Thursday, November 4, 2010

Healthy Chick'n and Rice


This is one of my staple dishes. It's low fat, high protein, and the right kind of carbs.  Pair it with your favorite steamed veggies and you have a great, healthy meal that cooks up in just minutes.  The recipe below is for one serving, you can easily multiply it by the number of servings that you need.

For each serving:
1/8 cup wild rice DRY (approximately 80 calories)
     - Of course you can use brown rice but I would stay away from white rice because it has little (if any) good nutritional value.

     - Cook the rice according to the directions on the package. I tend to start this as soon as I get home from work because in general, the longer it takes to cook the rice as stated on the package, the better the rice is for you.

Ingredients:
1 Chick’n cutlet of your brand of choice 
    - (I use Gardein chick’n scallopini – 90 calories, 2g fat, 14 g protein)
¼ vegetable bouillon cube or approximately 1/3-1/2 cup of vegetable stock
1 tsp vegan margarine (I use Earth Balance)
    - This adds about 3 grams of fat to the dish. In my opinion it is well worth it but you can leave it out if that is a major concern for you.
Splash of lemon juice
Dash of garlic powder

Optional: Lightly flour the chick’n cutlet.  Fry in a pan with about a tablespoon of oil. Of course it is tasty but I usually leave this part out when watching my waist-line. It’s a nice option if you’re cooking a special dinner for people.

Take the chick’n cutlet and place in a nonstick pan, flipping to heat each side. If you want you can add some olive oil to the pan to cook the cutlet in. When cooked through, set the cutlet aside on a plate.

Use the same pan and pour in your vegetable stock – or – ¼ bouillon cube + ¼ cup of water.  Boil the stock/cube down until the water has mostly disappeared and you’re left with a thicker brown “sauce”.

Turn the heat down to low. Add in your margarine, dash of garlic powder and a splash of lemon juice.
-        A note on garlic powder: most people are appalled that I use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic. Aside from it being easier…no cutting, no extra knives and dishes to wash, etc…garlic burns so easily. It tastes nice if it’s sautéed in oil but that’s just extra fat and calories, and of course extra effort!  So it’s not the worst thing in the world if you get home from work and want to use powder,  instead of fresh, that requires no effort, really, it’s not.

In a few seconds the margarine will be melted. Mix everything in the pan so that it is all incorporated well. Put your cutlet back in the pan and let it sit on each side for a little bit (maybe 30-60 seconds) to get some flavor into the cutlet.

This whole process (aside from the rice) takes about 10 minutes.

Take your fully cooked rice and place it on your plate. Take the cutlet and place it on top of the rice. Pour the remainder of your sauce over the chick’n and rice to let the rest of the sauce absorb a little bit into the rice.

Eat and enjoy!

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