If you have been following my blog, you know by now that my husband and I love Mexican food! But a lot of the time Mexican food is secretly packing more calories than you think. Anything that you can substitute helps and I have come up with the perfect healthy alternative to Chicken Enchiladas! Replace cream of chicken soup with homemade soup and replace the tortilla with cabbage. I have been thinking up this recipe for months and I finally just had to make it. And I am so glad I did! It is amazing and packed with tons of flavor. :)

This recipe takes an hour to make and it helps if you have another person help you. My husband makes a great helper if I literally walk him through every step... haha but he is a good sport!

So you are going to have four things going: rice, homemade creamy soup, cabbage, and the chicken mixture! I know it sounds like a lot but each of the steps are pretty easy.


1. Start your rice. I never buy minute rice so with my rice cooker it takes about 30 minutes to cook white rice and about 40 minutes to cook brown rice. So start the rice accordingly. I used white rice so I started it first and let it do its thing while I worked on the other three parts and it was perfect timing. I cooked 1 cup uncooked rice and when it was done cooking I used about 1.25 cups of cooked rice.

2. Homemade cream of whatever soup! haha you can use this base to be any "cream of" soup...chicken, mushroom, celery...etc. The reason I am making my own is that I can not stand the canned stuff. Have you ever looked at the nutritional facts on those????!??? HOLY SODIUM! 31% DV and that was even with the reduced sodium can....that is disgusting!!! Not even to mention all the other preservative crap. ewww. Okay sorry about my rant, so on to the soup!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/2 cup fat free, low sodium chicken broth
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. paprika

Instructions:

Melt the butter over medium-low heat. After the butter has melted add the flour and whisk well for 1 minute.

Slowly add the milk and chicken broth and whisk until it begins to thicken, about 2-4 minutes. Season with the pepper and paprika!

The batch made 8 ounces of soup. A regular can of cream of chicken soup is 10.75 ounces so its pretty close and doesn't make a difference.

3. The cabbage! There are two important things you need to do with the cabbage before you can use it as your shell. You need to de-core it and boil it to make it soft and to help remove the leaves from the head.

Instructions:

Start a large pot of boiling water. While you are waiting for the water to boil you need to de-core the cabbage.

With a thin knife, cut around the core in a square. As you cut further down, have all four sides meet at a point. Like an upside down square pyramid (haha yes that's my math side kicking in but honestly I don't know what other way to describe it)

You have just de-cored the cabbage so that none of the leaves are stuck to the head.

Place the head in the large pot of boiling water. Let it sit in the boiling water for 5 minutes.

The easiest way to take the head of cabbage out of the boiling water is to take some tongs and grab the head by placing one of the prongs in the space where the core was and the other prong on the outside of the head as far as you can.

After you have removed the cabbage you will notice that the leaves are bright green and the leaves come off very easily.

Now there is one more step to the cabbage. The leaves are warm and very flexible but if you tried to roll them up you would notice that it is hard to because of the stem that goes down the middle. All you have to do is slice the stem down a little bit.

To do this, make sure you are slicing off the stem on the side where it sticks out more. It is the side of the leaf that was facing outwards while on the head of cabbage.

Take a thin knife and slice down the stem and only remove the part that was sticking above the rest of the leaf. (See picture)

And there you go! Cabbage is done!

So all you have to do now is mix together the chicken mixture, stuff, and cook!

Chicken Enchiladas

Prep time: 40 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Servings: makes 8 rolls or 4 people

Chicken Mixture Ingredients:

1.25 cups of cooked white rice
1.5 cups of cooked shredded chicken (remember my helpful hint of always using rotisserie chicken when you can, it saves so much time on cooking throughout the week)
1 can of sliced olives
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
8 ounces of our homemade "cream of" soup (or if you don't have time then the regular 10.75 ounces of cream of chicken soup is fine but just know how much sodium you are adding to your meal)
1/2 cup of enchilada sauce and then the rest of the can for the bottom of the skillet and on top!


Instructions:

Add the ingredients in a bowl and mix all together.

(the second picture is with the enchilada sauce)


Now take one of your cabbage leaves and place a nice heap of mixture on it.

Pinch the sides in and then roll.

Repeat with 8 leaves!

To finishing cooking the enchiladas, we are going to use a skillet. Heat to 250 degrees. Spread enchilada sauce to cover the entire bottom of your skillet an then place your 8 rolls of cabbage on top.

Top with a little bit more of enchilada sauce, cover and cook for 20 minutes.

MMMMMM Gyros! I love me some Greek food! But whenever I go out to get some it always seems like the gyros are dripping with fat and loaded with tons of calories. Which doesn't make sense because if you think about the ingredients it should be a pretty healthy meal. Pita bread, lettuce, tomato, cucumber...but where they get you is with the meat and that delicious creamy sauce. But don't worry, there is always a healthy substitute to everything.

