Leftovers...and a few general updates

Tonight, we revisited the Crispy Herb Chicken recipe I raved about last night!  Again, it was delicious!  I dearly love fresh, fried chicken with a nice crispy skin, with just the right amount of pepper and salt, but this new chicken recipe is playing a very close second to that!  It's easy, and yummy, and for the last two nights, The Bug has come running from the opposite end of the house when he has smelled it cooking, anxious to dig in.  He liked it so well last night that he asked if he could just have 2 pieces of it tonight, and nothing else.

The nothing else he wanted to have tonight was leftover zucchini lasagna from last week's menu.  It was, by no means, pretty to look at tonight, and it was not nearly as yummy as the first night, but a bite of lasagna and a bite of chicken at the same time worked famously.  I had the idea last night that this chicken recipe, with a slight adjustment to the spices, would be a great way to make chicken parmesan.  Served with the lasagna tonight, I am convinced!  Seriously, this chicken just makes me giddy.

I told my man tonight that if I get no more recipes out of this project than this chicken one, it will have been worth it.  I will definitely be making this chicken for the rest of my life!!

In other news:

          I mentioned that I was on Weight Watchers when I began this and was wondering how the project would work with tracking points, and vice versa.  I am happy to announce that I have lost a total of 10 pounds since I started!  And, last night, I ran 6 kilometers, which equals 3.75-something miles, the farthest I've run, since 2 springs ago, when I ran a 10-mile race.  I'm quite excited!  My next goal:  4 miles.  It's the next step toward a race that I signed up for in June - a 10k trail race.  And for now, I'm still contemplating whether or not I want to revisit the same 10-mile race.  It takes place in April, not too hot, sometimes rainy, which means not so sweaty, which I love!!!  I just haven't decided if I want to commit yet.

          Another thing I think I should add:  my New Year's Resolution this year has been to not allow irrational fear to dictate the decisions I make.  Because something is weird, or too hard, or is not a good enough reason not to do it.  I'm not unreasonable, of course.  I'm not talking about stupid things.  But, for instance, for 2 years in a row, I have signed up for and chickened out of the Baltimore half-marathon just because I was scared.  See, the thing is, both times, I've signed up for it way in advance, so the amount they charge was already spent, and gone, and things being "out of sight, out of mind" as they can be with me, it was easy not to let losing that money bother me.  After all, I have reasoned, the money then goes to a good cause.  UGH!  Admitting it even makes me squirm.  I mean, seriously, I spent 8 weeks in boot camp.  I have delivered 3 babies.  I have endured a number of deployments, and their associated crises, to include one in which I was rear-ended, totaling my husband's '91 Camaro, and I have made it this far.  And I decide to let 13 miles stump me.  And not just once.  Twice.

To make matters worse, my husband and I have friends (a couple) whose daughter (who is in middle school now), has completed her first half-marathon already.  GRR!!!

          And now, as I type this, I realize that I have just put this out into cyberspace, and still have not signed up for that race.  HMMMM....Guess I better hit "send" before I get the urge to delete what I've just written.

The Crispy Herb Chicken was a HIT!!!

On Saturday, I posted that I was going to make the Crispy Herb Chicken and "Better Than Potatoes" Mashed Cauliflower on Sunday and that I would blog about it today.  I didn't get around to making those dishes on Sunday, but I did today; well, half-way.

The cauliflower recipe I was not able to make.  The cauliflower smelled funny before I even started cooking it, so I scrapped that idea.  I will try to make it again at a later date.  When I do, I will post the link to the website where I found the recipe.

As for the chicken.  Well, let me just tell you about the chicken!!  Man alive, was it good!

Before I begin gushing about the chicken, here is the recipe.

CRISPY HERB CHICKEN

2 c. potato flakes     

2/3 c. Parmesan cheese     

2 T. parsley flakes     

1 t. onion powder

1/2 t. garlic salt     

1/4 t. paprika     

1/8-1/4 t. pepper

3 whole chickens, quartered, skinned, rinsed & patted dry

1 c. butter/margarine, melted

Heat oven to 375.  Grease, or line with foil, two 15x10 cookie sheets or two 13x9 pans.  In medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients; stir until well mixed.  Dip chicken into melted butter; then roll in the potato flake mix.  Place in prepared pans.  Bake at 375 for 60-75 minutes or till chicken is tender and golden brown, reversing pans halfway through for even browning.

