LindsSays: Clean Chicken Recipes

Showing posts with label Clean Chicken Recipes. Show all posts

Happy Monday! I can barely sit still because I am SO excited for my friend's big fat Greek wedding this weekend (it's literally a Greek wedding) and I'm going to be reunited with some of my favorite people ever at 5 pm Friday. Until then I'll be practicing Greek dances via Youtube haha.

Our oven is officially fixed so rest easy, this is the last crockpot recipe for awhile. Again, laughably easy. This was my lunch for the week.

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken breasts ($4.00)
1 can diced tomatoes with chiles (I use Rotel) ($.99)
3 Tablespoons taco seasoning (clean eating taco seasoning = 2 Tbs ground cumin, 1 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/4 tsp chili powder, 1/4 tsp black pepper)

Combine the ingredients in a crockpot and cook on low for 7 hours. I switched up how I ate it each day- some days at it on a salad, some days in Ezekiel tortillas, some days with black beans, added some salsa, added Greek yogurt. It was so good!

Anyone else have an amazing weekend? I have back to back weddings for the next 3 weekends (Richmond, Boston, and Lancaster here I come!) so I HAD to be productive- at least for part of the weekend

Friday night I stayed in to watch Orange Is The New Black which I have been anxiously awaiting for the last...oh you know year or so. I'm a grandma so despite my excitement and how much I was loving it, I passed out somewhere around episode 4 (DON'T SPOIL ANYTHING FOR ME OR I WILL KNIFE YOU). Andi was unimpressed however.

My storage unit, which was packed to the brim with furniture from my old house that I have not even thought about for the last year, was dropped off on Friday so we spent the weekend throwing a pseudo yard-sale. We didn't have a backup plan so I was super stressed that we'd be stuck with all this stuff and nowhere to put it so I threw a few tantrums (sorry, Harrison).

We got rid of all the big stuff, so a few boxes will be headed to Goodwill this week. Temper tantrums were 100% unnecessary.

I also found tons of pictures from back when I used to print out pictures, like this little throwback of Harrison and me 3 years ago when we FIRST started dating:

Saturday was my friend Kyle's birthday so we cooked out and I ate about a million pounds of food.

Played an insanely intense round of Taboo (girls vs. boys- always gets out of hand). For the record, "starts with letter V" is NEVER OK RIGHT??? NEVER! Sorry for being a rule follower.:

My friend Anna who makes everything look super easy (oh don't minder her just completing a post-bach med school program and cooking her husband's birthday dinner for 50 people 2 days before HUGE tests. I mean really) made this delicious apple/kale/quinoa salad that I MUST eat again soon. She said she just looks at SweetGreen's salads and then makes them herself. Genius. She also made this ice cream pies:

Listen to how she made these pies. Scooped ice cream into a pie crust. Let the ice cream soften and melt a little. Put it back in the freezer. So like I said, she makes everything so freaking easy.

Sunday was insanely productive. I cleaned (PS if you have wood floors you HAVE to use Muprhy's Oil. Decent price, I just spray it on our wood floors and dry mop right over it- our floors are IMMACULATE). Andi and I went for a run in the park and took a break for a selfie photoshoot:

Annnd of course threw in a few episodes with Piper and the crew in the clink.

Tell me: can you EVER say "starts with a [insert letter here]"?? And what is your favorite salad?

Linking up today with LeeAnn, Kimberlee, Biana, Much Ado About Monday, Motivation Monday

Clean Eating 3 Ingredient Crockpot Mexican Chicken + Weekend Recap + Ice Cream Pie

Monday, June 9, 2014

Ugh, Tuesday after a long weekend is like Monday on steroids. Fortunately I had a great/refreshing weekend and made a few delicious ovenless meals like this green chicken- I threw the 2 ingredients in the crockpot before I went hiking and when I came home it was ready!

This dish is also Tonii-approved which means anyone will like it (backstory: Tonii was a roommate who had never tried hummus , avocado, and a whole host of other "white" foods before we lived together. For the record- he would never choose to eat hummus or avocado but if they were the last 2 foods on the planet he could handle it).

