Now who dare take my precious tomato sauce out of one of my all time favorite dishes and replace it with spinach? Idk but I'm glad they did! It was a nice change of pace plus the spinach saves some calories which is always a good thing! I traditionally serve pasta with my chicken parm but I subbed it for brown rice in this recipe and it was delicious. I'm sure you could do pasta as well but that'd add a few more calories.

I was feeling good about this being a low calorie dish so I went light with the sides as well, steamed broccoli and half a baked sweet potato. I did splurge on the butter and cinnamon sugar for my potato, which I highly recommend!!! 

For 2 servings:

1 boneless skinless chicken breast

3 cups raw spinach

3/4 cups milk (I used evaporated milk)

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

2 T minced garlic

1/2 T butter

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup brown rice

1/3 cup shredded mozzarella

Oil (to cook chicken)

Sides

1 1/2 cup broccoli

1 sweet potato

1/2 T butter

Cinnamon sugar, salt and pepper to taste

Directions 

Cook brown rice according to package (I always start my brown rice first because it takes a while, usually about 45 minutes or so).

Throw your sweet potato in the microwave after poking some holes in it. Alternatively, you could bake it but that takes forever!

Heat a pan on med-high, add whatever oil you want to use, I use olive oil. Place chicken **i cut mine in half twice, so I had 4 pieces** in pan and cook until done (you can season it if you want, I always throw a little Tony's on just about everything). Remove and set aside

In the same pan cook your spinach until wilted, remove and set aside.

Add butter to pan and heat until foam subsides then add garlic and cook until a little browned.

Pour in milk and slowly add Parmesan, stirring so it doesn't clump. Let sauce simmer until it thickens. Season to taste.

Steam your broccoli *If you're like me and want to save on dishes, steam the broccoli above your boiling rice so those "lost nutrients" get infused into your rice!

Once sauce thickens add spinach and chicken back into pan and heat thoroughly. 

Place two pieces of chicken atop half of the brown rice then spoon spinach Parmesan mixture over it, immediately sprinkle with half of the mozzarella so that the heat from the sauce will melt it. 

Season your broccoli and sweet potato to your liking, plate and eat!

Hope you try it and love it! The entire meal in under 400 calories (sides included) so how could you not? =)

chicken food Parmesan spinach

11:03 AM

I guess I have to start somewhere and for me there's no better place than with my current favorite recipe, Ginger Soy Tilapia! Not only is this recipe ridiculously easy, it's super quick to make and it's under 500 calories (including sides)! 

I served brown rice and sautéed broccoli with red onions with this dish. I've only recently discovered brown rice after a coworker of mine told me it's much better for me than white rice but it takes a little more time to make. That was good enough for me to try it and it's not more expensive than white rice and I did need more rice sooooo here we are! 

Okay so back to the fish, so I did have to buy a few ingredients to make this but nothing was more than four bucks which is right up my alley, especially with my current jobless situation. Now some of this you may already have and can save more money, but it was time for me to restock anyway so it was just perfect timing. 

So what I specifically needed to buy for this recipe was: ginger, for $.98, they were $3.99 lb, not expensive at all...and you can freeze it so that's even better! Soy sauce was $2.99 and the balsamic vinegar for $3.99. Everything else, I already had at home, so let's get to it!

_________________________________________________________________

This recipe is for 2 but can easily be doubled, tripled, etc.

3 T soy sauce

3 T balsamic vinegar

3 T olive oil (or whatever oil you have)

    -plus 1 T for sautéing 

3 T honey

1 T garlic (fresh or jarred)

1 t minced ginger (I chopped it as best I could and it was fine)

4 tilapia filets (thawed)

2 cups cooked brown rice*

1 cup broccoli

1/2 cup sliced onions

*you can buy minute rice or regular, I bought regular and I do one cup to 1 1/2 cups water plus a chicken bouillon cube for flavor, it takes about 45 minutes so I make it first because the fish only takes about 20 minutes.

 Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the first six ingredients in a baking dish big enough to hold all your fish. Add the fish and scoop some sauce over the fish so they all get coated. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover with aluminum foil. When the fish is white and flakes easily it's done, your oven may take longer or shorter to cook. 

