Chicken Tacos with Peppers and Onions

J’s favorite meal is tacos.  Any time I can’t come up with something to make or when all my ideas get vetoed, I default to tacos.  After lots of meals of ground turkey with rice and beans where the closest I might get to a vegetable was the occasional avocado, I decided to change it up and add something that is a little more vegetablish.

2 ½ lbs chicken breast, cut into thin slices
2 yellow onions, sliced
2 green bell peppers, sliced
1 tsp chicken fajita seasoning
8 corn tortillas
1 tsp olive oil
Salt to taste

In a large skillet add the olive oil and heat to medium-low heat.  Once hot add the onions and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once the onions have softened and started to turn a golden color, add the bell peppers and cook for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The onions should be a golden brown color, not fried.  The key here is low heat for a long time to get the onions caramelizing instead of frying. Season to taste with salt.

Meanwhile, season the chicken with the fajita seasoning and cook in a skillet over medium-high heat until no longer pink.

Serve the chicken, peppers, and onions in a warmed corn tortilla. Super simple, but more interesting than ground turkey.



4 Servings, 620 calories, 12 g fat
75% of the calories come from the chicken, so if you need to you cut back on the chicken in favor of another pepper, feel free to try other colors.

Roast Duck Breast With Red Wine Pan Sauce

Monday was my birthday and it turned out that we had 2 shows we wanted to see that fell on that weekend.  Going to the theater always requires good food beforehand, either at a nice restaurant or cooked by me.  One of the 2 dinners I prepared I was, and still am, pretty darn impressed with myself.  When I think of having a nice dinner duck is always the first thing that comes to mind because I really like it and it’s too expensive to buy very often, so for my birthday dinner before our first show I splurged and bought a duck.  I was originally considering roasting it but as the day sped by I started to panic and thought I wouldn’t have enough time to get it cooked, be able to eat, and get dressed to be downtown by 7:30.  So I swallowed my fear, put aside the intimidation, watched a couple videos on You-Tube and deboned my first duck, yup you read that right.

Once I saw a couple other people do it and found out how to get started, it really wasn’t that bad.  I saw one guy do it in 18 seconds, no lie, crazy, it took me closer to probably 10 minutes but I did it.  I was planning on taking a picture of my beautifully dismantled bird but of course forgot and remembered after I had already cleaned up.

Since I now had manageable duck parts I decided to roast just the duck breasts and save the rest for later and served with a red wine pan sauce and holy cow every bite was unbelievable, I can’t tell you how proud of myself I was with this one.

2 Duck Breasts
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Red Wine Pan Sauce

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In an oven-safe skillet, heat one turn of olive oil to medium heat.  Season the duck breast with salt and pepper then add them skin side down to sear the skin.  Duck is very oily so quite a bit of oil is going to cook out and fry the duck, but you want a little bit of oil in the pan to start with so it doesn’t stick to the pan when you first put it in. Sear for 6 minutes.  Flip the duck breast over and place the pan in the oven.  Roast the breast for 8 to 10 minutes for medium rare.  Remove the pan from the oven and let rest while making the pan sauce.  I poured out nearly all of the oil from the skillet and used this to make the sauce then spooned it over the duck. My sauce was a little bit thinner than I anticipated, I was just so excited to taste the duck I couldn't wait long enough.

This came out amazing.  The duck was cooked perfect with a crispy skin and tender inside, just barely pink and not at all tough or chewy. Big pat on back for this one.

Jalapeno Turkey Burgers

I made another Paleo attempt this week.  J loves peppers and hot food so when I saw this recipe I knew I there was no way I would get a veto on it.

1 lb ground turkey, 99/1
½ cup raw almonds
1 egg, beaten
4 jalapenos, rough chopped, as much of the ribs and seeds removed as preferred
3 cloves garlic, rough chopped
Salt and pepper to taste


You can cook these on the grill or in a skillet, so prepare your desired cooking mechanism.

Grind the almonds in a food processer to very small chunks, doesn’t have to quite be a powder.   Add the jalapenos and garlic to the food processer and pulse to further chop up the peppers and garlic.  If you remove all of the seeds from the jalapenos this won’t be hot at all, just have the jalapeno flavor, so you can adjust the heat according to your taste.  Add the almond meal to a bowl with the ground meat, add the egg and season.  Mix well with your hands to get everything well incorporated.  Form into 4 patties.

Cook the burgers on your grill or stove top, about 8 minutes per side.

Serves 2-4, 210 calories, 8 g fat per patty

I thought these turned out pretty decent.  They had a nice jalapeno flavor but I was helping J put up our new mail box while these were cooking and I overcooked them a little so they were kind of dry.  So don’t help your husband while you are cooking, the results are rarely positive.

