Om Nom Noms

Sassy Potato Corn Chowder

I didn’t come up with this title, I promise. You can thank Kraft for that. 

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bacon, or 3/4 of a bag of Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Bits
• 1 can of sodium reduced chicken broth
• 3 baking potatoes, peeled & cubed
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1/2 cup of onions, chopped
• 1/3 cup Miracle Whip 
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 2 cups of milk

Bring vegetable broth and veggies to a boil in a large saucepan then simmer for about 20 minutes. I waited until the potatoes were pretty tender.

Mix the Miracle Whip & flour in a bowl. Slowly mix in milk. Add that, plus the bacon into the chowder and cook for another 5-10 minutes.

This was honestly SO good. I’ve made chowder before and I found it too thin, this was a perfect thickness. I thought the Miracle Whip was weird but I think that’s what makes it so good! 

Maple Pecan Salmon

Salmon is an acquired taste for me. I never liked it growing up, although to be truthful I don’t know if I ever really tried it until university. I made it a lot last summer because it’s SO delicious on the BBQ, and I’ve even converted my man friend over to my fishy ways. A co-worker told me a really good way to cook it is with maple syrup and pecans, so I googled a quick and easy recipe and was pleasantly surprised! So so so good!

I got Jay Linz to stop at the grocery store the day before to pick up some salmon. Thinking he was being helpful, he bought nice fresh salmon. Which, upon removing from the package, looked like THIS:

W. T. F. 

I’m not a vegetarian but son I do NOT like to think about my food swimming or running or jumping or playing before I prepare to eat it. Skin on a fish, or rather SCALES on a fish, is the gross-out equivalent to a head on a chicken for me. GAG.

So like a girly girl, I waited for Jay to come home to remove the nastiness before I continued. (The next day I was informed that if you cook the salmon with the scales on it comes right off after you cooked it and holds it together well- good to know, still gross). 

You need:

Pecans (1/2 cup, crushed)
Panko bread crumbs (1/2 cup)
Olive Oil (1 Tbsp)
Maple Syrup (1/4 cup)

Sear your salmon in a frying pan after heating the olive oil. (About 2 min each side)

Place on a pan lined with parchment paper. Brush salmon with syrup (I like using the legit stuff, local if you can get it) and then top with pecans and bread crumbs. Cook at 375degrees until the fish flakes.  

Sante Fe Chicken (For Momma)

This is a super healthy recipe I found on- you guessed it- PINTEREST!

It’s so so easy and perfect for a weeknight. We used nachos but you could definitely serve it with rice or bread or on it’s on (I can’t have a meal without some sort of carb so those all sound wonderful). Apparently it’s a WW recipe so if you’re into that you’ll be happy (I think) to know it’s 4 points on the new system.

What you need:

• 1 1/2 lbs chicken breast (I used 2, adjust depending on how many you’re feeding/how much you want left over)
• large can of diced tomatoes
• large can of black beans (I didn’t rinse them)
• 8 oz frozen corn
• Can of sodium reduced chicken broth
• Green onions, chopped (about 3)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

Cook on low for up to 10 hours or high six hours. After ten hours shred your chicken with a fork. Voila!

 Pinned from www.skinnytaste.com

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

This recipe is one of my absolute favorites. I’m not sure where I got it from since it’s written into my recipe book in pen but my money is either on the Inspired magazines from Sobeys or Kraft. Sweet potatoes are SO good for you and this is a delicious (and reasonably healthy) way to cook them. 

Depending on how many people you’re cooking for, adjust the recipe accordingly. I can easily eat two of these by myself. 

2 large sweet potatoes
1/4 cup cream cheese
2 Tbsp skim milk
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans 

The hardest part is halving the sweet potatoes. They’re super thick and almost like carrots in that when you attempt to cut them they can splinter. I took a bread knife (the long skinny ones with the serrated edges) and very slowly and carefully sawed back and forth to cut it in half. Think stabbing the potato and then bringing the knife down so it’s parallel to the cutting board. 

Place the sweet potatoes with the cut sides down on parchment paper or tinfoil. Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes until the sweet potatoes are cooked. For smaller potatoes, adjust your cooking time.

Remove your taters from the oven and let cool for a minute or two. I popped on an oven mitt to protect my precious hands and used a spoon to scoop out the cooked potato. Just be careful that you don’t tear the potato skins. 

In a bowl, mash the potatoes with everything but the pecans. Place back into the skins, top with pecans and bake 8 minutes or until it’s warmed through.

These are honestly like dessert, I can’t brag about them enough. 

Coconut Coated Chicken Fingers

I’m not sure what it is with Pinterest recipes and frying but here’s another. I can’t say I was a huge fan of this one but I would be willing to try it again if it was baked in the oven. 

Chicken
2 large eggs
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup flour
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup sweet chili sauce

Cut your chicken into thin strips.

Set up three “stations”. In one bowl combine your flour and salt, in another eggs and coconut milk, and the third bread crumbs and coconut.

Place 1/4 cup of oil in a large skillet. Heat it so that it bubbles when you put a pinch of flour in it.
Go from bowl 1 to 3 with your chicken, making sure they’re coated evenly. Place about 6 strips in the skillet at once. We put them in as we breaded them with the first round and about half of them burnt, so wait until you have all of them ready. 

