Low Sodium: Take Seven

Welcome back to Made Up Recipes with Scout! Today's meal: Lemon parmesan chicken, fried/steamed veggies, and buttered noodles.

Lemon Parmesan Chicken ingredients:
Chicken
Almost every time I make chicken, I use boneless skinless chicken breasts, so when I put "chicken" in the ingredients list, that's probably the kind I mean.
Chopped onions
Garlic
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Pepper
Fresh thyme
Parmesan 

Place chopped onions, olive oil, and garlic in a pan. Place chicken in next, pouring lemon juice on top of each piece. Toss in pepper and chopped thyme. Cover the pan and let the chicken steam. This will allow the chicken to absorb the flavors and the onions to sautee. When chicken is thoroughly cooked, take off the lid to let the moisture out and allow the chicken to brown. When the chicken is browned to your liking, place it on (or in) a serving dish and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. You'll want to be fast with this so it will get a little gooey. You could sprinkle the parmesan on the chicken before you place it in (on) the serving dish, but that might make for particularly unpleasant cleanup.

 The next thing I made was fried/steamed veggies. I cut up bell peppers, onions, and squash, and placed them in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and pepper. I covered it and let it cook on low to help soften the squash. Then, when I got impatient, I turned up the heat so it would go faster and also brown the veggies some.

I served the meal with buttered noodles. Everything else was very flavorful and I thought a simple side would go nicely with the rest. The only sodium in the meal came from the parmesan. I used half a cup for our dinner and it was more than enough (for 3 chicken breasts), but my family usually likes extra flavor, so it worked for us. The total sodium for all of the chicken I made was 900 something, making each serving only 240 mg.
Note: If you are using a low sodium diet, remember that there is sodium in meat, as well. Check the packaging to make sure you aren't getting something that was soaked in salt.

Peace out!
Scout

Some Favorite Music

You might already know, but I pretty much love the 60s and 70s, especially their music. Not disco type, though. Anyway, I'm playing hippie today so I'm listening to some of my favorite oldies all day, including the Beatles (duh) and this playlist, which I've shared before.

Peace!
Scout

Oh, Beatles.

[Source]

Peace!

Scout

Cookies!

Homemade Thin Mints

This is a low sodium recipe - a regular recipe that happens to not have lots of salt or need any adjusting to be a semi-heart healthy meal, at least concerning salt levels.

I've never been much of a cookie person. When it comes to desserts, I almost always want ice cream. Or my dad's homemade apple pie. Best. Ever.
But cookies have never really been my thing. When I'm throwing a pity party I like Oreos and peanut butter because it's such a huge indulgence. Maybe it makes me feel kind of rebellious - like i'm sticking it to "the man" (you know - the one that says I should eat healthy and not eat lots of cookies or throw pity parties. You know that's not a woman speaking). I mean, really. Do you even know how terrible Oreos and peanut butter are for you? But they are just so. darn. good.
But cookies have never been my favorite.
However, since there has always been a special place in my heart for mint anything, these cookies have definitely made it into my "Favorite Desserts" list. That list doesn't really exist yet, but...I'm a list person, so it probably will soon.
[For some reason I have this need to decide my favorite things - like it's absolutely necessary that I know my favorite (books/movies/television shows/desserts) at any given time.]

Moving on.
I found this recipe for homemade Thin Mint cookies. I made the batter and it came out perfectly. I froze it in two logs (that, to be honest, just didn't look too good). I made the first log later that day and - surprise! - I followed the recipe exactly. I didn't really like it. But I ate the cookies. I know, I'm a trooper. But they weren't great. They weren't very minty and I didn't like the dark chocolate too much.
So when I made the second cookie log yesterday, I changed it up a bit. I used milk chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet, and I added a teaspoon of mint extract to the chocolate.
I. Loved. Them. I can hardly stop eating them.

Make some. Right now.


Peace!
Scout

Cooking With Sodium

My dad is away for the night so we made it our goal to have a super salty meal for dinner.
This is probably the most unhealthy main course you will ever hear of.

Are you ready?
Chicken. Bacon. Blue cheese. Awesome.

Ingredients:
Chicken breasts (trim the fat and tenderize with one of those fun hammer things)
Bacon
Onion
Blue cheese dressing
Salt
Pepper

First, fry and crumble the bacon - try not to "test" too many pieces because you really want it on the chicken, too.

Next, place the chicken in the pan with a tiny bit of bacon grease, toss in some chopped onions, salt and pepper, and fry until cooked. I covered the pan for a bit to help steam the onions.

When the chicken is done, put it in a separate dish. Turn the stove off and, in the still warm pan, mix in some blue cheese into the bacon grease and onions (Obviously you don't want too much bacon grease in the pan, but having a little bit in there makes the sauce even more awesome). Pour the sauce over the chicken and top with bacon. I still had some time before I was serving my meal, so I placed mine in the oven at 350 for five or ten minutes.

Pair your chicken with something healthy (we had spinach) to ease your conscience and enjoy!

Peace!
Scout

P.S. I decided today that I wanted to make chicken with blue cheese and bacon, but I didn't have a recipe. I looked on Google and found this one and this one, and used them as inspiration, but I mostly made up this recipe. 

Cooking With Sodium - and Fire!

Do you want to know what's in this baby?
Yes. Yes you do.
This, my friend, is a mountain pie. It's kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich, except you put anything you want in it and you cook it in a metal thing over a fire. I don't know what the metal thing is called, so don't even ask.
This sandwich includes: cream cheese, cherry jelly (raspberry would have been my ideal but we were out), pepperjack cheese, turkey, and crushed pecans.
I think you should try one.

Peace!
Scout

Cooking With Sodium

A new favorite meal: Lentils and cornbread.

I've been reading a lot of cooking blogs lately and several of them are by vegetarian authors (namely Food Coma). These authors use a lot of lentils it seems, so I decided that I wanted to try them. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind. The one I found sounded too spicy.
So I made one up!

Ingredients:
Lentils
Soybeans
Black beans
Curry powder
Coriander
Ground cumin
Chicken broth 
Onion

I soaked the beans (boiled them for a few minutes and drained them) then put them in a pan with a cup of chicken broth. Next I added about a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed into about an eighth cup of cold water to make sure it was plenty thick. I added some onion, curry powder, cumin, and a tiny bit of coriander to season it (to taste). Then I let it cook for a while while (whoa. that's confusing) I made the cornbread.

I used this recipe for the cornbread - it turned out great!

I pretty much loved the lentils. The only problem was that I didn't quite cook the soybeans long enough. Everything else was fine, but the soybeans were kind of...al dente (as my mom said).

Peace!
Scout