Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken, Part 2

I made spinach and feta stuffed chicken before. Tonight I decided to make them a bit differently.  Instead of frying them before baking them, I put them straight into the oven.  They turned out great!  And even though I sprayed them with cooking spray I know that they were healthier than the last batch.

I used frozen spinach this time which also makes it easier for me to make this - I almost always have frozen spinach in the freezer which means I don't have to have fresh spinach on hand.

I served this with a simple rice pilaf and some oven-roasted carrots.  The recipe for the rice is in the previous post (linked to above).  For the carrots, I just sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and olive oil and baked for approx. 20 minutes.

Overall, this turned out to be a very tasty meal.  Jeremy really enjoyed it and, as usual, wants more.  It looks like clean-up should be easier with this recipe since it wasn't fried before being baked.  I will certainly make this again - possibly with other variations on filling. :) 

Recipe:

1/2 lb. chicken breast (I had one huge breast but it could also be made with 2 small breasts)

1 c. frozen chopped spinach

3 oz. reduced-fat feta cheese

1/2 c. Italian style bread crumbs

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray an 8"x8" baking pan with cooking spray.

2. Microwave the spinach in a bowl for 4 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Butterfly the chicken breast and pound the chicken until it's between 1/2" and 1/4". (Since I used 1 breast, I cut it into 2 pieces when I butterflied it before I pounded it out.)  Salt and pepper the chicken to taste.

4. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze the liquid out of it.  Mix the spinach and feta together.

5. Spread the spinach-feta mixture evenly on the chicken, leaving 1/2" of open space at one end.  

6. Beginning at the non-empty end, roll up tightly.  Spread breadcrumbs on a plate.  Roll each chicken roll in the breadcrumbs and place in the baking pan.  Spray the tops with cooking spray and place in the oven.

7. Bake for approx. 45 minutes until chicken is cooked through (internal temp should be between 170 and 180 degrees). 

Berry-Yogurt Smoothie

This morning I decided to try to make a smoothie... not hard... but I'd never done it before.  I had a bunch of yogurt around and some leftover strawberries and blueberries from the fillo cups I made on Monday.

I started by just using the yogurt and the berries but it was a little too thick and too sweet.  The milk was the perfect addition to thin it out and also balance the sweetness.  Jeremy liked it too (although I drank all of this for breakfast... just gave him a small sip).  This made 2 16 oz. glasses of smoothie.

I will certainly be trying this in the future with frozen berries for when I don't have nice fresh berries around.  This was a great change for breakfast. :)

Recipe:
6 oz. fat free strawberry yogurt
6 oz. fat free blueberry yogurt
6 oz. fat free vanilla yogurt
1/2 c. fresh strawberries, tops removed
1/2 c. fresh blueberries
approx. 1/3 c. skim milk

1. Add all ingredients but the milk to a blender.  Blend until smooth.
2. Add milk as needed until it's the desire consistency.  (I added about 1/3 of a cup and still had a slightly thick, delicious smoothie.)
3. Pour into a glass and enjoy!

Mascarpone-Berry and Spinach-Feta Fillo Tarts

I hosted a poker party last night for a few friends and made a few appetizers/desserts to go along with it.  I tried some new things that I haven't used before and they came out great.  They didn't take too much time to put together and were almost all gone by the end of the night.  I'd call that a success. :)

I used Athens Fillo Shells which I found at Hannafords.  I was looking for some fillo dough or puff pastry to make little cups out of and these pre-baked shells seemed like they would just make it slightly easier to get everything made before people showed up.  

I decided to make two different type of tarts, one was filled with spinach and feta and the other with marscarpone, blueberries, and strawberries.  These were really simple and everyone seemed to like them. :) 

As you can see from the picture below, I also made guacamole and served brownies and chips and salsa too. But since the brownies came out of a box, the chips out of a bag, and the salsa out of a jar, I'm not including those recipes below.  I've blogged about guacamole before so I didn't include that either (although my recipes are never the same one time to the next... so it was slightly different - I used red onion, used 3 avocados, 1 tomato, and left out the salt.). 

Recipe:

For the fruit tarts:

1 package (15 shells) fillo shells

4 oz. mascarpone cheese

5-6 strawberries, sliced into 1/4" slices (you need 15 slices)

30 blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place shells on a baking sheet and bake for 3-4 minutes.

3. Spoon 1 tsp. of mascarpone into each cup.  

4. Top with 2 blueberries and a slice of a strawberry.

5. Serve immediately.

For the spinach-feta tarts:

1 package (15 shells) fillo shells

1 c. frozen chopped spinach

4 oz. crumbled feta cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Thaw the spinach in the microwave for 4 minutes.  Allow to cool until cool enough to handle.  Squeeze the liquid out of it.

