Chicken & Broccoli Rice Casserole

This is one of the more complicated recipes I've made recently only because it requires several different moving parts and pans to cook the chicken, broccoli and rice separately before assembling the casserole but it's worth the few extra dishes. Chicken & Broccoli Rice casserole it a great recipe for the Fall and can feed 8 to 10 people.



Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts, cooked & chopped
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 head of broccoli
1.5 cups cooked rice
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup of milk
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 small onion, chopped
2 tsp minced garlic
2 eggs, beaten
1.5 cups shredded cheese
1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper, to taste

What To Do:
1. Boil chicken breasts with poultry seasoning for 15 minutes or until cooked fully. Once chicken has cooled, cut into small bite-size pieces.
2. Cook rice according to directions on the package. I used instant brown rice to speed up the process a bit.
3. Cut broccoli florets off the stem and place in a microwave-safe bowl. Pour 1/2 cup water evenly over the broccoli and cook in microwave for 4 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 9x13 backing dish with nonstick spray.

5.  In a medium skillet, melt butter and add chopped onion and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add cream of chicken soup and whisk in the milk, flour, and eggs. Finally add 3/4 cup of shredded cheese along with salt and pepper and whisk together until smooth. Cook for another 5 minutes or until thickened.
6. In a large mixing bowl, combine cooked chicken, rice, broccoli and soup mixture and mix well with a spoon.
7. Pour mixture into baking dish, top with remainder of shredded cheese and then sprinkle panko breadcrumbs over cheese.
 8. Bake on 350 for 35 minutes or until the breadcrumbs are golden brown.

Enjoy!

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Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Sliders

I finally got around to making this Slow Cooker Shredded Buffalo Chicken Sliders recently for Sunday dinner. I've mentioned them before in this post about healthier game day recipes. This recipe also goes a long way making about 20 sliders (we had tons of leftovers for lunch during the week) so it's also perfect to make for football parties or any party/event. I also used pre-made coleslaw as a topping. Mine look a little sloppy but nevertheless the recipe was a winner in my books!

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 (12 oz.) bottle buffalo wing sauce, divided
1/2 (1 oz.) package dry ranch salad dressing mix

2 tbsp. butter
2 packs of Hawaiian sweet rolls

 Cooking spray

What To Do:

Spray crockpot with cooking spray and place chicken breasts in crockpot. Sprinkle ranch dressing evenly over chicken along with 3/4 of the bottle of wing sauce. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Once the chicken has cooked (drain any excessive liquid but keep some) use two forks to shred the chicken. Add butter and the remainder of the wing sauce to shredded chicken and mix well.

Enjoy!

Easy Fried Rice

We ordered Chinese food the other day while my parents were visiting and had tons of white steamed rice leftover. I usually end up throwing away the white rice but this time I wanted to find a way to create a new dish with it instead of wasting food.

If you've eaten at a Japanese restaurant where they cook on the hibachi grill in front of you, you can see exactly how they make fried rice and all the ingredients that go into it so I wanted to try to recreate that although I switched it up a bit like using coconut oil instead of butter. 

Total cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients: 

3 cups cooked white rice

1 tbsp. coconut oil (or butter)

1 tbsp. sesame oil

4 tbsp. low sodium soy sauce

3 tbsp. water

3 carrots, chopped

1 cup frozen peas

1 tsp. minced garlic

2 eggs (optional)

I had all intentions of adding eggs in this recipe but just forgot to do it.

What To Do:

Heat skillet over medium heat and melt coconut oil with minced garlic. Add chopped carrots and cook covered for approximately 5 minutes stirring occasionally.  Beat the eggs in a small bowl and add to the skillet along with frozen peas, stirring the eggs quickly to scramble. Cook covered for 3 minutes or until peas have thawed fully. Add white rice to the skillet and mix well with carrots and peas mixture. Pour soy sauce, water and sesame oil over rice and mix well (if the rice is still slightly dry you can add more water or soy sauce to moisten). Cover skillet and cook rice on medium-low until fully heated for approx 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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Healthier Football Sunday Recipes

One of my favorite things about football season is the food that comes along with it although it can typically be high in grease and fat content. I wanted to find some slightly healthier (not deep fried) recipes to try this year for football Sundays and save the indulging for Super Bowl Sunday.

Skinny BBQ Chicken Flatbread

Buffalo Quinao Bites

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

Grilled Pesto Chicken and Tomato Kebabs

Shredded Chicken Nachos

 Zucchini Pizza Bites

Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls

Buffalo Chicken Sliders

I made this recipe in the crockpot a couple Sundays ago and it was a hit! We also had lots of leftovers to take to work for lunch during the week.

Baked Brown Sugar Wings with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

What's your favorite appetizer or dish for football Sunday?

Cheesy Artichoke Dip

I made this for a friend's housewarming party recently and loved how it turned out. 

