Warm Broccoli Chicken Salad

Hi, my name is Charlie and I love to cook! That's one of the many reasons my posts will feature healthy recipes (for now at least). All of my delicious cooking (I'm the best cook in the family) has me needing to lose weight! My recipes are only made to serve one, but I'm sure you could double, triple, or even quadruple the recipes to serve a family.

Getting Started:
1 boneless skinless 4oz chicken breast
2 cups of frozen broccoli florets
1/2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tablespoon light mayo
salt
pepper
Creole seasoning
lime juice

boneless skinless chicken breast

 Dice the boneless skinless chicken breast and lightly season it.  I used cayenne pepper, black pepper, and creole seasoning.  I didn't use salt because the creole seasoning already has some.

As you can see, I like my food spicy!

 Heat a skillet on medium high heat and add a few sprays of cooking spray.

Once the pan is heated, add the diced chicken and saute until golden brown and cooked all the way through.  It took me about 5 minutes.

While that's cooking boil a pot of water and add the frozen broccoli florets and salt as if you're cooking pasta.

This only needs to boil for about 4 minutes, until it's warm all the way through.  I cooked mine a little too long and would have preferred them to be firmer.

Once that's done drain.  I put it back on the heat for a little while after it was drained to get some of the moisture out.  Broccoli contains a lot of water.

Put it in a mixing bowl along with the olive oil and mayonnaise.

I filled a tablespoon halfway with olive oil then the rest with mayonnaise.  It kills two birds with one stone since you need half a tablespoon of each, plus it prevents the mayo from sticking to the spoon.

Add the diced chicken and lime juice and mix it until everything is coated.

Serve and enjoy warm, room temperature, or even cold.  It was delicious!

Edit: This meal is only 260 calories!!!

The World's Best Muffins

I'm from Louisiana, so I love to eat. Because I love to eat, I love to cook. Pretty much everyone in my family does. 

One day, I was reading my sister's blog, Have It Your Way (But Not At Burger King), and I had the wonderful, splendid, SUPERB idea that my sister, mother, and I should start a cooking blog. I told them my idea, and after they agreed, I promptly began procrastinating.

Until today, when I invented the best muffins that ever existed in the entire history of the world. Seriously. 

You see, I've recently formed a habit of cooking in the middle of the night. It works out well because my husband is in the Navy, and he has to leave for work very early in the morning. This way, I can cook him breakfast and he doesn't have to have cereal or heat up some disgusting and processed frozen thing. 


At about 1:30 this morning, I was thinking of what I'd cook today, browsing the internet for recipes. This is something I do not for instructions, but for ideas. Fortunately, I didn't find anything I wanted to make because otherwise these muffins would never have come into existence. They're extremely easy, and involve three staples of breakfast: pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

First I started the oven preheating to 350 degrees. While I was waiting, I took out three strips of bacon and cut them into smaller pieces, like this:

You can definitely use more bacon, but that was all we had on hand, and I wasn't going out to get more. 


After that, I fried the bacon in a skillet until it was nice and crispy. I used a slotted spoon to get it out of the pot, to save the drippings, and set the pieces aside to drain.

Next, I scrambled three eggs. I'm not sure why I chose that amount, but it ended up being just right. I cooked them in the bacon drippings both for flavor, and to shorten the clean up time by using fewer pots. And, although I'm the world's most excellent cook, I'm also quite a lazy one, so I just cracked the eggs directly into the skillet, and scrambled them with a fork as they were cooking.

After that, I made pancake batter, using a modified version of the recipe I found here.:


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter 

First I mixed together the dry ingredients, using a wire whisk to get out the lumps. I made a well in the center, and added the wet ingredients, and then I mixed in the drained bacon and the eggs I'd just finished scrambling.

Next, I just poured it into my muffin pan, which I greased with Crisco...I said I'm the world's best cook, not the world's healthiest...

...filling the cups about 3/4 of the way with the batter.  

And then I put it into the oven for about 45 minutes, until the tops were nice and golden, brushing with another tablespoon of melted butter about five minutes before I took them out to cool.
 

Voila! The world's best muffins were born! You might notice that two are missing from the picture above. This is because I absolutely had to eat some, doused in syrup, as soon as they came out of the oven.

And that's the story of how I stopped procrastinating, and finally composed the first entry to the best cooking blog ever. ;-)