Category: Dinner

Chicken Divan {A Healthified Version}

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I’m a big fan of making casserole-type dishes on Sunday night because they are easy to reheat and eat throughout the week (not to mention I think they reheat really well!). Even though I’ve had a fairly quiet start to my week (I seriously don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t have plans after work and am resting from the gym!), I was so tired on Sunday night and just wanted a warm, one-dish meal.

Preparing this meal was certainly not a one dish event- in fact, the meal took a bit longer than I anticipated, but I had a nice bottle of J. Lohr wine that kept me company 😉

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I know I say this all the time, but my mom makes the best Chicken Divan, so I consulted with her on what I needed to make the dish. I also checked out a few recipes and ended up combining notes from my mom and bits and pieces from both recipes to come up with my meal… whoops 🙂

Chicken Divan- adapted from Skinny Taste and My Recipes (linked there from Cooking Light)

Ingredients

  • 1lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (I chose chicken thighs since they are way more flavorful than chicken breast, especially in a casserole dish)
  • about 8 oz. frozen broccoli (enough to cover the bottom of a small casserole dish)
  • salt & pepper
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 1tbsp minced garlic
  • 1 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup white wine (I used Chardonnay)
  • 1/2 can of reduced fat cream of celery soup
  • 1tbsp butter
  • 1/4 cup 1% milk
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese
  • bread crumbs

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Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Preheat a skillet and cook the chicken thighs for about 3-4 minutes on each side, or until mostly cooked. Sprinkle salt & pepper on both sides.

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2. Place a layer of the frozen broccoli on the bottom of your casserole dish and put the chicken thighs on top. You can leave them whole or cut them up!

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3. Chop your onion. Heat up 1 tbsp. of butter in a skillet, add in the onions and minced garlic. Sautee until onions are translucent. Add in the chicken broth, wine, milk, and cream of celery soup. Stir everything together and bring to a boil and let boil for about 3-5 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Add in the cheeses and stir until they have melted.

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4. Pour the mixture over the chicken and broccoli, coat the top with bread crumbs and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the edges are bubbling.

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5. Serve yourself a nice heaping bowl of it and enjoy!

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This is certainly not the prettiest meal to photograph, but don’t let that fool you- it was delicious! I find myself eating it by the spoonful as I am heating my serving for dinner… anyone else do that? This meal has been wonderful to quickly reheat after work and the gym all week. I might have to freeze some later this week since I still have lots left over.

Questions for you: Do you combine multiple recipes when you’re making a meal? Do you snack on crackers/chips/anything while you’re heating your dinner? Do you like to freeze meals to eat later on?

Chicago: Part 3 {Brunching, Architecture Tour, Homemade Dinner}

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Hi there! After this post, my Chicago recap is finally done 🙂 In case you missed the other posts, you can find them here, here, and here.

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling mostly better, but my stomach was still a little off. We hung out in the hotel for a bit and I blogged and we watched some tv. Around 11ish, we ventured out into what looked to be another beautiful day in the city! Seriously, I cannot believe how lucky we got with the weather. It could have been miserably cold/snowy, which we were not prepared for at all!

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We met up with JP for brunch at Eggy’s, but not before going to the grocery store to pick up a bottle of Prosecco since Eggy’s was BYOB. How fun is that?! Dining out would be so much more affordable if you could bring your own booze. Boston, get on that, will ya?!

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Apparently cheese curds are big in Chicago (I didn’t even know what they were until Danielle and JP explained the to me), so we go an order of the fried cheese curds to start. I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were!

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I got the green eggs and ham, which was one of their signature dishes. Sadly, it looked better than it tasted. It wasn’t bad, there was just too much stuff going on… too many flavors.

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We walked around for a bit after brunch to digest and then jumped on an afternoon Architecture Tour. Whenever I go to a new city, I always try to go on as many tours as possible because I think it’s the best way to see the city and get a good overview of all the important pieces of information and dates. JP took this photo of my sister and I as we waited for the tour to start. Whoops. Not very good company!

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Our tour guide was fantastic and I learned so much about Chicago! As I mentioned in my last Chicago recap, Chicago completely burned down and was rebuilt in the 1900’s, so a lot of the buildings are relatively “new” and really interesting to look at since so many famous architectures came to Chicago to show their talents. I didn’t take many photo’s on the tour because it was SO COLD. Seriously… We were freezing because it was mostly in the shade and on the water. Brrr. I did get this one of the Sears (now, Willis) Tower, which is the tallest building in Chicago (right? I think it is…) since they count the tall things at the top in the measurement.

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I didn’t take this photo on the tour, but we did see them and talk about them, so I’ll post it now.

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Danielle and I immediately noticed these buildings when we arrived in Chicago. They were so cool looking, and when we found out that they consider themselves mini “cities”, we thought they were even cooler. Apparently they have everything in the building that a city would have, so basically if you lived in one, you’d never have to leave. A little weird, right?

