Chicken Salad Sandwiches

This stuff is soo good, after making and consuming the first batch I had to make another batch two days later. The spice mixed with the sweet fruit and the crunch of little bits of onion is phenomenal. Yum, I'm so excited to have some for lunch tomorrow.

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts
     seasoned with tarragon, cajun seasoning, salt and pepper. get a good amount of seasoning on there - like 5 tsp worth
1/2 cup Kraft mayo with olive oil
1/2 a small red onion
1/3 cup walmart dried mixed fruit (it's got cranberries, cherries, and blueberries yummy) or just dried cranberries.
Some people like some chopped celery for extra crunch but personally I hate celery. It's so not needed the onion provides enough crunch and flavor.

Directions
Start by cooking 3 chicken breasts. I like to cube mine before cooking so that it takes less time to cook. Let the chicken cool a little bit before putting 1/3 of it into your mini blender, add onion and mayo and pulse and shake it a few times. It's okay if not all the chicken gets chopped up it's just nice to have some finely shredded chicken mixed in with the chunks. The true beauty of the mini blender is you don't have to chop up your onion, it does it for you. No more crying eyes! Stir in the rest of the chicken and the dried fruit.
Slab it onto your favorite whole wheat bread or rolls and enjoy.

Taco Soup

picture stolen from the origial recipe at http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ and will be replaced with mine after i make it again.

Sorry I didn't get any new recipes up last week! Between being sick and getting things ready to go to my sisters wedding in Arizona I didn't have time for much. This soup will make up for it I promise, and I bet you already have everything you need in the pantry too.
I found this recipe on the 365 days of crockpot blog and adapted the shiz out of it. The way she made it had like 8 cans of stuff and I decided that was just WAY too much for my little 2 (plus a baby) person family. We gobbled this stuff up too fast at dinner (and lunch the next day) for me to get a picture so I'll have to add one later. I made it last week before we got sick but now that fall weather is here and we both have colds I'm sure I'll be making it again this week.

DIRECTIONS
Brown 1 lb of ground beef in a large pan and rinse out the grease. Put half of the cooked beef in the fridge to be used for something else, like Nachos! or shepards pie!
Then add your seasonings to the top of the meat left in the pan
drain and rinse your cans of beans and add them along with your corn to the pot
dump in the whole can of diced tomatoes (including the liquid)
Add an additional 1/2 can of water, give or take depending on how soupy you want it.
Let it all cook on medium high heat for about 15 minutes
skwirt in about 3 squeezes of ranch dressing (I'm going to guess it was about 1/8 cup) stir one last time and divide into bowls.
Top with some sour cream and shreaded cheese.

INGREDIENTS
1 can kidney beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes with lime juice and cilantro
3/4 cup frozen corn
1 small can of tomato sauce (like the 6oz one)
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 packet taco seasoning (if you've looked at my other recipes you know I don't use taco packets so I just eyeballed my spices to all be about half of what I normally put on tacos)
1/2 packet ranch dressing mix (I used a couple skwirts of ranch dressing from the fridge instead of the dressing packet, do whatever works for you.)
Some shredded cheese and sour cream to top it off.


Like I said I adapted this from a crock pot recipe so if you want to put it in there be my guest. Cook it on high for 4-5 hrs or low for 8-10 hrs I'm told its really good this way but I needed food in a hurry so I cooked it on the stove, maybe next time i'll try the crock pot. Just make sure when you cook it in the crock pot that you brown the beef on the stove first so that you don't have gross greasyness floating around in your soup.
I really enjoyed a big bowl of this with a spoon like a normal person but my husband loves to scoop things so he ate his with mission tortilla chips, I think it would also be good scooped with saltine crackers.

BLT Wrap

Ok so I guess it's more of a BSTs wrap. Bacon Spinach and Tomato salsa.  Delicious way to eat the oh so good for you spinach. Here's what you do.

First cook your bacon, I use the micorwave directions because it's easiest. While that's cookin' make the tomato salsa.
Cut up your tomatoes and onion then add the lime juice, salt, chopped jalapeno and cilantro. Now I do like the taste of this the best but honestly I don't keep jalapenos and cilantro in my house much so I will usually substitute the cilantro for like 1/2 Tbsp dried parsley and what ever I have on hand to replace the spicyness or the pepper like chili powder or hot sauce.
Then take your tortilla (my favorite is the Papa Tortilla Wheat because it's got lots of good stuff for you in it and tastes great) spread a little mayo (the light stuff is all we use at our house or the kind made with olive oil, delicious and nutritous) top the mayo with your spinach, salsa, and bacon and wrap it up.