While that's baking, go ahead and heat a skillet over med-high heat, add your oil, once hot sauté your veggies to your preference. I like mine broccoli pretty crunchy but onions softer so I cook the onions a little before I add the broccoli.

Once your fish is done, this is completely optional but totally worth it, you can pour that sauce into the skillet you used to sauté and add a bit of flour and let it cook until it thickens to make a sort of glaze.

That's it, plate it and eat! I'm a strong believer in "if it looks good, it'll taste good" and I haven't been proven wrong yet, so I make a good effort to make my presentations look appetizing, which also helps for my bf because I sneak alot of healthy stuff in and he doesn't know or care because it's delicious lol! Anywho hope you enjoy it as much as we did =)

balsamic vinegar brown rice food ginger healthy food low calorie seafood soy tilapia

6:26 PM

So I've decided to get back on track with a lot of things in my life, one being blogging! I haven't had an active blog since 2011! Another being, eating better...as of late I've been munching on everything in sight and eating out wayyyyyy more than I normally do. But for the last few days I've been really good about watching what I eat, I've even started back keeping track of my calories (as much as I hate doing it sometimes, for me that is the BEST way to get in control of my eating/weight) I'm the type of person that has to be able see exactly what's going on in order to change it for the better. So since I've been more health conscious I, of course, had to restock on foods! Being the pretty frugal person I wanted to do this in the cheapest way possible because I already spend enough on groceries, and healthier foods have a rep of being pricey. So I waited until I needed food before getting my new healthy stuff. Now I didn't go crazy on my first trip, the biggest thing for me was brown rice, bell peppers, various fruits, spinach, sweet potatoes, romaine lettuce and fish (tilapia) -- all of that (though I bought other things I needed at the same time) wasn't more than about $20 but I have to admit that I shop at about 3 different stores when I make groceries to get the best deals. I am a bargain hunter! And that will last for about two weeks....in all a whole restock grocery trip costs me around 60-80$ but that's when I'm buying multiple meats and cheeses and such. Anywho I feel like I'm rambling but to get to the point I've also decided to start back working out. I have my calendar made with a schedule. I've taken on the squat and plank challenge as well as two other personalized workouts. I've committed to four weeks of healthy eating and exercise in hopes it will be a nice jumpstart to get me back in the routine of it.....because I've been kinda down lately after losing my job but I'll get into that later. Back to my new goals/plans, so far I've gotten back to cooking daily and by keeping calorie counts have noticed ALL of my meals are under 400 and 500 calories (without trying!) but are filling! I'm always scouring the web trying to find healthy ways to get full because though I wanna be fit, I still wanna eat lol so I'll be sharing my recipes which are also wallet-friendly and use ingredients you probably already have or that are only a few dollars to get and can be used in many other dishes! &&I'm also getting back into my beauty stuff, I used to always keep my nails done (I do them myself, various art designs) and my hair as well but like I said, I haven't really been myself lately so I fell off....but last week for the first time in years, I went to a nail shop to get acrylics since I hadn't been taking care of my nails and they were busted!! (although when I was doing them regularly I never went to the nail shop, my natural nails were long and strong, hoping to get back to that soon!) anyway so I go to this place "Modern Nails" they had pretty good reviews from what I saw on the web but not 10 minutes in the lady cuts my pinky finger (yes there was blood) with the drill! Then has me stick said finger into acetone!!! Talk about the worst shit ever lol luckily she let someone else finish me up, a young guy named Tony, who was awesome btw....I think may go back to them until my nails grow out to my liking. They even give massages while you wait for your nails to dry which was nice! As for my hair, I've been doing my best to keep my hands out of it by wearing my big, curly wig but with the weather warming up it's the perfect excuse to buy a new wig, something short and sexy. I'm a huge short hair fan but deathly afraid to cut mine lol so wigs let me live that fantasy!

I think I'll stop here because my fingers are tired and this app kinda sucks but it's better than using safari on this phone but I'll be back with the meals I've made, none of which have more than 500 calories per serving but I must add that I've chosen to only eat calories and not drink them so all these meals I drink water with, any other drink may add more calories but I know not everyone can go cold turkey, baby steps! And to be honest, this is my baby step back to normality...but anywho bye for now

=)

Featured fitness hair happiness health lifestyle miscellany nails personal

11:42 AM