Friday Night Dinner Ideas

Healthy?

Sorry I'm lost for an answer. Pretty much everything I make is healthy, and I don't use whole wheat.

not sure if you have anyone you are cooking for but our family loves pork tenderloin. If you can grill it even better and it takes no time at all to cook (on grill). I serve it with rice and a side salad to the family and I sub out the rice for some mixed veggies (birds eye or similar). Super healthy and easy.

Another staple in my house is a steak salad. We discovered that the Glory Days version was over 1,000 cal so we decided to make our own and it is a crowd pleaser. Flat Iron steak cooked in our grill pan, cook up some red orang and yellow peppers and onions in a tbls of olive oil. In your bowl, mixed greens, add reduced fat blue cheese, a palm full of walnuts, some croutons and Ken's Light Olive Oil vinegrette. Top with 4 oz of sliced steak and the peppers and onions and you are good to go. roughly 400 cal and very filling.

What are other meals you'd consider indulgent? You could do burger and fries. Get some extra, extra lean ground beef (or turkey), mix in some burger seasoning and Worcestershire sauce with a nice piece of your favorite gourmet cheese. You can make your own fries, or get the frozen ones. Sweet potato fries are really yummy, too. Have a berry salad with cool whip or whipped cream for dessert, and maybe a nice big side salad to help fill you up. You can go no bun or a whole grain bun or even something fun and a bit more indulgent like a pretzel bun.

Tacos are easy to make seem indulgent, yet stay healthy. The Kraft Fresh Take breading and cheese things for meat are pretty tasty. Not quite fried chicken, but yummy as a breading.

My family loves meatball bakes. I take a bag of frozen turkey meatballs (you could make your own) and heat them almost through in a skillet. Then, I put them in a casserole dish, cover in sauce and top with shredded cheese. Stick it in the broiler to get a good, bubbly cheese top and there you go. You can serve with garlic bread and/or pasta. (I make whole wheat pasta (yep, I use it, too!) for my girls, and Shirataki tofu noodles for myself and my husband.)

The trick for me was finding ways to make favorite dishes a little less indulgent. So, give me a list of favorites, and I'll see what I can come up with.

How about "fried" chicken? Here's a recipe I made before and liked!

This recipe is good for 2 medium size chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
prepare a shallow baking sheet/dish by lining it with parchment paper or foil. Spray this with a light coating of cooking spray.

Take 3 shallow plates and put the following into each:

Plate 1: 1/2 cup AP flour
Plate 2: 1 beaten egg with a dash of water
Plate 3: 1/2 cup Panko or bread crumbs. Stir in some garlic powder and a tablespoonful or two of Parmesan cheese.

Take your chicken breast and salt/pepper each side. Dip the breast into the flour plate, making sure each side is well coated. Tap off excess flour. Then, dip the chicken breast into the egg mixture, coating entire breast. Then, place breast into Panko/breadcrumb plate, coating evenly.

Place the chicken onto the prepared baking plate and cook from 30-50 minutes, depending on your oven.

(the original recipe said to lightly spray the breaded chicken breast with some cooking spray before popping into oven but I skipped that).