Slow Cooker Raspberry Chipotle Chicken

Slow cooker recipes are awesome. Seriously you do a little work in the morning and (6 hours later) BAM!, you've got a tasty dinner waiting for you that evening. This one in particular was pretty awesome. I'd like for it to have tasted a little more raspberry and a little less chipotle but I'm willing to overlook that because it was pretty flippin' good. Next time I think I'll double the raspberry syrup though.

Admittedly, the raspberry-chipotle combo sounds a little weird. But it intrigued me so I tried it and it was surprisingly not a strange flavor. Just spicy with a little sweetness added in. Keep in mind that this one is spicy though. If you're not into that sort of thing, steer clear! Or cut back on the paprika and maybe use less of the chipotle peppers.

Slow Cooker Raspberry Chipotle Chicken

Ingredients:

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into halves
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1/4 cup Torani (or DaVinci) sugar-free raspberry flavor syrup
• 1 small can chipotle chilies canned in adobo sauce (find it in the hispanic foods aisle)
• 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• Chopped cilantro, optional

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat
2. Sprinkle chicken with the paprika and brown chicken on both sides in skillet, transfer to slow cooker
3. In a blender (I used my magic bullet), combine the raspberries, syrup, chipotle chilies in adobo, and white wine vinegar. Process until smooth and pour over chicken
4. Cover the slow cooker and heat the chicken and sauce on low for 6 hours.
5. Sprinkle cilantro over chicken and serve.

And there it is! Till next time...

Shrimp in Spicy Beer & Butter Sauce

And so scripture says: On the fifth day, God looked down upon Earth and said, "May you have delicious spicy shrimp sauteed in butter and beer", and it was good.

...Okay, not quite but it might as well be called Shrimp from the Gods because it's so flippin' good. I mean honestly I cannot think of a better combination of ingredients. Also, as a bonus, it only uses 3/4 cup of a beer so the cook gets to drink the rest of it. I mean, the beer would go bad after a few minutes of being opened so you might as well drink it right away. Don't think about that last statement too much, just go with it.

In any case, as a Wisconsinite, I'm pretty sure I'm morally obligated to like this dish. Even if I wasn't though, I would. Don't just take my word for it though. It's very easy to make and, while not the absolute healthiest thing I've cooked, it's got virtually no carbs in it and you can cut back on a lot of the fat if you use a kind of 'Oh my gosh it's not butter!' substitute of some sort. And, though it calls for 6 Tbsp of butter, you could get by with about 3-4 easily, I had a lot of residual sauce.

I could seriously go on about this dish forever. But, since the effects of finishing the remainder of the beer are setting upon me and I feel my wits slowly fading, I'll stop here. (Did I mention I'm the world's biggest lightweight?)

Enjoy!

Shrimp in Spicy Beer & Butter Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 6 Tbsp butter
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 3/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried ground rosemary
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3/4 cup light beer

Directions:

1. In a heavy skillet, melt butter over medium-low heat
2. As the butter is melting, stir in salt, paprika, chili powder, thyme, rosemary, oregano, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce
3. When butter is melted, add shrimp and let saute for 2-3 minutes per side
4. Pour light beer into skillet, cover and let the shrimp cook another 2-3 minutes
5. Uncover and let simmer slightly longer, until shrimp are pink on both sides
6. Remove shrimp from stove, place in a large bowl and cover, leaving most of the sauce in the skillet
7. Turn up the heat to high and boil the sauce until it's reduced by about half
8. Pour sauce over shrimp to serve

I might add my apartment smells like a beer-filled heaven. So that's a bonus. :)

Spicy Turkey Bacon and Egg Scramble (Saturday morning bonus recipe)

Surprise! It's a bonus recipe. I actually wasn't planning on blogging this one but it turned out so good I decided I'd be a good person and pass it on. You're welcome.

Not that it's anything extraordinary or novel. But it's tasty and healthy (comes in at about 250 cals and around 6 net carbs!) so it's worth sharing in my opinion. Here goes...