After the tour, we warmed up by walking around the mall on Michigan Ave and then got a drink in the lobby of our hotel. Danielle and I went to JP’s to make dinner on Sunday night since we were tired of eating out and were craving healthy food. Ok, and, we wanted to shop at the amazing grocery store across from JP’s apartment building. It was like a mix between Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s… but better! It was two levels and had the best deli/hot bar section I’ve ever seen. I died and went to grocery store lover’s heaven!

We went simple for dinner and I just made a veggie and chicken dish, served over a fancy fettuccine with a nice, big salad on the side!

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Yum. It was so good! Danielle and I were in bed by 10pm on Sunday night and it was wonderful. Between traveling for work and then going right to Chicago to travel for fun, we were both exhausted!!! I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow 🙂

Monday morning we both got up and went to the gym and then hit the road for the airport.

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I traveled in comfy clothes, which I never do, because I had to sub a class on Monday night and was worried we might be delayed and I wouldn’t have time to change. Lucky for us, everything was on time (shocking for the Chicago airport) and I got home and to the gym with plenty of time to spare!

All in all, both trips were a blast. I might be going back to Chicago with a group of friends over the summer and I’m already looking forward to that possibility because I seriously loved Chicago. If I didn’t live in Boston but had to live in a city, I would choose Chicago. There was just something about it that I loved and I could see myself living there!

Thanks for following along through my recaps of the trip!

Questions for you: Have you done the architecture tour? If you had to pick a city to live in other than where you currently live, where would it be? Do you know of any BYOB restaurants in Boston?

Chicago: Part1 {Shopping and Bar Hopping}

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Hi! I think I left off on my last post right as we got to downtown Chicago. After we dropped our bags off, Danielle and I decided to head to Michigan Avenue to grab lunch as we were both starving! Lucky for us, Michigan Avenue was only a 5 minute walk away so we were seated at Pizzeria Due in no time at all. Since it was vacation, we ordered beers right away. I went with the Green Light first and the 312 next, both of which were local Chicago beers.

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We ordered a salad and 2 personal deep dish pizza’s which were amazing! I am not usually a big deep dish pizza lover, but with all the sauce and cheese on these bad boys, I was a happy camper!

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To help digest the rather large lunch, we walked around Michigan Ave a bit and did some shopping. I got a new fake leather jacket and an awesome pair of blue velour skinny pants from the Gap. I am obsessed with them!!

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We got carried away with shopping and had to rush back to our hotel to change and get ready to meet our friend JP out at the Public House. I hadn’t seen JP since June so I was really excited that he lives in Chicago and could be our tour guide for the weekend! He works with Jeremy, who we used to work with when we worked together (they both left my company and now work together at a different company in Chicago), so it was fun to see Jeremy, too!

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After a few drinks, we grabbed a quick bite at Timothy O’Toole’s and continued to bar hop for the rest of the night. We made a quick stop at Butch McGuires and then ended the night at Hubbard Inn. I don’t remember too much of the later part of the night at the last bar, but thankfully we got back to the hotel around midnight… any later could have been a real problem for me! I don’t usually let myself get like that, but I think it was a mix of being on vacation and hanging out with JP that got me in the mood to drink. Yikes. Saturday was a super busy day, so I will save that recap for its own post!

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Questions for you: Have you been to Chicago? Where was the best deep dish pizza you ate? Did you shop on Michigan Ave?

Boston>Dallas>Chicago

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Few! Hi everyone! How’s it going? I can’t believe that a week ago today I was packing up and heading out to Dallas. After making a detour through Chicago for a long weekend vaca, I finally made it back to Boston last night, just in time to jump into my car and head to Watertown to sub a kickboxing class. Not the brightest idea, but I wanted to help a fellow instructor out and I was itching to teach (it’s crazy how much I miss teaching when I haven’t taught in a week+.).

Let’s catch up, shall we? I am going to get to my Chicago recaps later this week, but I wanted to share some things I did and learned about while I was in Dallas. We are required to take certain classes at my company, one of those classes being a Business Writing Course. I’ve never been a terrific writer, and blog writing is veryyy different from business writing, so I was actually excited to take the course.

I got to Dallas on Tuesday night around 7 and immediately met up with a few coworkers (some taking the course and some just work in Dallas). We went to Pappadeaux and I ordered a glass of Chardonnay to quench my hunger thirst. I don’t know what it is, but as soon as I travel for work, I feel like I am on “vacation”, which means I tend to indulge in more alcoholic beverages than usual (on a normal week, I don’t drink at all Sunday-Thursday).

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For dinner, I ordered the Seafood Skewers which were delicious! It was a mixture of salmon, shrimp and scallops with an assortment of grilled veggies sandwiched between. The plate was HUGE, so I barely made a dent in the meal- always a shame when I’m traveling and can’t take leftovers home.

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Wednesday morning, I headed to the gym for a cardio and light strength workout and then went to day 1 of the training course. One of the best things I learned throughout the 2 days was how we have been taught to use big, filler words rather than using smaller, stronger words. I think some of you can agree that when typing business emails, a common sentence may be “Attached please find a word document with responses pursuant to your earlier requests. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.”, right? Well, in this course, we learned that no one likes to read emails with “filler” words that are used to try to make the piece sound fancier than it is. We want to read things that are quick, short and things that we understand. We were encouraged to re-write the sentence above with removing unnecessary words: “The answers to your questions are attached. Please let me know if you have questions.” Much easier to read, right?

