Italian Chicken and Brussels Sprouts in the NuWave Oven

I like kitchen gadgets. A lot. Maybe one of my favorite gadgets is my NuWave Oven. At first, I thought it was another one of those infomercial "as seen on TV" schemes. I mean really, cooking meat from frozen in 25 minutes using infrared technology that produces juicy meat with crispy skin that uses 85% less energy? What kind or sorcery is this? But seriously....it works. Ok, maybe their claims are slightly exaggerated. But not by near as much as you'd think. I find myself using the NuWave about once a week or so. And no, NuWave isn't paying me to write this...nor do they even know about it. This is all me here.

I was kind of surprised by the lack of NuWave tested recipes out there. Maybe it's not so popular with the food bloggers? Well, it should be. My 17 year old step son cooks dinner one night a week at our house and about 90% of the time he reaches for the NuWave. In fact, he got his very own for Christmas...and was super excited about it. He loves it because he can make a great dinner for all of us without standing over the food in the kitchen. To give him credit here, he was the one who discovered the deliciousness of cooking brussels sprouts in the NuWave.

Start out by placing halved brussels sprouts in the bottom tray, mixing in 1-2 tablespoons bacon grease

Add the rack and place chicken thighs on rack. Season with Italian Seasoning, garlic and salt

Put the dome on and set the cook time for 15 minutes. Flip chicken over, give the brussels sprouts a stir, and set the timer for 15 minutes again.

Finish everything off with some cracked pepper. It's really important you don't add pepper before cooking because it will burn and make your food taste funny.

Now I'm sure the NuWave folks weren't intending on cooking the veggies in bacon grease AND the drippings from the chicken above. That may even fly in the face of their nutritional claims, but I don't mind. I gave up all grains and refined sugar. I'm keeping my fats. All the fats.

Ingredients:

1 lb brussels sprouts
1-2 tablespoons bacon grease (optional, but who doesn't want bacon grease??)
chicken thighs (thawed)
Italian Seasoning
Salt and Pepper

Halve brussels sprouts and add to bottom tray of NuWave. Add the rack and place chicken thighs on rack. Season both side of chicken and turn the NuWave on for 15 minutes. Stir veggies and flip chicken over. Turn on for another 15 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through).

Mashed Cauliflower with Herbs

In my continuing quest to cut carbs, cauliflower seems to be king. Want pizza? Sure! Cauliflower can do that! Need breadcrumbs on top of your casserole? Cauliflower can do that! Want mashed potatoes with your meatloaf? Well, cauliflower can do that too! And you won't miss the potatoes at all with this recipe!

Start out by chopping a head of cauliflower

Then add it to a pot with some water and boil until tender

Drain, return to pan, and mash

Add in butter and herbs, then give it a whisk to fluff it up

Turnip and Parsnip "Pasta"

If you haven't tried veggie noodles, you don't know what you're missing. Seriously. There is a wide variety of choices out there, making it super easy to get the perfect veggie and meat pairing. And you know, low carbs and stuff.

Sauteed Turnips and Parsnips

1 medium turnip
1 parsnip
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil or ghee)
1 1/2 c spinach


Run the turnip and parsnip through the spiralizer using the medium blade.

In a large skillet, melt the butter on medium low heat, then add the garlic and stir until soft and fragrant. Toss in the veggie noodles and cover. Cook on low for 15-20 minutes, until tender. Then add spinach. Cover and let the spinach wilt.

Serve with roasted salmon for a sweet and savory mix.

Mashed Rutabaga

Root vegetables are a winter staple around my house. Well, more like a year round staple, but especially in the winter. Fresh produce in the winter can kind of be tricky, and when we have crazy weather around the country, it's even trickier. But root vegetables are usually fairly reliable. And comforting. I don't know what happens when you mash a root vegetable, but it's almost magical. Well, maybe not magical, but it's warm, and creamy, and buttery, and delicious. So basically the same thing as magical.