My tweaks:  I do not keep garlic salt because, when I do, every dish comes out saltier than I like.  I used garlic powder and salt.  Also, I didn't use whole chicken, but chicken breasts.  There are just 4 of us eating, so I made 2 breasts a piece, though these were thinner than typical, big-on-one-side, therefore difficult-to-cook-evenly, chicken breasts.  I believe it was a packet of pre-portioned Tyson's breasts, but I threw out the original packaging when I brought them home to make it easier to store them.  Also, instead of the full cup of butter, I used 1/2 a cup, and 6 of those ounces were left-over 1-ounce packets of Papa John's Garlic Butter Dipping Sauce.  (Okay, admittedly, this is not the healthiest thing in the world, but I thought the extra garlic might not hurt, and, besides, the butter is just to help the coating stick anyway...so, don't judge.)

I went ahead and made the full amount of coating, because I originally intended to make chicken thighs to go along with the breasts, but decided against it at the last minute.  So, I ended up having more of the coating than I needed, but the chicken was so good, that I'm making more tomorrow and will use the rest of the coating then.

Since I didn't use the type of chicken called for in the recipe, I had to figure out the cooking time.  I did 15 minutes, then turned the pans around, and cooked it for another 10-15 minutes.  The edges got all brown and crunchy, the Parmesan cheese got all melty, and the family started pouring out of their rooms, into the kitchen, to see what they were smelling.  It was just that good.  Not only did it smell good after it was done cooking, but it even smelled good during preparation.  This chicken was fabulous.  Initially, I was bummed that the cauliflower didn't turn out, but the success of this chicken eclipsed the bad cauliflower altogether!  I ended up serving it with mashed potatoes, and all 8 breasts were scarfed down.  My nine-year-old at 2 by himself.  And he was asking for the second one before he even touched his potatoes.

fresh out of the oven

As for my daughter, she was lamenting that she was not able to make the Chubacca sound.  She had to settle for a groan of delight!  Of course, since she mentioned Chubacca, we all had to see if we could try to make that same sound, and since we couldn't, we decided that the actor must've used a voice enhancer, or it was added in, by way of a sound-mixer.  Surely no human can make that sound.  

My man was smitten after the first teaser sample I gave him, and sat down to eat without even looking at his drink.  Then, he went to get another one.  He showed remarkable restraint in that he only took one of the last 2 (shown above), and he saved the other one for The Bug (the nine-year-old).

BEFORE

DURING

MORE DURING

and AFTER!

Yes, it was JUST THAT good!!!

p.s. - I have no idea where this recipe came from.  

I wish I did, because I would chat that person up BIG TIME!

Zucchini Lasagna - YUMMY!!!

Recipe Number Two, and let me just say, WOW!  

I got this recipe off of Pinterest; however, it's original source is from a little foodie blog called "Jo and Sue."  You can find them at:  joandsue.blogspot.com.

This is a Pinterest recipe, and I pinned it for two reasons:  (1) my husband loves my lasagna recipe (which is really my mother's, which is a hybrid of 2 other recipes she tried), but would like it if I would use less pasta.  He grew up eating Mexican food all the time: beans, tortillas, and the like.  Not a lot of noodles.  So, they sit heavier on his stomach than he likes; (2) my sister's mother-in-law had sent some zucchini lasagna home with her once, and I got to try it and was instantly smitten.  So...I've been wanting a recipe ever since.  This one, as it turns out, has tons of veggies, and I am always looking for ways to get my kids to eat more vegetables, especially if I can disguise them as something they'd rather eat, like 

Enter this recipe!  

This recipe has tons going for it:  ground turkey rather than ground beef; a whole head of broccoli; a whole head of cauliflower, 2 cups of spinach, and marinara sauce.  

I added a few of my own tweaks:  a whole onion, while browning the turkey; red pepper flakes; freshly ground black pepper; and finally, some grape tomatoes I had roasted last week (with olive oil, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, some salt, and some freshly ground black pepper) before they could go bad on me!

My experience making this recipe: 

Browning the turkey and onion together, I was already liking it.  I've used ground turkey before in some recipes, BEFORE I KNEW HOW, and was not impressed with the lack of flavor.  This was years ago, though, and I was not aware that it would not taste the same as ground beef; therefore, I didn't season it the way that I needed to.  But, with a chopped yellow onion, it smells really good!  And with garlic powder and red pepper flakes, it smells even better.  But, in case that wasn't enough, then it was time to add the other ingredients.  The first thing I added was my own roasted tomatoes, and it just got better!  Next I added the marinara, broccoli, and cauliflower.  After those vegetables my pot was full.  

