Chicken Breasts in Sour Cream Sauce

Review by Rachael:

4 bone-in chicken breast halves (2 lb.)

¼ cup flour

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

1 ripe tomato, seeded, chopped

2 Tbsp. tomato sauce

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup chicken stock or broth

½ cup sour cream

RINSE chicken; pat dry with paper towel. Set aside. Mix flour, salt and pepper in shallow dish. Add chicken; toss lightly to evenly coat both sides with flour mixture. Shake off excess flour mixture.

MELT butter in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook 30 min. or until cooked through, turning occasionally. Transfer chicken to serving platter; cover with foil to keep warm.

ADD tomatoes, tomato sauce and garlic to skillet; cook on medium high heat 3 min. or until heated through, stirring frequently. Add chicken stock; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 3 min. Add sour cream; stir with wire whisk until well blended. Cook until heated through, stirring frequently. (Do not allow sauce to boil or it will separate.) Remove from heat. Pour over chicken. Garnish with minced fresh parsley, if desired.

I rarely buy sour cream but the rest of the family insists on it when we have taco pizza. Somehow we ended up with two containers in the fridge and I was looking for a way to use it up. I had done a search for a recipe with chicken & sour cream and came across this one. Sounded easy enough. I had read the reviews and it was 5 out of 5 stars! I also read that a lot of people had used flavored sauce, so I figured the pizza sauce I had on hand should work fine. They also suggest doubling the batch and putting it over pasta or potatoes. So I did! Wish I wouldn’t have now…

I had minced garlic at home & used that instead of the cloves it calls for in the recipe. It isn’t a hard recipe just time consuming as they say to use the same pan. If I had to do it all over again I would not use the same pan and I would cook the sauce in separate pan a few minutes before the chicken was done cooking. With the recipe the way it is you put tin foil over the chicken but it doesn’t keep it as hot as I would have liked it. The sauce looked kinda nasty. But I moved ahead and put it over the mashed potatoes and served up the chicken. The sauce is super runny and makes a mess on a plate. Maybe pasta would have been a better option, but I had potatoes to use up. We felt all you could taste was the sour cream in the sauce and that had been diluted with all the other ingredients. We added a ton of salt & pepper to the sauce to get a little more flavor out of it. It was edible but not good. The chicken itself was good.

I would not make this recipe again for our family. Of course since I doubled the sauce recipe I ended up throwing it out. Oh well, now I know!

Cracker Barrel Chicken Tenders

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients

1 pound boneless chicken breast tenders

½ cup Zesty Italian dressing

1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon honey

Instructions

Mix dressing, lime juice and honey in a large resealable bag or container.  Add the chicken. Marinate for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator.  In a large non-stick skillet over med/high heat, add the entire mixture with chicken to the pan. Braise chicken on all sides until golden but not dry-until most of the liquid has evaporated out. 

Verdict:

I halved the recipe because it was just me eating dinner last night.  I had set out chicken to thaw yesterday morning and when I got home from the gym this looked like an easy recipe to try.  I did not marinate it for four hours as I was starving.  Mine marinated for about 15 minutes but still had good flavor.  I’m sure if you did the four hours these would be out of this world.  The only Italian dressing I had on hand was a fat free Caesar Italian but I thought it was pretty tasty! I paired it with my biggest loser sweet potato fries and it was a wonderful and healthy meal.  

141 calorie healthy breakfast for one

Review by Lyndee:

With the new year upon us I’ve had a lot of people ask me for quick and healthy breakfast suggestions for one.  Here’s one of my favorites that is high protein, low fat and clocks in at a grand total of 141 calories. 

Ingredients:

½ cup egg beaters

5 piece baby spinach (tore into pieces)

1 tbsp bacon pieces

1/8 shredded cheese

Hot sauce

Cover pan in cooking spray and heat to medium.  Add egg beaters, followed by spinach, bacon and hot sauce.  

When bottom side is done, flip and add cheese.  Fold in half and eat right away or refrigerate. I usually make mine the night before and reheat for one minute when I get to work in the morning.  

