Running around like a chicken and other tales...

ok ladies and gents,

I am a low-carber who has had a glass of wine, so my typing is sure to suffer for it.

But regardless, I'd like to share something with you that I've been TRYING to find the time to cook for at least 1 week. Sheesh. Who thought finding time to make food would be so hard when I don't even have a family to trail after?

Apparently my time-management skills are lacking. (Either that, or I like watching two and a half men more than cooking... but I'm working to change that. :)

This week's recipe is a bit of a downer for me, because I didn't particularly cherish the results...and I have the leftovers in my fridge to prove it. HOWEVER, I am going to show you what I did, where I went wrong and what (I think) you can do to fix it and make this recipe fabulous!!

Here we go...

Chicken with Basil Cream Sauce

(Recipe courtesy of www.low-carb-diet-recipes.com)

Calories: 157, 2 carbs, 15g fat, 4g protein.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp italian seasoning
• pinch of salt, pinch of pepper
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 4 tbsp prepared pesto sauce (look with the spaghetti sauce at the grocery store)
• 2 tsp grated parmesan
• 4 chicken breasts
• I added spinach...which was not in the original recipe

Directions:

1. Sauté the breasts in frying pan, then lower the heat and cook covered for another 10 minutes until no longer pink inside. (i.e. cook the chicken. lol).
   
2. In a large skillet, bring chicken broth, garlic powder, italian seasoning, salt and pepper to a boil. Let it keep boiling until it reduces to about 1/2 volume.
   



3. Stir in the cream, and again let it boil until it reduces to about 1/2 volume. (At this step, I added spinach so I got some extra veggies also..)


4. Whisk in prepared pesto and parmesan. Serve sauce over chicken.

Here's what I did differently:

1. I misread direction 2, and added the pesto right away. I really don't think this made any difference.
   
2. I did not have italian seasoning (honestly I don't even know what it is..) so I used some mrs. dash garlic and herb. That sounds italian-y doesn't it?
   
3. Because I have a hard time adding enough veggies to my day, I decided to throw spinach into this recipe as well. I think in cream sauces, spinach is divine. It gets all wilty and wonderful! How often can you say that wilted veggies are wonderful?

The result:

Ok. It was just....ok. VERY SALTY. I am not a huge fan...I think it LOOKS wonderful (despite my bad photography...) and it smells pretty wonderful. But, for a person who doesn't really dig salt...you're going to find this dish very salty. I attribute this to the canned chicken broth I used, as well as the mrs. dash, and the pinch of salt, obviously. I also think that the chicken I used was not of the highest quality (I got it in the freezer section of walmart. It was a week for penny-pinching). and possibly there was sodium added to it as well.

What I would do differently:

I definitely think that this recipe can be fixed. What I would do is substitute your favourite white wine for the chicken stock, FORGET adding the salt all together, and use a good quality, fresh chicken breast.

I would also not break my favourite pot lid by dropping it ontop of a can opener...

Sigh :)

Anyways..I'd love to know if someone else has better luck with this recipe than I have had...let me know!!

Enjoy...;)

Aventures in Fish

So, I will just get this off my chest now: I really, really don't like seafood.

Now I'm not saying there are NO recipes including fish that I don't like...but as a general blanket statement, "I don't like seafood, sorry."

So of course, being an idiot, I fall in love with my lovely BF, who happens to be PORTUGUESE. (i.e., would eat seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner). On my mission to be a nice (domestic? Peh.) girlfriend, I thought I'd try and find a fish recipe that a) wouldn't gross me out to cook and b) I could possibly enjoy.

Fish is healthy after all, so it would be nice to embrace it, instead of just skipping past all those recipes that deal with the ocean in each cookbook I own.

It will, admittedly, be a slow process.

So! On the recommendation of a colleague at work, I tried a very simple recipe for a white, "neutral"ish fish called Tilapia.

And thus was born: Tilapia Fillets in French Cream Sauce

(Photo is borrowed from Unprose's Photo stream)

Ingredients:

• 4 Tilapia fillets
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/4 cup of white wine (your choice but since you're prob. gonna drink the bottle after, perhaps something that goes with fish??) - I used barefoot Pinot Grigio
• 1/2 Teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (I used a bit less, I am not a salt person).
• 1 lime or a tablespoon of lime juice. (I used a lime.)
• 1/4 cup of flour (more carb..) or 1/4 to 1/2 cup of powdered/crushed almonds. (low carb!)
• A (generous) tablespoon of olive oil

Ok. Here we go. Take a plate and dump the flour or almonds out on the plate, and then coat the fish. (I can't really say "roll the fish around in the flour" because that would break it up, but you get my meaning). I had to use more than a 1/4 cup of the almonds, I think because they are not as fine as flour. Don't worry if the thing does not look exactly shake 'n baked. Coat it as best you can, then set them aside.

Now, heat up the oil in a frying pan on medium heat, and throw the fish fillets in there. (I could only fit 2 at a time in my pan.) Cook the fish for 2-3 minutes on each side. Seriously!

While the fish is cooking, Grab a bowl and mix the whipping cream, wine, salt and pepper together. Once the fish is done cooking on side 2, squirt the lime overtop of the fish, and thenpour the mixture overtop and let it cook for another 5-7 minutes. You may want to reduce the temp by a notch or two. The fish will be a bit flaky if you poke it with the spatula or a fork.

Done and done!

Now this was like, REALLY fast to prepare and cook. So I would suggest if you are having frozen veggies with this, or cooking potatoes for your non-lowcarb dinner buddies, do those first and the fish at the last moment before everything is ready.

Sides:
I personally made green and yellow beans from frozen, boiled in a bit of water with a "dash" of Mrs. Dash. I also made some sort of rice-from-a-bag for my bf which I will admit, I liberally sampled. Yum. You could also do this with a fresh salad with a citrus dressing! Enjoy a glass of wine as your treat.

My thoughts on this recipe: It was good, but not my favourite. I might make it again though. Let's give it 3 out of 5 squeals of joy. It was super-easy and non-scary to a person who doesn't know anything about fish, seafood, etc. (This was my first time cooking fresh fish). My BF liked it a lot as well, and because you make 4 at once, you have lunch for the next day as well!
The best part: It actually tastes BETTER heated up the next day! Crispier, somehow.

Enjoy :)