Two-fer Tuesday!

In order to celebrate my benevolence today (Thomas is coming home, how could I not feel in great spirits?!), I'll doling out two recipes for the price of none!  Yay!!

The first is an easy and relatively healthy Thai Lime Chicken.  I love a good peanut flavored dish, so this was a no brainer for me.  Plus, it only has five ingredients, of which I just needed to buy the lime, so that was a HUGE bonus.

 Of course, I also had the added bonus of being able to use my Pampered Chef Citrus Press...  It always makes my life so much more simple!

You juice the lime over the chicken (top and bottom), and then coat the chicken with your peanut/ginger/garlic mixture.

How easy is that?!  Plus, it doesn't take terribly long to cook, so it's an easy dish all around.

Bake it at 375 for about 25 minutes.

Oh, but that other dish?  The side dish for this one?

Yeah, I might have made it with Brown Rice, so in this case, the side took longer than the main.

Ah well.

For my side, I threw some peppers on a skillet to cook them through.  Didn't add oil, salt or anything, just cooked them to an al dente.

But the long rice dish I made, that was a skinny knock off of Chipotle's Cilantro Lime Rice.  I used barely any oil, and only salted the water.  We're trying to be more heart healthy, so this was an experimental dish.

 I used barely any oil, and only salted the water.  We're trying to be more heart healthy around the house, so this was an experimental dish.  However, it was still tasty, and the brown Jasmine rice held up well again.

Definitely impressed.

So that was my two-fer.  Thomas gave them all a thumbs up, and the flavors complimented each other nicely.  Plus I made a double batch of the rice to sue as a side dish for weeks to come!

Bacon Pineapple Shrimp

If you're looking for an easy, EASY appetizer to make, I think I've found it.

{Full disclosure: I hate shrimp.}

It's Bacon Pineapple Shrimp!  It's originally from Rachel Ray, so you know it has to be easy.

 I tried the recipe two different ways.  The first was like my Bacon Wrapped Smokies.  That was easy enough, just dump some brown sugar on it and bake it.

However, that ended up looking like the shrimp on the RR Recipe.

Blah.

So then I took them and threw them into a frying pan, as originally suggested.

I chose pre-cooked shrimp, so I was just cooking it to cook the bacon.  I waited until they were nice and dark, and then served them up.  They looked almost burnt to me, but everyone loved them.

It was the first appetizer of the night I ran out of.  Since I had to serve them as soon as they were done, I didn't get a chance for a final photo, but I know you understand.  You all have amazing imaginations if you've been following me thus far!!

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Obviously, I'm make a very concentrated effort to make breakfast now (this is the second week in a row!).  I'm not a breakfast person.  I blame my schooling and teaching experiences - nothing like having lunch at 10:30am to throw off your breakfast game!  However, I am supposed to be a grown up now, and breakfast is the most important blah blah blah.  Regardless, I loved the "granola" bars, and wanted to try something else that was as easy and wonderful in the morning that I could wake up, grab, and go.  I don't leave myself more than a half hour to get up and ready, get the dogs going, and hop out the door in the morning, so the more bake-ahead items that I can make, the better!

Over at Skinny Taste, of course, I found this recipe for Low Fat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins.  The problem is that I wanted to use a whole wheat flour, which threw the rest of my measurements for a loop.  In addition to that, reduced fat Jiffy was my PB mode of choice because it was already in the house.  I would have used the low sodium version, but my husband has that with him on his business trip!

Here's my process...

Ingredients:
1 1/4 C flour (*use no more than half whole wheat -ww- flour)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda (*use only 3/4 tsp if you're not using ww flour)
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp stick margarine, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar
5 ripe bananas - mine were small and on clearance. Use 3 if they're larger.
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (*use only 1/3 cup if not using ww flour)
2 large egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
8 tbsp peanut butter - you choose your own poison


I wanted mini-muffins, so I greased my mini muffin pans. No liners needed if you spray, but it's always your option.






Pre-heat the oven to 325.






In a small bowl, combine your flours, baking soda, and salt.






