Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwich and Veggie Stocked Pasta Salad

We have been making this meal since June of 2006 when the pulled chicken recipe came out in Cooking Light.  This is one of Michael's favorite spring/summer time meals and the girls love it too!  This time I tripled the sauce and rub so I could freeze the extra sauce and store the extra rub.  Now next time the mood strikes I'll cut my prep time way down.  And if you really want to cut the time down you can use a rotisserie chicken and just mix in some of the rub for flavor.  You won't get the same smokey BBQs taste but the result is still so good and the meat will be ultra moist.

Recipe Modifications

• We always double the pasta salad recipe because we love it and eat it for days!
• I never use thighs for the chicken.  I will either use a rotisserie chicken and shred it adding just a bit of the rub or use chicken breast (bone in or boneless).  And we just grill outside uncovered
• Tripled the rub and sauce.  Saved the extra rub and froze the extra sauce.
• Added extra red pepper to sauce, we like it a bit more spicey
• We serve with Aged Canadian Cheddar, pairs perfect with the BBQ chicken

Ingredients for Pasta Salad

Tricolor Curly Pasta (12 or 16 oz box)

4 small salad cucumbers chopped

4 medium carrots chopped

3/4 cup halved or quartered grape tomatoes

6 celery stalks chopped

1 large can of black olives sliced

1 small container of feta or more to taste

Robust Italian Dressing

Recipe for Pasta Salad

1. Cook noodles according to manufactures instructions.  Do not overcook you want these more firm than mushy.  Drain when done and rinse with cold water to stop cooking proces
2. Chop or slice all veggies and olives and add to noodles in large bowl.  Add feta.  
3. Add just a bit like 3 tablespoons of dressing and mix.  Don't add all your dressing, serve it on the side.  The noodles will soak it up and you'll have to add more and won't get that nice flavor for all the calories your eating.  Your pasta salad will also keep better if you don't soak it in dressing

Ingredients Sandwich

Chicken:

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon chili powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chile pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs

Cooking spray

Sauce:

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 tablespoon molasses

Remaining ingredients:

8 (2-ounce) sandwich rolls, toasted

16 hamburger dill chips

Sandwich Recipe

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

Click Here for Recipe

Mini Sour Cream Pound Cake Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

I was looking for something not too heavy but still decadent to have after our Easter feast and decided to try out my new mini-cupcake pan.  I also got to try out my new cake decorating tips.  Birthdays can be a good thing ;-)  Adding a single colorful jellybean to the mini cupcakes gave them a spring feel and an extra treat for the little ones to enjoy.  These got rave reviews from everyone who tried them and I will for sure make these again.  They are the perfect little sweet ending to any meal.  And the ideal size for little tots that you don't want to go into sugar overload!

Recipe Modifications

• Halfed the cupcake recipe, as an added bonus the half stick of butter and half cream cheese was just the size I needed for the frosting
• Didn't have 16 oz package of powdered sugar so measured it out with measuring cup and added a tablespoon at a time until I got the consistency I wanted
• Added jellybeans for a touch of spring

Ingredients Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (8-oz.) container sour cream

Ingredients Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 (3-oz.) package cream cheese, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (16-oz.) package powdered sugar

3 to 4 Tbsp. milk

Recipe

These recipes come from Southern Living.  They have amazing desserts and baked goods!

Click Here for Cupcake Recipe

Click Here for Frosting Recipe

Banana Nutella Muffins

I had left over bananas and a wanted some nutella and thought wouldn't a banana nutella muffin be so good.  A quick search later and I had multiple recipes at my fingertips.  Less than an hour after that I had hot out of the oven muffins.  Don't you just love how that works!  The girls absolutely loved these and gobbled them up.  Michael is gunning for a nutella pie so he won't admit to loving anything until we make that pie ;-)  I'm now inspired to create my own banana nutella muffin that's a bit healthier so we can enjoy these all the time.  And as an added bonus I got to use my new sifter for the first time.  Prior to this I just sifted with a mesh screen used to drain fat or prevent splatters

Recipe Modifications

• Only used 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1 teaspoon nutella for center and top of muffin.
• Only used 1 cup of sugar.  In future would try to substitute 1/2 cup brown and 1/4 cup white, I love the taste of brown sugar with banana

Ingredients

2 ripe, mashed bananas

2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup sour cream

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup Nutella

Recipe

This recipe comes from Lets Dish Recipes a food blog I just discovered.   

