Indian Feast

Fear not readers, I was not taken by the rapture but I wish my crappy stove would have been taken. To reward your patience I am posting 2 new recipes! Below is how to have pork in your house for about 2 weeks (or less if you are married to my husband). Tonight I wanted to do a project dinner and boy did I almost bite off more than I can chew. Granted I have a tiny apartment kitchen and the worlds biggest POS electric oven that is trying to purposefully ruin everything I make but I did persevere! I made my own naan (and for an unbelievably better price), chicken tikka masala, chickpea salad and to top it off a mango lassi (hey it is Texas and its roughly a thousand degrees outside already). I will go through the steps in the order I made things so that you don’t get overwhelmed.

Naan dough:
2t dry active yeast
1t sugar
1/2c warm water
~3c AP flour
1/2t salt
1/4c oil (I used olive oil)
1/3c plain Greek yogurt (I bought the large container of Fage 0% because the Greek yogurt is going into everything)
1 egg

In a small bowl, combine the water, sugar and yeast and stir until it is combined. Wait about 10 minutes until the froth on the top forms. In a separate bowl combine just 1 cup of the flour and the salt. Once your yeast is all frothy stir in the egg, oil and yogurt and combine it with the flour. Stir and add more flour a 1/2c at a time until a ball has formed. Put the ball on a floured surface and kneed it for 3 minutes adding some flour if it gets too sticky. Once you are done kneeding the ball should be soft but not sticky. Lightly cover the dough with a tea towel and let it sit for 45 minutes.

Once the wait time is over, gently flatten the ball and cut it into 4 equal pieces. Using a heavy pan (I used a cast iron comal that my dad gave me when I moved into my first apartment in college) heat it to medium (don’t go much hotter because you will burn the bottom too fast) and spray it with cooking spray. Don’t roll the smaller balls out until you are about it put it on. Once the pan is hot roll out the first dough so that it is about 1/4″ thick and place it on the pan. Wait until you see bubbles forming and check to make sure it is getting nice and toasty on the bottom. Once the one side is done flip it. I kept the done naan bread in our tortilla warmer so that they stayed warm and yummy. I don’t have any photo documentation because hubs wasn’t home yet and I had flour hands…

Chickpea Salad:
1 can of chickpeas (rinsed until there is no more foam when the water hits them)
1/2t ground mustard
1/2t cumin
1/2t fennel seeds (I had only the whole seeds so I put them in a plastic baggie and crushed them)
1/8t chile powder
1/2c Greek yogurt
3/4T lemon juice
2-3 chopped green onion
1/4c chopped cilantro
1/4c chopped mint

In a pan, heat some canola oil on medium high and add the spices and stir until they are very fragrant. Add the chickpeas and cook for about 5 minutes until they start popping.

Chickpeas a poppin

Put the pan off of the heat and let them cool. While the peas are cooling, in a bowl combine the yogurt, lemon, green onion, cilantro and mint. Once the peas are at room temperature add them to the yogurt mixture and let them sit for at least 10 minutes so that the flavors mix (I put them in the fridge for about 30 minutes).

Yummy-ness

Chicken Tikka Masala:
1/2 yellow onion chopped
1T grated ginger
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 can tomatoes crushed
4oz. Greek yogurt (see I told you I used it in everything)
1/2 c milk (I only use skim)
1t cumin
1t garam masala
1t tumeric
1/2t chili powder
2-3 chicken breasts sliced thin
cilantro chopped

Heat some canola oil in a large sauce pot and add the onion and cook the onion until it starts to caramelize but don’t let it get too far. Add the ginger and garlic and stir until it gets fragrant – not too long. Add the spices and stir until everything is equally coated. Add the tomatoes, milk and yogurt and stir until combined. Let this simmer for a few minutes until it gets good and thick.

Sauce being sauce

Add the chicken and let everything simmer until the chicken is cooked and its thick and yummy looking. Add the cilantro at the very end. You can serve this over basmati rice or do as we did and just eat it with the naan.

finished product

Mango Lassi:
1-2 mangos chopped
6 oz. Greek yogurt
1c milk
1 1/2T honey
ice

Add everything in the blender and blend for a long time until everything is super soft. It should have the texture of the lightest and fluffiest milkshake ever.

All of this sounds a little daunting but it is doable. I made the dough first and while the dough rested I made the chickpea salad. Before I started the naan I chopped and prepped everything that we would need for the chicken so I could juggle everything. I juggled the naan cooking and the chicken and when I was finishing the chicken and letting it cool I fired up the blender to make the drinks. Easy-peasy!