Spicy Turkey Bacon and Egg Scramble

Ingredients:

• 3 Egg whites + 1 Whole Egg
• 2 slices Turkey Bacon
• 1 oz Reduced-fat Pepperjack Cheese, sliced and cut into 1 inch or so pieces
• 1/3 Red bell pepper, cut into small strips
• 1/3 Jalapeno, diced
• Hot sauce

Directions:

1. Chop up peppers and mix together with scrambled egg and egg whites
2. Heat up flat griddle pan and cook turkey bacon over the stove until it's almost done (make sure it isn't 100% cooked because when you add it to the eggs it will cook more)
3. Remove from heat and chop into several pieces, add to the egg mixture
4. Spray frying pan with nonstick cooking spray and let heat for a minute or two over medium/medium-high heat
5. Add eggs with bacon and peppers to pan and when they're all scrambled and mostly cooked, add the slices of pepperjack and mix together with the eggs until the cheese has melted
6. Remove from stove and add as much or as little hot sauce as you want before serving.

The right way to start off a Saturday. Amiright????

Portobello Mushroom Pizzas

I've had this recipe for a while and I kept buying the ingredients for it and then forgetting to make it. No joke I think I bought the portobello caps twice before and then forgot about them, so they went bad and no mushroom pizzas for me. :( Until today that is. I woke up early and had some extra time on my hands in the morning, so I decided to make these quickly so I could have them for lunch. Good idea or best idea? Best idea, obviously.

So this morning I made them and it actually only took 10 minutes (probably less), start to finish. I put them in a tupperware container and brought them to work. Got some weird looks at first but they turned out amazing, even after reheating in the microwave, so I was okay with it. (Don't worry, nobody is actually going to judge you for eating this.) It looks a little weird but it's a healthy way to eat pizza, which is no easy feat. Trust me, after utterly failing to make a cauliflower crust pizza once, I can assure you that cooking a healthy pizza is damn near impossible. Fortunately, this is the exception.

Give it a shot. If you're not a mushroom person you probably won't love this because it definitely tastes like a portobello. But if you don't mind mushrooms, try this. I mean YOLO, right? (Just kidding... kind of)

Portobello Mushroom Pizzas

Ingredients:

• 2-4 Portobello mushroom caps
• Pizza sauce (I used the "heart healthy" one)
• Shredded cheese of your choice (I used reduced fat 4 cheese Italian)
• Pepperoni slices (or turkey pepperoni if you really want to be healthy)
• Parmesan cheese, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat your broiler
2. Take the portobellos and scrape out the "gills" and cut off the protruding part of the stem so that the underside of the mushroom is flat 
3. Fill the mushroom cap with the pizza sauce (I probably only used 1/4 cup per cap)
4. Cover with cheese and top with pepperoni
5. Place under the broiler for a few minutes until cheese is melted, but keep an eye on it, mine almost burned after about 3 minutes
6. Sprinkle with parmesan if desired and serve!

You're welcome, world.

Orange Shrimp & Bell Pepper Stir Fry

This blogging thing is fun, I have to admit. Not only does it give me something to do but it motivates me to actually cook a healthy dinner instead of throwing some chicken nuggets in the oven. Not that there's anything wrong with chicken nuggets, but that probably shouldn't happen every night.

Anyway, tonight's recipe is actually a semi-original one. I'll emphasize the "semi" part because I still got the inspiration and many of the ingredients from other recipes I already have. But if you want to believe I'm the next Top Chef, I'm not about to stop you. ;)

The nice thing about this recipe is that while its list of ingredients is a little daunting, it's super easy to make and a lot of the ingredients (or ingredients that are close enough to substitute for what's listed) are in your kitchen already. I like my food spicy so I sprinkled on extra red pepper flakes but if you're not a fan of spicy food then you can skip the red pepper flakes or modify it to your preferred level of spiciness. :) I'll also add that the sauce came out pretty thin even after bubbling for a few minutes so if you're not worried about carbs feel free to add cornstarch to thicken it. Or if you're into low carb food so much that you have a low carb thickener (such as guar or xanthan gum) then use that. I'm just not quite that fancy yet.

