Good and Good For You
HIGH PROTEIN ALFREDO
INGREDIENTS
-3/4 cup refrigerated Alfredo sauce
-1 1/4 cups chicken bone broth
-3/4 cup of high-protein milk, such as Fairlife 2%
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
-1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
-Black pepper to taste
-8 oz protein pasta, such as Barilla Protein, prepared al dente
-1 (5 oz) can tuna
-1/2 cup peas and carrots
-1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
-1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
MISE EN PLACE
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
-Lightly grease 8x8” pan with nonstick spray.
-In a large bowl, whisk together Alfredo sauce, bone broth, milk, garlic, and Italian seasoning.
-Stir in cooked pasta, tuna, and peas and carrots until well blended.
-Transfer to a baking dish.
-Submerge pasta as much as possible.
-Sprinkle with cheese.
-Cover tightly with foil.
-Bake for 40 minutes.
-Uncover and bake until bubbling and lightly golden on top, 10 to 15 minutes.
CHICKEN CASSEROLE
Similar to above
INGREDIENTS
-2 tbsp vegetable oil
-6 skinless boneless chicken thighs, or half breasts
-1/2 cup teriyaki sauce, or Worcestershire
-1/2 cup Ranch/style salad dressing
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, or your favorite
-3 green onions, chopped - optional
-1/2 (3 oz) can bacon bits, or bacon you cook*
-6 tbsp
MISE EN PLACE
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
-Add chicken.
-Sauté 4 to 5 minutes on each side until lightly browned.
-Place browned chicken in a 9x13 pan.
-Brush with teriyaki sauce.
-Spoon on salad dressing, onions, and bacon bits.
-Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until chicken is cooked through.
One serving of this tasty casserole does have approximately 530 calories with only 7 carbs plus 26 grams of fat, but you get a whopping 63 grams of protein. This is close to a perfect recipe.
Your body needs some carbohydrates for energy, and proteins are essential for building muscles, bones, skin, hair, and blood cells. Proteins also aids in digestion, regulates hormones, and supports your immune systems.
*Boo always has cooked bacon in the fridge. He cooks a package of thick cut bacon in the oven in a pan fully lined with foil. After it cools, he wraps the bacon tightly in a ziplock bag and sometimes uses the bacon fat for cooking. He uses a couple of slices almost every morning as part of his breakfast.
CAJUN CABBAGE
My mother in law loved this
INGREDIENTS*
-1 large head cabbage, finely chopped
-1 onion, halved and thinly sliced
-1 lb lean ground beef*
-Salt and pepper to taste
MISE EN PLACE
-Gather all ingredients.
-Place meat across bottom of a large Dutch oven.
-On medium flame, stir ground meat frequently until slightly browned. Do not overcook.
-Add rest of ingredients.
-Stir until cabbage is settled in pot. It will loose more than hand of its volume as it cooks.
-Cover pot and stir until it simmers.
-Cook until cabbage is at your desired consistency. I do not like to have cabbage cooked until it’s all wilted.
*My mother in law called it “grind meat.”
I have it listed as “Cajun Cabbage” in my recipe file.
Ground meat and cabbage is one of the fasted hot meals to prepare. Once the meat is brown, the cabbage added to the hot ingredients will cook in minutes unless you have a large pot full of cabbage. I love cabbage and my mom cooked it often. When I cooked everyday, cabbage was usually a weekly meal.
I have a recipe that calls for these ingredients with adding 1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes with juice plus 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning. I’m sure this would be flavorsome, but the tomatoes would have to be cooked down before adding cabbage.
Cabbage cooks so quickly over a medium flame and should be added after your protein is cooked or almost cooked.
CRAWFISH BOIL SOUP
Looking over recipes for seafood dishes for Lent, I came across my recipe to make soup with the leftovers of a crawfish boil.
I think I shared this with you already, but it’s worth a repeat. It’s a free meal from leftovers.
After hearing about and eating the crawfish boil soup at the old John Folse restaurant in Donaldsonville, I determined the soup there was started with all raw ingredients and made into a tasty, just not boiled, soup. After our next crawfish boil, the leftover crawfish were peeled and deveined. The next morning, I brought in all vegetables from the outdoor refrigerator and started prepping the boiled vegetables. The onions were taken out of the foil and cut into slices. I took some of the skin off the potatoes. Two peeled potatoes were smashed with a fork to help thicken the broth. The rest of the potatoes were cut into bite-size cubes. With a little olive oil in the bottom of a large Dutch over, I sautéed the onions and the smashed potatoes. Don’t brown these vegetables, just warm them well for melding the flavors. I cut all the corn off the cobs and added all the vegetables to the pot, with enough water to cover the veggies. As the water came to a boil, I had the opportunity to eat all the corn left on all the cobs. The crawfish were added just long enough for them to be hot at serving.
The soup made with the ingredients that were boiled with the seasoning had a unique flavor after all were simmered together.
This can be as easy as you want. You can add the corn cobs to the soup just as they were boiled. The onions can be cut into chunks, and you can leave all the skin on the potatoes. The flavor will be the same. When my boys started adding carrots, I would add them to the soup also. Now they add mushrooms, asparagus, smoked sausage, and more, which I would NOT add to my soup. That’s too many flavors to mix together.
Our typical Louisiana weather has our cooking schedule not on schedule. We went to Pass Christian last week with a new table top grill (won as a door prize) that Boo planned to use for breakfast each morning. He also planned to grill steaks for our neighbors. All outdoors. With the coastal winds helping the temperature to feel lower and a huge thunderstorm Saturday night, we changed our plans to bacon in the oven with his breakfast eggs and leftover frozen vegetable soup instead of steaks night grill. He’s become a constant weather watcher. All of our plans are scheduled around the weather forecast. That’s usually alright with me, because I avoid outdoor time when it’s cold, when it’s hot, when it’s too windy, and when it’s too humid.
Jusqu’a la semaine prochaine!