Om nom nom

Now while we are on a good note lets talk about how flipping CHEAP this feast was! I had enough for 3 people for everything and the total grocery bill came to $11.33 – yea. I had the chicken already and all I really bought were the vegetables, yeast, chickpeas, tomatoes and the most expensive thing – the yogurt but heck I made lots of use for it. So for a total of 3 servings each cost me $3.77 which you can’t beat!

Now the nutrition part gets a little difficult from adding different components. For a serving of 1 naan, 1/2c chickpea salad, 1c of the tikka masala and 1 glass of the lassi I can calculate it to be a total of 627 calories, 17.9grams of fat and 41.44 grams of protein. Yea not what you expected a mountain of food huh? God bless you Greek yogurt!!

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

Its “Project Dinner” night in our house and one of my favorite things ever is the hubs roasted chicken with veggies (it was one of the first things things he ever made for me).  Super tastey, easy and cheap! Plus our house smells amazing and the dog can’t stop walking around smelling the air.

Ingredients:
1 whole roaster chicken
1 lemon cut in half
zest from the lemon
1 whole head of garlic cut in half (skin can stay on)
1 bunch of thyme
4-6 small red potatoes cut into quarters
3-4 large peeled carrots
2 onions cut into quarters
1/4 stick of butter melted

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the carrots, onions, and potatoes in the roasting pan and stir in the lemon zest, some of the thyme, and olive oil.

Veggies

Take the insides of the chicken out and rinse the chicken off. Towel dry the chicken and place it on the roasting racks. Inside the cavity place one half of the lemon first, half of the garlic head, the whole bunch of thyme, the second half of the garlic and finally the other lemon half. Using kitchen twine tie the legs together so that none of the insides fall out. Spread the melted butter on the outside of the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Flip the bird over and do the other side.

Seasoned

Place the chicken on the rack breast side down and place the entire roasting pan in the oven. Let it cook for 1 hour. After the hour, stir the veggies and turn the chicken over so it is breast side up.

Half way there....

Cook for another 45-50 minutes. Take the chicken and veggies out and let the chicken cool.

mmmm golden brown perfection

Once it is cool enough to touch carve the chicken as you would (we did the 2 thighs and drumsticks attached, 2 breasts, 2 wings).

Everything all cut up and ready to go

Serve with the veggies and enjoy! Our favorite part of roasted chicken night is picking at the carcass like hyenas and make sure you get the “oyster” on the back – its the best part people!

The plus side of this dinner is that we don’t have to buy a lot. Our total grocery bill was for $14.20 (and it would have been $3 cheaper but we haven’t planted our thyme yet). Our entire chicken makes 4 servings for a total of $3.55 a serving.

Heath wise it was also a win. One serving of a breast and veggies equates to about 600 calories, 64 g of protein, and only 15 g of fat. Good job!

The final product

Chicken Soup

So it finally happened – I got sick. I thought I had dodged the illness bullet but Wednesday night it hit me. I got through work barely on Thursday but finally gave in.  Hopefully one of these days I can inherit some good Jewish matzo ball soup recipes from my in-laws  but for now I had to wing it. I was really feeling crummy so I wanted something easy and yet heathful. HEB was having a sale on chicken thighs so I said why not. Plus I got to use my homemade chicken stock!

Ingredients:

1 pkg of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3-4 carrots peeled and sliced
1 small carton of button mushrooms
1 medium onion sliced very thin
1-2 garlic cloves minced
4-5 c chicken stock
2 bay leaves
2-3 c cooked pasta (I used ditalini but cavatelli or stars or other shapes work too)

In a large stock pot, heat up 2T of olive oil and saute the onion until the onion starts to soften – NOT brown.

No browning here

Once the onions are ready add the chicken stock, carrots, garlic and mushrooms and bring to a simmer. While the stock is heating up, take the chicken out of the package and using kitchen sheers cut as much of the fat off of the chicken thighs as possible. The thighs I bought were very very fatty so it took me the entire time the stock was heating to cut off as much fat as I could.

Add the chicken to the stock along with the bay leaves and cover and let it simmer for 30 minutes. While the chicken is cooking – cook the pasta according to the package and drain. After the 30 minutes are up use tongs and pull the chicken onto a cutting board and cut it into bite sized pieces. Discard the bay leaves before serving. Put the chicken back and pour in the pasta and stir and serve!

mmmm

It was exactly what I needed. Cost wise it was easy – $10 exactly and the entire pot I made had5 servings so $2 each.  Calorie wise I did great too! Each serving has 347 calories, 7.8g of fat and 34g of protein – I feel better already.