Prep Time: 1 min (to pour stuff in the crockpot)
Cook Time: 6-8 hours
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

Green Salsa (I used the one pictured below from Wal-Mart for $2.00)
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast ($3.50)

Throw it all in the crockpot on low for 6-8 hours. Cut off the crockpot and allow to cool and absorb the juices for about 45 mins before serving.

I ate it with a black bean salad which was just a few spoonfuls of black beans, shredded lettuce, a scoop of fat-free Greek Yogurt and a scoop of salsa. I had leftovers as a salad the next day. MMM mmm.

This weekend some friends came over and we christened the front porch with a happy hour and some Sam Adams Summer Ale (y'all I wait all year for these and hoard them like Cadbury Mini Eggs).

Some friends and I went hiking in Great Falls on Saturday and I remembered why DC is the greatest city ever to live in, I mean really this is amazing:

My friend Tonii (as in Tonii-approved chicken) came home from Boston and we ate green chicken and watched the Ana Nicole Smith Story and Jodi Arias Story on Lifetime (Lifetime please give me more of these "docudramas")

Sunday we got up and went to see Christine Cain speak at church and ohhheemmmgeee I am ready to stop making excuses and do something with myself- this woman has done so much in her life, and had a major impact on human trafficking. Really take a lunch break and watch this video about not making excuses and putting our pride aside. And in case you don't want to click I put the video right here because this talk is THAT necessary to hear:

We at on the porch of Desperado's on U Street after- the drinks were good and my portobello burger was deelish!

Cooked out with some old friends Sunday night, had a lil photoshoot in front of an American flag:

FYI that's Tonii in the middle

Monday I made a green soup that I read is Zooey Deschanel's favorite to serve friends and ate it for lunch with a limited edition Sam. Obvi it was amazing:

Cooked out Monday night with Harrison's family and now to get back to some serious clean eating.

Linking up at Turn it Up Tuesdays, Delicious Dish Tuesdays,

2 Ingredient Crockpot Green Chicken + Weekend Recap

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Ok first off I want to send a huge thanks and send lots of v-hugs (virtual hugs, not vajayjay hugs which is what I just thought as I was reading over this, how old am I??) to everyone- friends and bloggy bffs- who has been so encouraging and given me advice over the last 2 weeks. I hate moving. I can't think of anything I want to do less- I get crabby, I can't find anything, unpacking takes a decade, and Harrison and I snap at each other because we can't really snap at the move itself. But every time I logged onto social media, the blog, and my email it was like a virtual cheerleading squad, so thank yall- your comments and e-mails mean a lot! Aaannd I'm officially one of those people who has online friends haha.

This weekend my parents were here to help out around the house and we worked every waking second (minus about 30 minutes for me to throw a 5-year-oldish temper tantrum, eat food, realize I was hangry, apologize to everyone, parents to say "it's ok you've been a hangry person since you were born"- thank you, Mom and Dad for helping out even though I'm such a hangry a-hole). We didn't want to take time/spend money to go pick up food (not to mention I may actually go into cardiac arrest if I spend one more penny) so I threw some of the food I found in the fridge into the crockpot and came up with this delicious dinner of Balsamic Vinaigrette Chicken (I def had to google how to spell vinaigrette). OH also our brand new oven broke and it will take 7-10 days to get the new parts in so please please please share any clean(ish) recipes that don't involve an oven or stove- we also don't have a grill (sadface). At this point it doesn't even have to be totally clean, I just can't do Lean Cuisine or anymore take out.

Servings: 4

Prep Time: less than 5 mins

Cook Time: 4 hours in the crockpot

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken breast, thawed ($6.00)
1 Cup Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing (I used Paul Newman's, I know it's not exactly clean but it's close enough right now. This weekend I'm going to make my own clean dressing via Pinterest)
1/2 onion, sliced ($.50)
2 tomatoes, diced ($1.00)

Throw it in the crockpot for 4 hours then enjoy! I had a bag of frozen veggies that I just microwaved (didn't even have to take them out of the bag!!) for 3 minutes to eat with the chicken. Yall this was so freaking good.