This meal can be cooked under 30 minutes it is so easy!!

Ingredients for the Chicken:

1.5 pounds of chicken breast cut into 1 inch strips
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. yellow mustard
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. pepper

Instructions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Then add the chicken. Let the chicken cook until both sides just barley turn white.

2. Add the lemon juice, garlic, mustard, oregano, and pepper. Mix everything really well. Reduce the heat to medium low and cover.

3. Let it cook the remainder of the time covered and in the liquid so that the chicken can stay moist and absorb the flavor.

While the chicken in cooking you can whip up the sauce!

Ingredients for the Cucumber Sauce:

1/2 cup or 1/2 a peeled chopped cucumber
2/3 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt (a 5.3 oz container)
1/2 tsp. dill weed
1/4 tsp. basil


Instructions:

1. In a small bowl add the yogurt, dill weed, and basil. Mix really well.

2. Next, peel the skin off of the cucumber. Then to get small, thin slices you are going to take the peeler and peel the top part of the cucumber, the circle part.

3. Add the cucumber to the yogurt mix and there you go!

Now putting it all together!

Start with your pita bread, I had whole wheat, then put a few slices of chicken topped with your cucumber sauce and then your additional toppings. I had sliced tomatoes, onion, and lettuce.

NOTE: My husband had leftovers and said the leftovers where even better! He put the chicken on the pita bread and stuck it in the microwave for about 30 seconds and he said the pita bread was even better when it was warm! So try heating up your bread before you eat it!

Okay so a while back I did a BBQ meatball recipe where I baked the meatballs. Baking meatballs is a healthy way to cook them because they are not sitting in oil and they can actually drain some fat off of them while cooking. Well on that post I promised I would do a recipe where I boiled the meatballs. Now there are certain recipes that you can do this with and for the others I would say no. Boiling the meatballs keeps them perfectly round and they also keep them super moist and it is just as healthy as baking them if not even more ...but....they do not have any crisp to them. So boil meatballs when you have a recipe where you keep the meatballs in a sauce. The sauce will not necessarily stick to the meatballs but it will absorb in. You would have to transfer a spoonful of sauce with the meatballs to get the flavor of your dish. If you want to coat the meatballs in like BBQ sauce or sweet and sour sauce then it helps if the meatballs have a crispy exterior so that the sauce can stick to it but not have to sit in it. You can just transfer the meatballs over to your plate without any additional sauce and it holds the flavor. I hope that makes sense....if not remember this trick. Sticky sauces stick to the meatball so bake and runny sauces have to be used with the meatball so boil.

So since people like to put additional sauce with their Swedish meatballs on their plate, I was able to boil my meatballs! And it is really easy. Easier than baking :)

Meatball recipe:

Ingredients:

1 lb. of ground turkey
1/3 cup finely diced onion
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 large egg
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. pepper

Instructions:

1. Combine all the ingredients into a bowl and mix really well.

2. Let chill in fridge for about 30 minutes to help it bind together.

3. After the 30 minutes in the fridge, start a large pot of boiling water. While you are waiting for the water to boil, roll your meatballs.

4. Mine were small this time about 1- 1.5 inch in diameter. It made 30 meatballs.

5. When your water is boiling just drop in the meatballs. They will sink at first and then float. Boil for about 10-12 minutes.

On the other hand...the sauce! While the meatballs are boiling you can start your sauce. If the 10-12 minutes gets over for your meatballs before you are done with the sauce just turn off the heat and let the meatballs sit in the water. The nice thing about boiling them is that you can't over cook them and they will always stay moist! Win Win!

For the sauce:

Ingredients:

1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup flour
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (always choose fat-free, low sodium)
3/4 cup light sour cream
2 tbsp. parsley
1 tsp. pepper

Instructions:

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat and then add the onion. Cook until translucent.

2. When the onions are translucent, add the butter and stir until completely melted.

3. Add your flour and mix until all the flour is wet and incorporated.

4. Slowly add in the chicken or vegetable broth. Whisk until mixture is smooth and there are no chucks. Bring to a boil. Takes about 5 minutes.

5. Add the sour cream and again mix really well.

6. Lastly, add the parsley and pepper and then transfer your cooked meatballs over into the sauce. Do not transfer any of the water that the meatballs boiled in!

Serve over brown rice and enjoy :)

Finally all moved!!!! YAY! I am seriously not moving for like 10 years now...moving is the worst.

So the weather is getting warmer and that means lighter meals. There is just something about warm weather that makes you not want to eat heavy meals or a lot of food. But that's okay because warmer weather means swim suit season and we all know what that means....every girl starts to freak out! haha But it's okay, we will all be alright this year if we just stick to healthy whole foods.

