Spicy Chicken Sweet Potato Chili – Hearty and Healthy!!!

Tags

Chicken, chili, healthy, recipe, slow cooker, spicy, sweet potato, vegan, vegetarian

I’m always looking for ways to sneak additional vegetables into our meals. I happened to have a sweet potato on hand and thought it would be a good add to spicy chili. The sweetness of the potato really balances out this dish! It was an incredibly flavorful! Very hearty and healthy too! You could substitute ground turkey for the chicken or leave the meat altogether for a delicious vegetarian or vegan dish (If you left out the sour cream).

Spicy Chicken Sweet Potato Chili

Makes 6-8 servings

1-2 tbsp avocado or olive oil

1/2 diced sweet yellow onion

3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

2 cans Rotel tomatoes (I used one can hot and one can chipotle Rotel)

1 – 8 oz can tomato sauce

1/2 cup water (rinsed Rotel can and dumped in)

1 pound chopped rotisserie chicken (or 1 pound ground turkey, browned)

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

1/4 cup roasted red peppers, diced

3/4 tsp cumin

3/4 tsp Hungarian Paprika

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/2 cup sour cream

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Add oil to Dutch oven or other large pot over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until soften, add garlic and sauté another couple of minute until fragrant. Add remaining ingredients and set to low and simmer for 1-2 hours. You could also sauté the onion and garlic and then throw everything in the slow cooker for 4-6 hours on low. Serve with tortilla chips, sliced green onions, chopped avocado or any other toppings you like on your chili.

Enjoy!!!

Spicy Sausage and Peppers – Some Delicious Italian Comfort Food!!!

Tags

Giada de Laurentiis, Mashed potatoes, onions, recipe, Sausage and Peppers, spicy

Yesterday I got some spicy Italian turkey sausage on sale at the grocery store. I knew I had some orange bell peppers, so Sausage and Peppers came to mind. I didn’t have any sandwich rolls and we hadn’t had mashed potatoes in a while, so I decided to serve it with the potatoes. This was a great combo! The sausage and peppers had tons of flavor and the sauce was great with the mashed potatoes. My husband said the dish reminded him of Shepard’s Pie with an Italian spin on it. This would be a great, hearty winter comfort food!!!

I thought the spicy sausage gave it just the right amount of spice without being overwhelming. If you really don’t like spicy foods you could substitute with sweet sausage and the dish would be just as good.

I can’t completely take credit for this recipe. I started by looking at one of Giada de Laurentiis recipe on the Food Network site, but I altered it based on what I had (or didn’t have) on hand.

Spicy Sausage and Peppers

1 pound spicy Italian turkey sausage

3 tbsp olive oil

2 medium bell peppers, sliced – I prefer red, orange or yellow over the green.

1/2 white onion, sliced

Salt and pepper

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 – 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained

1/2 cup red wine – I used Ménage A Trois Midnight (It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a good, affordable table wine). Giada used Marsala wine in her recipe. I’m curious to try this. It would completely change the flavor of the dish as Marsala wine has a very distinctive flavor.

Add olive oil to frying pan and brown whole sausages over medium heat. When browned and almost cooked through, remove sausage to a cutting board and allow to cool a bit. Meanwhile, brown your peppers and onion in the frying pan for about 5 minutes. Then add your basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for 2 more minutes. Slice your sausage into 1″ slices. Add tomato paste, tomatoes and wine to frying pan and stir until mixed well. Add sausage back to the pan. Cook another 5-7 minutes until sausage is cooked through and sauce is thick and bubbly.

This was great served with the mashed potatoes. It would also be good over pasta or served on sandwich rolls.

Mangia bene!

Cheesy Chicken Pepper Pasta – Our Family’s All-time Favorite Pasta Dish

Tags

Cheese, Chicken, creamy, pasta, Pasta with Chicken and Pepper Cheese Sauce, pepper, recipe, spicy

My sister has been telling me I need to blog this recipe, so here we are! I found this recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine probably over 20 years ago and have been making it ever since! The spicy, creamy sauce over pasta and chicken is so very delicious! It has just the right amount of spice! It’s a nice enough dish to serve to company and it’s an easy dish to multiply in order to serve a large group. This was a favorite when our large family group would go to Tahoe for snowy get-aways. The teenagers loved coming in from playing in the snow to this spicy, warm dish!