So when I was getting ready to move I told my dad I was frustrated with having incomplete projects to which he said "welcome to home-ownership". I was like NO EVERYTHING WILL BE COMPLETED BY MONDAY. But there are little things that need to happen and boxes unchecked and you know what? I'm still alive. But here's progress on the paint.

My dad thinks he's so funny because he hung those paper towels from the hand towel ring. I had to leave it so he can share his jokes with the world.

Look at that oven. Sitting there being broken.

Not pictured: the bedroom we painted. Every time I think to take a picture Harrison is sleeping in it, and I don't need to offend the internet with pictures of 250-lb man sleeping in his undies. Not that kinda blog here.

Left on my list:

Find a rug for the living room area
Find a side table for the living room area (Goodwill here I come! Taking notes from Meg)
Hang stuff on the walls (I am the WORST at this- anyone know of a guide for how-to make it look like not just a bunch of crap randomly thrown on the walls?)
Mount the TV on the wall (oh hey surprise brick wall behind the actual walls that is making this harder than necessary)
Blinds
Curtains

Happy Tuesday and have a great week! Don't forget to leave me links to any of your healthy recipes that don't need to be cooked in an oven/on a stovetop!

OH PS: Zulily has an Under Armour sale today! go get your's! I love me some Under Armour!

Linking up today at Delicious Dish Tuesday, Turn It Up Tuesdays, Tuesday Recipe Swap

4 Ingredient Crockpot Balsamic Vinaigrette Chicken + House Updates

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Happy Tuesday! Is anyone else really not feeling this Tuesday? Is it summer yet? Is it time to move into the new house yet (the answer to that is no- more on that later).

Last week I made this yummy fiesta stuffed chicken, and here's the recipe just in time for one of my favorite holidays- Cinco de Mayo (which happens to fall the same weekend as my birthday- Lindsay de Mayo sooo..)

Servings: 2
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts, thawed ($5.00)
1 cup chicken broth
1 Bell Pepper, diced ($.80)
1/2 Large onion, diced ($.50)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Lime Juice of 1 lime ($1.00)
1/3 Cup Fresh Cilantro, fresh ($.50)
1 Tablespoon Cumin
1 Tablespoon Paprika
1 Teaspoon Sea Salt
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Butterfly cut the chicken breasts (see here for a 10 second tutorial). Season the chicken breasts with cumin, paprika, salt and pepper.

Combine the bell pepper, onion, garlic, lime and cilantro- now you have pico de gallo! Spoon the pico evenly onto one half of each chicken breast (one butterfly wing?). Fold the other half over so you basically have a taco with a chicken shell and pico stuffing.

Place the chicken breasts into a baking pan and add the chicken broth. Cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the chicken breasts are cooked all the way through.

I chopped up some sweet potatoes that I seasoned with cumin and sea salt, and cooked in the oven with the chicken breasts and topped with some extra pico de gallo that I made. YUM!

And now for Home Renovation Update: Self Reflection Edition. In this process I have learned a few things about myself:

I am extremely Type A (Type A + perhaps?)
I need to control everything
There are approximately zero things I can control in this project
I live by deadlines, timelines and checklists. If all my boxes aren't checked off, then the day is not over yet.
Deadlines, timelines and checklists are mere suggestions for contractors. Checklists apparently do not exist in this industry.
When things are off schedule, I am thrown into a tizzy and get completely stressed out (sorry, Dad, for my major temper tantrum the other day re: things not running on schedule)
Nothing in construction runs on schedule.
I feel like when I can't oversee everything, nothing will happen right.
I haven't overseen anything for the last week and everything is completely fine.

So I guess God is telling me to let go of some control huh? It's hard to teach this old dog new tricks, but I'm trying to give over some of the control and be a little more Type B about this. I'm so thankful to have my parents helping out and doing so much of the projects because a) I trust them and b) they understand how psychotic I am because they made me and c) they explain everything to me, including WHY things have to run behind schedule.

So now for picture updates:

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen ALMOST THERE! HELP- what color would you paint the kitchen? What kind of backsplash would you use?!?

