Day 22: Honey Garlic Chicken

It’s Monday and almost the end of March! I can’t believe almost a 1/4 of the year has already flown by and I can’t wait for it to officially be summer. I’m ready for some consistent warm weather! Last week we were blessed in NY with weather in the 70’s and for some reason a cold front has decided to come through this week. I don’t like waking up to 30 degree weather! Never have, never will. I need to be in warm environments because I get cold way too easily, plus I packed up all my winter clothes.

I start my new job on Wednesday, so I took advantage of sleeping in today as with my new job I’ll have to be at the office at 8am. I haven’t had early mornings like that since I quit teaching last year, It hasn’t even been a year since I was waking up every morning at 5 am, but I’ve already become accustomed to sleeping in and waking up at 7:30 am! Needless to say, Wednesday morning will be tough. Besides sleeping in today, I literally did not leave my apartment all day. It was really windy and although the sun was out, it was still too cold to enjoy the weather. Instead, I watched movies and did an in-home workout focusing on my legs and abs. Tomorrow I’ll hit the gym or Central Park to get in some running. Today I also cooked!

For Day 22 of the Pinterest Project I made Honey Garlic Chicken for dinner. This recipe was originally for pork chops, but since I’m not a big pork chop eater I substituted it with chicken. Plus, I had two chicken breasts that I needed to use up that expire in a few days, so this recipe was perfect for those! This recipe was originally pinned from the website ‘Spark Recipe’ which is a healthy recipe website. I cut this recipe in half to account for the fact that I was using less meat as the original recipe was for 6 pork chops.

Honey Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1/8 cup honey
• 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 chicken breasts
• non-stick cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a shallow dish, whisk together honey, soy sauce and garlic. Coat chicken in mixture or if you have more time, marinate chicken in mixture for 6+ hours before cooking. Set aside leftover honey mixture for basting.

Put chicken breasts in baking dish that has been greased with non-stick cooking spray. Bake for 30 minutes or until cooked through, basting two times with remaining honey mixture.

As you can see from the picture, I paired my chicken with a side of garlic spinach which was super easy to make. (Sautee one clove of garlic in olive oil until browned, add 2 cups spinach and cook until it wilts –  only takes 5 minutes.)

This chicken was amazing! I know I’ve said that a about a few of the recipes I have made lately, but seriously this was really good. This chicken was one of the most moist pieces of chicken I have ever had in my life, literally. The chicken had a subtle honey garlic taste and was just oozing with juice when I cut into it.

It went perfectly with the spinach for a light, healthy meal. This recipe will definitely be one that I make for a long time! I might even end up trying it with pork chops, like the recipe was originally intended for. We’ll see if I feel up to it, but if it tastes anything like this chicken, then I’m sure I’ll end up enjoying it.

And Mom, when I come in town for Easter weekend I’ll cook this for y’all and give you a break from cooking dinner one night. Trust me, y’all will love it! 🙂

Day 18: Fried Egg, Avocado, Bacon and Tomato Sandwich

I’m sure you have realized by now that at least once a week I eat breakfast (i.e. eggs) for dinner. I honestly would probably do it much more often than that, but I’m sure y’all would get tired of reading about it and that wouldn’t really fit into the premise of the Pinterest Project.

For Day 18 of the Pinterest Project, I am making a Fried Egg, Avocado, Bacon and Tomato Sandwich, or as I like to call it a Fried Egg BAT. When I originally repinned this to my ‘recipe’ board, I didn’t realize that I was just repinning a picture and not a link to an actual recipe. Luckily the name of this sandwich speaks for itself, so it wasn’t too hard to wing it.

Fried Egg BAT

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 2 slices of bread (I used Ezekiel 4:9 whole wheat bread)
• 1 slicing or beefsteak tomato
• 2 pieces of bacon or turkey bacon (I opted for the lighter turkey bacon)
• 1/4 of an avocado
• salt and pepper to taste
• non-stick cooking spray or 1 tsp olive oil

Directions:

Cook bacon according to packaging. [I had 2 pieces of leftover turkey bacon for the other night, so I just reheated that in a frying pan for a few minutes.] Toast 2 pieces of bread in toaster and set aside on plate.

Starting at one end of the tomato, cut 2 or 3 slices off about 1/4 inch thick. Discarding end piece and set aside slices. Cut avocado in half and put away the half with the seed for use another day. Peel remaining half of avocado and slice. You’ll only need about 4 thin slices.

