Thirsty Thursday - Peach Pineapple Orange Smoothie

This is one of my favorite smoothies that I make at home.  I came up with this recipe, but it was inspired by one of my favorites at Tropical Smoothie Cafe.  The fruit is sweet enough by itself, so you don't need to add any sweetener.  The frozen fruit allows you to get a frozen smoothie without adding ice, which I believe waters down the smoothie and doesn't taste as good.  The yogurt adds creaminess, and the orange juice adds enough liquid to make it blend-able.  The result is a tasty combination of fruit flavors, which makes for a wonderful healthy breakfast or small meal replacement.

Sorry, no picture. But here - have a clip art!
(I'll take a picture next time I make it.)

Peach Pineapple Orange Smoothie

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

• ~1 C frozen pineapple chunks
• ~1 C frozen peach slices
• 1/2 to 1 container greek yogurt (I suggest vanilla or honey flavor)
• orange juice (1/2 to 1 C or more)
• optional: protein powder (I sometimes add a little BiPro protein powder, which is flavorless and unsweetened, so it can be mixed into just about anything without being noticed)

Instructions

Place all ingredients in blender, with a little bit of orange juice.  Pulse on ice setting until chunks are broken up, adding as much orange juice as is necessary to make it blend-able, a little at a time.  Puree until smooth.

Enjoy!

Hummus Crusted Chicken

This is a recipe that I had seen several variations of on Pinterest.  It seemed pretty easy, and healthy, and I like hummus...so why not?  So this is what I came up with after looking at a couple versions (all pretty similar).

Hummus Crusted Chicken

Makes 2 breasts (2-4 servings)

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
• 4 T hummus (roasted garlic flavor is good)
• salt
• pepper
• paprika

Instructions
Pound the thicker parts of the chicken breasts thinner, so it will cook more evenly.
Place on a pan, preferably lined with foil.
Pat the tops of the chicken breasts dry with a paper towel.
Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Spread ~2T of hummus evenly on top of each chicken breast.
Sprinkle paprika on top.
Bake at 450°F for 35 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

I baked mine slightly different than what the recipe called for, because I had something else in the oven with it.  I baked mine at 350°F for about 35 minutes, and then turned it up to 450°F and baked it for about another 10 minutes.  It cooked through just fine, but that's probably why the hummus didn't get as crusty as I was expecting.

Round 2:  I made this recipe again, and cooked at the higher temperature.  The hummus still didn't really get "crusty", but I don't care...it was still good!

Round 3: I made it with cutlets instead of regular chicken breasts.  The thinner meat meant that it took less time to cook.  Cutlets may be a better choice if you want smaller portions, but it's really just a matter of preference.

The Verdict

Awesome!  I don't think the hubby likes it as much as I do, but I love it!  I would say "will make again", but I already have made it again!  I think it's one of my new favorites.

Lemon Pepper Salmon Foil Pack

I have been really bad lately about not cooking.  I have been trying to get in more time at the gym, typically going on the way home from work, and by dinnertime I'm tired and don't feel like coming up with something for dinner, so we resort to the easy, less healthy meals.  I have decided to make more of an effort to plan my meals in advance, try to coordinate ingredients for the week, and even prep part of the meal in advance.  For example, I have several meals planned for this week that include rice, so I cooked a bigger pot of it and put the rest in the fridge for later this week.  (I recently discovered how much I like brown rice, and now I prefer it over white. Did you know brown rice (non-instant) takes 45 minutes to cook? Making it in larger batches can be a big time saver.)  Same thing can be done for other starches like pasta and potatoes as well as cooked vegetables.  Hopefully I can keep this up healthy meal planning long enough for it to become a habit! 

