What's for Dinner?

 Sound the alarms.... I cooked.

I ended up having to run to the grocery store at 5pm (worst time EVER to visit Rainbow in EP, unless you love getting banged into by carts in clogged aisles and endless lines....) to accomplish this, but I'm happy I did.

Tonights menu:

• Italian chicken (personal creation)
• Garlic & Basil steamed green beans
• instant mashed potatoes

The italian chicken is a personal little creation of mine. I brown chicken with garlic (sometimes onion too) in oil. Use chicken broth or extra italian dressing to deglaze the pan. Then put all of that and some more italian dressing in a shallow baking dish. I bake that covered for 20 minutes, uncovered for 10-15 (I use a convection oven so time is shorter). 

The garlic and basil steamed green beans was made with a McCormick Veggie Steamers packet in the microwave. The instant potatoes were from Potato Buds instant potatoes. 

Total meal cost was easily under $10 with the chicken taking about 1/2 the budget. 

The garlic and basil green beans were fabulous! I didn't use the full amount of green beans so there was a lot of sauce with each bean but I would defiitely make these again! It was a super easy thing to make and it took me longer to chop the ends off the beans than any of the effort I put into making them. So if you're looking for a vegetable side for dinner this was an extremely flavorful option!

Salad, What's for Lunch 2/10/2010

I have a very love-hate relationship with salad. Up until about a year or two ago, I wouldn't even touch salad, mostly because of the lettuce. I grew only exposed to Iceberg lettuce. That stuff makes me vomit just thinking about it. Since then I've been more apt to try new things and I've given salad a shot. I'm still pretty picky about lettuce and even go as far as being picky about the appearance of my lettuce.

My must haves for lettuce:

• Romaine or spring greens
• Fresh as absolutely possible
• a healthy green appearance (not wilted looking or fading)
• Not too much of the white crunchy stalk area
• Not too big of pieces.

Yes. I'm psychotic. I get that, which is why my fiance has given up trying to sort out the logic behind all my food issues  It is also is why I don't partake in restaurant salad too often. I used to only like caesar salad loaded with super-bad-for-you caeser dressing and parmesan cheese. I  rarely ate it because I knew just how bad it was calorie-wise. I mean, what's the point of getting a salad for the health benefits if you just slop it full of unhealthy dressing, right?

Somewhere along the way, I discovered I loved italian dressing, specifically a Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan dressing. My favorite salad morphed from Caesar to:


Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan salad:

1. Spring green mix or Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red cabbage

 I have since tired of this salad and have discovered a new one that is my new lunch obsession:


Asian Toasted Sesame Salad:

1. Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red bell pepper
6. (Chow Mein noodles)-- didn't have any of these, but would like to get some for this salad

So this is a combo post as that and a Cara Cara orange were for lunch today. I feel so healthy!