Ingredients:

Shredded chicken
1 carrot diced
2 stalks of celery diced
1/2 c corn
1/2 c peas
1 small onion diced
1/2 chili pepper diced (optional)
1 can tomato paste
olives (optional)
3-4 cups of cooked rice1 tbsp oil
salt
pepper

Heat oil in skillet.  Saute onions, carrots and celery until softened (covering skillet for a few minutes helps). Stir in corn, peas, olives and chili peppers.

Add the cooked rice.  Stir in tomato paste, salt, and pepper until evenly coated.  Finally, toss in the chicken.

But it’s not over…you can still use the carcass for chicken soup.  Here’s the recipe:

Leftover Chicken Orzo Soup

Ingredients:

1 chicken carcass
2 carrots diced
4 celery stalks diced
1 onion diced
6 c watersalt
pepper
1 c orzo

Throw in chicken carcass (minus the wings and drumsticks), carrots, celery, and onions, water, salt and pepper  into a crock pot.  Leave it on high for 6-8 hours.

Afterward, the meat should have fallen off the bone.  Remove the bone from the soup (use a slotted spoon to make the job easier). Add in the orzo and cook for another 30 minutes. Serve.

There’s really no specific recipe for chicken tortillas in my book.  Just use what you have and wrap it up in a tortilla.

Simply tear out the cooked chicken meat and shred it with your bare hands.  Then toss them in the skillet with some oil, salt and pepper.  I also added olives to give it extra flavor.

Dig into the fridge for veggies and possible toppings for the tortilla.  I usually like some greens in my tortillas.  I used spinach simply because that was what I had lying around. I also threw in some cheddar cheese and tabasco sauce.

Then heat up some tortillas in a skillet until they are slightly brown and crunchy.  If you like them soft, you can pop them in the microwave and heat them up instead.

For me, I love tortillas with fresh salsa and guacamole.  To make the salsa, simply dice a tomato and a quarter of an onion.  Mix it with some olive oil, lemon/lime juice and cilantro.  Add salt and pepper to your liking.  You can also find the recipe for guacamole from my previous post.

And leftover wine can be reused too!  Okay, old wine never tastes the same but it’ll do for a sangria.  I dumped the rest of my wine (about 2 glasses left) into a pitcher, toss in diced apples and orange slices, and mixed it with a can of sprite and some orange juice.  It made a punchy kind of sangria (if you want hard core sangria, leftover wine won’t be enough).

You see, leftovers don’t have to be so bad after all.

The idea first came about when I realized that the whole chicken I bought over the winter occupied too much space in my freezer.  Yet I wanted to make the meal as light as possible for the warm weather.   So I skipped the stuffing, and served the roast chicken with baked sweet potatoes au naturel and cauliflower.

The day before, I placed the chicken into the refrigerator to defrost.  The next morning I took it out and noticed that the outside has thawed but not the inside.  I tried soaking it in cold water in its vacuum seal packaging for a few hours.  But it was still not completed thawed.  Finally, I soaked it in hot water which did the trick.  Once the chicken was thawed on the inside, I was able to rinse it and remove the extra stuff (whole chickens usually have that neck piece and some internal organs that need to be removed before roasting).

Now the chicken is ready for seasoning.  I patted the chicken dry and slathered the outside with room temperature butter.  Then I sprinkled salt and pepper all over the outside of the chicken and some in the inner cavity.  The chicken is then placed breast up on a wire rack over a baking dish and stuck it in the oven (this allows the drippings to go into the pan and prevent the underside from going soggy.  Since my chicken was 6.5 pounds, I roasted it for a little under 2.5 hours at 350 degrees.  The rule is about 20 minutes per pound.  Here is how it turned out:

About 45 minutes before the chicken was ready, I popped the sweet potatoes in the oven.  I didn’t have to do much to them except wash and poke some holes in them with a fork.  They would be nice and mushy by the time they come out with the chicken.

Then I rinsed and cut up some cauliflower, toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper in a baking dish and placed that into the oven about 30 minutes before the chicken was ready.