Cook about 2-3 minutes on each side. 

Again I wasn’t crazy about this but I think they would be delicious just baked in the oven. They would still cook up much like regular chicken fingers, obviously just not as crispy. 

Recipe from: http://budgetbytes.blogspot.com

Coconut Shrimp Wontons

As I said in my last post, won tons come in packs of 5 million. So after searching Pinterest in hopes of finding yet another won ton recipe that was not soup, I stumbled upon this delicious and amazing recipe. Drool. 

What you need:

Wontons
Shrimpies (I like them cooked already)
4 Tbsp Shredded coconut
3-4 Tbsp Panko bread crumbs
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 Tbsp Butter
Parsley 

Heat your oven to 365. Why 365 I don’t know. Seems an odd temperature. 

If your shrimp are raw, adjust your cooking time. If they’re pre-cooked then you’re basically just heating them up in the pan. Chuck your butter and garlic powder in a pan and once it’s heated add your shrimp. Add in your panko bread crumbs and coconut. Once your shrimpies are heated through you’re going to spoon the mixture into your wontons (which are sprayed and in your muffin tin). Spritz the top of your concoction and pop them in the oven for 8-10 minutes. We served these with some Basmati rice but you could definitely do them solo as an appetizer. We also used a Lime Chili sauce from the Charlottetown Farmers Market which was unreal but you could use any sweet chili sauce and it would be delicious!

Thanks to www.peasandcrayons.com for the recipe!

BBQ Chicken Won Tons

I was making an appetizer for a NYE gathering and of course forgot my list at home when I went to the grocery store. Instead of getting Phyllo pastry, I got won ton wrappers since in my head that’s what they looked like in the recipe photo. Won tons come in backs of 5 million so naturally I would mistakenly buy them and then have to find recipes to use them up. The first one we tried I kind of made up (I say kind of because I’m sure there are tons of recipes for something similar out there). It was super simple and took no time at all. 

What you need:

Won ton wrappers
Chicken
BBQ sauce (I used Bullseye Chipotle)
Green/Red peppers - diced very small
Marble cheese - grated
Cooking Spray or a spray bottle with olive oil
Muffin tin

You can see from the list of ingredients that you could easily substitute things in and out of this recipe if you wanted - tomatoes, green onion, salsa, mozza, Tex mex, etc.

Dice your chicken into small bite size pieces (you can always cut it up smaller with the spatula while you’re cooking it). Once it’s almost cooked through add your BBQ sauce…I just eyeballed it.

Separate your won tons and place them in the muffin tins (which you have already sprayed with your oil). Fill with chicken, peppers and top with shredded cheese. You really don’t have to put much filling in them, if you over fill them they’re harder to eat anyway. 

Cook @ 400 degrees until the edges of the won tons are golden and the cheese is melted. Serve with salsa and sour cream. 

Dragonfruit

I was astonished to see this strange looking fruit at our ghetto Save Easy the other day. I’d never tried Dragon Fruit but had seen it on occasion at different grocery stores and thought I would like to try it, even though I was more than a little bit afraid of it. It was also on sale from $6 down to $3.50 so I figured now was a good time as any to check it out. 

So having no idea what it was going to look like, or taste like, I hesitantly cut into it…..

and was pretty surprised to find it white! Very pretty contrast if I do say so myself :)

I cubed it and brought it in my lunch to snack on. I found the texture very similar to kiwi, which is awesome because I’m 90% sure I’m allergic to kiwi (one too many itchy throat/tongue experiences to test my theory any further). It didn’t have an overpowering or super distinct taste which I found kind of strange. One of my students said after trying it “It’s gross, it taste like nothing”. I’m not quite sure how something can be gross if it tastes like “nothing” but that’s beside the point. 

Fun Dragon Fruit facts:

• It’s also known as Pitaya. 
• They are native to Central America & South America, but are found all over Asia, Australia and the Middle East. So basically everywhere.
• Low calorie count
• High vitamin C content
• ANTIOXIDANTS! YAY!

So eat one. Now.

You Need To Try This- Cranberry Cinnamon Goat Cheese

A co-worker introduced me to this delicious product. You can find it in the cheese section of the grocery store. Cranberry Cinnamon Goat Cheese. It’s delicious on its own, or I especially like it in a spinach salad with almonds and berries. YUM.

Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Chicken

This is not healthy recipe, but it is delicious. I found this recipe for Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Chicken when I was wasting time on Pinterest last week. If I were to make it again (which I probably would because it was delicious) I would bake it in the oven instead of frying it. I think it would still crisp up nicely and wouldn’t have all that yucky oil on it. While browsing recipes on Pinterest I see a lot of frying taking place- it seems that Americans love frying their food…go figure. Anyways if you like jalapeno poppers that restaurants sometimes have on their menus, you will love this meal! We just cooked up some potatoes (in the bacon grease, GASP) with onions and butter and then a pre-made Sante Fe salad so we could feel better about ourselves.

You can find the recipe here:

http://cassiecraves.blogspot.com/2009/05/jalapeno-popper-stuffed-chicken.html