Chicken Stock

On previous posts I have referred to how I save money on buying chicken stock because I make my own. It is usually an all day project so today the hubs and I had enough chicken bones and time to make a new batch. This is a great way to utilize ALL of the chicken, save money and keep the sodium down 50% more than the “low sodium” store bought brand.

Ingredients:
2 whole chicken carcasses and wing tips leftover from the wing battle night
*sidenote* if you are confused about what exactly you need to keep – keep the back and wings because that is where the most meat and collagen are in the body. It doesn’t matter if the carcass is raw or cooked. We keep them if they are from a roasted chicken or if they are from a butchered raw chicken. Once you have them just keep a large tubberware box in the freezer until you get a day to make stock.
2 onions cut into quarters
8 ribs of celery
6 medium carrots with tops cut off
1 T whole black peppercorns
3-4 bay leaves
10+ springs of thyme
10+ springs of parsley (stems and all)
4 whole peeled garlic cloves
2 gallons of distilled water (make sure to check where the water is from – some water claims to be distilled and its just city water. We used HEB spring water)

All you need

Using a large heavy stock pot, add all of the ingredients in the pot. Cover with the water until everything is covered by an inch or so of water. Keep the leftover water in a separate sauce pan on low so when you add more water you don’t shock it temperature-wise. Using a metal pop up steamer upside down, this will keep all of the ingredients down in the liquid. This will also make skimming it much easier. Bring the stock to a boil and once it starts to simmer bring it down to low so that it keeps a very low simmer. For the first hour, check on it about every 10-15 minutes and skim the “schmaltz” off the top using a spoon or a fine mesh strainer.

De- Schmaltzing

For the next 2 hours, check on it every 1/2 hour and keep skimming if you see any oil or foamy stuff on top. Maintain the water level and add the reserved water if it gets too low. Keep simmering until the stock has been cooking for about 8 hours.

The key to this is having a very light simmer so that a) you don’t have to constantly check on it and worry your house is going  to burn down and b) the collagen in the bones can come out . After about 8+ hours, the stock needs to get cooled down and get it cooled down QUICKLY. You need to get it past the “danger zone” which is the temperature where bacteria can grow and that is not good. DO NOT just toss the pot in the fridge, it will take too long to cool down and also warm everything up in the fridge. Have an ice bath in your sink with as much ice and cold water as your sink can handle. If your pot is too big for the sink, use a cooler.

Brrrr

At this point, if you have a fat separator, use this while doling your stock into containers. If you don’t have one, simply put the whole pot in the fridge AFTER it has been in the ice bath and cooled down completely and leave it overnight. In the morning, all of the fat will have solidified on top and you can easily use a spoon to remove the fat.

Final product

Our batch today created 5 containers that each hold 2.5-3 cups. We only had to buy the carrots, celery, parsley, garlic and water which totaled to $4.17 – we bought onions in bulk at Sam’s with the chicken and we have a small herb garden and by the grace of God the thyme and rosemary have survived. With a usual package of chicken stock at HEB going for $2 each and they hold about 4 cups. To compare, our stock costs about 28 cents per cup and the HEB brand costs 50 cents plus you save on the amount of sodium! Win win!

Chicken Pesto Salad

Earlier in the week, a good friend of mine and I went out to dinner. I had a salad and I really enjoyed it and its small portions of random things. This is a great salad if you had some leftovers or if you want to make a lot of the components and pack them for lunches for the week.

Ingredients:

cooked chicken breasts
whole wheat pasta in any shape you have or like
pesto (since this winter has ravaged our basil plants we had to bite the bullet and buy premade pesto)
pine nuts
kalamata olives
cucumbers
tomatoes
any other veggies you would like to add
your favorite salad greens
homemade vinaigrette

I didn’t have any pre-cooked chicken breasts so I made some on the fly. I really like “Stubbs” chicken marinade. The sodium level is at the level I would have if I was making the marinade myself (I went to the store at 5:30 at night and I was not in the mood) and the ingredients simple and tasty. I marinaded the chicken for 45 minutes and then placed the chicken and marinade (1/2 bottle) in a Pyrex dish and baked them for 45 minutes at 375.

Chicken marinading

Once the chicken is done, let them rest and don’t cut into them.

