Saturday, September 24, 2011

Sesame Street Chicken

No, it's not in the shape of an Elmo or anything. It's really just Sesame Chicken. But I find when you give something a cutesy name and put it on a stick, kids will eat it.

Now, I recommend you go out to a craft store and load up on some lollipop sticks. You don't want to do what I did, and use skewers. Not safe for kids to be jamming pointy wooden sticks into their adorable little mouths. Of course, I removed the meat for actual eating. But if I HAD lollipop sticks, I would have let them eat it right off the stick.

SESAME STREET CHICKEN

1 lb chicken tenderloin
1 cup honey or 1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tbsp minced garlic
salt/pepper to taste


Combine everything but chicken in a medium-sized bowl. Salt pepper to taste. If your kids are more adventurous, feel free to add a little cumin or crushed red pepper for a little spice.

Cut the chicken into two-inch chunks and add to the honey/soy mixture.


When cooking with wooden skewers, it's best to soak them in water first. If you are using lollipop sticks, DO NOT cook with them. Just pop the chicken on afterwards.


Spray a frying pan with PAM, and then lay the chicken on the pan. Fry each side about 6 minutes each.


Serve with a little BBQ sauce or honey for dipping. Add a nice green veggie and they won't even notice!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Baked Chicken Cream Cheese Wontons!!

I am a bad blogger. It's been 14 days since my last post. Bad blogger. Bad!

But, I've been taking pictures of some fun meals, and I will catch you up, one at a time.

Tonight, I made BAKED CHICKEN CREAM CHEESE WONTONS. You just can't stop popping them into your mouth.

BAKED CHICKEN CREAM CHEESE WONTONS

15 wonton wrappers
ground chicken (I made a lb and had a ton leftover)
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/4 block of Cream cheese
3 T soy sauce
salt, pepper

Brown the chicken, season it with S/P, and soy sauce. Combine your shredded carrots and scallions in a bowl. Take a wonton, smear a small bit of cream cheese on it, then a small scoop of the carrot/scallion mixture, followed by a small scoop of chicken. Do not overstuff, or your wrapper will tear.

Keep a small bowl of water by you, and begin to wrap. Dab a tiny bit of water on the edges, then fold the edges in and seal. Don't worry about pretty. Secure is what you're going for....

Now lay them out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. I sprayed them with a little olive oil, because I happen to have a little sprayer thingee. You could also brush them, but I like to cut down on the oill content as much as possible.

Now bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes. My oven needed an extra two minutes.
You could probably fry these, if you were so inclined. I'm sure they
would be a little better. But for me, baking did the trick.

And they are the perfect size, for little fingers. My daughter thinks they look like little envelopes.....

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Peanut Butter Granola

Apologies for my absence.  I lost a doggie, and my heart was too broken to eat.

Well, I was still cooking, anyway, and photographing some meals.  So now, I will have to play catch up, somewhat.

First, I would like to share with you my recipe for Peanut Butter Granola.  My family loves the homemade granola I make, but the peanut butter granola takes it to a whole, new level.  I made this for my daughter's birthday breakfast, and added a few chocolate chips.   LOVE.

PEANUT BUTTER GRANOLA

  • 1/2 cup real maple syrup
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 cup oil (I use canola)
  • 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 c. oats
  • 1/4 cup flour (I use whole wheat)
  • splash vanilla

Directions:
  • Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  • Spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.  (I use parchment paper.)
  • Combine peanut butter and honey in a bowl and microwave until peanut butter melts (approximately 20 seconds). Stir.
  • Stir cinnamon and vanilla into peanut butter and honey mixture.
  • Mix flour, oats and salt in a separate bowl.
  • Mix wet and dry until the oats are completely covered in peanut butter mixture.

  • Spread out oat mixture onto prepared cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes until granola is slightly browned, stirring halfway through.

  • Let cool until granola is crunchy.


Friday, August 26, 2011

Sticky Finger Chicken Wings

This is one of those recipes that I make for the kids, but the adults love it, too.

Sticky Finger Chicken Wings

3 lbs chicken wingettes (Purdue has these.  You could use ANY type of chicken, though.)
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 cup ketchup
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 450.   In a medium bowl, whisk together ketchup, sugar, worcestershire, vinegar, and ketchup.   Season with salt and pepper. 


Set aside half of the ketchup mixture for after cooking.  Then, add the chicken to the bowl and toss until chicken is coated.

Line baking sheet with foil.  Be sure to grease or spray foil with Pam.  Spread chicken out into single layer.



Bake for 30-35 minutes.  The wings get all carmelized and yummy.  After cooking, toss wings in reserved sauce.
Now to go with my wings, I made some seasoned oven fries.  Just cut up your potatoes (I leave the skin on, because I'm a rebel), spread them out and drizzle with oil.  Then I sprinkle them with half a bag of this stuff:


Only half a bag, because it's pretty high in sodium.  A whole packet is too much, anyway, if you ask me.

Then I baked them together with the wings.  But make sure you put the wings on the bottom and the fries on the top.  You don't want to risk chicken juices dripping onto your fries.  I'm a rebel, but I'm not stupid.



So here we have the finished products.


