Andrew's Favorite Chicken

Andrew's Favorite Chicken

*Cut boneless/skinless chicken breasts into 1 1/2 inch cubes
*Marinate in a few tablespoons of prepared horseradish while cooking side dishes.
*Cook chicken cubes over medium high heat, being sure to not crowd the pan and allow them to sit undisturbed until they get a nice crust on one side.  Then flip & continue cooking another 1-2 minutes.
*When chicken is almost done (about 2-3 minutes left), squirt with store-bought barbecue sauce.  Add Worchestershire sauce, ketchup, steak sauce, and anything else you have in the fridge that seems like it would be good mixed into a bbq sauce.  The original sauce makes up 1/2 to 2/3 of the total volume of sauce on the chicken.
*Mix sauces in with chicken pieces and finish cooking about 2 minutes.

For toddlers, cut into small bite-sized pieces and serve with a little extra barbecue sauce or ketchup for dipping.  Andrew asks for leftovers all week :)

I served this with (sweet!) mashed potatoes... boiled 3 regular potatoes and 1 large sweet potato and mashed as usual.  They turned out a very pleasant light orange color and James even ate them happily!

Menu Monday... on Tuesday

I've been told by several people (midwives, birthing class teacher/coach, etc.) that I need to be eating a lot of protein right now. More protein and less sugar. Oh boy! So, in an effort to get my husband eating better, me eating more in line with what the experts suggest, setting myself up for being able to lose "an undisclosed amount of" baby and whacked-out-thyroid weight once this sweet boy is born, and being more diligent to stay on track with my grocery budget, I have recommitted myself to planning our meals weekly and shopping for only what I actually need. Mission: clean out the freezer/pantry, save money and calories while feeding the baby what he actually needs.

A few of my blogging friends post their weekly dinner plans with some of the recipes and I always find it interesting and educational... so here's my version :)

PS - Lunches consist of leftovers and salad (goal being a combination of some raw and some cooked veggies every day).

Last week:
Monday - Roast Chicken, baked potatoes, salad
Tuesday - Crock-pot BBQ chicken, broccoli, homemade whole wheat rolls
Wednesday - Chicken Tacos
Thursday - eat out
Friday - Steak, mashed potatoes, broccoli
Saturday - Taco Salad

This week:
Monday - Chicken Spaghetti
Tuesday - Pesto Chicken, organic whole-grain Texmati rice, green beans
Wednesday - leftovers (James has Open House at school)
Thursday - Sally's Meat Loaf, broccoli
Friday - leftovers or eat out
Saturday lunch with my Dad - homemade whole-wheat pizza

I've also decided to start making all of our bread (cheaper and no high fructose corn syrup!) and to not have dessert stored in the house. Any baking I do will be taste-tested here and then shared with James' school faculty or friends/neighbors :) James and I both really like yogurt parfaits with frozen blueberries and granola, so that will be our go-to for dessert.

Today I made chicken stock with the carcasses of several chickens I've been saving in the freezer for the past couple of months - it was surprisingly easy and made the rice for tonight's dinner so yummy!

Crock Pot BBQ Chicken - dump a package of boneless/skinless chicken thighs into the crock pot. Cover with favorite BBQ sauce and a few Tbsp water. Add A1, Worchestershire, etc, if you're feeling creative. Cook for several hours, stirring about once per hour, until chicken is done. If anyone does this and figures out how long it actually takes, let me know :)

Sally's Meatloaf - just an ordinary meatloaf recipe... kicked up with horseradish. It's yummy... try it!

Pesto Chicken - I recreated this recipe after having it for dinner at my friend Jamie's house. Bake chicken breasts (boneless/skinless) with 1 Tbsp pesto on top of each (covered with foil, usually takes about 40 min at 350 degrees if they aren't crowded in the dish). Top with one slice mozzarella cheese and return to oven, uncovered, for 3-5 min to melt cheese.

Bon apetit!

Yum!

Tonight's dinner was:
40 Cloves of Garlic and a Chicken
Green Bean Casserole
Roast Broccoli
Tomato/Basil/Mozzarella Salad

Did anybody notice there's no starch? Other than the 3 crackers crumbled on top of the green bean casserole, there's no starch. Seriously? I'm the starch queen and I didn't even plan this! Now... if I can only keep it up...

(actually, we had a piece of bread with dinner... so there was starch :( But it was only to spread the roasted garlic... James loves it!)


First harvest from my garden! Fresh thyme and basil :)






Chicken with 40 cloves... recipe suggested by Kathy Littlefield, found on Food Network online by Alton Brown. I modified it by using boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which worked pretty well but didn't brown in the pan as nicely as they should have (took a lot less time in the oven, though! Only 40 min!). I also only used 20 cloves since it wasn't as much chicken :) and drizzled the olive oil instead of using 1/4 cup like the recipe says. Fresh thyme from my garden, though!






Roast Broccoli from Kim's Concoctions (I just used Parmesan cheese). I've done roast broccoli before and I love it every time... the 10 min at 400 degrees works better than what I've tried before, so that's a happy revelation! and Green Bean Casserole suggested by Laura Corombos. For this recipe I cut everything in 1/3 to only use one can of beans (well, I eyeballed the measurements, actually), and I used whole wheat flour instead of white, a little less butter, rinsed the beans several times, and omitted the salt (I'm trying to lower our sodium intake). I only used 3 unsalted "saltine" crackers for the top with about 1/2 Tbsp butter... It was great! As Laura said, definitely better than the canned soup variety! She put french fried onions on top of hers... which sounds great but I didn't have any tonight. It still turned out fantastic! Can't wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!







Dinner all put together... yum!


This would have been a fantastic dinner if Baby Barnes weren't making me dislike garlic right now... what a surprise after putting that much garlic in with the chicken! I couldn't get enough garlic 2 weeks ago at Amy Weatherly's baby "sprinkling" at the Italian restaurant... what happened?!? Fortunately I LOVED the green beans, broccoli, and salad... I'll definitely be making more of those recipes!