Chicken Delicious and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of my favorite dinners when I was growing up was a roasted chicken meal my mother called "Chicken Delicious". Back then, it was made with skin-on chicken (fat), Italian pork sausage (meaning high fat), garlic salt and salt (meaning high sodium), and loads of oil (adding more fat). Chicken may be one of the "good meats", but the way this was made "back in the day" certainly leaves a lot to be desired in this day and age of limiting salt and fat intake!

So, how to make an old favorite but with less of today's "no-nos"? I made a newer version of chicken delicious tonight that reduces the fat and salt but still maintains the taste. Preheat oven to 425F (218.3C). Start with about 1.5 lbs of frozen or 1.25 lbs of fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts and 1 lb low fat Italian turkey sausage. Defrost the frozen chicken and pat dry. Peel and slice 6 medium russet potatoes and place in roasting pan or casserole dish. Mix 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper in small bowl. Sprinkle half mix over potatoes. Slice turkey sausage into small pieces and place sausage and chicken on top of potatoes. Sprinkle the rest of the spices over the top of the chicken and then pour 1/4 cup of canola (or olive) oil over the chicken and sausage. Cover with either foil or lid, place in oven and cook for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove foil or lid and reduce heat to 375F (190.55C), cooking for 30 minutes or until potatoes are browned. Serve with a green salad and looks like this:

When done right, this is very good. If you overdo the oil or fail to defrost the chicken fully, the potatoes will turn to mush and it's not as good. On the other hand, if you overcook this dish, which is also easy to do, it can be dry and tasteless. When done right, the chicken is moist while the potatoes have a crisp edge. It's not the easiest to do, so I encourage people to not give up if the first try does not come out perfect.

I also found a recipe for Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies that I decided to try from Diabetic Cooking magazine. It looked good and we finished the Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies I made last week, so I figured I'd give it a try. It calls for:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup Splenda
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cocoa or dark cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/3 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 375F (190.55C). Beat margarine, sugar and sugar substitute with electric mixer on medium speed. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk to the margarine-sugar mix and beat until well-blended. Stir in chocolate chips and drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, baking for 7-9 minutes, until just set. Remove to wire rack and cool completely.

I found that if you use an actual teaspoon measure and scoop the batter out by a level teaspoon, you can make nearly 6 dozen cookies as opposed to the 3 dozen the recipe says it makes. That means 4 cookies would constitute a serving and have 107 calories, 6g fat, 25mg cholesterol, 11g carbohydrate, 1g dietary fiber, 2g protein, and 57mg sodium. After baking, if you don't flatten them out, they look like this:

This batch had a light texture that I like -- kind of like a meringue cookie, though they are definitely a drop cookie. I had barely gotten the cookies out of the oven when my brother started eating them, so I would say they are definitely going to stay on my list of cookies to make.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying their holidays and, if you're in the path of some nasty winter weather, staying warm and dry!

Tonight's Dinner: Chicken and Wine Sauce

I know it's been a while, but while I was making dinner today, I decided to see how well my new camera takes food pictures. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the photos turned out! They are much better than my old camera. So, without further ado, here's tonight's dinner: Chicken and Wine Sauce.

The recipe comes from the cookbook, Diabetic Living: Our Best Diabetic Living Recipes.  It's one I've made before and I think it's quite good. A lower fat and carbohydrate-controlled version of a classic chicken stew, it's a great meal as the weather turns cooler. Here's a shot of the recipe:

As written, the recipe calls for skinned chicken thighs or drumsticks. While those are a great option for those on a budget, since I like ease, I used frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast tenderloins.  No skinning, no removing bones, just good eating later. Next, I substituted frozen, crinkle cut carrots for fresh carrots, since I didn't have fresh on-hand. It also cuts down on the work, since there's no cutting. Instead of 4 medium red potatoes, I used 2 large russet potatoes. Yes, I know there's a huge difference in the taste of red potatoes and russet potatoes, but from a personal standpoint, I can deal with the difference. Personally, I would say use your favorite potato. Remember that potatoes have approximately 15-18 grams of carbohydrates per 70 gram (~2.5 ounce) serving, so use that when you are calculating your carbs.

Now, while the recipe is called Chicken and wine sauce, unfortunately, I do not have dry white wine in the house. Extra chicken broth makes an easy substitute, though, and if you do not drink or do not happen to have wine available, adding an extra 1/2 cup of chicken broth is a simple way to ensure you have enough liquid in the pot while still having flavor. We also do not use fresh garlic in this house, as there are some who are sensitive to it, so instead of fresh garlic, I used 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder. During the summer, we grow our own parsley, both Italian flat leaf and regular curled parsley, so the parsley in this pot was REALLY fresh! Some thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper round out the seasonings. Here is the pot just before I turned it on to cook for the 4 hours:

After it's cooked and the gravy made, I'll take another picture and post it here. Look for an update soon!

UPDATE, 10:18 PM, 9/14/2013:

 Dinner is finished and consumed! After cooking for about 4 1/2 hours, I removed the vegetables and meat from the pot in order to make the gravy. It's a simple gravy, just 3 tablespoons of margarine and flour each plus the liquid from the pot. Melt the margarine, add the flour, cook for 1 minute and add the liquid, cook for 2 minutes. Easy, right? Well, check out this picture of the gravy:

Note the lumps. Equal parts margarine and flour with heat seem to clump up and when I added the liquid, the clumps remained. It took a lot of wisking to rid the gravy of the lumps. I should have simply melted the margarine, added that to the liquid, and then added the flour while wisking the gravy. Oh well, live and learn.

The vegetables and chicken turned out fine:

I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, so it was served like a stew. Put the vegetables on the plate, add the chicken, then put a small amount of gravy on top of both the chicken and veggies. Since I served myself only 70g of potatoes and 3 ounces of chicken, I was able to allow myself a small roll with light margarine.

So, if you make this, watch the gravy base. Not only can it easily burn, but if you aren't careful, you could end up with lumpy gravy. Also, make sure you evenly distribute the spices throughout the pot while cooking (should be a no-duh, but sometimes one can forget to stir the pot). Number of carbohydrates in the picture: 17 from roll, 16 from potatoes, ~ 6 from carrots, celery, and onions -- 39 total. Add 15 additional carbohydrate grams for dessert for a total of 54 grams and 3 units of insulin. Not bad for dinner!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the eating!