Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken

One of the nicest things about Pinterest is that sometimes you not only find a good recipe but a good blog.  This is one such find.  Mama and Baby Love is a blog I stumbled upon and while I haven't spent a whole lot of time browsing it, it looks like a great blog and has some good recipes!  

This one is a freezer slow cooker one that I made recently and that we really enjoyed.  Here are some of my notes on it:

- I split it into two portions like she describes, but one portion was really just enough for the three of us.  If you have more than two adult eaters and one (very small portioned) child eater I would make the entire recipe for one meal.

- As I chopped I split into a gallon bag to go in the freezer and put the rest straight into the crock pot to cook.  Because of this I only cooked the crock pot portion on low for 5ish hours and it was plenty done.

- I might substitute regular potatoes (or half regular and half sweet) next time because I'm not a big sweet potato fan and this dish is really sweet potato heavy.

- I will also probably use regular chicken breasts next time.  It was different to use the drumsticks but I prefer less bones on my plate.  :)

Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken

3 medium unpeeled  sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 large green pepper, cut into strips
1 large red pepper, cut into strips
1 zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tablespoon quick cooking tapioca
2 pounds chicken thighs or drumsticks
1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt

Dump everything into two gallon freezer bags, shake it up, seal, label and put in the freezer.

To cook, take bag out of freezer to thaw for 30 minutes then dump in slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8.  Or, simply put in the slow cooker fresh and cook for less time.

Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Yet again, another Pinterest find.  Seriously, if you haven't checked out Pinterest and don't mind being sucked into a bottomless pit of ideas, go and check it out.  It's amazing...and a huge time waster....but still, amazing!

When I saw the picture that came with this pin I knew I wanted to try it.  I've been kind of blah about breakfast foods recently and have been jumping back and forth to things that only really sound good for a day or two.  So I really wanted to try this.  One negative about this cake is that it's hard to have all the ingredients on hand to make it any time.  It calls for buttermilk and unsalted butter which aren't staples at my house (the unsalted butter should be, but hasn't been).

So I made plans to pick up what I was lacking at home but then couldn't find a good time to make it.  Another downside is that it's not a really simple recipe so it wasn't something that I could simply whip up in the morning unless I wanted to get up and make it way before Charlotte got up and, lets face it, at 30 some odd weeks pregnant, that's not going to happen!

Finally, Jason suggested that he'd watch Charlotte after dinner so that I could make it then and just reheat what I wanted to eat each morning.  Stellar idea!  I started cooking and after a few measurement problems (I am pregnant remember and sometimes counting to 7 is hard!) I finally got it cooking.  It took a little longer than the 35 minutes the recipe called for but once it came out it looked delicious.  Jason and I had it for dessert that night and it was fantastic.  The next morning I heated up two pieces for Charlotte and I but Charlotte wouldn't touch it so she missed it and that left more for Jason and I!

I would highly recommend this recipe.  It's a really dense cake but it's not too sweet and perfect for breakfast or for a more tempered dessert.  It was good reheated for about 40 second in the microwave in the morning's but was also great fresh out of the oven.  Next time I might mix it the night before and bake it in the morning, but either way it's a great dish!

Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Makes 1 square dish

1/2 c unsalted butter, room temperature

7/8 cup + 1 T sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

2 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Cream butter with 7/8 cup of sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.  Meanwhile, toss the blueberries with 1/4 cup of flour, then whisk together the remaining flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Add the flour mixture to the batter a little at a time, alternating with the buttermilk.  Fold in the blueberries.

4. Grease a 9 inch square pan with non-stick spray.  Spread batter into pan.  Sprinkle batter with remaining tablespoon of sugar.  Bake for 35 minutes (or more).  Check with a toothpick for doneness.  Let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

Chicken, Bacon, and Avocado Quesadilla's

This is another Pinterest recipe but it actually comes from Kevin and Amanda's blog but I must have missed it when it was posted.  I love avocado's and chicken and bacon and cheese so these sounded perfect to me!  They ended up being superb!  The butter that you cook the tortilla's in added such a nice flavor to the quesadilla's and I felt a little healthy about them since they had the avocado's in them.  Like anything that you cook immediately before serving, they were a little stressful putting them together in the skillet but with my "helper" Charlotte we got them taken care of and enjoyed them for dinner.  I highly recommend this recipe if you're looking for something that's pretty easy (30 min start to finish) and is really good.  Charlotte even enjoyed eating them until she realized that she was eating avocado's and started saying "I can't like a-cado!"

Sidenote: I took some shortcuts from Amanda's recipe so this is my version.  Her version is linked on the post though if you want to be a real cook and do it all her way!

Chicken, Bacon, and Avocado Quesadilla's

Makes 4 quesadillas from 10" tortillas - 1 quesadilla per tortilla

1 package pre cooked chicken

8 strips bacon (we do the microwave kind)

1 avocado

Cheddar Cheese

4 Tortilla's

Butter

1. Cut chicken into bite size pieces.

2. Cook bacon until crumbly and crumble it.

3. Cut avocado into squares.

4. Warm chicken in skillet for a few minutes -- it's precooked so you're just getting it warm.  Put it back in the bowl you were holding it in originally.

5. Put 1/2 tablespoon of butter in the skillet.  Once it melts most of the way and gets foamy put the tortilla in the skillet and get it coated with butter.

