Skinny Crockpot Santa Fe Chicken

I know I posted a very similar dish recently (Cheesy Chicken & Rice Casserole) but with just a few changes this is a much lighter version.  And of course, using the crockpot, makes it even simpler for a lot of people with busy schedules.

Though it is very similar in theory, it’s actually quite different in flavor.  While the casserole was creamy and more mild, this dish is a bit more spicy and thin I guess.  If I were being totally honest I would have to admit I prefer the casserole, however this is still a great alternative for those times when you are trying to cut back a bit and eat a little healthier.  The chicken mixture itself is very low calorie, so if you are truly trying to cut back you need to be aware of the way you serve it and any toppings you may add.  We used a bit of brown rice and some tortillas with just a little bit of cheese and it was good that way as a sort of burrito.  You could easily serve it with just the rice though, or maybe even with just the wraps.  There are many other things you can top this with, like sour cream, avocado, more cheese, chips, or anything you want really…. just be careful!

As I mentioned, it’s a bit on the spicy side (at least to me), so if you have little ones eating it you may want to cut back a bit on the cayenne pepper.

Yields : 8 (1 cup) servings

Ingredients :

• 1 lb (about 2) boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
• 1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies, drained
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth (I just used an entire 14oz can)
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp each : chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, cumin
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 6 scallions, chopped

Directions :

1. Combine all ingredients except cilantro and scallions in your slow cooker. Nestle chicken into mixture and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-6 hours.
2. Half an hour before serving, remove chicken and shred with two forks. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir. Adjust salt and seasoning to taste. Stir in cilantro and garnish with scallions.
3. Serve over rice, tortillas, or large lettuce leaves to make a lettuce wrap. Add your favorite toppings.

Recipe from The Comfort Of Cooking

Cheesy Chicken & Rice Casserole

If you are looking for simple, quick and delicious comfort food, casseroles are definitely the way to go.  They are such a versatile dish, with so many fantastic flavor combinations.  This particular one is a southwestern inspired casserole, and I promise your entire family will love it!  As long as they aren’t as picky as my kids who wouldn’t even try it that is lol…..

There is a lot of flavor in this casserole, but not a lot of heat which makes it even more family friendly.  It is nice and creamy from the yogurt and sour cream, but  has lots of texture from the beans, corn, chicken, and rice.  The cilantro adds a nice freshness to the whole thing, and the the cheese…. well you know how I feel about cheese lol.  As with most casseroles, this heats up beautifully the next day and could be a great thing to make ahead for quick lunches throughout the week.

I used brown rice like it calls for, but if you prefer white go ahead and use that. I did change things a little though and used a  Mexican blend cheese.  And, you can probably guess, I used rotisserie chicken.

As for low FODMAP or not…. you’ll have to be the judge.  I can handle some sour cream and yogurt so it was no problem for me, but it depends on your triggers.  Generally though this is pretty low FODMAP friendly.

Perhaps the one downside to casseroles, from a photographer’s standpoint anyway, is that it kind of just looks like a blob of stuff.  It’s pretty hard to get creative with the photographs for them, so bear with me if pretty much all my casserole images look the same lol.  I promise they all taste wonderful in their own unique ways!  And the smell…. you may want to have someone “conveniently” stop by for a minute so they can get a whiff and sing praises to your culinary skills.

 

Serves : 6-8

Ingredients :

• 3 cups cooked brown rice
• 2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
• 1 (15oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (4oz) can chopped green chilies
• 1 cup corn, frozen or canned is ok
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped + more for garnish
• 1 cup salsa
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I used lite)
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar + more for topping

Directions :

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Spray a 9×13″ baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Add all ingredients to a large bowl and stir well to combine, and pour the chicken mixture into your prepared dish.
3. Top with about a 1/2 cup of extra shredded cheddar cheese.  Place in oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until nice and hot.
4. Garnish with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro.

Recipe from Little B Cooks

Southwest Turkey Burgers with Chipotle Yogurt Sauce

Let me start off with a disclaimer… this recipe calls for avocado you’ll see, and I did buy one, but by the time I got to make the burgers my avocado had gone bad so I had to leave it off.  While the burgers were really quite good, even without the avocado, I imagine they would be even better WITH it.

If you have tried turkey burgers before you may have found them to be a little dry or bland.  Unfortunately this is just the nature of turkey burgers, because they are a lean meat.  Because of this you need to add things to them, and this is honestly one of the best I have tried.  My husband didn’t like the black bean burgers I made in the past, but he did like the black beans as an addition in these.  I also think the corn was a great addition as well as all the rest.  Although there was a bit of heat to it, I really enjoyed the chipotle yogurt sauce to top them off.  I think this is where the avocado would come in nicely to sort of cut through the heat!  The recipe didn’t call for cheese, perhaps as a way to cut back on fat and calories, but I love a good cheeseburger so I topped ours with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese I had on hand.

