Raspberry-Balsamic Chicken with Goat Cheese Crumbles

I had something very similar to this the other night when we went to Longhorn Steakhouse and I wanted to try it!  I made it tonight for supper and it was delicious!  I'm always looking for new ways to fix chicken!

Raspberry-Balsamic Chicken with Goat Cheese Crumbles

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• Cooking spray
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided 
• 4 (4-ounce) skinned, boned chicken breasts
• 1/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper 
• Goat cheese crumbles

Preparation

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat until hot. Add onion; sauté 5 minutes. Combine thyme and 1/4 teaspoon salt; sprinkle over chicken. Add chicken to skillet; sauté 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from skillet; keep warm. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, preserves, vinegar, and pepper, stirring constantly until the preserves melt. Spoon raspberry sauce over chicken and top with goat cheese crumbles.

Navy bean and ham soup

I got this idea from my cousin Rebecca's blog.  It looked so good and I couldn't wait to try it!  I did a few things differently, though; I left out the carrots and I threw in the bacon.  :)  It was absolutely delicious!  Larry and I ate the whole pot.

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried navy beans
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 celery rib, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup diced cooked ham
• 6-8 bacon strips, cooked crispy and crumbled
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Place beans in large Dutch oven and cover with cold water, with water about 2 inches above beans. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a simmer. Cook for five minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 1 hour. Drain and rinse beans, discarding liquid.

Soup

1. In large Dutch oven, melt butter over medium-high heat.
2. Add onions and celery and saute for five minutes.
3. Add garlic and saute for thirty seconds.
4. Add chicken broth, bacon, beans, parsley, rosemary, bay leaves and diced ham.
5. Add a little freshly ground black pepper.
6. Bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 1-1½ hours. You may need to add additional stock.
8. If you want to thicken the soup, remove about 2 cups of beans and puree in a blender then add back to the soup.
9. Taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper.

Sunday Pizza!

Larry and I both are eating the South Beach way these days.  We've both lost seven pounds!  One of his friends on Facebook posted a recipe this morning for a no-carb pizza so we tried it this afternoon.  

We just used things we had on hand.  Cheese, eggs, pepperoni, onions, jalapenos, spaghetti sauce, mushrooms, olives, garlic and some cubed ham left over from breakfast.

Here's how we did it!

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  We made our crust from four cups of shredded Mexican cheese and four eggs.  Mix together and press onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.

Add whatever toppings you like!  Pop back in the oven for five more minutes.  That's it!  Sooooo easy and so good.  

Larry couldn't resist smelling the cheese crust when it came out of the oven!

Here's the finished product!  It was sooooo, SO good.  And we didn't feel that bloat that pizza usually gives us.  We will definitely be doing this again!

Sunday Supper - Pork Chop Casserole

I don't know if it's because I'm southern or if it's because I'm lazy but I love a casserole.  Just having the whole meal in one dish makes me so happy.  One of my favorite things to make is poppy seed chicken casserole.  And I make baked chicken thighs with red potatoes, olive oil and rosemary a lot, too.  I call that Rosemary Chicken and it's not really a casserole but it still all goes into a 9x13 glass dish so it's close enough for me!  So when I hear of a casserole I've never had or made, I have to try it.  The other night, one of the guys I work with had pork chop casserole leftovers for supper and I tried it and it was sooooo good.  He gave me the recipe and I made it today.  It was delicious!!

• 4 pork chops (I used boneless pork sirloin cutlets)
• 4 cups sliced potatoes
• 1 can cream of celery soup
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper, or to taste
• grated American cheese

Brown pork chops. Place potatoes in greased 2-quart baking dish. Saute onions in pork chop drippings. Mix together soup, milk, onions and drippings, salt and pepper.  Pour over potatoes.  Place pork chops over potatoes; sprinkle with cheese.  Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for about 60 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.  Serves 4.

Hi nonny nonny and a ha cha cha!

I still sing Spanky's little song on Saturdays sometimes...  :)



Since my sweet hubby is nursing a bad case of food poisoning, I'm flying solo this weekend.  I think he's got salmonella from some bad (or undercooked) chicken.  He was pretty sick when I talked to him last night.  Poor baby.  There's not much you can do about food poisoning but if he was here, I could at least take care of him.  But if he was HERE, he wouldn't have eaten no bad chicken!!  Argh.  It won't be long now, though.

So I slept in this morning, which, by the way, means something different to me than it did two months ago.  I've gotten used to getting up at 4:30 so now sleeping in to me means 10:00.  Two months ago, it meant 1:00!  :)

I had planned to jump on my housework right away and then go buy groceries.  When I finally pulled myself away from Facebook at 1:00, half the day was gone!  Oh, Facebook, I wish I knew how to quit you.  Anyway, I got the laundry done and the floors mopped, the entire place dusted and scrubbed down and vacuumed.  Feels a lot better now.  And smells a little like blackberries.  Hmmmm.

I went to the store and got some food for the next couple of weeks.  I've been taking Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers frozen meals for lunch (and, yes, eatin' them biscuits at morning break, shut up) so I got ten of them and two cases of Lipton diet green tea that I absolutely LOVE OHMYGOD and some other things.

I made this simple salad for supper.  Sliced tomatoes and avocados, salt and pepper and some homemade lime dressing (balsamic vinegar, olive oil and the juice of one lime).  It was amazing!!  If you like 'maters and avocados and I DO.

I'm planning to go to the air show tomorrow at the base.  Everybody on Facebook today was fussin' about the long lines to get on the bus to get out to the flight line.  There are only four parking lots they're letting us park in and you have to have your ID to even get on base.  They're trying to get everybody to park off base and ride the bus.  Parking is limited for us during the day at work!  I know it's a nightmare with 25,000 people trying to get there this weekend.  It's gonna be an adventure.  :)  I'm taking my sunscreen and my ear plugs, my camera and my patience.  Stay tuned...

Eggplant tomato parmesan

Mama gave me a HUGE eggplant that she and Daddy got at the farmers market and this is what I did with it!  I just made up something.  I sliced the eggplant and blanched it in boiling salted water for about five minutes, then I minced two cloves of garlic and sauteed them in olive oil with basil, salt and pepper.  I layered the eggplant slices in the bottom of the dish, topped them with mozzarella cheese, added two cut up fresh tomatoes, more mozzarella and then parmesan cheese on top.  I baked it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

This is how it turned out!!

Yummy!!

Pizza, South Beach style!

I used my new pizza stone tonight and made a healthy, whole wheat pizza.  It was soooooo gooooooood!!

 This is what I used.  

I brushed olive oil onto a store-bought crust, added baby spinach, mozzarella (shredded and sliced), tomatoes courtesy of my sweet friend, Sabrina and her precious little Ellie who brought them to me today, fresh sliced mushrooms, feta cheese and fresh basil from my little plant on my laundry room windowsill. 

 This is it just as it went into the oven.

Fifteen minutes at 400 degrees later 

and it came out looking like this!

Slap yo' grandma.