6. Arrange chicken, bacon, avocado, and cheese on half of the tortilla.

7. Use tongs to fold the tortilla in half.

8. Cook about 1 1/2 minutes per side until both sides are golden brown and the cheese is melted.  (I use a cake spatula and a regular spatula to turn my quesadilla's over so as not to tear them up.)

9. Remove quesadilla onto plate or pan and stick in the oven (either off or on very low) to maintain the warmth of the quesadilla.

10. Repeat steps 5-9 starting with putting more butter in the skillet until all of your quesadilla's are made.

Crock Pot Chicken and Rice

This is my first recipe from Pinterest!  It sounded very easy and good so I tried it as my first recipe.  It turned out very good and was so easy that I'm sure we'll make it all the time!

Crock Pot Chicken and Rice

2-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

8 oz cream cheese (let it sit out to soften)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 packet Italian Dressing Seasoning

Rice

1. Stir the cream cheese, cream of chicken, and seasoning together in the crockpot.

2. Add chicken and spoon mixture so that it covers the chicken.

3. Cook on low for 4-6 hours (I cooked for 4.5 because that was when I was happening to put it in.  Make sure and check it about an hour before dinner to make sure that the chicken is done but that's plenty of time for thawed chicken to cook in the crock pot.)

4. Make rice before dinner.

5. Serve chicken mixture over rice.

Sweet and Sour Pork

I'm always on the look our for slow cooker recipes so when I see them in a magazine I tear them out.  Therefore, I currently have a drawer full of recipes and no time or energy to try them! But I've been trying to try more recipes out and came across this recipe for Sweet and Sour Pork so I gave it a try.  It is a pretty easy meal to throw together and came out really well.  Even Charlotte liked it!  When she tried some she looked at us surprised and said, "This is tasty!" Hope it's a hit at your house too!

Sweet and Sour Pork

Makes 6 servings

2 T vegetable oil

2 lbs pork shoulder for stew, cut into 2 x 1 inch pieces

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 large onion, peeled and sliced

1 large green pepper, cored and seeds removed, sliced

1 can (4 oz) mushroom pieces, drained

1 can (14.5 oz) tomato sauce

3 T packed brown sugar

2 T rice vinegar

2 T soy sauce

1/2 lb egg noodles, cooked

- Coat slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.

- Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Season pork with salt and pepper and add to skillet.  Saute 3 minutes per side.

- Add pork to slow cooker and layer in onion, green pepper, and mushrooms.  In a small bowl, combine tomato sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce.  Pour over pork and vegetables.

- Cover and cook on High for 6 hours or Low for 8 hours.  Serve over cooked egg noodles.

Shortcut Corn

I don't know about you but I'm pretty bad at making sides to go with meals.  I would much rather just make one casserole or something that we eat basically as our whole meal and add a salad or fruit and veggies with it.  But, I will make this corn to go with dinner because it's so easy and I almost always have corn in my pantry.  There's a good chance that you've been cooking your canned corn like this forever but I hadn't and so when I tried it out it was a miraculous discovery.  And one of the best parts is that Charlotte will eat corn when it's cooked like this so I can eat least get one veggie in her! But be forewarned, I'm guessing that this recipe is really not great for you what with the salt and margarine, but it sure is good!

Shortcut Corn

Serves 4

1 small can Shoepeg Corn

1 small can Yellow Corn

Salt

Pepper

2-3 tablespoons margarine

- Pour both cans of corn into a baking dish.

- Stir corn together until it's evenly mixed.

- Generously salt and pepper the corn and remix.  

- Cut margarine into 4 or 5 pats of butter and spread them throughout the corn (i.e. spoon out corn, put the margarine in, and put corn back on top of butter.

- Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Salsa Chicken

Does anyone else have a recipe folder on their email like I do?  Mine has emails all the way back since we got married and I've only cooked maybe a third of them.  So when I'm tired of cooking what feels like the same old, same old, I go search that folder to find something that I want to make.  

Recently I found this Salsa Chicken recipe.  I haven't made it before since it asks you to marinate the chicken in the salsa for at least two hours or overnight and I rarely have my act together enough time to do that.  But now that C is taking an afternoon nap I prefer to get dinner ready during her nap so that when it's time to cook all I have to do is stick it in the oven.  So I found that this recipe worked for me where I am right now.  

It ended up being a pretty light recipe that didn't take an inordinate amount of time of prep work although all the chopping did eat up some of nap time.  Be prepared that this is not a tomato based salsa recipe, it's a green pepper salsa recipe so if you're looking for a traditional salsa dish this is not one to try.  But it was very good and pretty easy.

Salsa Chicken

From Dinner by Design

• 11/2 cups diced green pepper (about 2 medium)
• 1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro (about 1 bunch)
• 1 cup diced onion
• 3 Tbl chopped garlic
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tbl red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients, except chicken. Reserve 1 1/2 cups salsa (to serve with chicken), cover and refrigerate. Place chicken in a large resealable bag. Add remaining salsa to the chicken. Seal bag and marinate at least 2 hours or overnight.

Drain and discard chicken marinade. Grill chicken over medium-high heat for 10-15 minutes, when a thermometer reads 170°, turning once. OR bake chicken at 400° on a broiler pan for 20-25 min. Serve chicken topped with reserved salsa.