Master closet before:

Master closet during (it now takes up AN ENTIRE WALL)

Linking up today at Turn It Up Tuesdays, Delicious Dish Tuesdays, MaMade, Tuesday Recipe Swap, Tough It Out Tuesday, What We Eat Wednesdays

Clean Eating Fiesta Stuffed Chicken + Home Reno Updates!

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

We survived blizzard #100000000021 of the winter! I would like to thank Netflix and an entire season of Parenthood for making it enjoyable- and also all of my friends who told me I had to watch Parenthood. Anyone else love that show??

We ate this meal the other night and it was delishhhh. So good. I go through phases with chicken- sometimes I love it and sometimes I think I'm going to throw up if I even smell it. So clearly I'm in an "on" phase with it and am trying to figure out every possible way to cook it.

Servings: 2
Prep Time: 10 mins + 2 hours marinating in the fridge
Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

For the marinade:

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
Lemon juice of one lemon

For the chicken:

1 lb chicken breast, thawed ($5.00)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 onion, sliced ($.25)
1 lemon, sliced
1 Tablespoon Rosemary

Combine the marinade ingredients with the chicken breasts in a ziploc bag. Squeeze the air out of it and smush everything around in the bag. Allow to marinate for at least 2 hours (usually I do make the marinade on my food prep Sundays, put it in a bag, then add chicken before I go to work the morning I plan to eat it).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Dump all the ingredients of the bag into a non-stick oven dish- evenly spreading the marinade on top of the chicken. Sprinkle the minced garlic and rosemary onto the chicken and layer on the onion and lemon slices on top.

Heat in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the insides aren't pink anymore and enjoy!

We ate these with brussel sprouts- K I know I'm late for the party but WHAT!! THESE WERE SO GOOD!! Harrison and I ate the entire bowl while the chicken finished cooking. All I did was toss them with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, put them on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt, put in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes (turning once), then sprinkled garlic on top once they were out of the oven. And binge at them. HOLY.

Believe it or not these were a little crispy. Delish.

P.S. I also caught up on Teen Mom 2. What in the world is going on? Why is Jenelle so fertile? And what is with Leah's hair and makeup situation? I just... I think I'm getting too old for this reality tv business.

Linking up today with Time to Sparkle, Delicious Dish Tuesday, and Turn it Up Tuesdays. Go check them out for tons of recipes and project ideas!

Clean Eating Lemon Rosemary Chicken + Brussel Sprouts

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Last Sunday I got back from [sunny, warm, beautiful] San Diego at midnight and was panicked because a) I was having a life-crisis figuring out why I live in cold DC; b) I gained approximately 10 lbs eating and drinking my way through San Diego for 4 days; c) I was on the verge of overdrafting my bank account from problem b; and d) because of problem b and c there was no way I was going to eat out that week. What to do what to do? All I had in the pantry was 1 can of black beans, 1 can of Rotel Diced Tomatoes (medium heat), and a pound of chicken breasts in the freezer. What's that saying? When in doubt throw everything in a crockpot? Is that a saying? K well that's what I did and came up with this gem for my lunch for the week!

Servings: 5
Prep Time: 0
Cook Time: 5 [crockpot] hours

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken breasts, thawed ($3.50)
1 14 oz can black beans ($.99)
1 14 oz can Rotel Diced Tomatoes ($1.50)
1 Tablespoon garlic powder

Throw everything in the crockpot on high for 5 hours. Ha. How easy is that.

Ok I lied a little above, I also had a bag of wilted spinach and half a jar of salsa, which I topped my meal with each day. Other topping ideas: Greek Yogurt, onions, fresh tomatoes, jalapenos.

For 1 serving

PS Need a little Monday inspiration? Check out my fav Oscar acceptance speeches: Lupita's, Jared's and Matt's. Really how perfect is Lupita? How lucky are young girls to be growing up watching women like Lupita and Jennifer Lawrence huh? Oh and was anyone else a little pissed that according to the Oscars you have to be a male to be a hero? I mean I guess putting 4 shots of J. Law qualifies.....

