Asparagus stuffed chicken with a pistachio crust

Tonight I decided to go a little fancy. I have no real reason for making this dish other than I had asparagus in the fridge and wanted to use it in a main dish instead of as a vegetable side. These chicken breasts are very easy to make but look fancy so serve them when you need to impress someone...a date maybe or the dreaded in-laws? These can be made ahead of time and placed in the fridge so long as you do not add the pistachio crust, do that right before cooking.

Asparagus stuffed chicken

4 chicken breasts

12 thin asparagus spears

1/2 cup cottage cheese

2 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/4 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp dried basil

1 tbs dried parsley

1 egg

fresh ground pepper

1 egg white

Pistachio Crust

1/3 cup crushed shelled pistachios

3 tbs grated parmesan cheese

In a mixing bowl, combine cheeses, spices and egg, stir until incorporated and set aside. Butterfly each chicken breast. Place cut side up, cover with saran wrap and lightly pound each breast with a rollingpin or meat pounder to about 1/4 inch thickness. Place 3 spears of asparagus at one end of the breast. Add 1/4 cheese mixture and roll up. Place on a foil lined baking sheet seam side down. Brush each chicken breast with lightly beaten egg white and cover with the pistachio crust, pressing gently to ensure it sticks to the chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. You can check doneness by inserting a meat thermometer into the thick side of the chicken breast.

As always, recipes are suggestions. You can use ricotta or goat cheese instead of cottage cheese, and freshly grated parmesan cheese(filling only) all of which will make the filling much richer. You can use fresh basil and parsley instead of dried. The general rule of thumb is twice as much fresh as dried. I firmly believe that you should make each recipe your own. If you are not comfortable messing around with the recipe then make it once as directed then the next time you make it put your own spin on it. Next time I make it myself I will probably make a lightly flavored mustard sauce to put on top.

Strawberry Shortcake

Well it's strawberry season here in Oregon and my garden is exploding with hundreds of berries! The frustrating thing thing is that I only get 20-40 per day which makes it hard to serve a large dish with the berries. However, what I can do is strawberry shortcake for two!

Everyone has a different idea on the proper 'shortcake' for this classic dessert. There are those yellow spongecake bowl thingies from the grocery store, pound cake, angel food cake, or the traditional shortcake. Personally I prefer mine made with pound cake but that would have taken to long and I wanted it NOW. So I scoured the Internet for a good shortcake recipe. Success! I found one. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/strawberry-lemon-shortcake/detail.aspx

As usual, I changed the recipe up to make it my own and I truly believe that had I followed the recipe exactly then I would probably not have enjoyed it as much. The really nice thing about this recipe however is that the portion is for 2 people which is perfect for me, especially since Matt is low carbing it and I had to eat it all myself. So here it is, my improved version version mentioned previously. This recipe is the best true shortcake that I have fully enjoyed.

Shortcake biscuits

1 cup flour

2 tbs sugar

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbs cold butter

3 tbs buttermilk

1 egg yolk, beaten

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine the milk and egg yolk, pour into the crumb mixture, mix until a soft dough forms (I recommend using your hands) Knead until flour is fully incorporated.

Separate the dough into two halves and roll into a ball. Form into a disk approximately 3/4 inch thick. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-13 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool 15 minutes.

Sweetened strawberries


1 1/2 cup strawberries, halved
2 tbs sugar

Combine, cover, and let rest for at least 30 minutes to allow juices to 'bleed'  You can add more sugar if you want it sweeter

Whipped cream

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring

Combine all ingredients and beat until stiff peaks form.  Whipping cream can be made many different ways, by hand with a whisk, in a stand mixer with whisk attachment or hand blender.  For small batches I make it by hand.  You can always adjust the sugar and vanilla to your liking.  I like extra vanilla in mine.

To serve and assemble, cut the shortcakes in half, spread a small amount of lemon butter (mix lemon zest with softened butter) on both sides of the shortcake (by adding a thin layer of butter you help prevent the shortcake from getting soggy).  Pile a bunch of berries on the shortcake, add a healthy dollop of whipped cream, replace the top piece of the shortcake and add another dollop of whipped cream.  Garnish with a whole berry and a sprig of mint.

Taddaa!

Attack of the low carb diet!

So if you have been wondering why there hasn't been any posts for a bit, it is due to extreme dieting, which I do NOT recommend to anyone.  When Josh and I first started seeing each other a few years back, we both could have stood to loose 20-30lbs.  During our first few years, we hadn't quite found our groove when it came to cooking and eating healthy, so we put on a few more pounds.  When we finally decided to change the way we ate, and start cooking things from scratch, we had a lot of weight to take off.

Josh is a few years younger than me, and he originally embraced the changes in diet more than I did.  He also started to add exercise to his routine, which is something that I am still struggling to do regularly.  So while the changes to healthy cooking and eating worked great for Josh to drop the pounds, the weight has been slower to go down for me.  So after hitting a plateau since November, and only loosing about 2 lbs from November till May, I decided to throw a huge curve ball to my body.

I decided to start doing Atkins again.     I had done this diet twice before in my life.  The first time, I lost a ton of weight, and it worked great.  The second time I did it, was after all the fake "Low Carb" processed food came out.  Can you guess how much weight I lost that time?  So I decided to actually do Atkins again, but to en-corporate our desire to eat real food, and to keep the processed and artificial foods out of the diet.  Well, it appears to be working.

All of the processed foods morph things that are in no way food into something they say you are supposed to eat.  Most of them try to mimic a carb, or starchy type food. Most of them are not very good, and even though they are officially low carb, some people actually process more of the net carbs than the package claims.  Also, a bag of low carb crackers, or breads still has a ton of calories, which will pack on the pounds if you include them regularly.  Your body thinks you are eating bread, so you don't think twice about eating a few slices.  Try eating massive quantities of eggs, or other protein rich foods.  It isn't that easy.

My take on the diet, is that you never are really that hungry, as you never get a spike in blood sugar, or insulin, which results in you eating less.  Also as I said above, while it might be easy to sit down and eat a bag of Doritos on the couch, you can only eat so much meat before you feel really ill.

It has been fun learning different ways of cooking things, and trying to make decent meals under this diet.  Josh has learned that sometimes, he will just have to have a separate meal, if he wants good food.  Two hotdogs with mustard, and no buns is not all that interesting of a meal.  It is weird have a two cheeseburgers with no buns on my plate as weight loss food, while not being able to eat the fresh strawberries from the garden.

So some of my next posts might be low carb versions of traditional dishes, or just meals that are naturally low carb without trying to be a substitute food.  Either way, we are still cooking and eating, but it is definitely not the good food that we were eating before.