Chicken and Rice

This is a delicious recipe. After looking at several ideas for this dish, I combined ideas and tweaked the recipe to our taste. This is very good and easy to make.

Recipe:
1 T olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 cup diced celery

1 10 oz can Campbell's low sodium chicken broth + 1/4 cup water

1 can of cream of chicken and mushroom soup (can use chicken or mushroom; I like combo of both)

1 envelope of Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix

1 cup uncooked jasmine rice
1/2 cup frozen green peas (optional)
4 bone in chicken breasts (I cook with skin on and remove as eaten; or about 2 lb of chicken)
Season All to taste (or salt and pepper)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.

Saute onion and celery in olive oil until tender. Add chicken broth/water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and stir in soup until mixed well. Remove from heat.

Stir in Italian dressing mix, rice and peas. Pour into greased baking dish. Place chicken pieces skin side up on top of mixture. Sprinkle top with season all. Cover with foil.

Bake for 70 minutes at 350. Remove from oven and uncover. Run spoon through mixture to make sure rice is spread evenly throughout. *At this point the moisture was perfect so I added another 1/4 water to mixture. (If your rice is still a bit too moist do not add extra water.)

Bake uncovered for 20 minutes more to brown chicken.

4 servings
350 calories per serving

Vegetable Soup even the kids will love!!

1 chuck roast, clean then dry, sprinkle with salt or Season All
medium onion, sliced
2 celery sticks, (clean, dry, cut into thirds)
2 carrots, (clean, dry, cut into thirds)
olive oil
heated water

3 11.5 oz cans of tomato juice (or if you like to drink it, get the large can and drink the rest!)
2 cans of creamed corn
1 8 oz can green peas, drained
2 carrots, sliced into medallions (or can use 8 oz can, drained)
2 medium red potatoes, bite size pieces (optional-I usually do not add; personal preference:)
salt and pepper to taste

In soup pot, brown your onion, celery, and carrots (ones in thirds) until dark in olive oil. Remove and brown roast really well. Add browned veggies back to roast. (Browning these gives you a darker richer broth) Add heated water and bring to boil. Boil, adding water as necessary, for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours until meat is nice and tender.

Remove meat and veggies from broth. I discard the veggies and pull off some of the meat to add back to soup at end. The leftover meat makes great roast beef sandwiches too!

Add tomato juice and bring to boil. Add fresh carrots and potatoes and cook until tender.

Add both cans of creamed corn and drained peas. Simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so the corn does not stick. Salt and pepper to taste. The cream corn thickens the soup nicely and makes it a really nice consistency. Before serving, add some of the roast cut into small pieces back to soup.

Serve with crackers. Also delicious with a fresh pan of corn bread!

Quick Veggie Stir-Fry

This is a quick easy way to serve veggies.  You can change your veggies around for your own taste. Red or yellow bell peppers, sugar snaps, or fresh green beans are good substitutions. Also, if you have a small piece of leftover steak (or chicken), slice it up and add to veggies toward the end until heated through. This is a very versatile way to enjoy veggies and use those leftover meats!   We love it!

These are my favorites:

olive oil
1 large sweet onion, sliced
1 bunch of asparagus (I prefer pencil size), cut to about 2 inch lengths
1 cup carrot medallions
Season All seasoned salt (I prefer one with blue lid w/o garlic)
Fresh cooked Jasmine Rice*

Put rice on to cook while preparing veggies.

In open nonstick skillet, simmer carrots for about 10 minutes until tender. Remove and set aside.

Add about 2 T olive oil to skillet, add onion and cook on med/high heat until tender or caramelized, whichever is your taste. When onions are almost like you want them, add asparagus. Add Season All to taste, (I use liberally). Cook asparagus until tender. Add a dab of olive oil as needed. When almost ready, add carrots and cook for about 2 minutes.

Serve over Jasmine Rice as side or main dish!