While the chicken is resting, cook the pasta until it is al dente. I used some whole wheat fusili I had lying around so I saved money by not having to buy that. Once the pasta is done, stir in 2 tablespoons of the pesto sauce and the pinenuts. Set that aside or put it in the fridge so that it is cool.

To make the vinaigrette:
1/2 c oil (i used olive oil)
1/2 c vinegar (if you have some raspberry wine vinegar it is great but we had some nice balsamic in our pantry so I used that)
2t dijon mustard
1/4t dried oregano
if the dressing is too “sharp” you can add a spoonful of sugar to sweeten it up some

Put all of these ingredients in a small food processor and blend until it is completely incorporated.

For the salad, add the greens of your choice. We used the field green mix and added some arugula because I love me some arugula. Slice the chicken and add on top along with 6 or so kalamata olives and the veggies you like. Next, add 2 spoonfuls of the pasta mixture. Drizzle on top 2 T of the salad dressing and you are done!

This is a great salad for lunches because everything keeps really well, the chicken is delicious and this salad is filling enough to keep you going all day long.

For the nutritional values, making the dressing yourself will save you in salt, sugar, preservatives and other junk. Using small portions of a lot of components will also save you because you get to taste everything. Some days I just crave a big bowl of pasta but that would be bad for the diet. This salad is great because I get to satisfy that overwhelming craving for pasta but without blowing my whole day.

The whole salad for one person is about 750 calories. This might sound high to you but its because a lot of them are from the chicken. There are 40 g of fat but also 64 g of protein. The total cost of this meal is great because you can use a lot of what you have already in your kitchen. We had the chicken from our big value packs from Sams. All I had to buy was the marinade, pesto, olives, pine nuts and greens which made the total grocery bill $14.29. There were 4 chicken breasts made and we bought the jumbo box of greens so this recipe made 4 large servings which makes each serving $3.57. Not bad for some high protein lunches!

 

Wing Battle!!

So after the Super Bowl we had a major hankerin for wings. We love wings but we don’t love the gut busting punch they pack. Our favorite wing joint’s wings pack a wopping 1000 calorie punch (before we count the sides). Ouch – my gut! So we decided to do a wing battle because we have never turned down a competition. We knew we would be baking them so I thought up an asian style sauce and the husband…freestyled it as is his personality. I like to be precise and know how much of every ingredient I put in a recipe so that I can recreate it whereas he is fine thinking up a recipe and hoping it works out. So the Asian sauce is exact the spicy wings…”ehh you’ll be ok”

Asian Wings:

Chinese 5 spice
2 T hoisin sauce (sweet bean paste works too)
1 T low sodium soy sauce
2 t light brown sugar
green onion and sesame seeds

Spicy Wings:

1 T paprika
salt and pepper
1 T garlic powder
1 T rice wine vinegar
1/4c scotch bonnet pepper sauce
2 T honey mustard

We split a pack of HEB wings which had exactly 16 wings sections and each wing section yields a “drum stick” and a “flapper”.

(left) flapper (middle) tip (right) drum stick

I had the hubs butcher the wing sections into 3 pieces – he looks for any opportunity to use his cleaver (keep the tips in a tupperware container in the freezer for stock). Feel for the “knuckle” so its easier to split the pieces.

Chopy Chopy

For the Asian wings:
Toss the wing sections (patted dry of course) with about 1T of Chinese 5 spice – they don’t need to be completely coated, a little goes a long way.

Asian wings spiced

Place the wings in a baking dish and cook for 10 minutes. Use the side sauce of the soy, hoisin and sugar and sauce them (don’t over sauce them because it will burn) and flip the wings over and sauce the other side.

mmmm bbq wings

Bake for another 15 minutes. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and let them bake for another 3 minutes. Take the wings out of the oven and let them cool slightly, they are finger food after all unless you don’t really care about keeping your fingerprints.Sprinkle with the green onion.

For the spicy wings:
Combine the paprika, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Toss the wing pieces in the dry mixture and place the wings in a baking dish.

spicy wings seasoned

Bake them for 10 minutes. Combine the vinegar, pepper sauce and mustard and sauce each side of the wings. Bake for another 15 minutes until golden brown. Take the wings out of the oven and sauce on last time. Let them cool.

Done!

We served our wings with a salad, celery and a small side of ranch. They were all very satisfying and the cinnamon in the Asian wings really was delicious with the sauce. The spicy wings were sweet in the beginning but definitely let you know there was some spice afterwords.

Voila!!

