Healthy recipe #1

So, maybe it was a coincidence that three days after my boyfriend, RJ signed on for a life insurance policy, his coworker suddenly passed at the age of 38.  I may be a scientist, but I still believe that there are signs.  They can be as subtle as a breeze caressing your cheek or as slap-you-in-the-face blatant as your coworker dying just as you are planning for your own hopefully distant demise.  So, in addition to our daily workout regimen (which was brought on by the sign of the ‘L’ sticker on my jeans), we’re going to start eating healthy, vegetable-laden meals until we turn 60, after which we’ll indulge to our hearts content and be able to die happily.  Possibly with a twenty-piece chicken mcnuggets in one hand and a guinness in the other.  Until then, here is healthy dish #1, chicken and quinoa.  Thankfully, garlic, chili peppers, and cinnamon have been deemed ‘healthy’.  

Live long thyme chicken and spinach over spicy quinoa

- ½ white onion, diced; another ½ diced for quinoa

this is what i mean by 'heap' of spinach.

- ½ green pepper, diced

-1 pack thinly sliced chicken breast, sliced in chunks

-3 cups+ white wine

-2 sprigs of thyme, stripped

-2T Worcestershire

-6 cloves garlic, chopped

-heap of fresh spinach, washed

-salt and cracked black pepper

-red chili powder

-3 cups quinoa

-4 whole dried chili peppers

-6 cups mushroom stock

-1t cinnamon

-1T cumin

-olive oil

see the spirals!?

Follow directions on package of quinoa for washing/ soaking steps.  In a pot on the stove or a rice cooker, set up mushroom stock, ½ diced s!?onion, whole chilis, cinnamon, cumin, salt and pepper for 3 cups of quinoa.  For the stove, let stock with seasonings come to a boil and then add quinoa, cover and cook until you can see little spirals in the grains.  For a rice cooker, add everything and push the start button.  While this is cooking, coat olive oil in a high-lipped pan on med heat and chop your onion while it heats up.  Add the onion to the pan and stir, sprinkle with thyme.  Take a moment to smell the thyme.  Mmmm. It smells good.  Chop up the green pepper and stir that in, too.  Slice up the chicken into bite-sized pieces.  Move your veg over to one side of the pan and slide the chicken chunks onto the other side.  Sprinkle chicken with salt (lightly!), pepper and chili powder, let brown on one side and flip over each bit with tongs (not your veg spoon).  Add in the Worcestershire and let the chicken cook through.  Add wine and stir together the chicken and veg.  Let the wine cook down while you chop your garlic and ready the spinach.  When the liquid reaches about ½ volume, add spinach and garlic and stir in to wilt.  Remove from heat as soon as the spinach wilts.  Cracked black pepper to taste.  Within a few minutes, your quinoa will be ready.  Serve chicken over quinoa, or mix it all together.  You won’t even know that you’re eating healthy food! Serves 2-3.

PS.  If you have any cooked quinoa leftover, spread it out on a sheet pan, cover with parchment and/or cling film, and refrigerate.  Tomorrow I’ll post the recipe for quinoa cakes! 
8JRYSBT4KF6T

screamed spinach

Spinach was on sale this week! I pretty much bought out the place, and I’ve been integrating it into random dishes- eggs, pizza, stew, soup- as well as salads and…. Creamed spinach!!  I have no idea how you are supposed to make creamed spinach, but this is what I did and it. was. awesome.  I also did a chromatography experiment today with spinach.  I’ll share both recipes with you…

 

Screamed spinach

-1/2 pint of heavy cream

-1 ½ handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese

-1 tablespoon basil pesto

-1/2 onion, diced

-2 T olive oil

-4-5 handfuls of fresh spinach, ripped up

-salt and pepper, to taste

Oil sauce pan on medium- high heat.   Sweat onions and stir in pesto.  Pour in heavy cream, turn heat to high and let boil.  Before the cream boils over, lift the pot off of the heat and drop in cheese.  Return to medium heat and add salt and pepper.  Pile on the spinach and let wilt by mixing in.  Adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Serve hot!

Spinach chromatography

Rip up one spinach leaf and place in small jar with lid.  Cover leaf with rubbing alcohol.  Put jar in a hot water bath for a half hour, changing out the hot water when necessary.  The pigment in the spinach leaves will transfer to the alcohol.  Cut a strip of coffee filter and put one end in the alcohol and the other sticking up out of the jar.  The pigment will move up the coffee filter and the colors will separate according to size (largest will move the least).  Let separate for 30-90 minutes; the longer the separation, the better.  Measure and record the distances between the bottom of the strip and each band.  Now try with Swiss chard!

 

I actually didn’t have any rubbing alcohol, so I used Madeira wine.  It didn’t work quite as well, but I added some honey, spicy brown mustard, some olive oil, and some salt and pepper and it made a nice dressing for my spinach salad. Now THAT’S a salad that will warm you on a cold day!

I ♥ Pizza

Easy peasy pizza!

Friday night is pizza night! Since we are cutting out red meat, instead of having the usual ropa vieja and rice and beans, it's pizza and beer! The crust is almost the same recipe as the white mountain bread recipe (below) except the use of all purpose flour instead of bread flour and use the pizza crust yeast (little yellow packet).  After mixing, spread out the dough on a pan, spread marinara sauce (I like to make a big pot, portion and freeze it, but jar sauce will do!) add mozzarella, etc.  You can cook it right away, but I left it out for about 30 minutes and it rose just a bit, and the crust was extra crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. For RJ's half, I cut up some pepperoni; for my half, I sauteed some fresh spinach and mushrooms with some salt, pepper and olive oil.  Cook until crust is golden brown, about 20-30 minutes at 400°F. Serve hot with your favorite beer or mine- Magic Hat #9! Delish!