Linking up today with Motivation Monday and

Clean Eating Lunch for the Week: 3 Ingredient Crockpot Beans and Chicken

Monday, March 3, 2014

I spent last week snowed in with the rest of the east coast. But with the flu. THE FLU. 5 years of barely getting paid for working in public schools, I've always thought "well at least I've gained a steel immune system". WELP the ole steel immune system let me down bad. This was the can't-focus-can't-do-anything-but-lay-down-and-stare-at-the-ceiling kind of flu. I ventured off the couch to make some chicken soup which actually turned out incredible. INCREDIBLE! And I hated everything last week! Everything except this soup:

Servings: 6
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 lb chicken thighs (I use the thighs because I loove the juiciness. If you're watching fat intake closely use chicken breasts) ($5.00)
32 ounces (or 4 cups) low sodium organic chicken broth ($4.00)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch of green onions, finely chopped ($3.00)
1/4 red onion, diced ($.25)
1 medium tomato, diced ($.50)
1/2 cup quinoa, cooked ($.75)
1 chicken buillon cube ($.25) (Click here for a cleaner substitute)
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped ($.50)
1 ripe avocado, diced ($1.25)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp olive oil/coconut oil

Line a medium sized frying pan with cooking spray/olive oil/coconut oil (whatever your preference). Season the chicken with salt and pepper and cook covered, for 10-15 minutes on each side (you know it is cooked when there is no pink in the middle when you cut into it with a knife). Once the chicken is thoroughly cooked, place it on a cutting board and shred it using 2 forks (if it's too tough use a knife to cut it into teeeeny pieces).

In a large pot saute the red onion, green onion and garlic with the olive oil (or coconut oil) for 4 minutes. Add the tomato and saute for another 1 minute. Add the chicken broth, cumin, quinoa and buillion cube to the vegetables and bring the broth to a boil. Once it boils turn the heat to low and simmer the soup for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes mix in the chicken to the mixture.

Divide avocado chunks and cilantro into the serving bowls (it was just two of us eating so I put the rest into a tupperware and added it to my leftover soup later in the week). Pour the soup over the avocado and cilantro and enjoy!

Onions, tomato and garlic satueing (is that a word?)

Now with the chicken broth

Prep the serving bowls

Ugh is anyone else as over this snow as Andi and I are?? Sickkk

Clean Eating Chicken Avocado Soup

Monday, February 17, 2014

So I had jury duty this week...definitely filled out the "quiz" wrong but still got picked. Like really DC how bad is the pool of people to pick from that you chose someone who couldn't even fill out the quiz correctly? Anyway it was nowhere NEAR as fun as Law & Order- when we read the verdict I waited for the typical L&O reaction (a woman faints in the audience, the defendant screams out, anything) but all we got was a high five between the defendant and his lawyer (really? who even high fives anymore?).
But ANYWAY- this meal included an accident that turned out amazzzzinggg: when attempting to scoop a teaspoon of garlic powder into the ziploc marinade bag, the lid popped off the bottle and approximately an entire bottle of garlic powder exploded everywhere, and maybe 2 tablespoons actually went into the bag. So the kitchen still smells like garlic as I'm finding dustings of garlic in every crevice of the kitchen. But the moral of the story is that extra garlic is good garlic. So here it is:

Marinade:

2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
lemon juice of one lemon

Chicken:

3 cups spinach ($1)
2 chicken breasts ($4.00)
1/4 medium onion, minced ($.25)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 medium tomato ($.50)
1/4 cup feta ($.50)

Butterfly slice the chicken breasts (aka slice them almost all the way down the middle so they open like a book- short video below). Combine the marinade ingredients and the butterflied chicken breasts in a ziploc bag and shake it up. Refrigerate the bag for at least an hour (I usually put it in the fridge before work and let it set all day).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the onions and garlic in a small frying pan and saute for about 5 minutes. Add in the spinach for another minute or two- until the spinach is wilted.

Dump the contents of the ziploc bag into an oven-safe non-stick baking dish (I use this $11 Pyrex dish from Target) with the chicken breasts opened up (like an open book). Layer the spinach, onion, garlic, tomatoes, parsley and feta over one half of each chicken breast (see pix below). If there is extra marinade in the bag, dump that over the chicken breasts too. Fold the uncovered halves of the chicken breasts over the stuffing. Heat in the oven for 25 minutes.

Annnd enjoy!