The recipe calls for 1 lb of ground turkey, and makes 3 burgers.  For some reason I can never find JUST  a lb of ground turkey, and think my package ended up being 1.25 lbs.  No big deal, I just stretched it a little further and made 4 burgers out of this.  They were quite large, so I think that worked out better anyway since I imagine 3 burgers at 1/3lb each would have been even larger and I find it tricky to get turkey burgers cooked all the way through if they get too big.  What I ended up doing was to place a lid over my skillet for part of the cook time to make extra sure they were cooked through, and again at the end to melt the cheese a bit.

Whether you are trying to eat healthier or just like to try new things, I suggest you give these turkey burgers a shot!  It’s a bit of a long ingredients/instructions list, but don’t let that scare you away.  They are easier than they look.

 

Makes : 3 burgers

Ingredients :

• 6 oz. plain Greek yogurt
• 3 chilis in adobo sauce, chopped plus 1 tablespoon adobo sauce
• 1 tablespoon lime juice, zest of ½ lime
• Salt to taste
• 2 tablespoon grapeseed or olive oil
• ½ red onion, finely chopped
• 1 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup fresh corn kernels (I used frozen)
• ½ cup black beans, drained and rinsed
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 pound ground turkey meat
• 3 hamburger buns
• 1 avocado, mashed
• Slices tomato (optional)
• lettuce

Directions :

1. Crack open a can of chipotle chilis in adobo sauce. Chop three of the chilis.
2. Add the chipotle chilis along with 1 tablespoon of the adobo sauce to a bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine.
3. In a medium-sized skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the chopped onion. Saute until the onion begins to sweat, soften and becomes fragrant, about 8 minutes.
4. Add the jalapeno, garlic cloves, salt and cumin. Saute another 3 to 5 minutes.
5. Add the corn and sauté and sauté until corn kernels are plump and cooked, another 3 to 5 minutes.
6. Add the black beans and continue to cook, stirring consistently just until black beans are hot. Set the sauté pan aside and allow everything to cool to room temperature.
7. Once the sauté mixture has cooled, combine it with the ground turkey meat in a large mixing bowl. Use your hands to mix the meat and sautéed veggies together. Form three burger patties.
8. In a cast iron skillet (or regular skillet), heat 2 tablespoons of oil to medium-high heat.
9. Place burger patties on the hot skillet and allow them to cook until the sides firm up, about 5 to 8 minutes
10. Flip the burgers and cook them on the other side until the burgers feel firm when poked and are cooked all the way through, another few minutes.
11. Toast the buns in the oven under your broiler.
12. Roughly chop or smash an avocado and distribute it between three burger buns.
13. Set patties on top of avocado, douse with chipotle yogurt sauce, add fresh tomato, red oniton and lettuce to your burgers.

Recipe from The Roasted Root

 

Chicken Nacho Soup

I may have mentioned before that I am not much of a soup person, but that doesn’t stop me from trying them from time to time.  In doing so, I have actually found a couple I really like, which is a pretty big change from hating all soups.  Tonight’s soup was pretty good, but I am not sure it will become a favorite for me personally.  I think I would have liked it to be a tad creamier somehow, or a little less hot sauce since that was the dominating flavor to me.  I did like it with the chips for dipping though, and as far as soups go I would probably eat it again just to keep things different once in a while… perhaps with the changes I mentioned.  Jeff eats soup a lot more often than me and he said it was good, so perhaps he’s a better judge for this one.

It comes together quite easily, and doesn’t need a lot of time to cook which is always a good thing on those busy weeknights.  I love that it uses rotisserie chicken because that’s even less work you have to do, and I just really like rotisserie chicken.  At first I wasn’t sure what the recipe meant by “nachos”, but I decided it must have meant tortilla chips since the article also mentioned dipping them in the soup and some were pictured with it.  So anyway, I went with an Artisan Toasted Southwestern variety and they were perfect for this.  For the cheese I used Monteray Jack, but I bet cheddar, mozzarella, or even pepper jack if you really like the heat would also be good.

Serves : 4-6             Time to make : 40 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1/2 rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 3 T. olive oil
• 1/2 (8 oz) package cream cheese (I used fat free)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 can corn, drained
• 4 C. chicken broth
• 1 T. hot sauce
• 3 T. tomato paste
• 1 C. nachos, crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste
• shredded cheese for topping
• cilantro or parsley for topping (optional)

Directions :

1. Heat oil in a large soup pot or dutch oven over medium heat.  Cook onions in hot oil until translucent.  Add garlic and jalapenos and cook a minute more.
2. Add water and cream cheese, stirring until cheese is melted.  Add crumbled nachos next, this helps to thicken the soup.  Add chicken, corn, and salsa and stir to combine.  Then add your broth, hot sauce, and tomato paste and stir again.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to a low boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.
3. Serve with shredded cheese, cilantro, and more nachos for dipping.

