Chicken pot pie

When I made the decision to start eating things that were better for me, one of the first books I bought was Eat This, Not That!  Some people (skinny people who can eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce) are always highly critical of overweight people and the food options they choose. "It's not so hard to eat healthy, dumbass," they say, condescendingly.  "Just don't eat Big Macs and fries every day."  OK, yes, Captain Obvious, we all know that certain foods are most definitely bad for us.  But it's really hard, especially when eating out, to know sometimes how bad something is for you.  (I'm hoping that will change once all chains will be forced to put calorie counts on the menus!)  And some menu items are most definitely eye opening.  I read Eat This, Not That and was sick to my stomach at how obnoxiously high in fat some menu items are, even some that look innocent and healthy, like a grilled salmon salad.  Sometimes you really have no idea how much crap (usually, butter and cheese) they put in this kind of food. No wonder we are all fat.

After reading that book, I went and bought Cook This, Not That!, which basically offers healthy recipes you can make at home to replace those high calorie versions at restaurants.  Compared to some of the other eating healthy books I own, these authors are more likely to tell you to use full fat cheese, butter, peanut butter, and milk and just use less of it.  That's one way to go I suppose.  The recipes I've tries so far have mostly been great, with the mac and cheese the only disappointing one.  Totally not enough cheese in that.

Recently, I made the chicken pot pie out of this book for the second time and I think it came out even better than the first time.  Here it is below, with my alternations.  (Click the link if you want to see the original recipe from the book.)

Ingredients
2 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped into smaller pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups stemmed and quartered white or cremini mushrooms
2 cups chopped cooked chicken (leftover or pulled from a store-bought rotisserie chicken)
1/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth, warmed
1 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup fat free half-and-half  (I used Land O' Lakes)
1 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup frozen corn
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 reduced fat version crescent roll tube (like Pillsbury)
2 egg whites, lightly beaten (I used Egg Beaters instead, which is basically the same thing)

How to Make It:
*Heat the butter in a large saute pan or pot over medium heat. When it's melted, add the onion and carrots,  and cook until the onion is translucent and the carrots begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, using a wooden spoon to ensure the vegetables are evenly coated with flour.  Let cook at least one minute to cook the flour.

*Slowly pour in the chicken broth, using a whisk to beat it in to help avoid clumping with the flour (having the broth warm or hot helps smooth out the sauce). Add the chicken. Once the broth is incorporated, add the milk and half-and-half and simmer for 10-20, until the sauce has thickened substantially and lightly clings to the vegetables and chicken. Depending on your milk and half and half, this may take even longer.  Just be patient.  It'll thicken!  Stir in the peas and corn. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

*Preheat the oven to 375F.  Take the crescent roll dough out of the tube and break it up into four pieces. Roll out each piece to make a 6" square.

*Divide the chicken mixture among 4 ovenproof bowls* (I used my ramekins). Place the pastry square over the top of each bowl and trim away the excess with a paring knife; pinch the dough around the edges of the bowl to secure it. Brush the tops with the Egg Beaters and bake until golden brown, about 15-25 minutes.

Makes 4 servings
The original recipe has 350 calories per serving.  I'm not sure what it is with my alterations!

Fresh from the oven!  It'll be hot!

Mmmmm tasty

*if you didn't invest in ramekins like I did, just put the whole thing into a 8x8 glass baking pan and roll out the pastry to make one big crust for it, dividing it into four portions once cooked.

Slightly better for you strawberry cupcakes

People who know me probably know that I'm not big into desserts. That is, after I eat my entree I hardly ever have any desire to eat any more food.  But that's not to say that I hate sweets - quite the contrary, actually. I just prefer to eat my sweets as separate snacks, when I'm actually hungry.  But of course many sweets have the evil trinity of too much sugar, fat, and carbs, all in one delicious little package.  There are methods to decrease elements of this evil trinity, of course - using applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of oil, switching out all purpose flour for whole wheat, and using less sugar.  And I've utilized all of these with great success.  As I continue my journey to trying to eat better, I'm hearing "experts" on all sides telling me what's good and what's bad, to stay away from "processed" foods at all costs and that artificial sweeteners are bad for you.  It's all quite confusing and contradictory.  And personally, I say that even the unbiased, relatively objective research is still mixed on artificial sweeteners, not even to mention the highly biased research that's also out there.  So, in the meantime, I will continue to enjoy them.  If you are steadfastly against all artificial sweeteners, that's your choice.  And you probably should skip this recipe.

Hungry Girl is all about the artificial sweeteners but she's also about increasing fiber in your diet naturally and bulking up meals with vegetable "fillers" like cauliflower so that you can fill your plate and still eat less calories. For these second two reasons, I'm willing to give some of her wackier recipes a try.

One thing she is known for is taking regular old boxed cake mix and adding diet soda to it to make cake.  Just diet soda - no egg, oil, or water.  The diet soda you use should gel well with the cake you are making - apparently diet cherry Coke is great with chocolate cake.  She has several variations of these concoctions and I decided to take two of her variations and combine them into a new recipe that I just kind of made up: strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting.

Ingredients for the cupcakes

Half of an 18.25-oz. box (about 1 3/4 cups) moist-style yellow cake mix*
1/2 tsp. baking powder

8 oz. of sugar free Sprite

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of strawberry extract

red food coloring (optional, and really just to make the batter pink)

Preheat oven to 375.  Prepare a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners. Mix all of these ingredients together in a bowl and then pour.  It should make 12 cupcakes, more or less.  Bake about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.  Let cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the frosting.  You'll need:
1 cup Cool Whip Free, thawed
3 teaspoons sugar free strawberry preserves

1 and 1/2 tablespoons Jell-O Sugar Free Fat Free Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix
More strawberry extract (optional, to your taste)

Mix these together in a bowl and then chill in the fridge, at least an hour.

Once chilled and the cupcakes are cool, lightly spoon the frosting onto the cupcakes.  Note that this frosting isn't very room temperature stable so you'll need to store the cupcakes in the fridge until you eat them.  They are quite delicious!

Note: since making this recipe I found this mysterious powder at the store that's meant to stabilize whipped cream used in frosting so it holds its shape at room temperature.  I wonder if it will work for this frosting as well?  I'll have to try when I make these again!

*or you know, you can just buy strawberry flavored cake mix.  I just happened to already have half a box of the yellow cake mix in the pantry.