Easy Chicken & A Broccoli Soup

Hello! How was your weekend? Mine was super laid back. Watched some shows, ran errands, cleaned, cooked, and tried a new recipe - eggplant lasagna! It still needs a tad bit of perfecting before I share, but it was pretty delicious.

 

I have two healthy, easy recipes for you today. Hope you enjoy!

 

Also - Officially successful, for the first time in almost three years of living in New York, at not buying more than I can carry and still having enough food for dinner and breakfast. (Lucky for me, I typically get to use the car for our food shopping.)

 

 

 

For awhile I was using the Trader Joes frozen chicken to put in salads or eat with vegetables during simple meal nights. We are officially OVER that. Now I'm back to regular, non-frozen chicken and I have the easiest recipe for really good chicken. I get the filets which is a breast sliced in half. I can't deal with the full breast and having to handle the chicken to cut off weird pieces, so this works best for me.

 

Easiest Chicken Ever

 

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 1-1.5 pounds is enough for one meal for us, so 2 servings

 

Here's what you need:

1 pack (usually about 1.4 pounds) of chicken breast filets

Garlic

Smoked paprika

Salt

Pepper

1/2 lemon

 

Here's what you do:

Preheat oven to 350

Wash, then pat chicken with paper towels, and put into a baking dish

Chop garlic

Pour a generous amount of oil, I used sunflower, over the chicken so that it's completely coated

Add garlic

Squeeze juice from 1/2 lemon over chicken

Sprinkle salt, pepper, smoked paprika

Bake for 30 minutes

 

I served ours with salad and soup. It's also great with any sauce or gravy, I made it with mushroom gravy last week. I baked another batch this morning to use in our dinner tonight so that I don't have to stop at the store for a rotisserie on the way home. Super easy I'm telling you!

 



  

 

 

Broccoli Soup

I'll have you know in advance, this is a light, healthy soup. After vacation and eating out for a couple weeks, we were dying for lots of vegetables. If you are in the mood for a cheesy, hearty, broccoli cheese soup, then you can add some cream, butter, replace cauliflower with potato, and a few more cups of cheese to this. BUT, if you are looking for a healthy, low fat, low carb, tasty soup, then try this as is.

 

Prep time: 10 minutes, or 5 minutes if you buy your vegetables already chopped

Cook time: 30 minutes

Servings: 6 bowls

 

Here's what you need:

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup cheese (I used 1/4 parmesan, 1/4 white cheddar)

1/4 cup flour

1 head broccoli (chopped)

1 head cauliflower (chopped)

4 cups chicken broth

2 leeks

Handful of fresh spinach

Few cloves of garlic (chopped)

Salt

Pepper

 

Here's what you do:

Sautee leeks and garlic in butter for 3-5 minutes

Add flour and continue to sautee until vegetables are coated completely

Slowly add broth a little at a time (use a whisk if flour clumps)

Once broth thickens a bit, bring to boil

Add broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach

Bring to boil again

Lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until vegetables are soft

Use immersion blender, or carefully transfer to blender and blend

Transfer back to pot and add cheese, salt, and pepper

 

**You can eat right away, we did, but it does taste better the longer it sits. It was a lot more delicious the second day.



 

 

 





 

After all of our healthy eating this weekend, I'm starting to feel like myself again. I've not been having any cravings after cutting out most of the sugary treats, breads, and other fattening foods we were living on for the past couple months. Sure, we enjoyed it, but I'm glad that we are over it and back on track for healthy living!!