I haven't had fish in a while, so I thought fresh salmon would be a good start to my healthy meal planning.  I paired it with some brown rice, glazed carrots, and corn on the cob.  (Both the carrots and corn on the cob were done in new ways also, and worthy of a quick blog post, but I didn't think to take pictures of those processes!  Drat!)  This is another idea I saw on Pinterest, but I've seen it before.  Publix had cuts of salmon on sale this week, which is what I originally intended to pick up, but it turns out that buying it by the pound with the skin still on was still cheaper. Supposedly, cooking it with the skin on is healthier, too, because the healthy omega fats that you hear about are contained mostly in the skin and are released during cooking - a healthy benefit that would be lost if the skin was removed first.  The skin also helps hold the fish together while cooking, and can usually be peeled off easily after it's cooked.

Lemon Pepper Salmon Foil Pack

Makes 1 foil pack

Ingredients

• fresh salmon (only 1 piece per foil pack)
• fresh lemon
• pepper
• butter
• foil

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F.  Lay salmon (skin side down) on a large piece of foil.  Sprinkle with pepper.  Slice lemon and place on top.  Add a few pats of butter on top.  Wrap tightly, and place in a pan (to catch drips if it leaks.)  Bake for 25+ minutes, until cooked through.  (Salmon should turn from a clear pink to an opaque pink when it is cooked.)

What it looked like before wrapping it up

When I checked my salmon at 25 minutes, it was still uncooked on the outside.  So I turned the oven up to 400°F and it still took another 15 minutes to bake.  The salmon was a larger piece, though (1lb), so smaller pieces might be cooked enough at 25 minutes.  I would recommend just checking at 25 minutes, but allow yourself more time if it needs to cook longer.  You don't want to overcook fish if you can help it, because it tends to dry it out, but the nice thing about the foil pack and butter is that it traps in the moisture (essentially steaming it) and it doesn't dry out as easily.  Also, if you use salmon with the skin still on, the skin will stick to the foil and peel right off of the meat.  And foil makes the cleanup so much easier!

The Verdict

Very tasty!  It had a nice mild flavor and wasn't dried out.  It could have used a little more pepper (or maybe even a mix of different peppers instead of just black pepper), and maybe squeezed the lemons on top just a little before baking.  This dish was healthy, easy to make, and had easy cleanup. I would probably make this recipe again, but I will definitely use the foil pack technique again!

Mini Cheesecakes (light)

I volunteered to make dessert for Sunday dinner when we were celebrating both Mother's Day and my brother's birthday.  I had a request to make Pennsylvania Dutch Lutheran Crumb Cake, aka "PDLCC" (probably a future "Favorites Friday" recipe), but I knew it was probably loaded with calories so I also wanted to have a lighter dessert option.  Most of our family loves cheesecake, and I have been eying some mini cheesecake recipes on Pinterest for quite a while now.  I found this particular recipe on Skinnytaste, which focuses on lighter "skinny" versions of recipes.

Mini Cheesecakes

Makes 12

Ingredients

• 12 reduced fat vanilla wafers
• 8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 C sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 6 oz vanilla greek yogurt
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 T all-purpose flour
• Sliced strawberries or other fruit for garnishing

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Line cupcake tin with liners.  Place a vanilla wafer at the bottom of each liner.
3. Gently beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth in a mixer.  Gradually beat in yogurt, egg whites, and flour.  Do not over beat.  Pour into cupcake liners, filling about halfway.
4. Bake 20-25 minutes or until center is almost set.
5. Cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

With a candle for the birthday boy

The Verdict

Very good!  And it actually tasted like real cheesecake, and not some icky fake cheesecake imposter.  Hard to believe these came in at just under 100 calories each!  The vanilla wafers as the crust was perfect.  Don't let them sit for more than a day in the fridge, though, or the wafers get soggy.  In the future, the cups could probably be filled a little more, since cheesecake doesn't rise very much.  This is a cheesecake recipe I will make again, when I want to indulge without the guilt of normal cheesecake calories. 

Creamy Citrus Salad

I made this along with the Pepper Shrimp Saute. Again, sorry for the lack of pictures in this post.