If you don't cook with rutabaga, you should try it out. And this is one of the easiest recipes to start with. If you can make mashed potatoes, you can make mashed rutabaga. It's pretty much the same; peel, chop, boil, mash, season, serve.

What you'll need:

Rutabaga (I used 2, but I was counting on enough for dinner and lunch for us)
Butter
Milk
Seasonings of choice
Optional: Crumbled bacon and shredded cheese

Just like potatoes, start out by peeling and chopping the rutabaga and then boiling under tender

Then mash

I like to put in the butter and seasonings during the mashing part just to really work them in. I used some dried onion flakes, 3 tablespoons butter, salt and pepper and some poultry seasoning. Once it's mashed down with a few chunks remaining, whip in milk until it's thick and creamy, just like mashed potatoes.

I like to top it off with a few pieces of crumbled bacon and some sharp cheddar cheese.

Rutabagas have about half the calories and carbs of potatoes, which makes a nice swap if you're counting those kinds of things.

Root Vegetable Noodles with Oven Roasted Chicken

Unless you are still one of the carb loving, noddle eating, gluten devouring folks out there (that I secretly despise and am constantly envious of), then you may have run across or even tried one of the gadgets that makes "noodles" out of vegetables. The "Veggetti" is one of my favorites. It's easy to grab it and turn zucchini into noodles in a matter of seconds. But in my experience, it is kind of limited to zucchini and yellow squash. And even those need to be fairly small or you end up pulverizing the vegetables (and your hands). Even Alton Brown has something to say about it.


So I've been on the search for something a little more versatile. Especially since we officially gave up pasta this month. (Although we haven't eaten any in almost a year) I finally found one and ordered it.



It was a bit tricky to figure out at first. I'm not going to lie....the Veggetti was fairly self explanatory, but this required some actual thought. But once we figured it out, we had noodles made out of turnips, carrots and parsnips in a matter of just a couple of minutes.

Don't mind my messy counters. I wasn't exactly planning on sharing the video with everyone-just wanted to send it to a couple of people to let them know that this one actually works!

While my husband was creating the noodles, I had put the chicken in the oven and started sauteing some onions and garlic in a couple tablespoons of butter on the stove. The noodles were added to the onions and garlic and cooked until tender, but not mushy.

A little bit of sliced chicken breast, Parmesan cheese, some salt and pepper and dinner was ready! Leave the cheese off to make it Paleo friendly, or keep it there and it's Primal friendly. Either way, it was very tasty and filling! 

Recipe:
1 Medium turnip
1 Medium parsnip
2 Medium Carrots
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
Roasted chicken (or rotisserie chicken if you're in a hurry)
(Optional) Parmesan cheese

Saute onion and garlic on low heat until fragrant. Toss in spiralized vegetables and cook on low until desired tenderness. Top with chicken and sprinkle cheese on top.



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Lightened Up Casserole

One of my favorite comfort foods is chicken and broccoli casserole. It doesn't matter what time of year it is or what the temperature is outside, that's the one meal that always hits the spot for me. And the best part is it's made from leftovers.

Last night I was trying to figure out what to make with the leftover turkey breast I had, it came to me that I could fairly easily tweak the chicken and broccoli casserole recipe to make it work with the turkey, and lighten it up in the process. Today I entered the ingredients into the Recipe Calculator to see what the nutritional difference was between the original recipe and the new version. The amounts may be slightly different, but for the quick comparison, it will do. Here's the original recipe:

And the Nutrition Information

For this version, here are the swaps I made: 

1 roasted turkey breast for the chicken

1 egg beaten in place of the mayo

1 roasted spaghetti squash in place of the rice

3 slices of cheddar cheese in place of the colby jack

1/2 c riced and roasted cauliflower in place of the breadcrumbs

Check out the new nutrition information: 

These swaps cut out over 100 calories, 16 g of fat and 20 carbs per serving!! That's not to mention all of the increased vitamins and minerals!