*I prefer Jasmine Rice over regular long grain white rice. It has a much nicer flavor and smells really good while cooking. I have a rice cooker and that makes it much easier and impossible to scorch while tending to other parts of the meal or the kids:)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!

Today is a great day because it is Ben's 15th birthday:) Happy Birthday Ben! This summer when he is 15 1/2 he will be old enough to get his learner's permit. FUN!

We all love you Ben and hope you have a great day!

Love, Mom

Angel Food Cake - Homemade

This is my first time to ever make an angel food cake of any kind. This is a great recipe I found on food.com (#12591 by Charlotte J).  It is delicious and has 0 grams of cholesterol and .1 grams of fat which is almost none. So, this is a great recipe for our collection. We all recommend it:) I think the almond extract in this recipe makes it!

Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
3/4 cup sugar + 2 T
12 large egg whites
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract (was a little strong; 1/4 tsp was much better)

Directions:
1. Note: For those not use to making angel food cakes, don't get any yokes in the white. If you do throw out and start over. I always separate the egg in a glass first. Then if no yoke pour into measuring container.

2. DO NOT GREASE PAN

3. I always use a 2 piece angel food cake pan.

4. Preheat oven to 375

5. Sift the cake flour and 3/4 cup + 2 T sugar, set aside.

6. Combine the extracts in a small bowl; set aside.

7. Beat egg whites, cream tartar and salt until it forms peaks.

8. Add the other 3/4 cups of sugar slowly, then beat on high until stiff peaks form.

9. If you have a mixing guard for your mixer bowl now would be a good time to attach it.

10. Beating on LOW, add flour/sugar mixture and extracts slowly.

11. Make sure you fold in the sides and bottom of your mixing bowl.

12. (You can fold in flour mixture by hand but this way is faster.) Spoon into an angel food cake pan.

13. Move a knife through batter to remove air pockets.

14. Bake 30-35 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly with finger.

15. Invert pan onto a tin funnel to cool completely.

16. To remove the cake from your pan run a knife around the rim of the cake pan just to get the 'crust' away from the pan.

17. Then firmly spank the sides of your pan.

18. You could use a knife but this sometimes tears the sides of the cake.

19. Invert onto your serving plate then take the knife to the now top which was the bottom of your pan and gently cut cake away from insert.

20. No need to cut around the center tube as you just give the cake a gentle but firm tap or downward shake on to the plate.

21. Or you can pick up plate while holding onto the pan insert with your thumbs and firmly strike the bottom of the plate onto a folded towel. (Just give it a slam down on the towel/table)


OK, all those removing from pan directions. I used a plastic spatula and ran it around the top of the pan about an inch down, and pulled the insert out with cake in tact. I then gently lifted the bottom around the edges to loosen from the insert, inverted and it and it came off onto plate with a little nudging.

I also did not have a metal funnel. So during the time the cake was cooking I looked around the kitchen to see what I could use for this part of the procedure. My whisk gave me an idea. So, I took my medium size metal whisk, tide cooking twine to handle end, stuck twine through top center of cake pan suspending it over whisk, put loop over cabinet handle above counter and let it hang there upside down until cool. (I had a second cake pan exactly like the one in oven so I practiced with it to see if it would work - and it did!) I stabilized it with a couple of mugs on counter next to inverted-suspended pan to keep it level.

You know what they say: where there is a will, there is a way:)

Serving size of this cake is 16 pieces. Each piece has 125 calories.

NICE!

Home-Baked Bagels from food.com

This is a great recipe! The bagels are delicious. This is my first time to ever cook bagels. In the past I have looked at recipes and considered cooking bagels and decided it would not be worth the trouble. Well, let me just say, this recipe is definitely worth it and after you have made them you realize that it is not that bad. There are several steps but none are hard and each one does not take that much time. So, I encourage you to give it a try if you have never done so!