The original recipe was from Publix, and came with the Pepper Shrimp Saute recipe.  However, I really only used it is a general guideline and I ended up making a bunch of modifications using ingredients I had on hand...so I'm just going to post my version here.

....On to the good part! 

Creamy Citrus Salad

Ingredients
1 can mandarin oranges
2 grapefruits
1 tablespoon honey
1 individual size cup of vanilla Greek yogurt
2ish handfuls mini marshmallows

Instructions

Drain most of the liquid from oranges and put in a medium bowl.  Scoop out grapefruit and add to oranges.  Add honey, and stir.  Let chill in the fridge until ready to serve.  Just before serving, stir in Greek yogurt and marshmallows.

The Verdict

I messed it up when I made it.  I left in a good bit of the juice from the oranges, and added a little juice from the grapefruits.  It was WAY too liquidy!   I ended up eating it out of a cup with a spoon.  My marshmallows were also a little...not fresh...so I let the marshmallows soak a bit to soften up.  But even with those problems, it was still delicious!  It was so cool, and fresh, and sweet (but not too sweet), with a bit of sour flavor from the grapefruit, and little bursts of sweetness when you bite into a marshmallow.  Publix did the right thing by pairing it with the Pepper Shrimp Saute...the cool flavor from the citrus salad was perfect for eating after a spicy meal.

It would have been much better if it was actually creamy (instead of liquidy), but this was so good, I would definitely make it again!

Slow-Cooker Chicken Marakesh

To start this post, I would like to give a little background as to why I made this recipe.

Several years back, I went to a Moroccan restaurant in Tampa.  I ordered a lamb tagine dish, and it was so amazing I still crave it to this day.  Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed down the next time I went back (after talking about how awesome it was and finally dragging the hubby out there with me).  That dish is still emblazoned on my mind (and taste buds), and I haven't stopped thinking about somehow finding a similar dish or re-creating the recipe.

Fast forward to this Christmas and New Year holiday season.  I was working 10-16 hour days and coming home completely exhausted; too tired to cook anything, and sometimes too tired to even decide what to eat.  During about a two week period, we ate a lot of fast food, take-out, pizza, and frozen dinners.  It gets old quick, and I really wanted some home-cooked food, even though I was too tired to make anything.  When my work schedule got back to normal, I found chicken breasts buy-one-get-one-free at Publix.  I thought this would be a good time to try my hand at some bulk food prep...fixing several crockpot meals at once, and putting them in the freezer for later use.  This was one of those recipes I selected, but I ended up making this one fresh (not freezing it first) over the weekend instead.  Stay tuned for reviews of my other freezer-to-crockpot meals!

Here is the pile of food, waiting to be prepped into several different recipes.

The original recipe, found here 

 

In the crockpot, ready to go!

The hubby didn't care for it (mostly because of the garbanzo beans), so I ended up eating all of it, which took what seemed like weeks! I thought it was pretty good, but I wouldn't make it again without making some changes. Some of the things I really liked about this recipe is that it was easy, healthy, good left over, and it was different.  (Oh yeah, and I believe it would be paleo if you just left out the beans!)  It was not like I expected, though, and nothing like the Moroccan tagine dish like I hoped it would be.  It was kind of sweet, and not really spicy like I expected.  If I were to make it again with the same spices, I would add raisins.  I think raisins would add a wonderful little burst of juicy sweetness, and they would be the perfect addition to this dish.  It also did not have much liquid, and some of the garbanzo beans seemed a little undercooked.  Next time, I might try adding just a little liquid to help the cooking process, and leave the beans and sweet potatoes on the bottom (and maybe even a little less sweet potato).

 

Why do I keep forgetting to take pictures until I'm already eating?

I ate it served over white rice, though I would try couscous if I make it again.  I also ended up adding some cumin and cayenne to the leftover I ate, to add a little more kick.  I definitely liked it a little spicier. 

Verdict: I might try this again in the future, either with raisins or hotter spices.  But I had to eat the leftovers for what seemed like for-e-ver, so not making it anytime soon!