In a large bowl, mix together your margarine and brown sugar. Then, add your egg whites, bananas, apple sauce, vanilla, and peanut butter. Mix it all up until it's nice and creamy. Since I used whole wheat flour, I had to add more apple sauce to maintain a "moist" consistency throughout the baking process. Also, I didn't mash the bananas before mixing them. I have no problem with chunks of banana in my muffin, and the electric mixer did well to break up the very ripe bananas in any case.

Finally, add your dry mixture in, and mix until just combined.  Add your batter to your prepared muffin cups 1/2-2/3 full.  My mini muffins took about 10 minutes, but the large took about 20 in my oven.  Just cook until a toothpick comes out clean.

Super simple, and very tasty.  I had some (immediately!) with a little dollop of the leftover unsweetened applesauce, but when I eat them for breakfast, I just grab three minis as is. Also, most of these ingredients I had on hand.  The only thing I needed to buy was the bananas, and it was only 11 cents for the bunch of five on clearance.  Not too shabby!  Keep them in an airtight container, and (according to Thomas) make sure you refrigerate them if you plan on them lasting all week. 

Curious how I made the conversions to incorporate Whole Wheat Flour?  Check out the Cook's Thesaurus.  They claim... "Replace no more than half of the all-purpose flour with this and add half again as much baking powder plus a bit more liquid to the recipe. Compared to all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour makes baked goods denser and coarser in texture. It provides more fiber but about the same nutrients as enriched all-purpose flour."

So moist...  does that word annoy any one else??  I couldn't get around it this time.  Sorry!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oat Bars

 Happy Leap Day to All!!

I was on the hunt for an easy to make break fast bar that I could just grab and go throughout the week...  Nothing too...flax-y or granola-y.  I'm not that kind of girl and I'm not going to spend a gazillion dollars on ingredients that are going to be eaten within 3-5 minutes when I'm in my morning daze.

 So, long story short, here's the recipe I found.  So simple.  Took about 7 minutes to prepare (including opening the packages), and then about 30 minutes to an hour to cool.  I sealed it up and have been cutting off bars all week for breakfast.  (Sorry, I was too lazy to cut and store them, I just used my Pyrex cover and stored them on the counter.)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick cooking oats {I used instant rolled, even though the recipe said not to)
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips (I used more and they were full sized. Shoot me.)


Melt, mix and set. Read the full recipe if you need more directions or better pictures.

I was more than a little sad to reach the end of the container. However, I can't wait to use my leftover supplies to make more!!

Pizza Balls...

Yes, sigh, more pizza.  Same ingredients, different format...

What's also nice is that I made these up the day before, put some cling wrap on top, and then baked them up the next day.

So simple.

I also found some Classico Pizza Sauce at Target.
Winning sauce, hands down.

Taste of Sweetness Saturday: Savory Goodness

 Today is super sweet, due to lots of brown sugar, and it's also a coronary waiting in the wings.

Here's the Brown Sugar Smokies recipe, from All Recipes.  It doesn't take a lot.  Wrap the smokies in bacon, hook with toothpick, cover with brown sugar, and then bake at 350 until crisp (about 20 minutes, or so).

Super sweet, and oh so good.  You probably won't have any leftovers of these.

Ever!

Sausage Cheddar Balls

Sometimes you get in a meatball rut, you know?  It's so easy to throw together some grape jelly, chili sauce, BBQ sauce, meatballs, or whatever to serve as a warm meatball dish.

Okay, so maybe this sausage cheddar meatball recipe is from Martha Stewart, but it's fairly easy to create, you just have to be willing to get your hands dirty!

 For me, one of the biggest selling points of this recipes is that the meatballs are baked.  Once you've rolled them, you just put them on your parchment paper and bake this up.
The problem?  I thought they turned out a little dry.  Maybe when you're so used to drenching the meatballs in sauces, you forget what normal meatballs taste like.  Regardless, I served them with some dipping sauces, like home made chutney.  Most people, however, ate them as is, so maybe the sauceless balls play!

I love that you just lift them out of the grease before serving.  Save those calories!!