[Look at that avocado below! I have the hardest time finding ripe avocados in NY, so I was super excited when I picked this baby up today! There’s nothing better than a perfectly ripe avocado :)]

Heat frying pan on medium and spray with cooking spray or put olive oil in pan. Crack egg into pan and cook until desired doneness. [I personally like my fried eggs over easy.]  On one piece of toast, layer turkey bacon and fried egg and layer tomato slices and avocado on the other slice of toast. Salt and Pepper as desired.

Close the sandwich up and enjoy!

I know I say this a lot about, but this recipe was really good! I mean, I guess it should be since I’m picking out recipes that I would want to eat! I’m a pretty picky eater, but I at least know what I like. This sandwich was a little messy because of the juice from the tomato and the yolk, but it was totally worth it. The toast was a little more done than I typically like, but overall it was really good.

If you cook the bacon in advance, then you could make this for a quick breakfast before work! Plus, it’s relatively healthy. You’ve got your protein from the turkey bacon and egg, good kind of fat from the avocado slices, carbs from the whole wheat bread and some tomato slices for your veggies. I’d say this sandwich is way better than any breakfast sandwich you’re going to get from a fast food place!

One bite in and it was so good!!!! Try it, you’ll love it!

P.S. My abs are like seriously burning from yesterday’s 300 workout. I definitely need to incorporate that routine into my weekly workout schedule. If you didn’t see yesterday’s post, you can read about it here.

Day 13: Mexican Egg Skillet

Last night as I was typing this blog, my internet stopped working and wouldn’t work for the rest of the evening, so sorry for the delay in posting!

It’s day 13 of the Pinterest Project and I’m making Mexican Egg Skillet for dinner! As I told y’all last week I love eggs, so I’m really excited about trying this recipe and eating some eggs tonight for dinner. I did make a few changes to the original recipe to give it my own flavor and fit my tastes! This recipe is adapted from the Mexican Egg Skillet recipe found on the blog “Pennies on a Platter.” If you look at the original recipe, then you’ll see the changes that I made.

Mexican Egg Skillet – serves one

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped tomato
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 cup grated cheese
• 1 tortilla (corn or four)
• Adobo seasoning, to taste
• salt and pepper, to taste
• Salsa (I always use Pace Picante)

Directions:

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Sautee onions for 3-4 minutes until golden brown. Add tomatoes and cook until tender. Season with Adobo, salt and pepper.

Push veggies to the side of the skillet to make room for the eggs. Crack two eggs into the skillet and cook until desired doneness. I cooked mine for 6-7 minutes until the egg white was completely set. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the eggs and vegetables. Cover the skillet with a lid for 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve over a tortilla and top with salsa, if desired.

As you can see from the above picture, I also added some salt and pepper to the top of my eggs before adding the cheddar cheese. I was really glad that my eggs didn’t become scorched considering I cooked them without flipping them for so long!

I loved the way I changed up this recipe. I served it up with a side of spanish rice and it was amazing. I literally was making noises while eating this meal because I loved it so much. It was like a veggie breakfast taco but with sunny side up eggs instead of scrambled. Seriously though, I was  saying ‘mmmm’ the entire time I was eating this. I was being ridiculous! But look at that food, how could you not love it??! Try it, you’ll be glad you did, especially if you like breakfast!

Day 11: Spaghetti with Sauteed Chicken and Grape Tomatoes

It’s the start of a new week and a beautiful week at that. Although the first day of spring is still 8 days away (March 20th) today is finally a gorgeous day in NYC. It’s partly cloudy and in the 60’s, which reminds me of the few nice days you get in Texas. Even yesterday the weather was finally warm enough to enjoy going outside and trust me, the streets were packed! I’m praying that this weather holds up because it’s the first nice weather we’ve had since the fall. No lie, for the past 4 1/2-5 months it’s been cold, overcast and non-stop rainy! In other words, it’s been miserable outside! I’ll be glad to finally be able to get back out to Central Park for a run!

For Day 11 of the Pinterest Project, I’m making Spaghetti with sautéed Chicken and Grape Tomatoes for dinner! This recipe was pinned from the blog ‘Skinny Taste’ which I’m sure you’ve heard of because their recipes are all over Pinterest! This will be the first Skinny Taste recipe I’ve tried and it doesn’t look too bad. It’s a basic pasta with fresh tomatoes in lieu of a rich tomato sauce, which I’m looking forward to trying. It also helps that one serving of this pasta is only about 330 calories, which is way less than most pastas!

