Broccoli Chicken Casserole
Last weekend I ran in the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. I guess “ran” may be a bit of an exaggeration. I ran part of it. I ran for the first 2 miles and then I hit a real steep hill and had to walk to the top of it. I ran for another 2 miles and then had to take a bathroom break, (which is kind of gross when all you have is a port-o-let). After that I had to alternate walking and running in much shorter increments for the remaining 9 miles. I got a little added motivation to keep going at miles 5, 9, and 13 when I saw a very good friend cheering me on with a poster made especially for me with my favorite colors on it. Every time I thought I couldn’t go another step, I thought about how I would be seeing her standing there in just a little bit. I appreciated her being there more than she will ever know!! I kept all my miles, (except the bathroom break mile), at under 13 minute miles. I finished at 2:43:02. The last time I attempted a half marathon, I finished in 3:07, so I was pretty proud of myself. I love my medal. I want to start doing more races that give medals so I can start a medal collection. I’ve found lots of cool display frames for them, but it would look pretty silly with just one medal hanging there. This weekend I will be riding in the Tour Dallas, but no medals for that!! 
This week’s recipe turned out really good. It is low carb, so I’m hoping by eating it for dinner this week, I will start to lose some weight. I’ve put on a few pounds and I don’t want to let my weight get out of control!! I’m getting back on track with my food and my exercise!
Ingredients:
Rotisserie chicken (I guess you could cook you’re own chicken, but why?)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
8 oz of cheddar cheese
1 bag of frozen broccoli
Sliced mushrooms (I bought them pre-sliced)
2 tsp of lemon pepper
Get a Rotisserie Chicken from the grocery store.
Put Pam in a 9 X 9 casserole dish and tear up the chicken for the bottom layer.
Put broccoli over the chicken.
Put mushrooms on top of the broccoli and sprinkle lemon pepper over the mixture.
In a bowl, mix cream of mushroom soup, half a can of water and about 6 ounces of cheese.
Layer the cheese/soup mixture over the chicken, broccoli and mushrooms. Put in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.
Pull out of the oven and cover the casserole with more cheese and put back in the oven for another 10 – 15 minutes.
Pull out of the oven and eat. This casserole was even better the next day!!
Jalapeño Spinach Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken
Not only was this a long weekend and Easter Weekend, it was also the first Monday of the month, which means Canton Trade Days was going on this weekend. I was looking on Facebook and saw a notice reminding me about the events in Canton and decided to take an impromptu trip out there to see what they had. I was so excited when I found some fun flip flop sandals for myself. They had a really good deal in one of the booths to buy two and get the third pair for a reduced rate. Since I really only liked two of the pairs they had, I bought the third pair for my sister. I think my favorites were the ones that I got her, but they didn’t have that style in my size. I’ve already worn both pairs I bought two times, and my sister wore hers for Easter brunch, so I’d say the trip to Canton was a success!!
The zebra ones next tot he pink flip flops are the ones I got my sister.
These aren’t the ones I bought my sister, but they are very similar.
I saw a stuffed chicken on pinterest and even though it looked a little fancy for my cooking skills, I decided to give it a try. It really was an easy recipe and I have to say one of the best things I’ve made. I’m pretty sure it’s all the cheese that is in the stuffing that made it taste so good. The only advice I have is to remember to take the toothpick out when it’s done cooking. I learned that one the hard way!!
Ingredients:
Chicken breasts
Block of Cream Cheese
Cheddar Jack Cheese
Spinach
2 Jalapeños
Garlic
Lemon Pepper
Paprika
I didn’t put any amounts because I just put in the amounts I liked. I only used 2 Jalapeños and I just put a spoonful of minced garlic that was already preminced from the grocery store.
Cut the jalapeños in to small pieces. I cut out all the seeds first. You can leave a few in if you like it kind of spicy.
Sautee the jalapeños and garlic in olive oil. This was way too much olive oil and I had to drain it. 
Add Spinach to the sauteed jalapeños and garlic.
Put cream cheese, cheese and sautéed spinach jalapeno mix in a bowl and mix it up.
It will look something like this. This is what you stuff inside the chicken.
Cut the chicken in half like a pocket. Do not cut all the way through.
Stuff the chicken and poke a toothpick through it to cook it through.
Top off the chicken with lemon pepper and paprika
Cook in the oven on 375 for about 45 minutes or until cooked through.