Besides the fact that they are delicious, they contain 0 mg of cholesterol and .4 grams of fat. (I guess the fat comes from the part that says "greased baking dish". For this I used Pam Olive Oil spray. So, if that is the case then that .4 grams becomes "0 grams". I looked up the nutrition values for egg whites and it states that the white of an egg has .04 grams of fat. That is not bad either:)  By the way, it is 7 degrees here right now!! A bit chilly:)

So here it is - Home-Baked Bagels from Food.com recipe #26168 by Karen

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 pkgs yeast (bulk yeast = 4 1/2 tsp)
1 1/2 ounces of sugar (recipe calls for kitchen scale; I measured on scale and it was approximately 1/4 cup)
1/2 ounce of salt (recipe calls for kitchen scale; I measured on scale and determined it was a little less than 2 1/2 tsp - more exact would be 2 3/8 + 1/16 tsp)
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 qts water, to boil
1 egg white
cinnamon (optional)
raisins (optional)
poppy seeds (optional)
dried onions or garlic (optional)
sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
1. Mix yeast, sugar and warm water together and let stand 3 minutes

2. Mix 2 cups of flour with the salt in a large bowl; add the yeast mixture.

3. Stir until combined and slowly mix in the rest of the flour (if making cinnamon raisin bagels, add these to dough now).

4. Knead on a floured surface for 5 minutes, adding additional flour as needed, dough should be firm.

5. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until double. (It took about 45 minutes for mine to double; that time can vary.)

6. After rising punch down and divide into 12 balls.

7. Allow to rest for 4 minutes.

8. Bring 2 qts of water to boil.

9. With your thumb, make a hole in each ball of dough and pull open about 2 inches, making a bagel shape.

10. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

11. Place the shaped dough on the cookie sheet and cover for 10 minutes.

12. Lower heat under water for it to be simmering.

13. Drop 2 or 3 bagels at a time into the water for about 45 seconds, turning each once.

14. Drain and place on greased baking sheets.

15. Brush tops with beaten egg white and top with optional toppings.

16. Bake for 35 minutes, turning once for even browning. (Mine only needed 28 minutes to be golden brown.)

17. Bagels are done when they are golden brown and shiny.


This recipe makes 12 bagels.

Marinated Pork Tenderloin p.328

This was a very good recipe. We both liked it very much. (Ben ate left over Chinese!) We also had english peas and jasmine rice.

Recipe:

Marinade-
1 small onion, grated or minced
1/4 cup low-salt soy sauce
1T toasted sesame oil
2 tsp grated pealed ginger or 3/4 tsp ground ginger
2 medium garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 lb pork tenderloin, all visible fat and silver skin discarded
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup honey
1 T dark brown sugar

In large re-sealable plastic bag, combine marinade ingredients. Add your pork tenderloin; seal; turn to coat. Refrigerate for 8 hours, turning occasionally.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Remove pork from marinade and drain well; discard marinade. Put pork in shallow nonstick baking pan.

In small bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour over pork, turning to coat all sides.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 170F. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Slice and serve.

Serves 4

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARRIE!

Today is Carrie's 22nd birthday. She and Doug are enjoying the day off since they are getting snow today in Columbia, SC! What a great present:) Today was to be the first day back to school for their final semester of college. They will both be graduating in May!!!  We are all so proud of you both. Have a great birthday and enjoy the beautiful snow. Love, BJ

Teriyaki Halibut p.161

Well I could not find any halibut so I used haddock.  It is everywhere here in Wisconsin. I have to admit, I never tried this dish. I am not a big fish person. Doug ate it and said it was good, but I would not have to make it again on his account:)

So here is the recipe:

Marinade:
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 T low salt soy sauce
1 T light brown sugar
1 tsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp dry mustard

2 pounds of halibut filets
vegetable oil spray
6 pineapple slices, canned in their own juice


In a small bowl whisk together marinade ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes. Pour into small bowl, and refrigerate 30 mins to an hour.

