipe, so this one is a blend of cheeses that I had in my fridge. I think this pizza was my favorite of the two, but just by a hair and largely because there is BACON involved.

Broccoli and Garlic Pizza with Cheese-Stuffed Whole Wheat Crust

One of my favorite grocery-store guilty pleasures is the cheese-stuffed crust pizzas. Even though most frozen pizzas are so so so so unhealthy because it is so processed and has a lot of extra sugar and sodium, etc., I still crave this. I decided to try my hand at a whole wheat crust and this one won with its great reviews online. It’s so good! Make this for someone who doesn’t like whole wheat pizza – they’ll love it. This is pizza #1 of 2 that we made with this dough. And although it’s not technically whole wheat as it does have some white flour too, it’s still healthier than an all-white pizza.

Turkey Reuben

I found myself with some sauerkraut leftover from my polish night, so I immediately wanted to make a reuben, one of my favorite sammiches. The recipe calls for Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bread, which actually is not bad despite the description, but I had the traditional rye on hand so that’s what I went with. This sandwich is SO EASY and really delicious — much, much better than a regular ol’ turkey sandwich. Eat this.

Shrimp Scampi with Spinach and Tomatoes

This is a variation of a dish I make a lot in the summer time. It’s very quick (longest thing is waiting for the water to come to a boil for the pasta), very fresh-tasting, and it’s pasta, obviously, which is mandatory at least once a week for me.

With that said, let’s talk about whole wheat pasta. I was never a fan of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, it’s much healthier for us (and it really is), yadda yadda yadda. It just always had a weird grainy texture and just didn’t cut it compared to the real thing. BUT, I think I’ve been converted. I recently learned from the author of my favorite new cookbook, Now Eat This, that the trick to whole wheat pasta is to overcook it. That’s right. Forever, you’ve been hounded to cook pasta to “al dente”, or a little under-cooked so it’s not mushy. But it’s true! If you cook whole wheat pasta even a minute or two over the package directions, it really takes on more of the quality of a semolina pasta. Amazing. Yay!