Dinner & a Movie

Healthy Eating for a Day

5/1/2018

Chicken with Black Bean Salsa

I didn’t 100% make the recipe per the cookbook. First, I baked the chicken because I feel like it’s easier and somewhat healthier. Second, I did NOT add pineapple. Gross. In no way would I have eaten this meal if there were pineapple chunks in my salsa. I just can’t do it, and throwing away my hard earned money is just not something I want to do anymore for this cookbook. So yeah.

Overall, I really liked this.

Though I didn’t make the rub for the chicken (I just used from salt, pepper, and garlic) while it baked in the oven, I felt like the salsa itself added enough flavor to the overall dish. I love that the salsa included garlic and of course onions. I’m pretty sure almost every recipe in this book as onion in it and I love it (although I know my fiance does not… mwahahaha). I’d make this again in the future, perhaps grilling it like the recipe says too.

Also, due to financial reasons and trying to be healthier, I’ll be taking a short break from all the cooking I’ve been up to. At least dialing it back a little, probably not stopping entirely because I want to finish this challenge!!

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Colorful Tomato n Mozzarella Salad

Still trying to be healthy.. Keyword trying (I’m actually not doing too terrible, though I’m not losing any weight)... I chose this salad for my lunch this week because it was simple to make and sounded delicious.

Well, it was pretty good. But I don’t think I like tomatoes unless they are red. Sometimes green, but this recipe only called for yellow and red tomatoes. Perhaps I just didn’t like the ones I bought, or maybe they were bad ones that just hadn't made their way to the trash just yet.

Since my grocery store never has anything I need for the most part, I had to be small grape sized tomatoes that came in a package of all different colors. I felt like that was good enough, but I wonder if actual tomatoes would have tasted any different? Not sure.

I also think I used too much balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. To be honest… I don’t think I even measured it. I just put it in the mason jar and filled up the bottom with a shallow layer of liquid.

I’d probably make this again, but with less “dressing” or with not salt and pepper at all. I’ve been eating balsamic and olive oil as dressings for quite awhile now and it’s not so bad. I don’t think it needed that extra spice from the salt/pepper combination. The mozzarella was good, but I left some tomatoes uneaten.

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Is it Spring Yet?

4/30/2018

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Southern Barbecued Chicken

Alas. I forgot to check the recipe before hand to see if the chicken had to marinate overnight. Guess what? It did. That’s okay though, I did it really early in the morning so it had about half a day to marinate. Good enough I think because I could still taste the marinade.

I wanted to do this recipe because I’m anxiously waiting for spring to stay. Apparently, it's coming a bit late this year and I'm not happy about it. I thought grilling would be the perfect thing to do over the weekend to kind of force spring to happen.

Well, we got a little side tracked and didn’t end up grilling until around 7 pm (that’s a late dinner for us!) and by that point it was getting darker, getting cooler, and starting to drizzle. So our hopes of sitting on the newly stained patio and enjoying some barbecue was not a thing. But we still ate it inside the house.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this chicken because I don’t think it cooked long enough, and the marinade didn’t give it too much taste (because it wasn’t overnight? I’m not sure). I needed to add some hot sauce to give it some more flavor. It’s a really easy recipe to make if you’re interested in just grilling up some bone-in chicken (actually, maybe that’s why I didn’t love it… bones and tendons are gross while I’m trying to eat plus I can’t use a fork and knife).

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Texas Tea

There aren’t too many drink recipes left in this cookbook, but since I wanted to barbecue I thought let’s do a tea from the south. I found this one named after Texas, and immediately thought it would be somewhat like a Long Island Iced Tea. And it pretty much is.

It just has some cola in it and a ton of other liquors (I’m sorry, I can’t remember what exactly is in a LIT). All I know is that this was a lot better than those LITs we made for this blog last year or so. Feel free to peruse the "history" section of this Dinner and a Movie blog to find the LIT recipe if you're at all interested.

I ended up putting my water enhancer flavor in it to make it easier to drink, but we sure polished off a pitcher of the stuff… all while watching IT. I’d pick this recipe over LIT, but not the ones from Applebee’s with Strawberry in it. YUM.

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Some of This, Some of That

4/26/2018

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Saucy Chicken and Asparagus

I like Chicken and I like Asparagus, so it's only fitting fort his to be my next chicken recipe. And it was fairly simple too. I decided not to boil the asparagus before hand (it was optional in the recipe), but I wish I would have because I think the asparagus would have been more cooked and less stringy.

The chicken itself, I'm not so sure I bought a good batch. Either that or it didn't cook quite right. It was really hard to cut with a knife because it really wanted to shred.

I really liked the sauce that came with it, made from mostly condensed cream of chicken. I thought overall it tasted delicious and I'd probably make this again. Put I'd probably make more chicken with it. I feel like there was way too much asparagus for the lack of chicken. A better ratio is definitely needed. Thumbs up!

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Chili Artichoke Dip

I was a little worried about this recipe because it called for so much artichoke. Two whole cans/jars. That’s a lot! And honestly, it was a lot, but it was so delicious I didn’t even care. The green chilis really brought up the taste of this dip and it was so good on my multigrain tortilla chips.

Since I’m the only one that will eat this, I’m going to have to do some damage as the week progresses. I didn’t have enough cheddar cheese so part of the cheese was made with mexican blend. It works right?

I say thumbs up on this recipe, and I would say I’d make it again but it would just be for me so it may not be worth it. Mmm I’m thinking about it right now. Should have brought some for lunch.

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Three Bean Salad

My friends decided to have an impromptu BBQ this weekend, so I decided to make a side. This three bean salad was perfect to go with the hot dogs and burgers, and since I knew no one would eat it I made sure to pick something that I would eat myself throughout the week. I plan to put this in my salads for lunch for this week.

Like the shrimp po boys, I can taste the cayenne pepper in this. There are actually a lot of spices in this dish, but I feel like they all go together perfectly. The three beans are great together… I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Northern Beans before so that’s a new one for me.

The best thing about this dish is that it cost me less that $10 for everything (except for the tortilla chips, but that wasn’t really necessary to buy). I don’t think I would make it again, but it’s still good for now!

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