And the happy camper who gets to eat her sticky finger wings.  She actually eats the chicken FIRST, and then the fries.


I might have to change the name of this stuff to sticky MOUTH chicken wings.....


Thursday, August 25, 2011

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

This week's been buzzing.

On Monday, I worked, and we had a playdate.  Tuesday treated us to a 5.8 earthquake.   (Which was super cool, I'm not gonna lie.)  I spent my post-earthquake hours registering the kid for school and standing in line to order her uniforms.  We had a lunchdate on Wednesday, after I worked at the office all morning.  Today, my hubby sent me for a massage in the morning, and it has been raining all day long.

And we have a preety major hurricane headed straight for us.  And the cupboards are bare.   I realized this morning that I better get my butt into the grocery store, before all the panic-stricken shoppers clear out all the bread and milk.

Which brings me to today's post.  The kids are screaming for SNACKS!  (The baby asks for 'NACKS!)  And I have none.  Well, none they want, anyway.

So I decided to whip out the old 3-INGREDIENT PEANUT BUTTER COOKIE recipe.  If you have this in your home:


You're all set.

Three-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, doesn't matter)
1 cup sugar (I use sucanat.  You can also use Splenda.)
1 egg



Mix the ingredients and spoon the batter onto a parchment-lined cookie tray.   (Although I'm sure a Pam'd cookie sheet would work, too).   If you wish, flatten out the cookies with a fork, making a grid pattern. 



 Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes.  (My oven needs about 11 minutes.)  Sometimes, instead of the grid, I make a little hole in the top, and add a Hershey kiss about 3/4 of the way through cooking.

Now try and wait until they are cool.  If you can, you're my hero......


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Banana bread, minus the bananas

I was plum out of bananas.

So I made Banana Applesauce Bread using raisins and cranberries instead, with the recipe from Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet cookbook.

And I totally fudged the recipe, as I do with most recipes.  This time, it did NOT work out for me, as the bread came out thick and heavy.

But I ate it all anyway.

Banana Applesauce Bread

1 cup all purpose flour (I used whole wheat)
1/2 cup all-wheat flour
1/2 cup flour of your choice (I only had pastry.  I think this is where I went wrong.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (I used about 2 tbsp.  1 tsp seemed too little.)
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 egg whites, beaten fluffy
1 cup  mashed bananas
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I only had slivered almonds, so I chopped them up a little)
1/2 cup raisins (I used raisins and cranberries, because I had them.)
1 tbsp orange zest

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly coat loaf pan with spray and dust with flour (I used a bundt pan).  Combine dry ingredients.  In another bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy.  Now add banana, buttermilk, applesauce and vanilla into a LARGE bowl.  (That's three bowls.  I hate using so many bowls.  boo.)

I never like to BUY buttermilk, because it would go bad before I could use it.  So I buy this stuff, and it works wonderfully.  You just add water to it and voila.  Buttermilk.  Sort of.

Now add dry ingredients to the wet, until blended.   Fold in egg whites, then add nuts and raisins and zest.  Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes....





It wasn't the best I ever had, but it served its purpose for breakfast for at least four days.  The kids and I like to slather it with dark chocolate almond butter (which has much less sugar than nutella and tastes just as delicious).

I also warmed it up every morning in the toaster oven, which helped the texture somewhat......

Next time I'll try a bread flour or maybe even some amaranth.....

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Chicken Nuggets

My kids love the dinosaur chicken nuggets.  And for a while there, I was buying them each week, ignoring that little voice that said, "You know you can make these for the girls, and they'd be a heck of a lot healthier."  Yet, I continued to buy them, because life is busy and throwing nuggets in the toaster oven is so easy.   It just became routine.

So I decided it's time for a new routine.

My husband and I strive to eat healthy foods 75% of the time, so why shouldn't my kids?  We tend to think, "They're just kids.  It's no big deal what they eat."  But really, it is a big deal.  I mean, how do YOU feel after eating a fatty, greasy meal?  You feel sluggish and tired.  Sick and whiny.  So I'm guessing my kids food intake has an impact on how THEY feel as well.

So, here is my challenge to you:  if I can research recipes, cook and photograph them, and then blog them here for you, I challenge you to at least try to get rid of the frozen nuggets, hot dogs, and other unhealthy items from your children's weekly menus.

Let's all start good habits together.   And why not start with the nugget.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Chicken breast or tenders
Olive or canola oil
Salt and Pepper
Bread Crumbs or Panko Crumbs
Egg substitute
Whole Wheat Flour



First, cut any visible fat or tendons from the chicken.  Kids hate chewy things in their nuggets.   Then, after cutting the chicken into bite-sized pieces, dredge them in flour, dip into the egg substitute, and then cover them in breadcrumbs. 


You may have to cook the in batches, but drizzle about a tablespoon of oil onto your frying pan and spread it around.  Let it heat up well, then add your chicken.



I usually let them cook for about 10 minutes, over medium heat, flipping them halfway through.   Test one to make sure it isn't still pink inside.

The panko crumbs are great, if you have them.  They are crunchy and delicious.  You could also use crushed corn flakes for a little bit of a sweet coating.

Use a little bit of honey for dipping.  My kids aren't dippers, though.  They like these nuggets just the way they are!


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