Roasted Cupcake Squash and Brussels Sprouts

It's been a crazy gardening season. It started out so much cooler than usual, which wreaked havoc on all the plants that thrive in warmer weather. Then it rained. And rained. I'm fairly certain I saw Noah go by. Then it finally remembered it was summer and warm weather came. The zucchini did great. We have been eating zucchini daily for about 2 months and I was able to freeze a lot too. The corn didn't fare as well. All of the rain completely flooded out the green beans-not a single plant survived. And because of the super soaked soil, the weeds took over nearly everything else. The one bring spot was the cupcake squash. I was concerned at first because when the cooler weather decided to stick around for a few weeks, we only had male flowers-no fruit. But soon, we had so many I couldn't keep up with them.

If you haven't seen cupcake squash yet, here's what they look like.

They're about the size of an onion and taste similar to zucchini, but with a nutty taste. And like zucchini, if you don't pick them on a regular basis, they will grow to amazingly large size! We had a few that were missed and ended up about the size of my head! We like to add them to salads raw, but my favorite way to eat them is roasted.

Roasted Cupcake Squash and Brussels Sprouts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a baking sheet, toss together brussels sprouts (cut in half, long ways), sliced squash, olive oil and salt. I used olive oil infused with Italian seasoning and garlic.

Roast until veggies are tender, about 30-45 minutes, stirring around about half way through.

When veggies turn a light golden brown, they're ready. Finish off with some pepper.

I like the squash by itself, but pairing with brussels sprouts is the best combination! They hold up really well to roasting, much better than other summer squash, but still have a delicate taste. We're just about to the end of this growing season, so I don't have too many more of these left. They will absolutely make it into next year's garden.

Lemon Garlic Rainbow Chard

Last week I bought some rainbow chard from the food hub. It was absolutely beautiful! I love the bright colors and so desperately needed it after this cold rainy weather we've been having. I had some salmon patties ready to cook for dinner the other night and I knew that was the perfect time to pull out the chard. I love the flavor of chard and it's soooo easy to make!

Start out by sauteing the chopped stems with some olive oil, a tablespoon or two of garlic, a few dashes of red pepper flakes and some salt.

After about three minutes, add in the roughly chopped leaves and toss around with tongs until the leaves wilt. There's nothing dainty and pretty about my pan of chard, but if I had company over, I'd make it a little more pretty and fork friendly! Splash on some lemon juice (maybe a tablespoon) and you're ready to go!

The lemon and garlic flavors were perfect with the salmon patties and some steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

Omelet in a Mug

For the last few weeks, some of the ladies at work and I have been having our breakfast at work together. We have all been focusing on eating more whole foods, specifically fruits and vegetables, so we decided to pool our resources and make breakfast easier on all of us. Each of us brings in specific foods-I bring eggs of course-which helps with grocery shopping and weekly planning for all of us. When it's time for breakfast, we meet up in the breakroom and assemble our food.


We chop up our ingredients for the day, which include bacon, ham, salsa, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, spinach, various cheeses, and avocado.

Then we put them into our mugs, adding 2 eggs at the end and giving it all a good stir.

Next, into the microwave for about 45 seconds on medium power-that's the trick to prevent rubbery eggs which are completely disgusting! Another quick stir and back into the microwave for 2 minutes on medium, or until eggs are set. Depending on your ingredients, it may take up to 3 minutes, just be careful not to overcook it. We usually watch the microwave for the eggs to puff up and fall twice.

Squash-browns

We have really been enjoying these make ahead breakfast sandwiches lately. We decided to have them again this week for breakfast, but I wanted to do something a little different. Two thoughts came to mind:

1) I really should eat more vegetables, especially at breakfast. I have no problem getting enough fruit in each day, and I love vegetables but still sometimes struggle getting in enough servings. Why not add more at breakfast?

2) I love potatoes. I love hash browns with breakfast. I should incorporate hash browns into my breakfasts more often.