Dinner Last Night: Guiltless Chicken Parmesan

I'll be the first to admit I have never actually tasted traditional chicken parmesan. So it would be less than honest of me to say this dish tastes exactly like the heavier version and you won't even miss all the fat, because I don't know. But I will say that on its own, as a healthy meal, or any meal for that matter, this recipe will knock your socks off! The light and crispy panko crust makes it seem much more sinful than it really is! And the delicious hint of spice from the Dijon is a killer combo with the herbs and sauce. Seriously, we LOVE this Clean Eating version of the Italian favorite!

The recipe calls for a homemade tomato sauce, but because we love and usually have Whole Foods brand pasta sauce on hand, I just use that. If you have time to make it yourself, by all means, do it!

Guiltless Chicken Parmesan
recipe adapted from Clean Eating
Olive oil cooking spray
1/2 cup whole wheat panko bread crumbs
1 T Parmesan cheese, grated
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t dried thyme
1/4 t sea salt
1/4 t ground black pepper
1 4-oz boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1 inch thickness
1 T Dijon mustard
1/2 cup part skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
8 oz cooked whole wheat penne (or your favorite pasta)
1/3 cup natural, low-sodium pasta sauce, plus more for pasta
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

Preheat oven at 400 degrees. Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.
In a shallow dish, combine panko, Parmesan, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix with a fork to combine. Brush both sides of the chicken breast with Dijon. Transfer each breast to panko mixture and turn to coat both sides. Arrange chicken to prepared baking sheet. Coat surface of chicken with cooking spray. Bake 20 minutes.
Top each chicken breast with 2 to 3 T tomato sauce and 2 T mozzarella. Return chicken to oven and bake 10 minutes more, until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted and bubbly.
Arrange pasta on a serving plate and top with remaining tomato sauce. Serve chicken with pasta on the side, garnish both with fresh basil.

image via

Mother's Day Brunch

It's amazing how much you have to catch up on when absent from blogland a couple of days...kinda pathetic! So many good blogs to read:)

I have had an incredible few days, mainly because I spent so much quality time with my amazing mom! We ran the Race for the Cure Saturday morning (and sadly got no pictures!). Despite being super late this year, we still made it for the 7:40 start time!

Saturday afternoon was occupied with brunch prep the next day. I must say, I am a total and complete sucker for brunch! Most of the food items came from Giada's new cookbook and did not disappoint!

Our menu included:

Lemoncello and Blueberry Cooler
Coffee
Fresh fruit
Smoked Gouda and Spicy Sausage Frittata (A-mazing!)
Pillsbury Orange rolls (funny story about these!)

There was only one small mishap, because every good meal has one, right? Originally, I made Giada's Espresso Glazed Zeppole (or homemade doughnuts!). Aren't you impressed? I certainly was! They were delicious, except I made the mistake of making them the night before (as to save myself some stress) but by morning they were completely soggy:( So Chris ran to the store and bought orange rolls, a family favorite! Oh well, now I know!

After we were good and stuffed satisfied, Mom and I went for pedicures (naturally!), did some shoe shopping (where I somehow ended up with the cutest new zebra flats) and back home to watch It's Complicated (a gift to my mom)!

All the while the boys cooked up an amazing dinner! Only to be topped off with this incredibly moist and delicious Vanillla Bean Buttermilk Cake from Orangette!

A wonderful way to celebrate a wonderful mom!

Thanks Mom!

Me and my lovely mother on her wedding day!

I am so excited about this weekend! Mother's day is such a fun opportunity to show mom just how amazing and appreciated she is! I am pretty sure I have the greatest mom in the whole world (and I'm only a bit bias;) and I love celebrating her!

Do you have any extra special plans for showing your mom how much you care?

We are continuing a tradition of running the Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure 5k on Saturday morning and then I have a few other surprises up my sleeve. I suppose I'll have to wait and share since Mom reads my blog most every morning.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy mother's day to all the awesome moms out there!

Summer Blockbusters

It's almost that time of year when the box office will be full of new releases! If you haven't already figured it out, Chris and I LOVE movies! In fact, a big thing we loved about living in Abilene was that we could justify going to the movies much more frequently because they were so much cheaper. Those were the days! Nowadays, a movie has to look really good to be deemed "theater worthy", otherwise we just wait to rent it on Redbox.

But there's something about the summertime that gets us there a bit more often. While watching previews a few weeks ago for the Back-Up Plan, it happened; that wonderful excitement that comes from wanting to see every movie previewed! In fact, being the list maker and total and complete geek that I am, I jotted them down in my little notebook, so not to forget a single one.

While I am absolutely positive more will be added to this list, here is a quick rundown of the Summer blockbusters I'm itching to see.

Sex and the City 2~yes it's true, I indulge in this guilty little pleasure! I absolutely loved the first one as it captured everything I wanted it to and tied up all the loose ends from the tv show. I can't wait to see what new adventures Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda are up to this time around! It will be fabulous!

