Easy Baked Chicken Dinner and Vegetables

Easy Baked Chicken Dinner and Vegetables

We cook almost every night and sometimes I am just not "feeling" it and need something easy to cook? As the guy from the new movie "We're The Millers" would say, "know what I'm sayin'?" Side note: We saw that movie last night, it was hilarious! Highly recommend it! Anyway, yes, this is our go-to easy chicken dinner!

This would also be great to bring over for a family who may have their hands full and could use the friendly help. 

Easy Baked Chicken Dinner and Vegetables

Ingredients:

Package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Green Vegetables of your choice (I used broccoli and carrots, have done this before with green beans, even canned veggies! )
Potatoes (I use the red potatoes)
1 stick of butter
1 package of Italian Dressing Mix (I used zesty Italian)
Foil

Directions:
1.) Place chicken breasts in center of a 9x13 baking dish
2.) Cube the potatoes and place on one side, place vegetables on other side
3.) Sprinkle packet of Italian dressing over chicken and vegetables
4.) Melt butter and pour on top
5.) Cover with foil and back at 350 degrees for 1 hour

The Smells of the Season

The Smells of the Season

Holiday Stove Top Potpourri Mix

• one whole orange or just the orange peel
• 1/2 cup cranberries
• 1 Tbsp. whole cloves
• 3 sticks of cinnamon or a small handful of small pieces of cinnamon
• a bit of grated nutmeg if desired

Quarter the orange.  Put all the ingredients into a saucepan.  Fill pan with water.  Place on the stove on the smallest burner, on the lowest setting.  Refill water as needed.

REESE'S Peanut Butter Bark Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 packages (4 oz. each) HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Baking Bar, broken into pieces
• 1-2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips

• 1 tablespoon shortening
• 1/2 cup roasted peanuts or toasted almonds, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Cover cookie sheet or tray with wax paper.

2. Place chocolate in medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 1 minute; stir. If necessary, microwave at MEDIUM an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chocolate is melted and smooth when stirred.

3. Immediately place peanut butter chips and shortening in second microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM 1 minute; stir. If necessary, microwave at MEDIUM an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred; stir in peanuts.

4. Alternately spoon above mixtures onto prepared tray; swirl with knife for marbled effect. Gently tap tray on countertop to even out thickness of mixture. Refrigerate about 1 hour or until firm. Break into pieces. Store in cool, dry place. About 1 pound candy.

* To toast almonds: Heat oven to 350°F. Spread almonds in thin layer in shallow baking pan. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until light golden brown; cool.

Gingerbread Doughnuts with Maple Ginger Glaze

Vegan Gingerbread Doughnuts with Maple Ginger Glaze

Vegan Gingerbread Doughnuts
Ingredients
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
pinch of all spice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup lukewarm water

Directions
Preheat oven to 375F and grease a doughnut pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt) and mix them up until they're blended together nicely.

Make three wells in dry ingredients, and pour the oil, vinegar, and vanilla into each well separately. Pour the water over everything and mix it all together with a fork, whisk, or whatever you've got around. This batter really isn't picky.


Scoop the batter into each doughnut well, about 2/3 full, and bake for 10-13 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then remove to a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Maple Ginger Glaze
Ingredients
1 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1-2 tablespoons water (if needed)

Directions
Combine the icing sugar, syrup, and ginger in a small bowl. Whisk until well combined. Add water, one teaspoon at a time, until it's smooth and glossy, but not too runny.

Dip each cooled doughnut, one at a time, into the glaze to cover one half. Set on a wire rack and repeat with each doughnut until all of them are glazed and delicious.

Eat! Eat now!

Beef and Broccoli Clean Eating and YUMMY!

Beef and Broccoli Clean Eating

(SERVES 2)
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic chopped
2 tsp ginger, chopped
1/2 cup yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 small bunch broccoli florets in small pieces
12 oz flank or skirt steak, thinly sliced
1 lime, juiced
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp cornstarch

1. Heat a large saute pan or wok to medium heat. Add olive oil and beef and cook for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown. Scoop meat out of the pan and keep warm.
2. Add garlic and ginger to pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Add yellow onion, broccoli, 14 cup of water, sesame oil, soy sauce. Cook 6-8 minutes or until broccoli is bright green.
3. Add cooked beef back to pan and season with soy sauce.
4. Mix 1/2 cup of water with cornstarch and add to pan. Bring to a boil. Add lime juice. Serve with brown rice and hot sauce if desired.

Nutrition Facts (per serving): 385 calories, 38 g protein, 10 g carbs, 20 g fat, 4 g fiber, 2 g sugar, 250 mg sodium

FAT FACT
Certain saturated fats do increase levels of LDL (bad) cholersterol, but research confirms that the type of saturated fat found in beef does not raise LDL cholersterol levels.

**** We did NOT use the cornstarch and it was still a delicious sauce! We used an inside round piece of meat instead of flank steak. 

Crockpot Chicken Veggie Soup

So we just threw in any veggies we had, 3 frozen chicken breasts and some broth and put it on high for an hour and low for 5-6 hours. Once it was ready, Mitch cut the chicken up and added it back to the soup. We also cooked some brown rice vermicelli noodles (for all of 2 minutes in boiling water) and added those in too. You can get the noodles at Walmart OR bulk barn for 1.60$.

What we used:
3 large frozen chicken breasts
1 liter of chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup (half fat)
1 can of yellow beans - drained
3 stalks of celery
1 cup of frozen peas
1/2 onion
1 bag of the 'ready to steam' broccoli, carrot, cauliflower mix - just chopped into pieces
1 packet of onion soup mix
some oregano, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder
the brown rice vermicelli noodles

It wasn't very soup-y so you may need to add more broth

Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup

Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup
Chicken and Noodle Soup 
5 cups of chicken broth (boxed or can is fine) 
One 10.75 oz can cream of chicken soup 
1/2 cup onions, chopped fine 
1/2 cup celery, chopped fine 
1/2 cup carrots, chopped fine 
1/2 cup green onions, sliced 
One 15 oz can of whole kernel corn, 
drained Salt and Pepper to taste 
1 1/2 cup Egg noodles
 2 cups cooked chicken chopped or 2 cans canned cooked chicken 

Add everything but the noodles and cooked chicken to the crock pot on Low for 5-6 hours, the last hour turn on High, and add noodles and chicken. - See more at: http://www.creativelydomestic.com/2010/10/guest-post-crockpot-chicken-and-noodle.html#sthash.RmUohpKv.dpuf

We actually didn't want egg noodles because they have wheat and Mitch can only have rice as a carb so we found these awesome rice vermicelli noodles. They are sooooo yummy and they are sooooo easy to cook! You drop them in boiling water for 2 minutes and they're done!!!! So we threw everything in the crockpot (even 3  frozen chicken breasts) and had it on high for 1 hour and then low for about 5-6 hours. An hour before we were eating, Mitch took the chicken out, cut it up and then put it back in. Once we were ready to eat, we cooked the noodles and just added what we wanted to the our own bowls. I don't know how well they would freeze so we decided to just freeze the soup sans noodles.