I chose to keep the dish as low-fat as possible by using fat free dairy ingredients. You can change it to low-fat or full-fat ingredients based on your taste.

Cheesy Chicken Pepper Pasta

3 tbsp all-purpose flour, divided

1/2 tsp tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

1/8 tsp ground white pepper

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken (breasts or thighs), cut into 1 inch pieces

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 tbsp seeded, chopped jalapeno pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

3/4 cup fat free chicken broth

1/2 cup fat free milk

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 cup fat free Monterey Jack or motzarella cheese, shredded

1/4 cup fat free sour cream

8 oz linguine or spaghetti, cooked and drained

Combine 1 tbsp of the flour, salt, and ground peppers; toss with the chicken to coat. In a large skillet heat oil and cook chicken 4-5 minutes or till tender. Remove chicken; add onion, red pepper, jalapeno pepper and garlic. Cook until tender. Stir in remaining flour. Add broth, milk and Worcestershire sauce; cook and stir until bubbly. Shir in cheese until melted. Stir in sour cream. Add chicken and heat through (do not boil). Serve over pasta. Makes 5-6 servings.

Enjoy!

Healthy Hash – Spicy, Hearty and Healthy!

Tags

Carrots, Cooking, ground turkey, Hash, healthy, potatoes, ranch dressing, recipe, spicy

  

It was one of those nights, where I didn’t have a specific plan for dinner other than using stuff I had on hand that needed to be eaten! I hate wasting food, so this used some fresh veggies I had on hand and the ground turkey that needed to be used. It turned out to be a delicious, hearty dinner that had a nice amount of spice to it. It would be a great meal for a chilly evening. As tasty as it is, the ingredients are pretty basic, so chances are you’ll have them on hand and most people will enjoy this dish. You can always dial the spice up or down depending on your tastes.

Hearty Hash

4 russet potatoes, diced

2 carrots, peeled & diced

1/2 medium white onion, diced

1 pound ground turkey

1 packet ranch dressing mix

1 – 14 oz can diced tomatoes

1 – 6 oz can tomato sauce

Salt and pepper

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (These could be left out to dial back the spice quite a bit.)

1/2 tsp paprika

1 tsp dried parsley

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking pan with non-stick spray. Pour diced potatoes into pan and spread In single layer. Lightly season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes.

Spray a frying pan with non-stick spray, brown ground turkey with onions and carrots. One the meat is cooked through, add ranch dressing mix, tomatoes, tomato sauce, peppers, paprika, parsley and potatoes. Stir and cook until veggies are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Chipotle Cream Chicken – Yes, You Can Make Delicious & Lowfat Cream Sauce!!!

Tags

Chicken, Chipotle, Cooking, cream sauce, creamy, Food, peppers, sour cream, spicy

  
Man! The sauce really makes this dish! The chipotle peppers add the right amount of burn and the creaminess counteracts this, so it’s not over the top. It has this bold, yet soothing flavor that could be great served in a number of ways! Last night I browned some chicken and served it over that. I had plenty of sauce left over, so today I used it as a dipping sauce for the avocado egg rolls that I made. DELISH!!!

I love cream sauces! They are so decadent, but they can also be fattening, so this is where you have to think through your ingredients. For this recipe, I used one of my favorite ingredients, fat free sour cream. Fat Free Greek yogurt might work well too. Fat Free Sour Cream just never lets me down! I get the thick, tart, creaminess without a load of fat and calories. And hey! We girls need our calcium! Right!?!

I served my chicken over some easy salsa rice (instant brown rice, Pace Picante, water and frozen corn). I also made some baked avocado rolls with salsa verde for dipping. Overall, this was a great meal! The chicken with the creamy chipotle sauce was definitely the star though!

Creamy Chipotle Chicken
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts

1 tbsp coconut oil

Salt and pepper

1 cup fat free sour cream

1 cup 1% milk

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1/4 cup fat free cream cheese

In a skillet, over medium heat Coke coconut oil until melted and the add chicken. Salt and pepper chicken on each side as it cooks. While this is cooking, put your sour cream, milk, peppers and cream cheese in a sauce pot and blend with your immersion blender until smooth (or put in food processor to blend and then pour in sauce pot). Warm over medium heat. When your chicken is a nice golden brown on each side, pour the chipotle sauce over the chicken and let simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. There will be plenty of sauce, so serve over rice or noodles.

Enjoy the creamy, spicy goodness!!!