Saturday, March 28, 2009

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.

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