Substitutions

1 tbsp Bacon, 2 pieces of deli ham or 1 ounce turkey breakfast sausage.

You can use regular egg beaters, egg whites or any of the other fun flavors they offer like three cheese, Florentine and southwest. 

I like to use 2% shredded cheese when I have it on hand, feta or a wedge of laughing cow light. 

Add any veggies you want to make this your own…onions, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, etc.  

Cocoroos

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

6 cups mini marshmallows

6 cups cocoroos (or any chocolate puff or rice cereal)

¼ cup peanut butter (I used reduced fat)  

Grease a 9 x13 pan.  Melt butter, marshmallows and peanut butter together.  Mix in cereal.  Press into pan. 

I used the generic version of cocoa puffs to make these because we had a bag on hand that was going to go stale soon. I thought the peanut butter would be a nice addition because, let’s face it, chocolate and peanut butter is about the best combination ever.  Easy, cheap and yummy.  

Pudding shots

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

1/2 cup Irish cream liqueur (eg. Bailey's®)

1/2 cup vodka

1 (4 serving size) package instant chocolate pudding mix

Directions

Whisk together the milk, Irish cream liqueur, vodka, and instant pudding mix in a bowl until combined. Continue whisking for 2 minutes.  Spoon the pudding mixture into shot glasses or disposable party shot cups. Chill until set, about 30 minutes. The shots will have the consistency of mousse.

I made two different batches of these because I was so excited.  The first batch I used a traditional Irish cream.  The 2^nd batch I used a mint chocolate Irish cream.  Also, I used flavored whipped vodka instead of normal.  These were delicious and a definite hit at our New Years Eve party.  The only thing is they didn’t get as thick as I thought they would.  I had them in the fridge for over 12 hours. But that’s probably a good thing or we would’ve had to spoon it out instead of having it like a shot.  

Bourbon meatballs

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients: 

1 pound Bag Frozen Meatballs

½ cups Ketchup (Heaping)

½ cups Brown Sugar, Packed

¼ cups Bourbon Whiskey

1 teaspoon Fresh Lemon Juice

1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients except your meatballs. Mix up really well.  Place your frozen meatballs into your crock pot, and pour the whiskey sauce in on top. Mix it up all around so each meatball is coated with the whiskey sauce. Now turn up the heat to high. Leave it on high for about an hour, stirring a couple times. Once it appears that the meatballs have somewhat thawed, go ahead and turn your crockpot down to low.

These went over well at our party! I made a double batch but the bourbon was a bit much for me.  Other people loved it but I would scale it back a bit if I made them again.  Just a little too overpowering.  They were definitely easy to make and a fun party food. 

Note: 1 bag of (1 pound) frozen meatballs is only about 18 to 20 larger size meatballs. That is perfect for a small get-together. But if you’re going to a larger party, you might want to get two bags of meatballs, and in that case you would then double the above recipe. 

Skinny chicken parmesan

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients: 

4 (8 oz) chicken breast halves, sliced in half to make 8

3/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp butter, melted (I used olive oil)

3/4 cup reduced fat mozzarella cheese

1 cup marinara or spaghetti sauce

cooking spray

Preheat oven to 450°. Spray a large baking sheet lightly with spray.

Combine breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese in a bowl. Melt the butter in another bowl. Lightly brush the butter onto the chicken, then dip into breadcrumb mixture.  Place on baking sheet and repeat with the remaining chicken.  

Lightly spray a little more oil on top and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Turn chicken over, bake another 5 minutes.  

Remove from oven, spoon 1 tbsp sauce over each piece of chicken and top each with 1 1/2 tbsp of shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake 5 more minutes or until cheese is melted.

Serve with spaghetti, spaghetti squash or tofu noodles.  I used Shirataki tofu noodles.  One bag is only 40 calories, 1 g of fat and 6 carbs versus the terrible stats of real pasta.  I halved the recipe and just made two chicken breasts.  I couldn’t even finish half because it was filling.  And so delicious!