Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Week 1: Skillet Chicken and Broccoli Salad

One of the inconveniences of buying meat in bulk is that the meat is always frozen when I want to use it. Or I take it out of the freezer, stick it in the fridge with the intention of cooking it in a few days, and then I forget and it goes bad. One of my resolutions for this year is to stop wasting so much food and so, when I opened my fridge and saw five thawed chicken breasts, I was determined to use them. There are a bazillion recipes for chicken out there but
  1. I was looking for something light and healthy,
  2. I wanted to use only ingredients I had on hand, and
  3. I needed to have dinner on the table in less than an hour.
Skillet Chicken with Rice

I was on my fourth cookbook before I found a recipe that met all four requirements. Americas Test Kitchen to the rescue! Their Skillet Chicken and Rice is made with white wine and chicken broth rather cream. I didn't have the peas, scallions, or lemon that the recipe called for so I left them out. The basic rice and chicken is nothing to look at but was still delicious.


Broccoli Salad with Walnuts, Dates, and Red Cabbage

One of the challenges I am giving myself with this new experiment is to try new fruit/vegetable preparations. Normally we eat steamed vegetables or chopped vegetable salads with dinner. This is partly due to a lack of imagination on my part, but it is also because I like my fruits/vegetables to be fresh or barely cooked and very simply dressed.

Several years ago, during one of my many on-again, off-again engagements with Weight Watchers, I bought their Simply the Best: Italian cookbook. It was an impulse buy and quite frankly, there is really nothing all that interesting about this cookbook other than that it lists the Weight Watchers point values per serving for each recipe. But the one recipe I found that I absolutely love is for Broccoli, Raisin and Pine Nut Salad. I am not a fan of uncooked broccoli but if you chop it into small pieces, you'll never notice the raw flavor. I didn't have any raisins, bacon, or pine nuts so I substituted dates and walnuts and left out the bacon. I couldn't find the recipe online so I am posting it below.


* * *
Broccoli, Raisin, and Pine Nut Salad
From Weight Watcher's Simply the Best: Italian cookbook

2 Tb reduced-calorie mayonnaise
2 Tb nonfat sour cream
1 Tb packed dark brown sugar
1 Tb white-wine vinegar
3 Tb pine nuts, toasted
1 pound broccoli crowns, cut into small florets (about 4 cups)
2 Tb raisins
2 scallions, thinly sliced
3 slices bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled
2 c shredded red cabbage

1. Blend the mayonnaise, sour cream, brown sugar, and vinegar in a small bowl until smooth.
2. Toss the pine nuts, broccoli, raisins, scallions, and bacon in a salad bowl. Drizzle with the dressing and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate up to 1 day to blend the flavors.
3. Serve the salad over the cabbage.

Busy Mom Modifications

  • As I mentioned and as you can see from the photo, I left out the bacon, peas and scallions from the chicken and rice dish. You can add any cooked, chopped up vegetables and a handful of cheese to this dish (tossed in just before serving) to make it more interesting.
  • The recipe calls for broccoli crowns but I wanted to use up the stalks as well. I cut off the tough bottom of the stalk and most of the outer peel and then chopped it into 1/2 inch dice. Both kids ate crowns and stalks without comment.
  • I substituted walnuts and chopped up dates for the raisins and pine nuts. My daughter especially loved the dates and asked that I make it this way from now on.
  • I let the salad sit for a few minutes before serving, mainly because that was all the time I could spare. This dish keeps well though, and the leftovers that I had for lunch the next day tasted even better.

The Results

Both kids loved the salad. My finicky kid said this was now his favorite way to have broccoli, a vegetable he normally does not like to eat.

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