Ingredients:

• 2  large  ripe tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped (about 1-3/4 cups)
• 1/4  cup  finely chopped red onion
• 1/4  cup  chopped fresh cilantro
• 1  Tbsp.  finely chopped fresh jalapeño chile pepper
• 1  Tbsp.  lime juice
• 1/8  tsp.  (i.e. 'a pinch') salt
• 8 slices  turkey bacon
•  light mayonnaise
• 10-inch  vegetable-flavor flour tortillas or flour tortillas
• some fresh baby spinach

Makes 4 servings.

 

Fiesta Pasta Salad

Here is another tasty cheap healthy side dish. Just cook the pasta as the package directs and throw the corn and peppers in the water for the last 5 minutes. While that's going, get out the bowl you are going to use and mix up the dressing. Drain and rinse the beans and add half the can (save the rest in a container in the fridge to use later in the week for burritos tacos or chili or get out the mini blender and make some bean dip) Then drain your noodles and vege's and mix it all together.

Done in like 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 
  
  about 8 oz whole wheat spiral pasta (I used the walmart brand. You can use bow tie or whatever you want just stay away from the walmart whole wheat shells I made mac and cheese with them once and you had to add A LOT of cheese to make them taste good)
• 
  
  1/2 can black beans drained and rinsed
• 
  
  1/2 cup frozen corn
• 
  
  1/2 cup frozen green peppers (I only buy the pepper mix with green red and yellow so I just used that)
• 
  
  1/2 cup cherry tomatoes (personally I like the taste of roma tomatoes better so i cut up 2 of those)
• 
  
  You can also punch it up with that left over chicken you've got in the fridge, or add some olives, if you like that sort of thing.

Dressing:

A little less than 1/4 cup of vege oil and 1/4 cup white vinegar,

Add about 1/4 cup ranch dressing and 1/2 a package of taco seasoning

Heres another tip.

I'm not a big fan of the packages of taco seasonings so I put together my own. It's cheaper and it tastes better. Click here so see tacos.

Chicken Ceasar Lasagna

This definitely make its rounds at our house. The word casserole doesn't spark a lot of confidence but throw a lasagna and I'm game. Not only are they delicious but, as this one proves, very versatile.
It takes a little more work than my traditional cheesy lasagna because you have to cook the noodles before baking on this one.

Start by preheating the oven to 325' F. While that's getting ready cook your noodles as it says on the package drain and set aside. While that's cooking combine the chicken, alfredo, lemon juice, spinach, peppers and black pepper.
Now it's time to build your lasagna. In an 8x8 baking dish put just a little sauce on the bottom of the pan to prevent the noodles from sticking. Then it's just noodles, sauce, noodles, sauce, noodles, sauce, cheese. (Did you catch that? It's 3 layers of noodles and sauce but only 1 layer of cheese) I found that the texture of the spinach in each layer replaces that of the cheese, so by putting the cheese only on top it's almost like you are tricking yourself to think there is more cheese than is really there.
Then you cover it with alumum foil and bake for about 45 minutes (just long enough to get the sauce heated all the way through.

Ingredients

• 9    dried whole wheat (or regular lasagna noodles if you're lame like that ;) )
• 1  10-oz. container  light Alfredo sauce (I use the cheesy garlic one that Kraft makes)
• 1 1/2  Tbsp.  lemon juice
• 1/2  tsp.  cracked black pepper
• chopped, seasoned cooked chicken breast (I usually used salt pepper garlic and onion powder on 2 large breasts that's what she said)
• 5 to 10 oz.  frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained (for this I just put some clumps on 3 paper towels in the microwave and thaw it. Then use the paper towels to ring out the spinach out in the sink, but be careful it's hot)
• 1/2 of a bottle of roasted red sweet peppers, drained and chopped (I've been known to chop up some frozen red peppers if I don't have a bottle on hand)
• 3/4  cup  shredded Italian blend cheese

Nutrition Facts

Calories268, Total Fat (g)10, Saturated Fat (g)6, Monounsaturated Fat (g)1, Polyunsaturated Fat (g)1, Cholesterol (mg)68, Sodium (mg)557, Carbohydrate (g)20, Total Sugar (g)3, Fiber (g)2, Protein (g)24, Vitamin C (DV%)83, Calcium (DV%)21, Iron (DV%)8, Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet