Chicken and Zucchini Saute: A Simple Summer Recipe

We had a delicious dinner tonight, if I do say so myself!  I was looking through the fridge and remembered that I bought a couple of zucchini at the grocery store, and I had set some chicken out to thaw for dinner, and it was a revelation.  Why not cook them together?  I'm sure no one in the history of the world has ever thought of that.

I also decided to thaw some dinner rolls for dinner--Rhode's rolls are the only kind that I buy, and they are by far my favorite.  Pair that with some olive oil and the canister of dipping herbs that I bought at GFS, and boom!  Dinner is served.

About the olive oil mentioned above, I also have to give a shout out to flavor-infused olive oils.  I have a bottle of garlic-infused and a bottle of butter flavored in my pantry.  The garlic olive oil is my favorite, but the butter has its place too, and it's a great alternative to the times I need to fry something and don't want to use butter, as was the case this night.  If you have the opportunity to pick up some of these specialty olive oils, DO IT!  You won't regret it.

All of these things mentioned above contributed to this incredibly easy dinner.  Seriously, if it was any easier, you'd be at a restaurant and someone would be cooking dinner for you.  So, without further ado, I give you:

Chicken and Zucchini Saute!
What you'll need:
A pound of boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
A pound of zucchini, washed, with skins on, and cut into quarter slices
4 TBSP garlic-infused olive oil, divided
Salt
Pepper
Other spices to your taste (I used a garlic and herb mix for the chicken)
Optional: shredded or grated Parmesan cheese, for topping

What you do:
Heat 2 TBSP olive oil in a deep 10 or 12 inch skillet.  Brown the chicken, seasoning with salt, pepper and other spices to taste.  When the chicken is browned, remove it from the pan and add the zucchini.  Drizzle the remaining 2 TBSP olive oil over top of the zucchini, and salt and pepper to taste.  Toss the zucchini and let it cook for about 5 minutes, until it's slightly soft and starting to brown.

I love this wooden spoon: I purchased it on Etsy from a shop called KitchenCarvings, if you're interested!

Add the chicken back into the pan and stir to re-warm the chicken.

Voila!  You're done.  Serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on top, and pair with some wild rice, dinner bread, or any other simple side of your choice.  This is a great way to start using some of the zucchini that's coming into season this time of the year.  Hubby's rating: back for seconds!

Alton Brown's "40 Cloves and a Chicken" Recipe

I've had this recipe in my "to try" queue for a while now, and decided to give it a go on a cheery, beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I had originally planned to just roast the chicken, but then thought, 'Hey. Why not, jack?'  Duck Dynasty is a great show.

The recipe requires olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic.  It requires the chicken to be cut into 8 pieces.  I should mention here that I've never cut up a chicken before.  A rabbit, yes.  A chicken, no--I just roast them whole, or buy pre-cut chicken from the store.  The rabbit was part of a program at the McKinnis house, and wasn't that hard to cut--it had already been skinned, so it just needed to be cut into pieces.  Chickens, on the other hand, still have the skin on, and that just makes everything more slippery and, well, icky.  But after much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the chicken's part, I won, and the chicken became eight pieces. 

This is really an easy recipe.  The hard part was peeling forty cloves of garlic, but thanks to a trusty garlic peeler tube thingy that my mother-in-law gave me a long time ago, even that went pretty quickly.  I love the smell of fresh garlic!  And I fear no vampires now (not that I ever have).

You basically cut up a whole chicken into 8 pieces.  I removed the skin on all of the pieces except the wings, since neither my husband nor I like chicken skin, but chicken wings are hard to remove the skin from.

Then, you peel 40 cloves of garlic and set them aside.

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces.  Brown the chicken in two tablespoons of olive oil, and then move the pieces to an oven-safe baking dish.  Everything I have is too small for holding a whole cut-up chicken.  Guess I'll have to go shopping soon.

Pour a half of a cup of olive oil into the baking dish, then add 10 sprigs of fresh rosemary (which I didn't have, so I just sprinkled some of my dry rosemary over the chicken), and add the garlic cloves.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours, until the chicken is cooked through but still tender.  Goes great with mashed potatoes and fresh green beans.  Everything about this recipe is just so easy!

For the actual recipe, here is the Alton Brown's Food Network page: 40 Cloves and a Chicken.

Crock Pot Chicken and Stuffing Recipe

"A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?" - Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

Several years ago, my husband was given a recipe for a Crock Pot chicken and stuffing concoction.  He brought said recipe home to me and asked me to make it for dinner.  I obliged.  He liked it.  I liked it.  So we put it in our dinner rotation for a while.  Sadly, it fell by the wayside until a few weeks ago.  Hubby requested it for the first time in ages, so I made it last weekend.  It's very good on a cold day, and a great comfort food.  I just had to share it with you!

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
4 slices of Swiss cheese
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 C chicken broth
1/4 C milk (not pictured)
2-3 C Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing mix
1/2 C melted butter
Salt and pepper to taste


Directions:
Spray your Crock Pot with cooking spray to prevent sticking and make cleanup easier.  Then place your chicken breasts in the pot and season with salt and pepper.   Place a piece of cheese over each piece of chicken.  I had to stack mine, since I was using my small Crock Pot.  Pour broth over top of the chicken.

 

In a medium bowl, combine soups and milk.

Pour the soup mix over the chicken and broth.

Sprinkle stuffing mix over the top (I just eyeballed it, and didn't measure out the stuffing).  Pour your melted butter over the top.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Devour.  Super delicious.  (You can also cook on high for about half the time, but just watch it to make sure nothing burns.)

This is a great meal to throw together in the morning before work and have after you get home, or a great Sunday dinner after church.  It's a great comfort dinner!

Review: Weight Watchers Parmesan Chicken Cutlets

Update: I have lost 2.2 pounds since we started last Monday.  Hubby, however, has lost a whopping 6 pounds since Monday!  

For dinner tonight, we tried a chicken recipe from Weight Watchers.  Very simple, and very good!  In all honesty, I probably could have come up with this myself, but they did it first, so I went with it.  I did make some changes, as I'll describe below.

For the recipe, click here.

This recipe is for four servings, and each serving is 4 points.

First, I mixed up all of the ingredients, minus the chicken, in a Ziplock bag.  I didn't have Italian breadcrumbs, so I used plain crumbs and added some Italian seasoning.  I also didn't measure the herbs, just added what I guessed would taste good.  It worked out well.  Once all of the ingredients were well mixed, I cut the chicken up into small strips/chunks and dropped them into the bag (or, my hubby did the cutting, since I managed to have a bad run-in with an old razor blade as I was getting the trash together to go out.  I always seem to find sharp objects on accident).  I shook the bag around to coat the chicken well, then sprayed the baking sheet with cooking spray and placed the chicken on.  I popped it in the oven for 25 minutes, and they came out golden brown and smelling great!  The coating gave the chicken a good flavor, and just a little crunch--just right, in my opinion.  Hubby loved it too, and requested that it go into our regular meal rotation.  Overall, I would definitely recommend this recipe for a flavorful chicken coating--and it would probably be good with turkey and pork, too!

On the menu this week:
WW Deep Dish Pizza Casserole (from Food.com, 6 pts.)
WW Chicken Piccata and Oven Fries (5 pts. & 3 pts.)
WW Baked Beef Ziti and Garlic Bread (7 pts. & yet to calculate points)
WW Chicken and Cheese Casserole (6 pts.)
WW Chicken Pot Pie (points value to come)