7 Miles!

Hi Everyone! Last night I made Chicken Gyros. This was another recipe inspired by Annie Eats. However, she made her own Tzatziki sauce and I was lazy and bought it. Here's what I did:

Chicken Gyros
Ingredients:
For the chicken:
4 cloves garlic, smashed
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 heaping tbsp. tzatziki sauce
1 tbsp. dried oregano
Salt and pepper
1 1/4 lbs. chicken pieces
To assemble:
Joseph's Brand Tzatziki sauce
Pita bread (I used low-calorie, low carb, wheat Joseph's brand)
Fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced and Red onion, sliced thin

Directions: To prepare the chicken, combine the garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, sauce, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste in a medium bowl. Whisk together until mixed well. Add the chicken pieces to the bowl and mix well to coat. Cover and refrigerate for about 15-20 minutes. Cook the chicken as desired, either in the skillet or with the broiler. (I cooked them on a grill pan.) Once the chicken is completely cooked through, transfer to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes. Cut into strips. Heat pitas (I put them in the toaster oven for a few minutes). Top with chicken, tzatziki sauce, diced tomatoes and sliced onions. Serve immediately.

I served this along with a salad and greek style orzo. I made the orzo by boiling chicken broth, adding in the orzo with salt, pepper and oregano. I also served the gyros with extra sauce. I know I probably should have made my own sauce, but I love this brand of Hummus and Wraps so I knew it would be good. Plus, I got dinner on the table in under 40 minutes!

This morning I woke up to another 4 inches of snow and thought will it ever end? I decided to make healthy morning muffins inspired by Martha Stewarts Everyday Food. I modified these quite a bit.
Healthy Morning Muffins
Ingredients:
1 and 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 cup of dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of ground pumpkin pie spice
1 cup of oats
1/2 cup of golden raisins
1/2 cup of craisins
1/4 cup coconut
3 T of EVOO
1 large egg
1/3 cup of skim milk and 1/3 cup of eggnog (I had it and wanted to get rid of it so why not?)
1 medium ripe banana mashed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400. Put all the dry ingredients in one bowl and mix, then start adding the wet and mix thoroughly. Fill each muffin cup about 1/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes.
This will be great for breakfast this week and for mid-morning snacks before I go to the gym. Next up I made a parchment package of straw mushrooms, spinach and eggs. This was another recipe I adapted from Everyday Food.
Eggs with Mushroom and Spinach in a Parchment Package
Ingredients:
parchment paper
8 oz of frozen spinach, defrosted and drained of excess water
1 can of straw mushrooms
4 eggs
Soy Sauce
Salt and Pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400. Place spinach and mushrooms in middle of parchment paper. Add some soy sauce and salt and pepper. Crack two eggs in each package then fold over to close. Bake the packages on a baking sheet for 10 minutes or until egg whites are set.
This was a lovely lunch with tons of protein! Gave me good energy to FINALLY leave the house and go to the gym! I ran 7 miles in 62 minutes. Felt pretty strong. Read some trashy gossip magazines and watched Jersey Shore for the 1000th time. I also flipped back to the Pats game but totally missed how they lost. How is that possible that they lost- they were up by so much! After the run I lifted legs. I did the leg press, hamstrings, quads, calves, and hip abductors. And I used the foam roller. I felt pretty good. No real pain to note!

Tonight, I was going to make Roast Chicken with Smoky Tomato Sauce but I just wasn't in the mood to cook that. Instead, I somehow got inspired by an advertisement in EveryDay Food for Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Using that can, they had a recipe for Chicken with Sun Dried Tomatoes. Since I had goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes to use up, I decided to go with it! I totally modified this recipe, but I was totally in the mood to stuff my chicken with goat cheese and make a creamy sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli and the rest of my straw mushrooms. So thats what I did!

Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken with a Creamy Sun Dried Tomato, Broccoli and Mushroom Sauce over Papparadelle Pasta

Ingredients:
2 Large Chicken Breasts
4 ounces of goat cheese
1 Can of Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup (Low Fat)
1 Small Container of Sun Dried Tomatoes with some of the oil
3/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of straw mushrooms
1/4 cup of broccoli
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
1/2 pound of wheat pappardelle pasta, cooked
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400. Put water on to boil for the pasta. Put a slit in chicken and put the goat cheese inside the chicken. Saute the chicken with EVOO in a saute pan for 7 minutes on each side. Remove Chicken from pan and put in oven safe dish to finish cooking in the oven. Add the pasta to the boiling water. Empty the can of chicken soup into the same saute pan. Add the sundried tomatoes with oil, mushrooms, and broccoli. Let blend together and thicken up. After three-five minutes, add 3/4 cup of water to thin out the sauce. By the time you get a nice sauce (not too thick, not too thin), the pasta should be finished cooking as well as the chicken. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce and season up with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Serve the pasta and veggies along with the chicken.

Off to bed! 5am wakeup call for a video shoot!