Recipe from Jo Cooks

Day 143 : Southwest Turkey Roll-Up

I am still knee deep in editing so no trips to the store today, but luckily I had a few things on hand just in case I got busy like this.  I had been meaning to try the cream cheese and this seemed like the perfect time.  I actually really liked this and could see myself making it often for lunch.  It reminds me a bit of those tortilla wrap appetizers with the cream cheese, peppers, olives, etc.  But also a little bit like a meat roll up since of course it has meat.  Best of both worlds!

You could use whatever turkey you wanted for this, I just happened to buy mesquite last time.  Also any color pepper would work, but I had a container of the minis on hand.  Since I am watching my calories these days I opted out, but I bet a bit of shredded monteray jack would be good in there too.

Southwest Turkey Roll-Up

Serves : 1            Time to make : 5 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1 flat out light wrap
• 6 slices turkey 
• 1 T. chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 T. southwest flavored cream cheese
• 2 mini peppers, sliced
• 1 green onion sliced

Directions :

1. Spread cream cheese onto wrap, then layer with turkey, cilantro, onions and peppers.
2. Tightly roll up jelly style and cut in half.

Day 117 : Southwest Bean and Salsa Dip

Jeff surprised me by bringing home dinner tonight so I had to come up with last minute plans for a recipe.  I had a few things left over from various recipes this week, and some I had planned to use in a different recipe which might get pushed back for now, so I decided to do a quick search for something to use up some of them.  I found a similar recipe to the one I will share tonight listed as a Weight Watchers snack and decided to give it a try but didn’t have very high hopes for it honestly since I am not typically a chunky dip kind of person and the thought of a bean dip that wasn’t smooth had me worried.

However, I think this might just be one of, if not THE best salsa/bean type dips I have ever had!  Yes, it’s so simple, but the flavor is so great!  I actually really like the beans and corn in this too, and the fact that this is something you could eat on weight watchers is just the gravy!  I plan to make this many times again and if I get the chance to host a Mexican themed dinner party this is DEFINITELY going to be on the menu for an appetizer!

The recipe I was inspired by said to allow the flavors to marry for a few hours before eating it, but we didn’t have the time to do this tonight.  I can imagine it would only get better with time though.  I did find it to have a bit of heat, but not in a bad way.  For me it was just the right amount.

Southwest Bean and Salsa Dip

Serves : 3-4                         Time to make : 5 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1/2 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 can (11 oz) corn niblets, drained
• 1 can rotel tomatoes with chilis, drained
• 1/2 cup chunky salsa (I used mild)
• 1/4 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 T. fresh cilantro, chopped
• chips for dipping

Directions :

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, stir to mix.  Cover and chill for a couple of hours if you have the time before serving.

Day 112 : Mustard Lime Chicken & Southwest Salad

Still having computer issues so going to keep this short.  I am hoping to make it through on my actual computer tonight because it takes so long to do this on my phone!

The chicken part of this recipe is something I found on Food.com, and have made before.  It has lots of flavor and is super simple to make.  The first time we made it I served it on a regular salad and thought at the time it would also be good on a southwestern type salad so that’s what I did today.  It was more than good, it was perfect!  Full of flavor, and healthy at the same time with many “good” fats and calories.  I didn’t follow any specific recipe for the salad or measure.  I will list out the ingredients I used, and you can decide how much or little you want to use in your own.  You do need to make the marinade for the chicken ahead of time so plan for that.  Time to make will not take this into consideration.

Mustard Lime Chicken & Southwest Salad

Serves : 4                          Time to make : 25 minutes

Ingredients :

Marinade

• 2 large chicken breasts (1.5 lbs)
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
• 1/4 cup dijon mustard
• 1 T. chili powder
• 1 T. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Salad

• packaged salad (about 8-10 oz, I used spring mix)
• black beans (about half a can), rinsed and drained
• mexican corn (about 3/4 can), drained
• avacado, sliced or diced
• olives (small can)
• tomato (1-2 romas)
• low fat mozzarella (or monteray jack)
• tortilla chips (a generous handful), broken into pieces
• zest of 1 lime
• chipotle seasoning
• smokey paprika
• low fat honey dijon dressing (I used about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2 lime, juice of
• lime, cut into 4 wedges

Directions :

1. Place marinade ingredients into a food processor (minus the chicken of course) and process until well blended.  Reserve a little bit in a dish, and pour the rest into a large ziplock bag along with the chicken.  Let marinade for at least an hour, or up to 6.  To cook, grill and brush reserved marinade on both sides while cooking.  Slice and allow to cool slightly.
2. To prepare dressing for the salad, combine the honey dijon dressing with the lime zest, juice of half a lime, chipotle seasoning and paprika.  Start light on the seasonings, mix, and taste it until it’s right for you. 
3. Combine the rest of your salad ingredients, add the chicken and dressing and toss lightly to coat. 
4. Give each person a wedge of lime to squeeze onto their salad.  This really makes the flavors pop.