Spaghetti with sautéed Chicken and Grape Tomatoes – serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 skinless chicken breast halves, diced in 1 inch cubes
• cooking spray
• 1/2 tsp each of dried oregano and dries basil
• kosher salt and fresh pepper
• 8 oz spaghetti (the recipe recommends high fiber or low carb noodles)
• 2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
• 6 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
• 4 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 4 tbsp chopped fresh basil

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

Season chicken with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. Heat a large frying pan on high. Spray with cooking spray and add chicken. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, until chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove chicken and set aside.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook according to packaging, making sure to stir occasionally. Reserve about 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining.

While the pasta cooks, heat same frying pan on high heat. Add olive oil to skillet and saute garlic until golden brown. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and reduce heat to medium-low. Saute for 4-5 minutes, or until tomatoes are soft, but not falling apart. When pasta is drained, add pasta to tomatoes and toss well. If pasta is too dry, add some of the reserved pasta water. Add fresh basil and chicken and toss well. Serve and top with grated parmesan cheese.

Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures while I was making this meal because I got a really late start to dinner and my phone was about to die so I need to charge it! So, the only picture I have is of the finished dish.

For a low-calorie, light dish this was actually pretty good. If you’re looking for pasta that isn’t too heavy and has a subtle taste, then this is a good dish for you. The strongest flavors I could taste were the fresh basil, garlic and parmesan cheese. For my pasta, I didn’t need to add any of the reserved pasta water as my pasta wasn’t dry. Everything was thoroughly coated in the olive oil and garlic.

As a side, I made some garlic bread to go along with this dish. I sautéed some french bread in a skillet with a little olive oil and then rubbed the top of the bread with a garlic clove to give it a subtle garlic taste. Eat a helping of this dish with a piece of garlic bread and you’ll be set for the night.

Day 6: 100 calories of goodness

Before I begin talking about what I made for the Pinterest Project today, can I just say that I am 100% truly addicted to the Hunger Games series?? I started it over the weekend and finished the first book Sunday morning. Yesterday after work I went to Barnes and Noble and bought the other two books because I was so eager to find out what happened to Katniss and Peeta. I ended up staying up late and reading about 150 pages into the second book and it’s getting better with each twist and turn. I have to admit that when I woke up this morning, I was exhaust because I had one fo the worst sleeps ever. All I could dream about was the Hunger Games! Seriously it was amazing, but awful and all day at work, all I thought about was the book. On that note, one of my co-workers sent this to me and I thought it was hilarious, so I thought y’all might enjoy it as well. And don’t get me wrong, I love Twilight too, but the Hunger Games is just on a completely different level!

Now onto the real reason I wrote this post…

So, if you know me, then you know that one of the things I absolutely LOVE to eat is eggs! I can eat eggs for 2, even 3 meals a day…seriously I’m addicted. And I love all types of eggs…hard boiled, soft, scrambled…you name it, I’ll eat it. Eating eggs for dinner though is by far one of my favorite things in the world to do. I love breakfast for dinner! For day 6 of the Pinterest Project I decided to make 100 calories of goodness i.e. baked eggs! I repinned this from the ‘The Simple Delights’  blog, but I changed up the ingredients a little bit as I am not a big ham eater and I didn’t want to make 12 baked eggs. So, below is my recipe for baked eggs.

Baked eggs in a Turkey cup – 1 serving

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 thin slice of deli turkey meat
• 1 pinch of shredded cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray or grease with olive oil. Lay piece of turkey into one of the holes creating a cup. Crack one egg onto the turkey slice and then salt and pepper to taste. Bake the egg in the oven for 12 minutes or until the egg white sets. Carefully remove the egg from the muffin tin and top with a pinch of shredded cheese. Serve immediately and enjoy!

I ended up making 2 baked egg cups for myself for dinner and then best part of this was that each cup I made was only about 100 calories! I used Sara Lee turkey which was only 12.5 calories per slice and natural eggs from Trader Joe’s. Those added with a pinch of cheese and I’m looking at about 100 calories of goodness! I loved this recipe so much and it was so easy to make, that I will definitely be making this on a regular basis for a quick breakfast or dinner! I actually even left my muffin tin out so I can make one again tomorrow for breakfast!!! Can we say already addicted? Yes.