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Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

Who hasn't had some version of chicken and rice casserole.  The classic version is full of fat and sodium but still so tasty.  I was not sure how this version would compare as it's much healthier, but the taste surprised me.  It was amazingly moist, flavorful and invoked happy childhood memories.  This is not your mom's casserole, it's a grown up healthy absolutely scrumptious take on that childhood classic.  We will be making this again and again.  The leftovers, if you have any, heat up really well too!

Recipe Modifications

• Used portion of large white onion instead of whole small onion
• Cooked Rice to package instructions
• Used Sharp Cheddar, I think it tastes better than a mild cheddar in a dish like this and a bit gives allot of flavor
• Added a whole 8 ounce package of mushrooms sliced

Ingredients

1 Tbsp plus 1 Tsp Olive Oil

1 Small Onion, diced

1 Cup Mushrooms, sliced

1 Tsp Salt

1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder

1 Lb Chicken Breasts (about 2), boneless, skinless, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

1 Cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded (plus additional for sprinkling on top)

3 Cups Cooked Wild Rice (I cooked 1 cup uncooked wild rice in 4 cups water for 50 minutes)

Recipe

This recipe comes from weelicious.  She does an incredible job of putting out healthy and fun recipes.

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Muffin Cup Meatloaf with a Kick

Growing up I hated meatloaf.  It seems people usually either love it or hate it.  Years ago I ran across a recipe in my monthly Cooking Light magazine for mini turkey meatloaves and decided to give it another chance.  Michael is a meatloaf fan so he offered some encouragement.  The result was an amazing juicy individual meatloaf muffin with a kicked up ketchup topping.  I am now a huge meatloaf fan and we make these routinely in the cooler months.  You can make the meatloaf the night before or in the am and make a satisfying easy evening meal after a busy day. We keep it traditional with the sides, corn and mashed potatoes are a must.  And I like to throw in some wilted spinach if we have any fresh spinach because the girls love it and two veggies are better than one!

Recipe Modifications

• Added hot sauce to meat mixture, around 1 teaspoon
• Doubled the recipe
• Used extra large muffin pan, so doubled recipe made 6 meat muffins
• Used 1 teaspoon dried parsley instead of fresh
• Used 1/2 cup pasteurized eggs instead of egg whites.  These are made from 99% egg whites
• Squirted ketchup on muffins then added a dash of hotsauce to each and swirled with a spoon
• Cooked 40 minutes due to increased size of muffins instead of 30 minutes
• I have to admit that I no longer measure anything when making this recipe but I did for this meal and it turned out extra yumm!

Ingredients

Cooking Spray

1/2 cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons dried breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces ground turkey breast

1 large egg white

3 tablespoons ketchup divided

1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Recipe

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

This recipe is not online but was originally printed in Cooking Light April 2007 under Turkey Mini Meat Loaves.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat.  Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add onion to pan and saute 5 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.
3. Combine onion, breadcrumbs and next 7 ingredients (through egg white) in a large bowl.  Stire in 2 tablespoons ketchup.  Spoon about 1/2 cut meat mixture into each muffin cup coated with cooking spray; place muffin tin on baking sheet.  Combine remaining 1 tablespoon ketchup and hot pepper sauce in small bowl.  Brush ketchup mixture over meat loaf tops.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until a thermometer registers 165 degrees.  