The meal was very easy to prepare.  Most of the time was spent waiting for the chicken to be ready as the aroma of the roasting filled the house. And the only real way to enjoy a feast on a beautiful spring day is to dine outdoors.

I have seen the signs before but today was actually the first time I happened to walk in on free pizza night.  I have all the intentions of working out and getting out.  Then eating a HEALTHY dinner.  But when you’re on the elliptical and the view in front of you is piles of pizza boxes, those intentions go out the window. (They’re actually pretty good pizzas from the local shop next door).

And I thought watching food network on the treadmill made me hungry.

So to balance it out, I’ve decided to make sure I put in 45 minutes on the elliptical (on lazy days I only go for 30 minutes).  As I pedaled hard on the machine, I noticed a good 5-6 people helping themselves to a slice in a packed gym (all guys by the way). I guess more people than I thought could resist the temptation.

With the help of both food network and pizza as motivation, I reached my goal and left with some grub. As I was eating the pizza at home, I decided to do some math to calculate the damage.

A slice of pepperoni pizza (yes, I was bad) is 290 calories.  A 45 minute work out on the elliptical burns about 350 calories.  That leaves me negative 60 calories.  Not too bad.  This means I still have room for a cookie…

As much as we all love ice cream, it is not exactly a healthy snack or dessert. Nor does cleaning out a tub of Haagen-Daaz prepare you for the bikini days of summer. Therefore, I’ve decided to stick to yogurt as a substitute. I’m glad to say that it has been working nicely–no crave for ice cream yet.

Usually I buy vanilla yogurt (which has less sugar than the fruit on bottom ones) and throw in chopped fresh fruits of my own.  If I happen to have granola or nuts around, I’d throw in some of those too. It definitely makes a healthier dessert than ice cream.

Recently, I’ve been shopping around my favorite natural foods store in my neighborhood and decided to try out a new yogurt. Simply, put it was the best yogurt I’ve ever had. There is this wonderful thick and creamy texture and taste to the yogurt absent from the ones at your local supermarket. In addition, it has very little sugar and is made from organic ingredients. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? The yogurt brand is called Cultural Revolution (cultures, revolution, heh).

However, I soon discover that nothing is ever perfect. The reason for its creaminess is because it’s made from cream (which tastes awesome of course), with more than 10g of fat per cup as opposed to the 3g of fat in my generic vanilla yogurt from the market (which more than half of it is saturated fat by the way).

Some things taste too good to be true.

Once you have purchased the wrappers, pick out ingredients you would like to add to your spring rolls.  Traditionally, the rolls are made with boiled shrimp, lettuce and vermicelli.  However, you can be creative and put almost any combination of meat and vegetable inside.  There is no cooking necessary! Just follow these simple steps:

1)  Heat up a pot of water until it is hot but not boiling. Remove from heat and place on preparation surface.

2) Take a spring roll wrapper and dip it into the hot water for a few seconds.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t feel soft right away, since it will  do so shortly.  If you leave it in the water too long, the wrapper will become too soggy to use.

3) As the wrapper softens, place it onto a cutting board.  Put your desired ingredients in the center. Fold the ends toward the center.  then roll up it up like a burrito.

4)  Place prepared roll on platter, making sure that they are separated so that they won’t stick together.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make appetizers.  I find that they are actually great in-between meals (or snacks) and even small lunch meals.  What’s great about appetizers is that they are usually fast and easy to make.  Here are some easy ones:

1) Guacamole with Tortilla Chips

This is my very favorite appetizer because it is so easy to make.  The secret is ripe avocados.  Just chop up and throw all the ingredients into a bowl and mix it up.  (A masher helps break the avocado pieces).  For the tortilla chips, I simply pan-fry some corn tortillas as a healthier alternative to deep-frying them.

Just a note: corn tortillas have less fat than flour ones; they also have a nice grainy texture.

1 ripened avocado peeled and pitted
1/4 onion diced
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 tomato diced
a handful of cilantro chopped
juice of a lime
1 tbsp of olive oil
salt
pepper
pan spray
6 corn tortillas

Place peeled and pitted avocado pieces into a large bowl.  Slightly mash them with a potato masher.  Toss in garlic, onion, cilantro, tomatoes, lime juice, oil, salt and pepper. Stir ingredients together until smooth.