Rinse fish and pat dry with paper towel. Cut into serving size pieces. Put into plastic bag, pour in marinade and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat broiler. Lightly spray broiler pan and rack with vegetable oil spray.

Remove fish and put in broiler pan. Reserve marinade in small sauce pan and boil over medium-high heat for 5 minutes.   Brush the fish with the hot marinade.

Broil fish 5-6 inches from heat for 5 minutes. Turn carefully and top with pineapple. Broil for about 5 more minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork.

Serves 8.

Homemade Popcorn with Olive Oil

Olive oil is much healthier than other oils and is very good in homemade popcorn. Making your own helps you limit the salt and butter intake and it is fun:)

I use a good extra virgin olive oil and Orville's popcorn.

Preheat on med/high heat a roughly 3 qt covered sauce pan. Add about 2-3T olive oil and about 1/2 cup of popcorn. (enough oil to lightly cover all of the kernels; adjust as needed) Go ahead and lightly salt as desired. Put your lid on and let them sizzle and pop.  Very good!

Herb-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Dijon-Apricot Mop Sauce p. 330

This was very good but not as good as the previous two recipes. It has the potential to be just as good though. I used chicken instead of pork, and I should have flattened my pieces with a mallet. They were thick and uneven. Then I think it would have been excellent:) This is also a recipe you can grill. I plan to do that after the spring thaw here in Wisconsin!

In the cooking tips for this recipe, they stated that this is very good with chicken and flank steak. They also said that you can use the mop sauce alone without the herbs. So I used boneless/skinless chicken breasts. I used the herbs on 2 with the mop sauce and on the other 2 I used just the mop sauce. Both were very good. Ben liked the one without the herbs the best.

We had jasmine rice, asparagus and peas (using the rest of the fresh I had in fridge and leftover peas) and rolls with this meal. Very nice.

Recipe:

Herb Rub-
  1 T dry rosemary, crushed
  1 T dried thyme, crumbled
  1 T ground cumin
  2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  2 tsp celery seeds

Dijon-Apricot Mop Sauce-
  1 tsp olive oil
  1 small onion, finely chopped
  1/2 cup cider vinegar
  1/4 cup honey
  1/4 cup all-fruit apricot preserves
  2 T Dijon mustard
  1 tsp grated lemon zest
  1 T fresh lemon juice

2 1-lb pork tenderloins, all visible fat and silver skin discarded (or chicken, flank steak, or eye-of-round roast)


In small bowl, stir together the rub ingredients. Rub mixture evenly over the pork. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350F or prepare grill for medium high. (lightly spray grill with vegetable oil spray)

If baking, line pan with foil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Baste with mop sauce.  Bake 10 minutes then mop again. Bake another 10-15 until done or 165 on meat thermometer.

If grilling, grill on each side for 10 minutes (40 minutes for tenderloin). Baste with mop sauce. Grill until done-about another 2-3 minutes on each side, until no longer pink or registers 165 on meat thermometer.


Mop Sauce prep: heat small saucepan over medium-high. Pour oil and swirl. Add onions and cook 2-3 minutes or until soft, stirring occasionally.
Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Before "mopping", you may want to set aside 1/2 for dipping sauce for the cooked pork)


Serves 8.

Zesty Hot-Oven Sirloin p. 282

Another keeper:) Last night we enjoyed another great dish from this cookbook. We started with a  tossed salad. Our steak dish was complemented nicely with english peas and jasmine rice.

Recipe:
     1 pound boneless sirloin steak, about 1 inch thick, all visible fat discarded

   Marinade
     2 T low salt soy sauce
     2 T balsamic vinegar
     2 T fresh lemon juice
     1 T low salt worcestershire sauce
     2 tsps dried oregano*, crumbled
     2 medium garlic cloves*, minced

   vegetable oil spray (Use if you omit foil)
   1/2 T light tub margarine (I did not add margarine)
   1/4 tsp salt
   1/4 tsp pepper
   2 T finely snipped fresh parsley

*I used 1 tsp of ground oregano and only one clove of garlic.