So tonight was definitely a fish taco night. I usually use tilapia or cod and cod sounded really yummy. But we all know that it is the cole-slaw that goes on top that usually makes it or breaks it. The cole-slaw that I make is mayo free and packed with tons of flavor.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fat free Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. lime juice
1 tsp. vinegar
1 jalapeno, diced
2.5 cups of cole-slaw or finely chopped cabbage


Instructions:

1. Measure and pour all of the ingredients into a bowl saving the cabbage for last and mix really well. Make sure all of the ingredients have blended.

2. Cover and place in fridge for 30 minutes for the flavors to set in. This is just the perfect amount of time for you to cook your fish!

Breading your fish:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Instructions:

1. Set up a dipping station with three bowls and each of the three ingredients in a separate bowl.

2. I used four 4 ounce pieces of cod.

3. Dip each piece in flour covering it completely, then egg, and lastly the bread crumbs.

4. Transfer to a hot pan with a little bit of olive oil. No more than 1 tbsp.

5. I cooked the pieces of cod as whole pieces and I didn't cut them up before hand so that I didn't have to dip a million pieces. So since they were bigger and thicker it took about 10 minutes per side. If you decide to cut them up into smaller bites then it should only take about 2 minutes per side.

6. I know that my fish is done when it becomes flaky and falls apart by the slightest touch. I cut them into smaller pieces when they were done to make putting pieces in the taco easier!

Enjoy :)

Moving is the worst right?! Not only is the packing and cleaning the pits but when you are moving more than a few miles down the road then your food comes into play too. You have to force yourself to be creative to use up the food that has been creeping in the corners of your fridge for ages and to de-thaw all the wonders from your freezer. Being a person who loves to cook this has been a nightmare! Not having fresh ingredients to use in every meal is killing me!!!!!!

But there was light at the end of the lame dinner tunnel tonight. After two weeks of cleaning out the fridge and freezer and part of the pantry it was time to just make a trip to the grocery store for a few days kitchen staples. I was craving a fresh healthy salad. So I grabbed some tofu and made a protein packed salad with hard boiled eggs and sunflower seeds. And it was delicious and didn't take more than 30 minutes from start to finish :)

I'll tell you everything I included at the end of my post but right now lets focus on the tofu part....mmmmmm!

Okay, now I know a TON of people are thinking..."Tofu, eww I'm not eating that!" But in reality, tofu is a blank canvas that you can turn into anything your heart desires. It can be used in so many ways you would be surprised. My meat lover husband even likes it as a meat substitute every once in a while!

Here is the tofu I love to cook with! Now to keep the tofu's spongy texture it has to sit in liquid. You have to drain as much as the liquid as you can before you cook with it.

1. Take the tofu out of the container and place on a plate with a paper towel underneath the tofu to help absorb the liquid. Then place another plate on top of the tofu and then a can on top to give some weight to the tofu to help squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

2. Let it sit like this for 20 minutes, changing the paper towel mid-way at 10 minutes. This is also a great time to get your other toppings ready for the rest of your salad ;)

3. After your tofu has sat for 20 minutes you can start cooking it!

4. Cut the tofu in half like a hamburger bun. Then cut each half in half and then cut 1/2 inch strips.

5. Next, transfer the tofu to a plastic baggie and pour in 1/2 cup of corn starch. Seal the bag and shake well making sure all the tofu pieces are covered. The tofu is still going to be moist so the corn starch will stick to it without adding additional liquid.

6. In a pan on medium heat, add a little bit of olive oil, no more than 1 tbsp. to keep it healthy, and wait until it gets warm. Add the tofu. Each side should take about 5 minutes each to get a nice brownish color and get a crispy exterior.

7. After both sides of the tofu have cooked and have gotten crispy, turn off the heat. Then add your toasted sesame dressing. Since the pan will still be hot, the dressing will fuse to the tofu giving it an even more crispier exterior! It is just so delicious.

I forgot to measure how much I added but if I had to guess I would say about 1/2 cup....haha but honestly you can be the judge. Add a little at first and you will notice it will disappear quickly so just keep adding some until you notice the dressing sitting in the pan without sizzling away! (Great instructions right?! But seriously its just one of those ingredients that you add and know when to stop)

Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 12 minutes
Serving Size: 4 people

Ingredients:

1 package of tofu
1/2 cup corn starch
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup or so of toasted sesame dressing

This is a very high protein, super healthy salad without adding any meat! Can you believe it? So here is what I put on my salad:

Romaine lettuce
Corn
Red Bell Pepper
1 hard boiled egg
Sunflower seeds
6 pieces of tofu

Enjoy :)