We have a lot of spices and condiments in our pantry/fridge so the cost for this meal was really low which is always a plus. Our total grocery bill (all we had to buy was celery, chicken, ranch dressing and green onion) was $12.08 and a serving of 8 pieces yields 4 servings from the whole recipe which makes each serving cost $3.02 – yay! Also, the average nutritional value per serving was 350 calories, 20 g of fat, 27 g of protein. Until the next football season we will keep working on our recipes but keep these in mind – so delicious!

Chicken Enchiladas with Rice and Beans

Ahh Mexican food how we love thee. Too bad when you think of Mexican food you think of greasy, heavy, fattening food. I was dead set on finding some Mexican options that wouldn’t bust our calorie bank accounts for the day. So after A LOT of research I combined a few recipe ideas and here is what I got! I will give you warning – I am a wimp (everyone in my family will agree) so I ranked this sauce an 8-9 on spiciness but the husband ranked it a lowly 4.5 – you be the judge.

Ingredients-

For the sauce:
2 cloves of garlic minced
3-4 chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 1/2 c tomato sauce
1/2 t chipotle chili powder
1/2 t ground cumin
3/4 c low sodium chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

For the chicken:
1 t canola oil
4 cooked chicken breasts shredded
3/4 chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/4 c chopped cilantro
1 t cumin
1/2 t dried oregano
1 t chipotle chili powder
1/3 c chicken broth
1/2 c tomato sauce

12 whole wheat tortillas
1 c shredded Monterrey jack cheese
Pam cooking spray

 

To make the sauce-
In a small sauce pan, heat up some canola oil and saute the garlic until it becomes fragrant. Add the chipotle peppers, chili powder, cumin, broth, tomato sauce, salt and pepper (I never salt foods because my mother and I are salt sensitive but 2 other family members have high blood pressure so salt was a no no in cooking growing up). Reduce the heat to low and let the sauce simmer for 5-10 minutes. Set it aside until you are ready to use it.

mmm sooo saucy

Preheat the oven to 400

In a large non-stick pan, heat up the oil and saute the onions and garlic until they become soft and translucent. Add the cilantro, cumin, oregano, chili powder and let that simmer for 1 minute.

starting to smell amazing!

Add the chicken, tomato sauce, broth and cook for 4-5 minutes until everything is incorporated. Remove from heat.

the filling

Spray the bottom of a baking dish with the Pam. Place one tortilla on a cutting board and spoon a heaping serving of the chicken into the tortilla and roll it up tight. Place the tortilla seam side down in the dish and continue until you either run out of chicken or run out of tortilla.

all snuggled up and ready for sauce!

Pour the reserved sauce over all of the enchiladas making sure to spread it around so its evenly spread.

post-saucing

Sprinkle the cheese on top and cover the dish with foil. Bake for 20-25 minutes (I put it on broil for 1 minute in the end to get the cheese really bubbly).

bubble bubble

Top a serving with a small dollop of sour cream and some green onion if you have some.

 

For the rice-

Ingredients:
1 c rice
1/4 finely chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 can of black beans – rinsed and drained
cilantro
canola oil

Heat the oil in a small sauce pot and add the garlic and onion and saute until the onion turns translucent (do not let anything brown). Add the rice and stir until each grain is coated in the oil and the middle of the rice starts to become translucent. Add 2 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Once at a boil turn the heat down to low and cover. Let it cook for 20 minutes (no peeking!) and once 20 minutes are up put it off the heat and let it rest for 3 minutes. Take a large bowl and mix the rice, chopped cilantro and beans until well incorporated.

 

In the end, we calculated the entire meal at 843 calories, 27.1 g fat, 94.6 g carbs, 55.3 g protein. Of the entire dish, I made 12 enchiladas and 1 serving is 2 enchiladas with 1c of the rice and beans.

As for price, we save a lot of money by buying chicken breasts in bulk at Sam’s Club and freezing them in bags of 2 each. We also save a ton of money by making our own chicken stock. Anytime you make a roasted chicken or butcher your own whole bird (another great budget saver) keep all of the bones from the carcass in the freezer. I will post our stock recipe and procedure later when we make it. We then take the stock and freeze them in small containers so whenever you need some just pop it out of the freezer! I also love recipes that use a lot of the same ingredients. For today I bought 1 white onion and used 3/4 of it for the chicken and the other part in the rice. I also used the cilantro in the rice and chicken mixture. I added up the total grocery bill and the price for each individual serving is $3.33 which is GREAT! I now have 4 filling lunches which also is a huge money saver. All in all – a great Tex-Mex night!