(Directions altered a little to how I prepared it)
In large re-sealable plastic bag, combine steak and the 6 marinade ingredients. Refrigerate for 8 hours, turning occasionally.

Preheat oven to 500F.

Line rimmed baking sheet with foil. Put steak on baking sheet, reserve marinade and pour into small sauce pan.  Cook steak on top oven rack for 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, add water to marinade. Bring to boil and simmer, uncovered for 3 minutes or until reduced to about 1/4 cup. Remove from heat. Add margarine, salt, and pepper, stirring until margarine is melted.

Preheat skillet. Remove steak from oven and place in skillet; braise to desired brownness.

Transfer to serving platter; spoon marinade over steak; sprinkle with fresh parsley. Delicious!

This meal serves 4.

Why this began...

We are only getting older. As 2010 closed we got the news that one of us (not me) has high cholesterol. Because of this, on New Years day we trekked off to Barnes & Noble in search of a low cholesterol cookbook. I chose the hardback 7th edition of The New American Heart Association Cookbook. I have made the commitment to work diligently in making our meals as heart healthy and delicious as possible. I want to try many of the recipes in this book and learn new ways to add flavor without adding unneeded fat. This book has many tips on what to look at in prepared foods and how to select healthier ingredients for your meal preparation. So today January 2, 2011 (Happy Birthday D!) I created my first meal from this cookbook. The adventure begins!

Chicken with Orange Sauce-p. 206 & Muffins-p. 537

Well let me just go ahead and get the muffins out of the way. I made them this afternoon and followed the recipe for the fruit muffins with blueberries. Just eat the blueberries and forget the recipe. These did not turn out very well. I do not recommend this recipe.

For dinner, I made the Chicken with Orange Sauce. It was absolutely delicious! Doug really liked it as well. With this meal we had asparagus and rolls.

The ingredients are listed as follows:

Vegetable oil spray
2 1/2 pound chicken
1/2 tsp paprika
1 medium onion, sliced

Orange Sauce:
1/2 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
1/3 cup water
2 T brown sugar
2 T snipped fresh parsley
1 tsp low-salt soy sauce
1 tsp dry sherry
1/2 tsp ground ginger

(The directions for this recipe were very good and I started out following them. I did make a few changes and they turned out very well so I will tell you the way that I did it.)

FYI: I used a non stick pan that the manufacturer recommends that you not use cooking spray in. Therefore, I used about 1 T of olive oil instead. I also had 2 leftover whole chicken breasts without the skin or bones that I used and it was a very good amount for this amount of sauce.

Directions:
Cut the breasts in half and sprinkle both sides with paprika. Heat pan on medium heat for about 2 minutes (I have gas stove so it heats quickly-electric may take a little longer); add olive oil. Brown chicken on both sides (about 2 minutes each side). Remove from heat.

Combine sauce ingredients in small bowl. Whisk together. Put pan with chicken back on medium heat. Place an onion slice on top of each piece of chicken. Pour the sauce over chicken and onion. Cook on medium-high until sauce begins to boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, covered for about 30-45 minutes until chicken is done.

I used a pan that was just the right size for the 4 pieces to cover the bottom of the pan. This allowed the sauce to be deeper in the pan. I also basted the chicken occasionally and made sure all of the onion was nice and tender as well. Next time I will turn it as well.

As the chicken was finishing up, I sauteed asparagus in olive oil with a little Season All sprinkled over it. I also served some delicious brown and serve type rolls that are low-fat as well. We were very good and did not add butter to them:) Tasty!

The meal was a success and I highly recommend this recipe!


(As you can probably imagine, there was leftover OJ in the frozen container. I scooped out what I needed and put the remainder in a Ziploc bag in the freezer for future use.)