SUN-DRIED TOMATO ROASTED RED PEPPER CHICKEN

Ingredients:
8-10  roasted red peppers
1 cup Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette (Teresa's is best I have found)
6-8 Boneless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place all but 2 of your roasted red peppers in a blender or small food processor (or in my kitchen the GE Rocket Blender). Pulse the peppers until pureed. Combine the peppers with the Sun-Dried Tomato dressing. Chop the remaining 2 peppers and set aside.
Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray and place chicken in pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Pour dressing mixture over chicken and sprinkle with chopped peppers. Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until chicken is done.

 The finished product

 Served with green beans and mushroom risotto. Found some fabulous mushroom risotto at Aldi that takes only about 20 minutes to cook and unlike most boxed so called risotto's the Aldi risotto came out creamy like it should be.

SHAME ON ME AND MEET THE GIRLS

I have been a bad blogger the last couple weeks. But in my defense I have had good reasons. First we went to Hilton head, Savannah and Tybee Island for a long weekend on my birthday 2 weeks ago. Then when we came home I was busy with a new project. Which is where Meet The Girls comes into play. We have been building a pen/house and preparing for a new project we have considered for several years now. We now have  11 chickens....laying hens to be exact. So meet the Girls.......

 Above is our 2 Buff Orpington's and 2 Americauna's. We decided to name them after candy... The Buff's are Butterfinger and Reeses and the Americauna's are Kit and Kat.

 This is one of our baby's a Silkie named Snickers.

And this is another baby Silkie named Twix and a baby Barred Rock named Patty (Peppermint Patty)
We got the above 7 chickens last Saturday. Then on Monday we got 2 more - Partridge Rocks

The Partridge Rock's are named Hershey and Joy (Almond Joy).
And now today we got 2 more - Rhode Island Red's this time....

The RIR's are Baby and Ruth.

Our 1st egg - from one of the Americauna's.

Our first week of eggs from the ones laying. Some haven't started laying yet and some just started - that's why some of the eggs are a little small. It looks like Easter eggs in the bowl - we have blue green eggs from our Americauna's and then some brown eggs and 1 almost pink tinted egg. 

We are having so much fun with our girls and they can be so funny - take these pictures for example...our babies sun bathing - they sort of roll over on their sides, spread out 1 wing and stretch out 1 foot. If I had just walked up on them doing that I would have thought they were broken lol. 

  

So now we have 11 chickens to care for and watch and spoil. So I will probably be blogging about them as well as some of my recipes. 

   

  

FRUIT SMOOTHIES

Forget paying a insane 4.00 to 6.00 for a fruit smoothie at some mega chain restaurant/store. Plus, it is not just the price that might hurt you, the ingredient list for some of those smoothies may make you gain weight without even drinking one. Now don't get me wrong I love me a good smoothie and I am sadly addicted to the mango-pineapple one at McDonald's. If I could make one at home that tasted anything like it I would, but so far I have not been able to master that one. I will keep trying though, because maybe I can make it guilt free and have it more often. For now I get one occasionally as a treat.

Now for my homemade guilt-free smoothie. And yes I am using my favorite little GE Rocket Blender

Ingredients:
Frozen fruit (your choice) strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mango, banana, raspberry, peach, blackberry.
1/2 c yogurt (Vanilla or honey - low fat or Greek)
1/3 c pineapple juice (or approx. 1/3 of a small can)
1 Tbsp Agave nectar
Light Vanilla Soy Milk


I fill the blender cup about 2/3 full of frozen fruit (my fave combo is strawberry and pineapple), then add the yogurt, juice and nectar and enough soy milk to bring it to the fill line on the cup. Then blend for about 10-15 seconds. Remove the blender cup and shake it up to help the fruit to move down to the blades and blend again for about 15-20 more seconds - this usually will be enough. When doing smoothies I do recommend that you blend in short intervals because the blender does seem to want to overheat if you blend too long.