I could go on and on about the course, but in attempt to not make this post ridiculously long, I’ll stop there. 😉

Wednesday night, my coworker and I grabbed Mexican at Chuy’s which is a restaurant our team went to the last time we were in Dallas. I splurged and ordered a margarita to start… It was SO worth the splurge!

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I ordered one of the “lighter” chicken dinner options since I consumed my weight in chips, salsa and queso and was no longer very hungry.

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We grabbed a glass of wine at the hotel bar before calling it a night. I was happy to have some earlier nights during this leg of my trip since I knew I would be staying out much later while in Chicago.

After the course ended for the day on Thursday, I headed to the Dallas airport. I mentioned on Instagram; that I had planned on eating healthier and not drinking, but what did I end up doing? Sitting at a Mexican bar drinking wine and eating chips/salsa. Ugh. I wasn’t so mad about it, though, because there were a few cute guys sitting next to me so chatting with them was a good way to pass the time. 😉

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I got to Chicago around 10pm and headed to the hotel where my sister was staying. I was so excited to see her and start “vacationing”. We caught up for a bit and then went to bed. I had to work a bit on Friday morning so I got up early to work out and start my day. I usually rest on Friday’s, but I knew I likely wouldn’t work out over the weekend so I wanted to get something in.

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Around noon, we headed back to the airport to take the Blue Line into the city. Our room was ready, so we checked in, dropped off our bags and quickly headed out. We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Chicago and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for some place to stay. It was super affordable (I used points for 2 nights, but it was still affordable even without points), very clean/nice, had a great gym and was in a great location.

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I’ll catch you up on the rest of Friday night in a later post… this one is getting quite lengthy!

Questions for you: What is your favorite Mexican restaurant or meal? Do you like margaritas? If so, what kind?

Stepping out of the box: Fall Curry Chicken

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I think curry dishes are one of those “love it or hate it” types of dishes, right? It’s a very strong flavor and not something that everyone enjoys. I’ve never really loved curry dishes, so I was shocked when I came across a “Fall Curry Chicken” recipe in the November Shape magazine that just looked like I had to make it. Perhaps it was because it included butternut squash and apples and pumpkin seeds that made it so desirable? Whatever it is, I decided that it was a recipe that I had to make.

Unfortunately, as I am still building my herbs/seasoning collection, making this recipe meant that I had to buy most of the ingredients… probably part of the reason why my groceries were so much higher than normal (that, and Halloween candy!). Once I took a bite of the dish, though, I realized my expensive grocery trip was wellll worth it. The dish was incredibly flavorful and I loved the textures of the chicken, butternut squash, apples and seeds.

Fall Curry Chicken- Recipe from Shape Magazine

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 2 tsp curry powder
  • 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
  • 2 pods cardamom – I couldn’t find these at the grocery store so I skipped it. I don’t think it made a huge difference
  • 1 tbsp. tomato paste
  • 1 cup light coconut milk
  • 1 butternut squash (about 1lb), peeled and cut into small chunks
  • 1 Granny Smith apple, diced
  • 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin seeds
  • 1/4 cup golden raisins – I forgot to buy these so I didn’t add them. I think I liked it better without.

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Directions

1. Preheat a sauté pan over medium-high. Season chicken with salt. Add 1/2 tsp vegetable oil and chicken strips to pan and sear for 2 minutes per side of until golden brown and cooked through. Remove cooked chicken to a plate and set aside.

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2. Add onion and remaining vegetable oil to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes or until onions begin to soften. Add curry powder, cayenne pepper, cardamom, and tomato paste and mix. Deglaze pan with coconut milk, scraping up cooked-on bits with a wooden spoon and mixing them into the sauce.

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3. Add squash to sauce and cover. Let simmer for 15 minutes (I ended up having to sauté for almost 30 minutes… therefore, I kept adding more coconut milk to ensure it wouldn’t get dried out) or until squash has softened. Return chicken and juices to pan. Simmer for 2 minutes, then add raisins and apple. Stir to combine.

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Serve yourself (and your guests, if you have some) a nice heaping of this topped with some roasted pumpkin seeds.

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You guys. This was SO GOOD! If you like curry or are more adventurous with flavors when you eat/cook, I highly suggest trying this. One thing I might do if I made this again would be to cook up some brown rice to serve this atop. It didn’t need rice, but I felt like I would have liked it. Other than that, I wouldn’t change anything!

Questions for you: Curry- love it or hate it? What’s your favorite type of food (Italian, French, Indian, Asian, etc.)? Do you follow recipes to a T or do you leave things out if you don’t have them?

Happy Halloween, btw! I hope you all have a fun day and treat yourself to some candy. I’m a firm believer in “everything in moderation”, which means eating candy on a candy Halloween!