Yield: 3 servings.  Serving size 1 loaf.  Calories 142 (10% from fat); Fat 1.5 g (sat 0.4g, mono 0.1g, poly 0.2g); protien 20.2 g; carb 12g; fiber 0.8g; chol 30 mg; iron 1.2mg; sodium 508mg; calc 28mg

Crockpot BBQ Chicken and Roasted Red Potatoes

It took me years to appreciate many of my wonderful kitchen helpers that I received as wedding gifts.  We were lucky to have great aunts working at Macy's ensuring we registered for the products that last and were good quality.  And when I finally did begin using my crockpot I was not immediately in love.  If you cook something too long it can get dry even immersed in liquid.  If you add a normal amount of liquid like a stovetop recipe it becomes too soupy because none of the liquid escapes.  My natural curiousity makes me want to lift the lid and peek and sniff, a big no no.  But once I figured out these rules of the crockpot I realized you can make amazing delish meals with little effort.  Too hot to BBQ outside or too cold or too lazy, no problem just add chicken and BBQ sauce to the crockpot and you will have the most tender moist BBQ chicken.   Veggies and roasted red potatoes make great sides for this dish.  

And if you're like us you will have plenty of meat left over.  I usually shred it and store it with some of the crockpot liquid over it.  We use the meat to make quick easy lunches or dinners.  Some typical uses - BBQ chicken sandwiches topped with cheese; chicken quesadillas (cheese, tortillas, chicken, salsa all melted together on stovetop);  tacos;  salad with chicken, spinach, mandarin oranges, walnuts and dried cherries; pasta salad with veggies and chicken... and the list goes on.

Ingredients 

Chicken - 

• Bone in Chicken.  We prefer split breast.  Four large split breast fit in our slowcooker smushed in without having to stacking.  Best results for this recipe do not stack your meat.
• 1/2 - 1 cup BBQ sauce

Potatoes - 

• 1.5 lbs of red potatoes, or like I measure half a 3 pound bag
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup white onion or shallots
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Recipe for Roasted Red Potatoes

1. Preheat oven to 450.  Line 9x13 baking pan with aluminum foil.
2. Cut potatoes into small bite-size pieces.  And put in pan.
3. Chop onion and mince garlic.  Put in pan.
4. Add olive oil, salt and pepper.  Mix all ingredients together until potatoes are coated with oil and seasonings.  You may need more oil if you have more potatoes.
5. Cook for 30 minutes stirring potatoes at 15 minutes.  Depending on heat of your oven you may need to bake a bit longer to get a nice golden color on the potatoes.  You can also achieve these my broiling for about 2 minutes, but be careful they don't burn.

Recipe for Chicken

1. Cut the skin and extra fat off your chicken.  There's no need it when slowcooked and it will save you calories and fat by removing it.
2. Pour your favorite BBQ sauce over the chicken covering the top of the meat.
3. Cook for around two and half hours for 4 large breasts.  For legs and thighs check at 2 hours.
4. Add extra BBQ sauce if you'd like and enjoy!

Oatmeal Pancake Fritters

Reading through the comments on this recipe some people called the pancake recipe fritters.  These do taste a bit like an oatmeal fritter, with only 1/4 cup of flour they are not your traditional pancake.  But boy are they good and good for you too!  I should of made a double batch because the girls gobbled them up fast and I was wishing I had one more.  When you're making this recipe the batter will be thinner and I'd suggest using the 2.5 tablespoon of batter per pancake.  It seems to cook perfect at this size.  They do cook fast so watch for those bubbles on top and flip when you have a good amount of bubbles.  These go great with turkey bacon and some fresh fruit.

Recipe Modifications

• First thing I did was mix 1 cup 1% milk and 1 tablespoon lemon juice, stirred then added 1 cup regular oatmeal
• Mixed other dry ingredients, added extra tablespoon of flour, added extra cinnamon
• Added egg and butter to oatmeal and milk mixture and combined with dry ingredients
• Cooking mine using real butter instead of spray.  A little bit goes a long way

Ingredients

1 1/10 ounces all-purpose flour (1/4 cup)

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup nonfat buttermilk

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 large egg

Cooking spray

Recipe

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

Click Here for Recipe

Mac and Cheese with Sausage

Mac and Cheese is one of Michael's all-time favorite foods.  The boxed varieties just don't appeal to me as an adult.  But this version will satisfy your adult palette and give you that treat your inner child remembers.  We prefer the dish with a spicy chicken sausage to give it a little kick.  And since it's very popular I always double the recipe so we have leftovers for lunch the next day.  The noodles used vary based on what I have on hand but my favorite is shells.  They just seem to scoop up the cheese.  Hope you like it as much as we do!

