Easy Dinner Recipes

Chinese 5 spice gammon

Ingredients
2 tsp Chinese 5-Spice powder
4 x 175g gammon steak cut into bite-sized pieces (remove all the fat first)
Frylite or other syn-free cooking spray
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
Finely grated zest and juice of an orange
1 level tbsp of runny honey
100 ml of chicken stock
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
Pak choi to serve
Egg noodles to serve

1 – Cook the noodles according to packet instructions

2 – Sprinkle the 5-spice powder over the gammon pieces.

3 – Put a few sprays of frylite into a wok or large frying pan.

4 – Cook the gammon over a high heat for around 2-3 minutes until the edges are slighty browned.

5 – Add the soy sauce, honey, red chillies, orange zest and juice and stock and simmer for 4-5 minutes or until the sauce becomes sticky and the gammon is glazed and golden (with slightly burned edges if you like that sort of thing).

6 – Serve straight away with pak choi and cooked egg noodles, and any pan juices poured over.


Diet Coke Chicken

Ingredients:

400g sliced chicken breast

1 onion, diced

330ml can Diet Coke

6 tablespoons passata

Dash of worcestershire sauce

Fry Light

Salt and pepper to taste


1.Heat a large saute pan and spray with Fry Light
2.Add the chicken and onion and fry until beginning to colour
3.Add the remaining ingredients and bring to the boil
4.Simmer until the sauce thickens and reduces down to about half its volume - approximately 30 minutes


Chicken Jambalya

1 onion, finely chopped
1lb/454g chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite-size chunks
6 Quorn sausages, sliced
1 red, 1 green and 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
2 courgettes, roughly chopped
2 tsp dried thyme
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
400g can chopped tomatoes
9oz/255g long grain rice
16fl oz/454ml chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped

1.Heat a large pan sprayed with Fry Light. Add the onion and fry for 10 minutes to soften. Stir in the chicken and Quorn sausages and carry on cooking over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
2.Add the peppers, courgettes, thyme, lemon zest, chopped tomatoes, rice and stock and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3.Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and season to taste. Leave the jambalaya in the pan for a few minutes to soak up any remaining liquid. Serve sprinkled with some freshly chopped parsley.

Easy as pie, and very tasty: Classic Rice Pilaf

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/classic-rice-pilaf/detail.aspx

Very simple dish using rice, broth and garlic/onions cooked up in a mix of olive oil and a touch of butter. Dump the ingredients into a 9 X 13 dish, seal it with tin foil and pop it in the oven. Let it sit, sealed, for 10 minutes when its done. That's it! Very fluffy and flavorful, goes with just about anything. I love to use it as a main dish for my lunches. Tastes a lot like rice-a-roni, only without all the death and preservatives.

Healthy alternatives for the recipe:
~For extra protein and flavor, add bits of leftover chicken to it
~For the broth, you can buy it in liquid form with reduced fat and sodium. I find that the extra salt in most broths actually takes away from the flavor of chicken
~To further reduce salt (it asks for a teaspoon of salt, which is like... 2,000mg of sodium) you can use No Salt or Nu Salt. Instead of sodium chloride, it uses potassium chloride (a different type of salt), which has the added benefit of spiking the dish with potassium instead of sodium.
~Looks really pretty with sliced scallions, and tastes amazing with minced garlic.

Edit: Looking up, would probably taste good with the diet coke chicken.

I decided for this year.....I am tired of the dreaded question....so I have been planning the whole month at once. It has releaved a lot of stress! We are also trying new foods because so far we aren't repeating anything. I can email you a months worth if you would like. We stay pretty busy so while it is a month's worth for us it might only be 16 recipes.

I started this past month,by making a list of all our fav foods. Of course it is a mixed bag. I cut them into strips and put them in a small container. If I don't have leftovers to work up or have guest coming, we just pull one at dinner the night before. If it is normally a high calorie food I do what I can to cut those. I only have the entrees in the container. The sides I figure as I need them. Keeps things interesting.

We are not as organised as sorting a months worth or receipies but we purchased a small white board and plan a weeks dinners every Sunday. This has been great for the diet and in organising grocery shopping.

This is a really good idea and I think would help us out a lot. Thank you!

When I need to make something simple and healthy, I bake chicken breasts or cutlets with a combo of citrus/herbs. My favorite is squeezing lemon juice on them, then rubbing them with freshly ground black pepper, fresh parsley and drop a tsp of capers on each breast/cutlet. Serve with steamed broccoli or green beans, or a spring mix salad, or roasted brussels sprouts. I tend to stay away from carby sides at dinner but eat plenty of carbs throughout the day.

Another good one is baked salmon with low sodium teriyake sauce. Just marinate salmon in the sauce, then bake skin-side down at 425 for 20 minutes. Can also do lightly breaded baked haddock, same temp and time.

We just did a bone-in turkey breast in the crock pot yesterday and it was amazing!!! We rubbed it with seasonings in the morning, I put beer in the bottom and let it cook all day. When I came home the house smelled amazing and the turkey was just falling apart! Super easy and delicious....

bump for crock pot turkey