Again, DON’T FORGET to take out the toothpicks!!!!!
Hummus Crusted Chicken and Vegetables
I love to ride my bike, but I don’t feel safe riding on the streets, so I didn’t ride much when I was in Austin. Since I’ve been back in Dallas, I have been trying to take advantage of being so close to White Rock Lake. I rode around the lake this weekend, and saw a link to another trail. I tried the new route called the Santa Fe Trail. I went as far as Beacon St. and decided to turn around. I still have no idea how far that trail goes. Once I got back to where I started, I made my way around the lake fighting the wind, but that silly old wind had nothing on me. I beat the wind! It was a lot of fun and great exercise. I think I’ll try to ride at least one time a week to get a little variations to my workouts.
This is by far the best main dish recipe that I’ve made from Pinterest. I adapted this recipe from the Gimmesomeoven pin. I never thought of cooking with hummus, but now I think it will become a standard on my grocery shopping list. Not only was it good on the chicken, it made the vegetables taste AMAZING!!
Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
Hummus (I used the garlic flavored one)
Squash
Okra
2 Lemons
1 tsp. of Paprika
Salt and Pepper to taste
Put a layer of squash and okra in a casserole dish.
Put chicken breast on top of the vegetables
Cover chicken in Hummus
Sprinkle paprika over the chicken, add salt and pepper and squeeze lemons all over the dish. Make sure to get some of the spices on the vegetables
Bake in the oven at 450 for about 30 – 45 minutes
Dinner is served!! YUM!!
I wish I would have added more vegetables to my dish. Next time I’m going to add zucchini and tomatoes. I will also put a larger quantity of vegetables in the pan. The vegetables were SOOO good.
Italian chicken
I really need to start eating a little more healthy. I’ve been enjoying my time back in Dallas so much that I haven’t been watching what I eat. It’s time to get back on track and what better way than to eat chicken.
Ingredients:
Chicken
Italian dressing
Pour about half the bottle of Italian Dressing on the chicken and cover.
Cook in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.
Mexican Chicken Casserole
I’m still trying to make a dish that I can eat when I get home from work, but the biggest problem I have is that I make all this food and then life gets in the way of me eating my creations. I made this casserole on Monday and here it is Thursday and I’ve only eaten it once. I think tomorrow I will bring some of it to lunch or maybe I will even eat it for breakfast. The one time I got to eat this, I really enjoyed it. I recommend it as a keeper recipe since it’s good and REALLY easy to make! I found this recipe on the Paula Deen website and made a few adjustments to meet my tastes.
Ingredients:
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of cheddar cheese soup
2 cans of rotel (I drained the second can)
1 whole cooked chicken cut up in pieces, I bought a pre-made chicken at Target
6 flour tortillas
Enough cheddar cheese to cover the top of the casserole
Mix the three soups, rotel and chicken in a bowl.
Spray the pan with pam, then put tortillas down for the bottom layer
Put a layer of the soup/chicken mixture on the tortillas, then repeat tortilla then mixture ending with the tortillas on top
Put a layer of cheese on the tortillas
Cook in the oven on 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese starts to brown
Enjoy a great meal!!
Balsamic Chicken Salad
When you are making one meal to last for the entire week, you might start to get sick of what you made, unless you are a little creative! I found that putting things in a tortilla with cheese seems to help break up the week and not make the food taste so boring. Today, I didn’t have any tortillas, so I had to be a little more creative.
Ingredients:
Balsamic Chicken and Broccoli meal
Spinach
Mozzarella Cheese
I cut up the Balsamic Chicken, added the tomatoes and broccoli mixture to it and microwaved it for about a minute. Then I put all that on top of a bed of spinach. I finished it off with Mozzarella Cheese and I had a GREAT salad for dinner!
Balsamic Chicken and Broccoli
Last week, I attempted a difficult recipe for my week of food. The lasagna was great and it lasted all week, but it was a lot of work. I’m so excited about my new meal plan of cooking for the whole week and not having to worry about what I eat every night. I’ve also started to try to make things that are low carb. I even bought low carb snacks to eat during the day.
