Must try chicken marinade

I love trying new recipes. If you have any great ones please let me know! I was blog surfing a while back and came across this chicken recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe I have tried it and it's my favorite way to eat chicken. It's best grilled but you can bake it as well. I use more seasonings than her recipe. Making marinades is very simple. The base is fat like oil and an acid like vinegar and then you can add pretty much anything else you like. Just remember that marinading too long can ruin the texture of the meat so 1-6 hours will do.


Oregano Chicken Marinade


1/3 cup oil
juice from 2 lemons
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Mix all ingredients in a zip lock bag. Place 2-4 chicken breasts in the bag. Make sure you squeeze all the air out of the bag as you seal it.  Refrigerate up to 6 hours. Grill or bake at  350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until center of chicken reaches 165 degrees.

Salt and Pepper Chicken with Sweet Potato puree

This healthy dinner is very easy to make. The puree is very silky and flavorful plus I HEART asparagus. Too bad I tried to have this meal ready right when the Mr. got home from work but of course, he was an hour late which meant it was cold. He still liked it:)

Sweet Potato Puree


2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 pinch of nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt and pepper each plus more for seasoning
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons heavy cream
juice from one lemon

In a medium size pan heat broth, sugar, nutmeg, salt and pepper and vanilla. Once boiling, add chopped sweet potatoes. Turn down heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until sweet potatoes are soft. Use a straining spoon to extract the sweet potatoes, (SAVE the broth) put the sweet potatoes in a food processor. Add cream and lemon juice. Puree until silky smooth. Add broth if mixture is too thick.

I salt and peppered my chicken. Then I pan-fried it for only a few minutes on each side. I buy the chicken that is already flattened so it cooks evenly and quickly.

I  blanched my asparagus:)

Cilantro Pesto Shrimp Quesadillas

It may sound weird. I got a little carried away with this one but I think they were pretty good. Trying to find delicious food for my hubby to eat while on his diet has been pretty fun. This one was made with a whole grain diet tortilla. You can also just make the shrimp and pesto sauce as an appetizer. Happy cooking!

Cilantro Pesto Shrimp Quesadillas


1 pound fully cooked, deveined, tail removed shrimp, chopped for this recipe
3/4 cup basil pesto (I just bought some. I have yet to make my own)
1 handful (about 3/4 cup) cilantro leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil depending on thickness of mixture. Use olive oil to loosen it.
1 cup shredded Mexican style cheese
2 tortillas

In a food processor, combine pesto, salt, olive oil and cilantro. Pulse until well mixed. Toss with shrimp. In a saute pan, sprayed with cooking spray or butter place one tortilla top with shrimp mixture and cheese and the second tortilla. Flip over once browned.

Fruit and Pecan Salad with dressing

My awesome friend Nikki made this salad for me one day and it was so yummy I had to share. I love making my own dressings because I can change the ingredients to make it healthier or not:) I wouldn't change a thing to this though!!

Dressing

2/3 cup olive oil
1/3 lemon juice (fresh makes it WAY better)
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons chopped green onion
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon poppy seed

Blend first 5 ingredients in blender for 30 sec. Add poppy seeds in and refrigerate a few hours to chill before serving.

Fruit and Pecan Salad

8 cups mixed green salad
1 red apple with skin, chopped
1 green apple with skin, chopped
1 pear with skin, chopped
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
1 cup crasins
1 cup pecans, chopped and toasted 

Toss together with dressing and serve immediately. YUMMY!! 

Homemade Luchables

I don't know about you but every time we are grocery shopping my kids ask for Lunchables so I decided to start making them at home for them. This simple idea but so fun for the kids. They feel so special that they get lunchables whenever they want now. I use these cheap plates I think I got at Walmart years back to make them look realistic. Then they usually get a small treat if they eat some of everything and are full. Now I know that my veggies here are few but that's about all I get them to eat so I feel like I am doing pretty good. There is lean turkey, apple slices, cheese, saltines and snow peas.

Baked Artichokes with yogurt dip

My mom used to make artichokes for dinner. I remember that I loved them and that there was never enough. Here is a healthy way to prepare and serve them.

Yogurt dip


1 cup plain greek yogurt
juice and zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
dash of salt

Mix ingredients ahead of time and chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Rinse and trim needles from the tips of the leaves.

Cut the top 1/2 inch

Spread leaves out

Drizzle olive oil, lemon juice, fresh garlic chunks and salt. Wrap in foil and bake for 50 minutes at 425 degrees

This is great for an appetizer for a dinner party or a first course to a meal. 

Sugar Cookies

This is the easiest sugar cookies recipe I have tried. They also don't need to refrigerate before you roll them out so they are much faster to prepare. Once again, the key it cooking them the right amount of time.

The dough should not be runny at all.

Use wax or parchment paper to roll them out on. Roll them to 1/4 inch thickness for about 5 1/2 minutes cooking and 1/2 inch for thicker cookies that take about 7 minutes to cook. I feel they roll just fine without being refrigerated however, if you pick an intricate cookie cutter they won't be too easy if you are having trouble put the dough in a sealed bag and refrigerate for an hour and try again.

I rolled these cookies to 1/4 inch. My cookie cutters were large enough so I figured I wasn't going for gigantic cookies.

Spread them out because they will get bigger as they bake:)

These cookies shouldn't get color in the oven. They will stay light. Once they start cracking on the surface they are DONE. Take them out and put them on a cooling rack immediately.

Those last two pics here my kids' creations. For these I made a quick glaze for them. I usually just frost them from store bought frosting which I LOVE!! I used to bring a can of funfetti frosting to school for lunch. No joke. But recently I have been trying to make things on my own. Your choice:) I'll include the glaze in case you want to try it out. P.S. I would take the canned stuff over homemade any day. But these cookies are better than store bought hands down.

Sugar Cookies

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix the first 3 ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Cream shortening with hand mixer or kitchen Aide. Gradually add sugar, eggs, vanilla and dry ingredients.  Bake at 375 degrees for 5 1/2 to 7 minutes depending on how thick you rolled them out. See picture above for more details about baking.

Glaze


2 cups confectioners' sugar
4 teaspoons milk
4 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoons vanilla ( didn't use this and flavored it with cherry flavoring but you can use whatever)
food coloring of your choice

Mix ingredients with hand mixture until fully mixed. Dip or paint on cookies.