Heat skillet on high and coat with pan spray.  Place corn tortillas into skillet until crispy and golden on one side.  Then flip over tortillas and repeat.  Take care not to burn the tortillas.  Cut into fours with shears when they are done.  Serve with guacamole.

2) Stuffed Mushrooms with Ricotta

I first got the idea when I had all this leftover ricotta after making lasagna.  Not wanting to waste the ricotta, I decided to used it as a mushroom stuffing instead of bread crumbs.  It turned out better than I thought.

If it is any consolation, ricotta is much lower in fat than other types of cheeses. A 1/4 cup of whole milk ricotta has only 110 calories. So don’t feel too bad about stuffing those caps to the max.

6 large white mushrooms
1/2 cup of ricotta
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/4 onion chopped1 tsp dried oregano
grated parmesan/pecorino/romano
salt
pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven at 375 degrees. Clean and dry mushrooms.  Carefully remove their stems and set aside.  Chop up stems.

Heat skillet and add olive oil.  Saute garlic and onion and add chopped mushroom stems.  Once stems are cooked throughly, turn down heat.  Stir in ricotta, salt, pepper and oregano.  Remove from heat.

Lightly brush mushrooms caps with olive oil.  Fill caps with ricotta stuffing.  Top with grated parmesan cheese.

Spray baking sheet lightly.  Place mushroom caps onto sheet and into preheated oven.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Crockpots or slow cookers simply use electricity to heat contents slowly.  You can usually set it on low or high.  The high setting would cook food around 200 degrees, while the low setting cooks it at about 170 degrees.  Because the temperature is lower, the low setting would require more time to cook the same ingredients than the high setting.

The great thing about crock pots is that you can chop up and prepare the ingredients beforehand, throw them in the pot and turn it on in the morning. When you come home after a long day, your dinner would be ready.  For the past week, I’ve been using my crock pot continuously to make various recipes. They are easy and extremely comforting on a freezing-cold night.

Here are some ideas:

1) Pot Roast

2) Split Pea Soup

3) Corn Chowder

4) Chili

1)   Use plastic storage containers

Go out and invest in a good and sturdy set of storage containers with lids in all different sizes.  The ones that can fit into each other are great if you have limited shelf space.  Just put any leftovers or unused food in the container with the lid and store it in the fridge.  It is more airtight and keeps it fresher than plastic wrap would.  Make sure that the plastic is reusable (#7 plastic is made to be reused) and is microwave and dishwasher safe.  This way you don’t have to worry about disfiguring them in the microwave, or eating any BPA.

2)   Put lids over plates

If you don’t have containers or feel like scraping your leftovers into Tupperware, then put directly over the plate.  As long as it sits nicely over the plate without any empty spaces, its good enough (unless we’re dealing with real stinky dishes).  Try your pot lids, which often work well since they have a rim anyway.  If you don’t have any lids around, invert another plate the same size and put it right over.

3)   Buy nonstick ovenware

Instead of lining everything you put into the oven with foil, use nonstick baking sheets.  Food caked on it often comes off very easily.  But not all nonstick pans are made of the same quality.  A coat of nonstick spray usually does the trick for those poorer quality pans.

Here are some fruit-in-salad combinations:

1) Citrus Salad:  Spring mix with peeled orange and grapefruit slices (see above)

2) Tropical Salad:  Mango, avocadoes, tomatoes, onions and lime juice on a bed of greens

3) Apple Walnut:  Super-thin apple slices (with peel), walnuts, spinach, olive oil and goat cheese (pears also work well in this salad)

4) Asian Salad: Tangerine sections (peeled), grilled chicken, carrots strips, dash of sesame oil and honey

5) Grape Salad:  Red seedless grapes (halved), almond slivers, sharp cheddar cubes, mixed greens and balsamic vinagrette

These are some ideas I try but there are many more ideas out there.  The best thing to do is experiment.  Balance a little sweetness with a bit of tanginess and saltiness to your salads.  Stay clear of creamy dressings which are loaded with calories–you might as well eat a burger for all the calories you are going to gain.