This week, I decided to do something a little easier. There was only one problem. My dog, Cooper, decided to jump up on the counter and knock the crock part of the crockpot off and it busted in to a million pieces. Luckily, I still have a really small, not fancy crockpot, so I could still cook my weeks food. The only drawback to that is that the crockpot is a little small so I had to stuff everything in it. I found this recipe on Skinny Ms and added the broccoli. I ordered a new crock from Sears, so hopefully, it will be here in a few days. By next week, I’ll be crocking a new recipe in the big crockpot.
Ingredients:
4 Chicken Breast (Frozen or thawed)
2 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 broccoli
1 medium onion sliced
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
Put all the ingredients in the crockpot and let cook on high for 4 – 6 hours.
Here is what it looked like cooked.
I sliced up the chicken and then put the vegetables and sauce on top.
It was very tasty! You must like Balsamic Vinegar to like this though!!
Crockpot Chicken Fajitas
I got to go to another UT game this weekend. It was so much fun. UT played New Mexico and it was a shut out game. While I was there I proceeded to eat a hot dog AND a sausage wrap. After the weekend, I noticed the scale wasn’t being too kind. I know it wasn’t just the game. I’ve been snacking more and eating nachos almost every day for the last week. My friend told me I should think about preparing my meals for the week on Sunday or Monday and then I have no excuse to not eat healthy. I usually use the excuse that I was starving by the time I got home from work, so I HAD to eat whatever was the fastest to make, aka nachos.
Since I’m really not a cook, I like to rely on my crockpot. Knowing that one of the guys on my group texts gets REALLY angry about us doing crockpot or baked fajitas, I decided that I was going to make crockpot fajitas just to annoy him. When I told him what I was making, he sent me the dictionary definition of fajitas and said I was making a roast. No matter what they technically are, I really liked what I’m calling my “crockpot chicken fajitas”!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 large white onion chopped
1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
1tsp. dried oregano
1tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 can of rotel
Additional Ingredient Options:
Low carb tortillas
Guacamole
Sour Cream
Shredded Cheese
Anything else you like on your fajitas
Put all the ingredients in the crockpot.
Cook on high for 4 – 5 hours.
Slice the chicken into strips
Put sliced chicken, onion/tomato mix, cheese, sour cream, guacamole (or whatever else you like on your fajitas) on a tortilla and eat up!
Italian Lemon Chicken
I love an easy recipe! I think this could be the easiest one I’ve made yet. I put the Italian Lemon Chicken in the crockpot and when I got home, the house smelled SOOOOO good!!! Once I ate it, I found out that it tasted just as good as it smelled!!!
Ingredients:
1 cube of butter
3 lemons (juiced)
2 packages of Italian Dressing Mix
Chicken
I threw all the ingredients in the crockpot. The chicken was even frozen.
Crockpot was on high. I was surprised that there was a lot of juice in the crockpot after cooking it a few hours. Chicken is done when it hits 170 degrees. It took about 3 – 4 hours.
YUM! Seems like I should have thought to make a vegetable or something to eat with my chicken…but I guess I will have to learn how to do that another day!
BBQ chicken
I love making stuff in the crockpot. It’s so easy to throw everything in there and then forget about it. I’m really not the type of cook that wants to make a fuss. I saw this recipe and really wanted to try it because it involved coke in the ingredients. I rushed out to the store and bought all the ingredients, came home and started preparations to cook the chicken. The only thing I didn’t factor in is that I have a really small crockpot. I couldn’t get the chicken to fit in, so I had to have Mike cut off the legs and wings to make it fit. Then, since the chicken took up all the room, the other ingredients didn’t really fit either and it ended up overflowing. After I got the majority of the ingredients finally in the crockpot, I turned it on and left it for a couple hours. I’m not sure what possessed me to go look at the progress, since that is a little more work than I was planning to do, but when I checked I noticed that the crockpot wasn’t even working!!! OMG!! It was all just sitting there marinading I guess. I moved the crockpot to another plug and changed the setting to high and it miraculously started working, so it all worked out in the end!
Ingredients:
Onions
Lemon
BBQ Sauce
Coke
Whole chicken – (or one with no legs or wings works too!)
Cut up the lemons and onions
Put the lemons, onions and chicken in the crockpot
Add BBQ sauce and coke
Cook until the chicken is ready. Probably about 4 – 6 hours.
This looks pretty pitiful, but it’s really tasty!
Mike said he made the best bbq sauce ever by using all the stuff the chicken was cooking in and adding a bunch of other stuff, but I have no idea what he added.
Fabulous after FIFTY 