healthy recipe

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I kicked Healthy Recipe Week off last night with a delicious modification of a sometimes-fattening favorite, white chili. The recipe I started with was on the Kerrygold website (psssst check back Monday for a Kerrygold giveaway!). Along the way I added some tweaks and changes and made it healthier but just as satisfying as the original. One step at a time, right?

healthy chicken chili ingredients

First, I gathered my ingredients:

1 can white beans, 1 super large chicken breast, 1/2 yellow onion, 1/2 bag spinach, 2 large jalapenos, 1 cup 0% Greek yogurt, and a splash of whole milk

spinach

First, I washed the spinach and chopped it up using my favorite veggie scissors. Then I chopped the jalapeno and onion and added all of the veggies to a bit of olive oil to get simmering.

In the meantime, I cooked and chopped the chicken using the same scissors which are perfect for making pulled pork and other chopped meat.

chicken

Once the chicken was cooked, I added it and the white beans to the vegetables, then folded in the yogurt.

white chicken chili

At the end I added the splash of milk. The original recipe called for two cups of whole milk, so I saved a lot of fat and calories here. The yogurt added the richness and creaminess that I was looking for along with calcium, which I have been lacking in these days.

white chili

Once the chili was done, I made room for fun toppings including a sprinkle of Kerrygold Dubliner cheese, some smoky garlic chipotle salsa, and some guacamole.

chili toppings

At the end of a long day visiting with our nieces, shopping, and looking at boats, we had a quick, hot meal, didn’t spend a fortune and didn’t feel gross after eating. I need to remember that feeling more often when I want to go out for an extravagant meal or order something not-so-healthy or worse, skip dinner and end up eating crappy snacks late at night.

What are you cooking up this weekend?

Tags: chicken, chili, Food, healthy recipe, recipe

One of the cookbooks that has been inspiring me this week is The Secret Ingredient by Sally Bee. I wrote about The Secret Ingredient last year, and I picked up again this weekend when trying to plan out some healthy and exciting meals. I love that this book never sacrifices flavor. It treats food as something that is supposed to be pleasurable but also something that is meant to be fueling and healing.

As a lover of fennel, I was excited to try a take on Sally Bee’s Crunchy Baked Fennel recipe. I bought two giant bulbs at Trader Joe’s over the weekend.

fennel

I cut the fennel into quarters and put the quarters into boiling water for about eight minutes.

fennel

While the fennel was boiling, I sliced a summer squash and a sweet onion. The original recipe did not include either, but I had them and thought they would go well with the other ingredients.

summer squash

Once the fennel was soft, I layered the veggies in my new casserole dish. My sister and family got me a whole set of these dishes for my birthday, including cute little ramekins and new loaf dishes. I love them!

baked vegetables

I topped the layers of veggies with slivers of garlic, panko bread crumbs, and olive oil.

crunchy baked vegetables

Into a 400 degree oven they went, and 20 minutes later, I had these crunchy baked vegetables. The anise-flavor of the soft, gooey fennel, the sweetness of the onion, and the buttery bread crumbs all went perfectly together. This veggie side dish was incredibly enjoyable. And it was the perfect side for my fish in a packet. I wish dinner was this good and healthy every night!

What should I make next?

Tags: fennel, health, healthy recipe, onions, side dish, squash, vegan, vegetables, Vegetarian

So easy, so delicious, so healthy! Fish cooked in a foil packet means a juicy, flavorful, healthy meal with very little cleanup and little to no butter or oil required. Winning! (Did I just write that? For the record, there are few people I can say I hate, and Charlie Sheen is one of them. What a jerk.)

Anyway, back to the good stuff. I have been resisting tomatoes all winter. They are all grown so far away or are just not very good in the winter that I don’t bother. But I have been craving summery recipes in the worst way, so I decided to take the leap and buy a box of cherry tomatoes over the weekend.

cherry tomato

I built the rest of the dish around them. A beautiful filet of haddock from my favorite little local, Dorchester Market, played the part of the healthy protein. I simply laid it in the foil and surrounded it by juicy tomatoes.

fish in a packet

Then I topped it with three cloves of garlic, cut into thin slices. Well, as thin as my patience allowed. To that, I added a drizzle of blood orange olive oil. You could leave this out and just let the fish steam in its own juices, but I am obsessed with blood orange olive oil, and I knew it would make this dish super fancy. Smile

fish in a packet

I topped the fish with slices of lemon and some black pepper, wrapped up the foil tightly, and popped it in the oven at 400 for 17 minutes.

fish cooked in a foil packet

I should mention that I cooked the fish from frozen. I bought it fresh, but when I realized we wouldn’t have time to eat it for days, I put it in the freezer. It was very thin, so the cooking time was perfect. Discovering the ability to cook fish from frozen and still end up with something so fresh is a miracle.

I served this dish with a great veggie side, which I will share in tomorrow’s post. It was a meal that not just tasted really great, but it also felt really good. Now if we could just get some spring weather, and I am talking 60 degrees or higher.

I forgot to announce the winner of the Starbucks giveaway. . . congratulations, Taryn! Please email me with your address so I can send your coffee.

Tags: blood orange olive oil, fish, garlic, haddock, healthy recipe, lemons, recipe, vegetables

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