Chicken, Polenta, Roasted Red Peppers & Goat Cheese- spinach, onions & garlic too
One of my favorite quick dinners using Roasted Red Peppers is to serve them with fried polenta, chicken and veggies. I use my homemade roasted red bell peppers from my previous blog. I cook with ALOT of onions this time of year, they are super low in pesticides and good for your immune system.
To start, cover a large skillet with organic olive oil. I recomend med to low or medium at most. Add a clove of fresh chopped garlic, sweat garlic for about a minute and then add 4-6 strips of organic free range, or locally farmed chicken breast. Cook until lightly browned, and no longer pink in the middle. Then, add 4-6 1/4" slices of organic polenta from tube. Push chicken to outer edges of pan. If you need too, put a little more olive oil in. You want your pan well coated or your polenta will stick and make a mess. Cook until outside crisps a bit, then flip over and cook the other side. This won't take long, about 3-5 minutes total.
It is a bit tricky to cook everything all in one pan, if you prefer, you can cook veggies in a seperate pan. I like to cook it all in one for easy clean up. After your chicken and polenta has cooked, add onions (half a large Vidalia onion) and roasted red peppers (2 peppers) to pan. If you have fresh basil on hand, tear 3 leaves into pieces and add to the pan. . Stir veggies carefully and cook for about 3 minutes. Then, cover pan with enough spinach to top everything (about 2 handfuls), cover with a lid, reduce heat to low or very low. You are wilting the spinach with the heat from the pan. Keep an eye on the spinach, the process takes a minute or 2. When spinach wilts, transfer everything from pan to a large dish. Top with 6-8 slices of fresh goat cheese from a tube. Ingredients should still be hot enough to warm the goat cheese, if not cover with a lid to soften the goat cheese. Once this is complete, serve & eat. Makes 2 large serving, could easily split into 4 small servings.
Healthy Note: It is NOT necessary to buy organic onions. Onions contain very low amounts of pesticides, because very few pest like onions.
Here is a link to a wonderful list on highest & lowest pesticide treated foods.
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Make Your Own Roasted Red Peppers
So I have been putting roasted red peppers in everything lately! So much so, that I decided the jars they come in at the supermarket are to small to be economical, or affordable. I have started making my own and it has proven to be easy & delicious. I have roasted four at a time at this point while I investigate storage options for larger batches. For now I am freezing the leftovers.
Only 2 ingredients are needed to create your own yummy roasted red peppers.
I recommend organic peppers where available. 49 Pesticide Residues Found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program according to http://whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=PP. I also use organic olive oil.
To start I line a baking sheet with tinfoil. Place washed red bell peppers on the baking sheet, drizzle lightly with olive oil and bake at 350 degrees. When the skin blackens, I flip and cook until the other side blackens and skin bubbles. Then, I wait for the peppers to cool. It is easy to twist out the majority of the seeds with the stem. The skin pulls of in pieces. I brush off the remaining seeds or run the peppers under water to flush them away.
I will be posting 3 recipe ideas for the roasted red peppers I have created.
Here is some nutritional information from http://www.bestveganguide.com/redpepper-nutrition.html
Red Pepper Nutrition
...the nutritional value of red peppers and full red pepper nutrition information...
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