I make these smoothies as a treat after supper and sometimes as part of my breakfast.

Notice my much clearer pictures? I have been using my phone to snap the pictures because it is just so much easier than using my big bulky Nikon when cooking. I just got a new phone with an amazing 8mp camera on it.

Note: Check your Agave before you buy it. Some brands are not 100% Agave. Some have added sugars to them. So check the ingredients list for anything other that Agave listed. The Florida Crystals brand in the picture above only lists Agave.

CHOCOLATE EXPLOSION MUFFINS

This recipe is a variation of a low-fat muffin/cupcake recipe that has been around for a while. There are only 2 ingredients in the original recipe - Cake mix of your choice and 1 15oz can 100% pumpkin puree. You mix the 2 together and fill your muffin cups and bake. Most people use spice cake or carrot cake as those seem to work best with the pumpkin. And I agree as I have tried making all kinds of muffins from that recipe and unless you have a cake mix that can over power the pumpkin then you can taste it. I have always wanted to make a yummy chocolate version, but no matter the cake mix brand or chocolate flavor I use the pumpkin is still there. So I started to experiment with adding things to it and finally combined parts of 2 different recipes to come up with a very chocolate-y tasting muffin. I made two batches this time because I only had a large 29oz pumpkin puree. I also had two different cake mixes, however, both were a version of chocolate.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Ingredients:
1 box of your favorite chocolate cake mix
1 15oz can 100% pure pumpkin puree (be careful not to get the pumpkin pie mix)
2 snack cups fat free chocolate pudding
2 envelopes Swiss Miss diet hot chocolate
4 Tbsp mini chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix everything together. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray and fill each cup to almost full. Put muffins in oven and bake for time on box (each brand differs in time, but there should be a bake time for muffins as well as cake) Approx. 15-18 minutes. 1 box of cake mix will make 12 muffins.

For my muffins I had the milk chocolate cake mix in the picture above and a red velvet cake mix. So this was an experiment for the red velvet to see if it would remain red and taste super chocolate-y and it did. You can eat these as a dessert or do like we do and have them for breakfast.

OMELET BREAKFAST SANDWICH

Another yummy On-The-Go breakfast idea using my fave little egg skillet.

You basically just make your favorite omelet with 1 egg in the skillet. You don't fold it, instead you just flip it.

The good thing about omelets is you can make them any way you want. Just be smart about your choices, use turkey products in place of pork and use plenty of veggies. You can have ham and cheese, all veggie, or a lean meat with veggies. You can make it southwest by adding salsa. It's all up to you and what you want.

I used
Canadian Bacon
Mushrooms
Onions
Spinach
red bell pepper

First you need to cook the filling items you plan to use and then set them aside. Heat your pan over medium low heat. Scramble 1 egg with a fork, add about 1 tablespoon of filling (can also add cheese of your choice at this time).

Spray the pan with cooking spray and add the egg mixture to the heated pan and cover.

Covering it will help it to cook from the top as well as the bottom. When you are ready to flip it, it will be mostly cooked and only need about 30-40 seconds more.

Once it is mostly done with only a little raw egg in the middle of the top as in the above picture you can slide it out onto a spatula and flip it over to cook on the other side. This pan is small so it is hard to turn eggs over. That is the main reason for using the lid to help it cook and make it easier to flip by sliding it out onto the spatula.

When you are finished it should look like this. I allow them to cool and keep in a container in the fridge until ready to eat each morning.

My favorite way to eat these on the go is in a sandwich using deli flats.

I love the Flax Seed deli flats. And as you can see above the round omelet is perfect for the round flats. I love Mayonnaise and it is one thing I refuse to give up. So I compromise and use a little mayo on one side and Dijon on the other side of the bread.
Just reheat the omelet on the microwave for about 40 seconds. This is when I top mine with cheese instead of in it. I sometimes use Colbyjack or provolone, but my fave cheese to use is Havarti.
And breakfast is served....