Eat, Pray, Love~ while I didn't have much interest in reading the book, now seeing the previews for this flick, I feel it must be read before I see the movie! Not at all what I thougth it was about. A big plus, Julia Roberts, one of all time favorite actresses plays the lead!

Iron Man 2~ and not just to please my husband, I actually loved the first one! We will most likely be seeing this one in the next week or two!

Killers~while Chris will most likely not be joining me for Katherine Heigl's newest romantic comedy, I will absolutely be making my way to see it (possible girls night?)! If for nothing else, to see Katherine Heigl in all her cute outfits!

Just Wright~classic (read possibly cheesy) romantic comedy. As much as my hubby hates it, I love watching movies that are somewhat predictable. What can I say, I like knowing a happy ending is in sight!

How about you? Any new flicks you're looking forward to seeing?

Dinner Last Night: Windy City Pie

Do you ever just crave a delicious slice of Chicago style pizza? What if I told you it was possible to have one (or two) and not feel so guilty? Yep, this is a certified clean eating recipe! Go ahead, jump for joy!

The first time I tried this recipe Chris went crazy for it and now, two months and four attempts later, we have near perfected it and most definitely added it to our favorites! Of course it only seemed appropriate to share it with you. So go ahead, plan a Friday night in, whip up this pizza, grab a glass of wine and a movie. You will thank me later!

And just a note, a springform pan works best with this recipe (like this one).

Windy City Pie
adapted from Clean Eating

2 links lean, all-natural, spicy chicken or turkey sausage
2 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
1 each small red and green sweet bell pepper, sliced thin
1 1/2 cups button mushrooms, roughly chopped
1/8 t each sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 frozen, prepared whole wheat pizza crust
6 oz low-fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 cup of your favorite all-natural, low-sodium pizza sauce

Preheat oven at 450 degrees.
Cut a slit along the length of the sausage, remove and discard the casing, place sausage meat into a small bowl and refrigerate until needed.
In a medium saute pan, heat 1 T oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute for 2 minutes, until tender. Add bell pepper and mushrooms and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and transfer vegetable mixture to a bowl and set aside.
Return pan to burner over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook, breaking up meat with wooden spoon until meat is firm, opaque and fully cooked, about 4 minutes. Pour sausage meat into a paper-towel lined bowl to drain excess fat. Mix vegetables and meat together in a bowl.
Brush inside of pizza pan with 1T remaining oil. Roll out dough to about 14 inches in diameter. Place rolled dough directly into pan. (diameter of dough should be wider than the bottom of the pan). Press dough into the bottom and sides of the pan gently, carefully stretching the dough about 1 1/2 inches up the sides of the pan.
Sprinkle half of the mozzarella over the bottom of the crust. Pour vegetable and meat mixture over mozzarella. Pour pizza sauce evenly over the top and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella.
Place pan into oven and bake about 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown, cheese is bubbling and filling is hot throughout.
Remove from oven and let rest 5 minutes to let filling set. Cut into 8 slices and serve with pie server.
Serve immediately.

A Love Note

Because I have been working hard lately trying to strike a balance between work, more work, play and those pesky things called responsibilities, I've noticed myself become a bit more emotional and dare I say it, irrational at times. Yes it's true, I'm flawed. And during those moments I am reminded of how very lucky I am to be married to a man who not only balances me, but loves me at my worst. For that, and for so much more, I am grateful beyond words!

My dear husband, thank you for always listening when I am frustrated, encouraging me when I am discouraged, constantly finding ways to make me laugh and for bringing me countless tall soy extra hot, no-water chais when I haven't gotten enough sleep and am admittedly grouchy!

Just when I think I couldn't possibly love you more, somehow, impossibly, I do!

A Project Completed and Another Milestone

Merry May friends!

How was your weekend? Ours was wonderfully productive! I was finally able to paint and recover the green chairs I've been talking about. I am absolutely delighted with how they turned out! I ended up painting them a milky white (thistle seed to be exact). And I love the color so much I'm considering painting our sweet little green console table the same shade since I've got a ton of paint left! Then I found two fun prints to recover the seats.

The pink and green chair lives in the second bedroom as my desk chair and the blue and green one resides in a little corner of our bedroom.



And Saturday morning it occurred to me that it was May 1st, the same day we signed our very first lease on our apartment together! Exciting and crazy we have lived here almost two years together (since I technically didn't move in until June 29th).

So what did we do to celebrate? Well, just like the first night we moved in, we had homemade pizza for dinner, except this time we curled up on the couch instead of picnicing on the floor (because at that time we had no furniture moved in). And then we went to Pottery Barn and bought new bedding! At least that's the excuse I used for making such a big and unplanned purchase for no reason at all! In all fairness, I have been saying I want another set of bedding to avoid ours wearing too quickly:) Anyway, we both love it!!

Here it is, though we spiced ours up with a chocolate coverlet and throw from Restoration Hardware we already owned. It looks perfect!



Hoping you have a lovely Monday!