Orange Shrimp & Bell Pepper Stir Fry

Ingredients:

• 1 lb frozen cooked shrimp, thawed, deveined & tail removed
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
• 1/3 onion, sliced 
• 2 Tbsp canola/vegetable oil
• Juice from 2 oranges (should yield ~1/3 cup)
• 1/3 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp Splenda
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes

Directions:

1. Make sure everything is chopped, measured, and ready to go
2. To make the sauce, mix together everything from the orange juice to the red pepper flakes
3. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and saute bell peppers and onions for 4-5 minutes or until onions begin to lose opacity
4. Turn burner down to medium heat, add shrimp and pour in sauce
5. Let sauce and shrimp heat for 2-3 minutes, add cornstarch or thickener to sauce if desired
6. Remove from burner and serve (feel free to add more red pepper flakes here)

There ya go. Enjoy!

Crispy Cheddar Baked Chicken

My first recipe post and wow was it a good one! I just made this tonight and it was amaaazing. Pretty easy too. I'd say prep took maybe 15 minutes and then you sit back, relax and let the oven do its work for 35 min. Which is nice after a long day. Or a short day actually. Easy cooking is good pretty much any day IMO.

This recipe has made its rounds on the internet but I made some adjustments that make it a little healthier and lower carb/ lower fat. Substituting olive oil cooking spray for butter to grease the pan, using soy flour instead of all-purpose flour, leaving out the breadcrumbs. If you're not concerned about the health-factor, feel free to use melted butter to grease the pan and use AP flour for coating. 

I personally did not use the breadcrumbs from the original recipe not for the sake of saving calories/carbs but because I failed miserably to find Shake n Bake at the grocery store. Seriously, you'd think that would be an easy item to find. But I looked on two separate occasions and nope nope nope. You might have better luck though so feel free to use a pouch of Shake n Bake in the Rice Krispie & cheese mixture.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

Crispy Cheddar Baked Chicken

Ingredients:

• Olive Oil Cooking Spray
• 1/2 cup Soy Flour (or All-Purpose Flour)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 Egg
• 1 Tbsp Milk
• 1 cup shredded Reduced Fat Cheddar Cheese
• 1 cup Rice Krispies cereal
• 3 skinless, boneless Chicken Breasts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and coat baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Mix together the flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a bowl.
3. Whisk together the egg and milk in a different bowl.
4. In the last bowl, combine cheese and cereal. Take a meat mallet or heavy object and press down into the bowl, crushing the cereal and mixing it with the cheese.
5. Take the chicken breasts and dredge in flour mixture first, then dip in the egg, and press into the cheese and cereal mixture to coat. Place in greased baking dish.
6. Feel free to press the residual cheese/cereal mixture onto the chicken breasts once in the dish and ready to go. 
7. Bake for about 35 minutes or until coating is golden and chicken is done (Mine took slightly under 35 so check it at 30 minutes too)

Nommmmmmz. :)

Hooray! It's a blog!

I'm going to be honest, I'm bored. I need a hobby. I collect recipes all the time and annoy my facebook friends with pictures of food I make so here's my solution: Recipe Blog. I'll add a disclaimer, most of the things I post will not be my own original recipes. I'm not very creative in the kitchen but I am pretty good at cooking and baking, and recreating/modifying others' delicious ideas.

My recipe posts will for the most part be low-carb, healthy meals and baked goods, but I fully support indulging every once in a while and I make a mean cheesecake so... yeah, there will be some unhealthy dishes as well. Also expect that there may be cat photos periodically because my blog wouldn't be my own without pictures of adorable animals. I do realize that yes, it is completely unrelated to my blog concept. Is it entirely necessary? Probably not. Am I going to do it anyway? Yep!

In any case, stay tuned if you enjoy delicious food in your belly while simultaneously not increasing the circumference of said belly. Which is pretty much everybody so you have no excuse. :)