Sweet potatoes seem to be acceptable according to the Paleo cook books I’ve looked through but not an everyday food, but they seem like a very obvious and easy substitute for grains so that’s been my go to for Side 1.  I made chipotle sweet potato fries with this, which are exactly like they sound.  Sliced sweet potatoes drizzled in olive oil and seasoned with chipotle powder and baked.  I guess I am kind of easing into this Paleo thing, haven’t really jumped all in but making small attempts at every meal.  It isn’t really that different from how I eat now, just a change of mindset to have more calories from fruits, vegetables, or meats on my plate rather than compensating with rice or pasta to make up the calorie deficit.

Chicken with Mushroom Sherry Sauce

I really want to try to eat Paleo but I’m having a hard time coming up with things to make.  A lot of the recipes I see are some cut of meat with this sauce, or some other meat with another sauce, that to me seems like it would get old quick, and what do you eat with it? I always feel like my plate looks empty unless I have some kind of meat, side, and vegetable.  Besides, I don’t think I can eat enough meat not to still be hungry or need more calories if I don’t have any sides.  So for my first week’s attempt I basically just went to the grocery store and bought a ton of different fruits and vegetables and thought, I’ll just figure out what to do with all this later.  In spite of my lack of planning, last night’s meal I think turned out pretty well, I was pleased with it.

3 chicken breasts
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
¼ tsp paprika
¼ tsp marjoram
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½-3/4 cup sherry
Salt and pepper to taste for chicken


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and bake on a broiler pan for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 1 tbs butter in a skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the rough chopped onions and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and browning but not frying.  If your pan is too hot the onions will fry and we want them to caramelize.  Add the mushrooms and allow to cook for another ~10 minutes until browned.  Once the mushrooms are cooked remove the mixture to a plate.  Add the remaining butter to the skillet with the flour and seasonings, stir and cook for one minute.  Don’t let them burn.  Increase the heat to medium, add ½ cup sherry, stir and cook for one minute to cook off the alcohol.  I use Tio Pepe and I think it’s pretty good, but it is the only brand of sherry I’ve ever cooked with, so there may be something better, I don’t know.  If you are clueless about what to buy that is what I recommend.  Return the mushroom mixture to the skillet and stir to coat well.  If the sauce has thickened up and you want it a little runnier add some more sherry a couple tbs at a time and allow it to cook off the alcohol and thicken a little before you decide to add some more, do this until it gets to the desired consistency.

Top the chicken with the sauce and serve.  I had this with peas, carrots, and broccoli and cinnamon apples.

Chicken and mushroom sauce serves 3, 430 calories, 19 g fat
All in all I was pretty pleased with this.  I liked the flavor of the sauce quite a bit and will definitely make this again.  This was one of those dishes that wasn’t terribly complicated but tasted like it.  I have noticed pan sauces are like that, they seem to add a lot to a piece of meat without being as complicated as you’d expect.

Thanksgiving Inspired Baked Sweet Potatoes

We are finally in the new house and I’m exhausted.  We have had people at the house working which has made it very difficult for me to finish putting the house together and making time to cook has been near impossible.  I am struggling to get back into a routine but now that all the contractors are gone I’m hoping I can get back to normal.  I have only cooked a couple times and nothing ground breaking but I did make this recipe and thought it was decent, a simple meal for a week night.

2 sweet potatoes
0.75 lbs ground turkey (99/1)
½ tsp dried rosemary
½ tsp dried thyme
1 carrot, diced
¼ cup frozen green peas
1 tbs butter, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Pierce the sweet potatoes all over then microwave for about 10 minutes or until just beginning to soften.  Remove the potatoes from the microwave and wrap in foil then cook in the oven for another ~20 minutes or until completely softened.  If I’m in a hurry I will start the potatoes in the microwave as it goes much quicker, but I try to minimize the amount of microwave time as it dries them out.  The microwave will boil the water in the potatoes which gets steamed out, but when in the oven wrapped in foil, you won’t lose as much water.

Meanwhile, season the ground turkey with rosemary and thyme and brown until no longer pink.  Cook the peas and carrots in a pot with a little water until the carrots are softened.

Once everything is cooked, cut open your potatoes, add ½ tbs butter to each potato (if desired) and top with turkey, peas and carrots.  Season with salt and pepper.

I am very intrigued by the Paleo diet and this was one of my attempts.  I made this with a boat load of steamed vegetables and as a result of being stuffed with broccoli this recipe turned into 4 servings at 300 calories and 4 g fat each.  If you didn’t have a side that was as much volume as what I did and made this into 2 servings it would still have only been 600 calories and 8 g fat, still not bad at all.

Moving has been pretty stressful and I have been trying to cook and eat healthy even though I have had no time to plan anything and it has been a real struggle.  Since Thanksgiving is approaching I was in the mood for a simple and quick Thanksgiving inspired meal, and this is what I came up with.  I am not going to tell you it was spectacular, but it was really easy and I did enjoy it, so there you go.