3. Mix spinach and feta in a bowl. 

4. Spoon into the shells, putting about a teaspoonful into each shell.

5. Bake for 5-6 minutes until heated through.

6. Serve immediately. 

Venison and Pinto Bean Tacos

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Today is also the fourth anniversary of when Jeremy and I got engaged.  To celebrate, I decided to make tacos tonight (I figured it had to be something Mexican... and I have enough work to do that it needed to be quick).  I had some ground venison in the freezer so I thawed that.  I cooked up some pinto beans to stretch the meat a bit too.

This was a really simple dish and was incredibly tasty.  We topped the tacos with salsa, taco sauce, tomatoes, and lettuce.  Jeremy used flour tortillas and I had hard-shell corn tortillas.

I make variations on this all the time - with chicken, different kinds of beans, corn, etc.  No matter what I use they're easy to make and give us leftovers for a couple of days.  Sometimes we even make taco salad out of it - just throwing more lettuce in and crumbling up taco shells.

Recipe:
1 lb. ground venison (lean ground beef works too)
3 c. pinto beans (cooked - or 2 cans drained and rinsed)
1 medium onion, minced
2 jalapeños, minced (you can remove the seeds and ribs if you want)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs. chili powder
2 tbs. ground cumin
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tbs. dried parsley flakes
1/2 c. chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat.  Add 2 tbs. olive oil.
2. Add onion and jalapeños.  Saute for 4-5 minutes until softened.
3. Add ground meat.  Break up with a wooden spoon.  Add garlic and mix.  Cook until meat is browned.
4. Add remaining ingredients. Mix well. Continue to cook until the liquid evaporates.  Adjust seasonings as needed to taste.
5. Serve in shells with choice of toppings.

Oven-Fried Haddock

I've made oven-fried fish before.  But this time I'm using fresh fish.  Jeremy and I checked out Hannaford's for the first time and were pleasantly surprised by their seafood selection.  I love haddock so I was very excited to see it was on sale and looked fresh and yummy.

This was incredibly easy to put together and came out tasting great.  Granted this is still breaded fish so it's not the healthiest dish ever... but it certainly satisfies my cravings for crunchy fried fish.  And it's better than going out and getting the deep-fried fish I love so much. :)

I served this with green beans and some simple buttered rice.  It was a delicious meal that's a great way to get more fish into our diets.  

Recipe:

2 haddock fillets (approx. 1 lb total)

1/3 c. cornmeal

1/3 c. Italian-style breadcrumbs

1/3 c. skim milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. paprika

1. Preheat oven to 450 degree.  Spray a cooking sheet with non-stick spray.

2. Mix the cornmeal, breadcrumbs, salt, black pepper, and paprika in a shallow dish.

3. Coat the fish in the milk, then in the cornmeal mixture.

4. Place the fillets on the baking sheet and spray the tops with cooking spray.

5. Bake for 15-18 minutes until cooked through so it flakes easily with a fork.

Roasted Asparagus Soup

I had a huge bunch of asparagus (1.75 lbs) that I needed to use. I've also been saving the woody ends that you don't normally eat. I figured I could use them to make stock or a pureed soup even though they weren't going to be tasty by themselves.  Tonight I decided to go ahead and use them and make a big bowl of soup so we had a reasonably healthy dinner.

The soup took about 45 minutes start to finish.  It wasn't bad since I wasn't in the kitchen for a lot of it. This had a very asparagus-y flavor.  It looked like pea soup (not that you'd know that from the picture... it's much greener than it looks in the picture.  My camera just couldn't pick up the color in this soup for some reason).

This soup had a nice rich texture without using a ton of cream.  And at least we got a lot of veggies!  I'll probably mix this up next time and might forgo the asparagus pieces and just make a pureed soup.  But given how easy this was and how much Jeremy loves asparagus, I'll certainly be making variations of this again.

This soup uses rice to thicken it a bit... but it's not a lot of rice and you can't taste it in the soup.  You can certainly omit the rice but it will be a bit thinner.  Or you can thin the soup out by using extra stock or milk.  If you want a vegetarian version, just use water or vegetable stock.  We ate this with some fresh bread that Jeremy baked.  Yum!

Recipe:
2.75 lbs of asparagus (give or take) - I had 1.75 lbs of fresh asparagus and 1 lb of frozen asparagus stems
1 large onion, chopped
2 c. chicken stock
1/3 c. rice
1/4 c. skim milk
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut or break the woody stems off of the asparagus.  Slice the tops of the asparagus into 1/2" pieces.
2. Heat a large pot over medium heat.  Add 2 tbs. olive oil.  Add onion and saute until softened, 4-5 minutes.
3. Add all of the woody asparagus ends, chicken stock, and rice.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to maintain a simmer until the rice is cooked (approx. 15 minutes).
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Place the sliced asparagus on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Mix to combine.  Roast for 10-12 minutes until just tender.
5. When the rice is cooked in the soup, turn off the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.  Puree the soup in batches in a blender. (You can add the milk in this step while you puree or just stir it into the soup in the next step.)
6. Return soup to the pot.  Add roasted asparagus and parmesan (and milk if you didn't add it while blending).  Adjust seasonings as necessary.