Recipe Modifications

• doubled the recipe
• added 9 oz of sausage instead of 8 oz because that's the size of the package, and we always use a spicy chicken sausage
• added 8 oz of cheddar and 4 oz of pepper jack cheese

Ingredients
4  ounces  chicken and sun-dried tomato sausage (such as Gerhard's), chopped
1 1/4  cups  fat-free milk
2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
3/4  cup  (3 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese
1/3  cup  (about 1 1/3 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4  cup  (2 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
1/2  teaspoon  onion powder
1/4  teaspoon  garlic salt
5  cups  hot cooked elbow macaroni (about 8 ounces uncooked pasta)
Chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Recipe

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

Click Here for Recipe

Homemade Graham Crackers

A few months ago our friend Stephanie posted on facebook that she made homemade graham crackers.  I of course was intrigued and asked for the recipe.  Who doesn't like graham crackers!  And Stephanie is an awesome baker so I knew the recipe would be good.  This weekend was the perfect time to make these.  We had good friends in for the day and two almost 2 year olds, one almost 4 year old and one just five year old to help bake and taste test them.  These are fun and surprising with few ingredients but all these great flavors come out.  And they are much healthier than the store bought varieties.  I didn't feel guilty at all giving them to the girls after breakfast today to dunk in milk ;-)

Recipe Modifications
I was unsure on this recipe so I followed it without modifications the first time through.  I made these in the food processor with a chopping blade instead of the dough blade, oops!  Next time I'll use the right blade.  If you don't have a food processor use a normal mixer and just cut in the chilled butter.  You can use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut the butter in.  I'll also roll them thinner and bake for 12 versus 15 minutes.  If you make them thicker they still taste awesome but puff up a bit more than traditional graham crackers.

Ingredients
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar, packed
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Butter, chilled & cubed
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Water

Recipe
I really enjoy the easy, natural and healthy approach www.weelicious.com takes to cooking and baking. It's hard to imagine anyone browsing through and not finding something they want to make!
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Turkey Burritos & Homemade Guacamole

This is a great weeknight recipe because you can pull together a satisfying meal in under 30 minutes.  We just tried it for the first time and really loved the flavor.  I've been making my own guacamole ever since I tasted how awesome my friend Jackie's was compared to the store bought versions.  We generally munch on the guacamole as dinner is cooking and serve a little bit with our tacos or burritos.  The girls love cornbread and I have found a mix that I love and doesn't have a zillion ingredients - Trader Joe's cornbread mix!  I used to make spanish rice but they really like the cornbread the best.  Here's my run down - Preheat the over, mix cornbread and pop in the oven.  Mine is done in 25 minutes even though the box says 35-40 minutes.  Make guacamole and get out tortilla chips for family to munch.  Make burritos.  These finish at the same time as the cornbread.  Eat dinner!

Recipe for Guacamole

2 medium avocados

1 small lime

1-2 tablespoons of fresh salsa

Remove flesh from two medium avocados and place in a medium bowl.  These should be slightly soft but not brown on the inside, that's perfectly ripe!  You can still use ones with brown just don't use the brown bits.  Squirt juice from one small lime over the avocados.  Mash these with a fork until desired consistency.  We like ours smooth with a few chunks.  Add a tablespoon or two of fresh salsa to taste.  The salsa you use does make a difference in the taste.  We like Jack's Special fresh salsa

Recipe Modifications for Burritos

• I had extra liquid at the end.  If you don't buy extra lean turkey I'd drain some of the fat or omit the 1/2 cup of water
• Added Jack's Special Fresh Salsa.  We prefer this over bottled salsa
• Added sour cream and cheese to taste with each burrito
• Used whole wheat tortillas

Ingredients for Burritos
Cooking spray
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound ground turkey breast
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons bottled salsa
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, undrained
6 (8-inch) flour tortillas
1 cup (4 ounces) pre-shredded reduced-fat Mexican blend cheese

Recipe for Burritos

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

Click Here for Recipe