Now, I've cooked with fresh vegetables enough to know that they will cook WAY down, but I was still nervous to see how full my pot was, and I hadn't even added the spinach yet.  I was debating whether or not to even try.  I thought:  "Well, I can always use it for something else."  Of course, I probably wouldn't, and it would be thrown away after it sat in the refrigerator long enough to get funky smelling, which happens more than I care to admit.

But... the broccoli and cauliflower did cook down, and there was room in my pot for the full 2 cups of spinach, and that cooked down too.  Thankfully!  Funny how you can "know" a thing, but then still have to see it to believe it!  

Once it had cooked down a fair amount, I tasted it, and it was a bit bland.  The recipe doesn't call for much salt, so I'm sure that's why it was not as flavorful as I'd like.  Furthermore, comments on the blog concerning the recipe mention that a few of the people had an issue with the final product being a little more watery than they'd like.  SO...I added more salt, and let it cook down even longer.

In the meantime, I prepped the zucchini.  A few words about that:

          1.  I did not like trying to slice the zucchini lengthwise.  I should've done what Rachel Ray recommends, and sliced a bit off one side so that it had a base to sit on.  I'll do that next time!  Trying to keep a zucchini from rolling and trying to slice it into uniform pieces is more than I am capable to doing.

          2.  The blog says to roast the zucchini for 5 minutes on each side at 425.  I did this, but only after I salted it for a while to draw out the juices.  I wanted to make doubly sure that my lasagna was not overly watery.  This worked extremely well for the pieces that were decently thick, but on the slices that were too thin, not so much.  When I baked the thin pieces (on silicon sheet pans, rather than cookie sheets with parchment paper), after they had been salted, they wanted to stick to the pan. 

Finally, the sauce had cooked down sufficiently, and I tried it again, and I LOVED it!  That being said, my kids, who were sitting in the living room, were less than impressed with the smell.  Admittedly, I am not fond of the smell of broccoli when it cooks, but I could smell it the way they were.  After I had the lasagna in the oven, I found out that they had tried to make a deal with their father to get out of eating the meal because they were not fond of the smell of the sauce.

Personally, I didn't really care, because I had already tasted it and knew that I was probably going to like it.  However, I have not gone into this project with the impression that they, or I, will like everything that I make over the next year.  My only issue is with their deciding they aren't going to like it before they even try it.  However, whenever I try a new recipe, I employ a tactic I learned from a friend of mine called the "no-thank-you bite."  You don't have to like it.  I can't dictate that.  But you do have to try it.  

Before buying the ingredients for the lasagna, I read through the comments on the blog.  There were a few comments regarding ricotta cheese, and the success those who used it had had (the original recipe calls for cottage cheese), and since I hadn't used it before, I decided to try ricotta rather than cottage cheese.  Again, A BIG SUCCESS!  

After I had the lasagna in the oven, I called my husband into the kitchen to try the sauce, to give me his opinion.  He said it was good, but seemed like it was missing something, that maybe it would be better all put together, with the cheese, and everything.  So, I took a bite of the sauce, and a bit of the left-over ricotta/parmesan mixture and - LET ME TELL YOU -  I could've just eaten those two things together.  A bite of cheese filling and a bite of sauce!  YUM!  Another bite of both delivered to my man, and we both confirmed his previous suspicions:  SAUCE + CHEESE = FANTASTIC!

Finally, an hour and 10 minutes later, it was time to dish out the lasagna.  The kids both received their "no-thank-you bite" and my man and I dished out our bowls.  And my kids - who had tried to wrangle their way out of eating the meal I so lovingly prepared for them became converts!  Any my husband, who suspected he was going to like it after trying the sauce/cheese combination, sat down with his bowl and did not put the bowl down to take so much as even a drink of Coke until after his bowl was empty!  

the gorgeous masterpiece

As for me, well...I've been doing this whole Weight Watchers/points counting thing long enough now that my stomach has shrunk to about the size of a pea.  I ate a little less than half of my serving (about 6 decent-sized bites) and I was full.  But man, were those bites heavenly!  

and, from the top

This lasagna was so good, in fact, that my husband and I decided that this is going to be the lasagna I take to our church for our annual couple's Valentine's dinner!  All I'll have to do is double the recipe!

YEEHAW! for a big hit!  I do love my mama's lasagna recipe, and this one will never be able to replace it, but it is a healthy alternative which will enable me to be able to eat more lasagna more often!  So...SCORE!!

A couple quick notes:  

          1.  During assembly, after each layer of the ricotta/parmesan filling mix, I also added a thin layer of mozzarella cheese.  

2.  I had enough sauce left over, for another whole lasagna.

Finally, here is the link that will take you right to the recipe!  Try it!  I think you'll be impressed.

ZUCCHINI LASAGNA