Easy Grilled chicken with Spinach Salad

Well, the month of March definitely got by me. I apologize for the lack of posting. I am definitely recommitting. No excuses!

I haven't been posting much, because I keep forgetting to take pictures of the food we make! I felt a little guilty for not posting photos, but, I'd rather go ahead and post the meals and I can add photos later.

Last night, I desperately needed something quick for dinner. See, I had planned to make this delicious pork tenderloin with some cherry goodness on top. At the grocery on Monday, I bought all the ingredients, except a pork tenderloin, thinking I had one frozen from a purchase a few weeks ago. Friday morning when I looked into the freezer for that wonderful pork tenderloin, I realized that I, in fact, had a turkey tenderloin. While I'm sure it would have worked just as nicely, I wasn't thrilled to use the delicious cherry goodness for turkey, so I moved on. Quick plan for the night? Grilled chicken, marinated in some lite Italian dressing.

Now, I thought that this is something that people had done for years. My dad used to marinate his chicken in Italian dressing ALL THE TIME. However, Scott had never heard of it. It's super easy. To keep it meshing with the diet, just make sure you select a sugar-free/low carb Italian dressing (Newman's Own makes a great option. I think Kraft has a newly formulated Lite Italian that is sugar free, too. But don't quote me on that).

The spinach salad: handful of baby spinach, sprinkle of low-fat Feta, some yummy tomatoes (We used Cherubs from Nature Sweet--sooo good), a couple of black or rasp-berries if you're in the mood to be crazy. This, without dressing, is good for me. However, if you were careful with your dressing selection, you could probably have a teaspoon of dressing drizzled over your salad, too!

Easy Grilled Chicken

• bottled Lite Italian dressing (like Newman's Own or maybe Kraft)
• boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into portions. Tip: You only want your chicken to be about 1 inch thick, so I had to cut some of the massive breasts from the grocery in half, and then butterfly it a little to make it thinner. You could also pound it with a mallet or rolling pin if you need some stress relief.
  

1. Place prepared chicken breasts in a bowl. Pour Lite Italian dressing over chicken. Stir, and ensure that each piece is well covered. Let marinate at least 30 minutes.
2. Preheat grill (I use an indoor grill pan... but you could easily do this outdoors in nice weather!). Spritz with a little cooking spray to prevent sticking.
3. Grill chicken until done, about 4 minutes on each side. W

Carb options
Who needs carbs with this meal? If you have a serious carbo-holic in your family, you could serve thsi with rolls or make it into a sandwich with a hoagie. And there are always croutons for the salad.

Sugar Free Yogurt Reviews

So, I obviously haven't gotten myself together to actually post a new recipe. But I wanted to write a post like this for a long while.

Yogurt is one of the best snacks you can eat while on a diet. It's high in protein, and low in carbs when it's sugar free. It will help fill up your tummy, and also supply you with some probiotics to help things continue to run smoothly. In spite of all this, I was very resistant to yogurt for a long time. I never really liked the taste and texture of low-fat or non-fat yogurt. However, since beginning this diet, I've tried a lot of different kinds, and I am going to list the winners of the taste tests here and explain why they're better than all the rest for their category. Debate is welcome.

Plain, low fat yogurt: Hands down, Stonybrook organic yogurts. Before the diet, I enjoyed the Stonybrook organic yogurt for their delicious taste and commitment to organic living. Their yogurt has always had a wonderful texture, and Stonybrook is the ONLY variety of regular yogurt I've tried where creaminess isn't substantially lost by switching to the non-fat variety. The one huge drawback to Stonybrook? All of their flavors contain sugar, and they have no sugar free options other than plain yogurt. I have found this to be the best brand to put in my protein shakes. Plus, on stage 2 of Dr. Malone's diet, I added frozen blueberries to the bottom of my container (I buy the large tubs of yogurt, not the individual packs). By the time I'm ready to have my snack, the blueberries have thawed and their delicious and sweet juice will flavor the yogurt with just a little stir. Definitely a recommendation!

Flavored, sugar-free yogurts: I've got to be honest, I haven't found one I'm really excited about yet. I've been eating a bit of the store brand Fit 'n Lite. However, it contains aspertame, and I can really taste that. Yoplait Lite using sweetners other than sugar, but sometimes it tastes a little funny to me. Just that sickly sweet taste. I know others who love it, but I just can't get into it.

Best overall: Chobani nonfat greek yogurt.
Have you ever had greek yogurt? If not, stop reading, gather your keys (and a coat if you live in New York) and get to your local grocery. Even when nonfat and plain, greek yogurt is so thick and creamy, I feel guilty whenever I eat it. It is definitely what yogurt is MEANT to be. The plain flavor is tart and fantastic. Those who can have it, try the honey version. There's no sugar, but a bit of honey for a taste of sweetness (or add your own local honey-- local honey is good for allergies!). I must admit, even though I'm not technically supposed to have honey, if I've had a bad day, and just desperately need sweetness, I add a teaspoon of honey to my yogurt, and it's SO worth it. The fruit flavors from Chobani all have sugar in them, but fruit is simply unnecessary with this delicious yogurt. If your grocery doesn't carry the Chobani brand, Fage (pronounced Fa-yeh) is a well known, and equally delicious brand.

Now, for Greek yogurt, you will pay about 50 cents to a dollar more, and there are about 20 more calories in each serving. But it's worth it, to me, to not feel deprived and saddened over an afternoon snack!


Enough of my opinion...what is your favorite yogurt?