Ingredients:
1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts
1 cup grated Romano cheese
1 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups light mayo
1 tsp Worcestershire
1 tbsp minced garlic
Black pepper to taste

What To Do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop artichoke hearts.

In a large bowl, use hand mixer to blend cream cheese until softened. Add mayonnaise and mix for 30 seconds. Add remainder of ingredients and mix well. Spoon into a baking dish and bake for 40 minutes.

Serve with crackers, tortilla chips, warm bread or pita chips.

 

Enjoy!

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Crockpot Chicken Low Mein

I wrote about making this dish a few months ago but I'm only now getting around to sharing the recipe. Low Mein is one of my favorite dishes to get when we order Chinese takeout so I decided to try my hand at it and it came out amazing! I went to the Oriental market to get a few of the ingredients such as the Low Mein noodles and the baby bok choy. I found the original recipe here from Life Made Sweeter and adapted it to my liking. As the original recipe states, you can use pasta noodles if you can't find Low Mein noodles. I seriously can't wait to make this recipe again.

Ingredients:

2 uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts

14 oz. package steamed Lo Mein noodles

2 cups baby bok choy, chopped

1 cup snow peas

3 carrots, peeled and chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp. fresh ginger, minced

4 sprigs of green onion, chopped

Chicken Marinade

2 tsps low sodium soy sauce

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp corn starch

Sauce 

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce 

2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

What To Do:

1. Marinate chicken with marinade sauce in the fridge for 30 minutes or more.

2. Spray inside of crockpot with cooking spray and add chicken breasts. Cook on low for 2 hours.

3. Remove chicken from crockpot and cut into small cubes. Place carrots, garlic, snow peas, green onions, ginger and bok choy in slow cooker. Add chopped chicken back to crockpot on tops of the vegetables.

4. Mix together sauce ingredients in a bowl and pour over ingredients in crockpot. 

5. Cook on low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

6. Add fresh Low Mein noodles and cook for an additional 30 minutes on high or until noddles are fully cooked.

Enjoy!

Turkey Fajita Stuffed Peppers

I recently tried this healthier version of stuffed peppers with lean ground turkey and Italian bread crumbs instead of rice and we love how it turned out.

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
6 green, red or yellow peppers
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 tbsp Worcestershire

1 tsp. Mexican fajita seasoning

10 grape tomatoes, chopped

1 cup Italian bread crumbs

1/2 cup canned corn, drained
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp Italian spices
1/2 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

What To Do:
1. Cut the top off the peppers and remove the seeds and membranes. Flash boil peppers for 5 minutes.

2. Cook turkey in skillet with onions, garlic, tomatoes, Worcestershire and fajita seasoning on medium heat for 10 minutes. Add bread crumbs and corn and cook for an additional 5 minutes until turkey is fully cooked.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a spoon to fill each pepper with turkey mixture.

4. Mix tomato sauce with Italian seasoning and top the peppers with sauce. Spray baking dish with cooking spray and bake for 15 minutes.
5. Remove from oven, sprinkle each pepper with shredded cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Pesto Brie Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I own a panini press so that's what I used to make it but you can also heat up some butter in a pan and grill the sandwich on the stove top over medium heat, flipping every 5 minutes until the bread is browned and the cheese has melted

Ingredients: 

Bread of your choice

Deli chicken, sliced

Pesto

Brie cheese, sliced

Light mayonnaise

Cooking spray

What To Do:

Mix the light mayonnaise with pesto in a small bowl and spread onto the slices of bread, layer with deli sliced chicken and slices of brie cheese. Assemble sandwich and cook in a panini press or in a pan with some butter.

The pesto brie grilled cheese sandwich/panini would pair really well with the tomato basil soup I recently made.

Shrimp Scampi with Zoodles

I loved how this dish came out. It was light and flavorful although my initial recipe came out too watery so I'm leaving the chicken broth out of the ingredients because I don't think it's needed. Zucchini and squash produce quite a bit of water so that's good enough. I also left out the coconut oil. Clearly I was overzealous when I first started putting ingredients together. Butter is all that's needed in my opinion. You can substitute the butter with coconut oil or olive oil.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 lb. peeled and deveined uncooked shrimp
 1/4 cup onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 tbsp Old Bay or seafood seasoning
 1 lemon, juiced
2 large zucchinis, spiralized
2 large squash, spiralized
2 tbsp dried parsley

What To Do:
Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add shrimp to the pan and season with red pepper flakes and Old Bay seasoning. Cook for 3 minutes until the shrimp starts to turn pink. Add lemon juice, parsley, Parmesan cheese and diced tomatoes. Cook for an additional 2 minutes. Finally add the spiralized zucchini and squash and cook for 3-5 minutes until the squash and zucchini looks cooked.

Optional garnishes are grated Parmesan cheese and parsley.

Enjoy!

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