Chicken with Creamy Parmesan Sauce

What does one do if you have chicken tenders, spinach, mushrooms and a lot of rice?
You improvise!
From start to finish, including the rice cooker rice time, it took about an hour. A large part of that time was the prep work, especially cleaning the chicken yuckies.
As always, prep everything ahead of time. If you don't care about the tendon running down the chicken tender, then you saved time. You can also save time by buying pre-sliced mushrooms, a little jar of minced garlic, and grated Parmesan cheese.
The only reason I made rice, it because I have a lot of rice, and the only pasta I had was lasagna noodles, though this would be nummy on fettucine!
Enjoy!

Chicken in Creamy Parmesan Sauce

 

1.5 lb. chicken tenderloins

2 Tbls. olive oil

10 oz. mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 Tbls. butter

1 Tbls. flour

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup cream

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2-3 cups baby spinach, rough chop

2-3 Tbls. sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, julienne cut

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder, optional

Heat oil in large skillet or wok over high heat. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken. Add chicken to hot oil. Cook until brown and turn, about 3-4 minutes. Cook another 4 minutes and remove from pan. Add mushrooms to pan and cook until liquid evaporates and edges are caramelized, about 3-4 minutes. Remove mushrooms from pan.

Turn down heat to medium. Melt butter in pan. Add garlic, and sauté for a few minutes until light brown. Stir in flour, and cook for about a minute. Add chicken broth, cream and Parmesan cheese. Stir to blend for 3-4 minutes. Taste seasonings. Adjust with salt, pepper, or garlic powder, if needed.

Add spinach to sauce, allow to wilt. Add chicken, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes. Stir to blend. Heat for a few minutes to bring the chicken and mushrooms up to temperature. Serve immediately.

Serve over rice or pasta, or if you want to be healthier…a bed of spinach. Yes, more spinach.

Tips & Tricks:

·         My family is particular about their chicken. I tend to clean it up by removing excess membrane and the tendon running down the center of the tenderloins.

·         Chicken broth—I used 1 cup of water and @ 2 tsp. of Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base.

·         I like the baby portobello mushrooms because they are meatier, but use white button mushrooms if you like.

·         “Rough chop” is exactly what it says. Grab a handful or two of spinach, chop it a few times one direction, then again, the other way. Makes it less stringy.

Foodie Friday -- Cubed Steak with Mushrooms

Somewhere I saw a recipe that featured cubed steak and mushrooms. The picture made it look wonderful . . . and then I couldn't figure out where I'd seen the recipe.

And I had already bought the steaks and mushrooms.

I googled it, but every single recipe seemed to use Cream of Mushroom Soup (Yuck!), or some intense form of flour/egg white/flour dredging, so I winged it.

This turned out to be a pretty good recipe.

*When I bought the cube steak, it came in a package of three, weighing in just under one pound.

Cube Steak with Mushrooms

3 cubed steaks

Flour (1/2 cup)

Salt

Pepper

2 Tbls. Vegetable oil

1 cup Beef broth, warmed

1 8-oz package sliced mushrooms 

Place flour, salt and pepper in Ziploc bag. Add one cube steak, toss to coat.

Turn large skillet on high and add oil. When oil is hot, place one cube stake in pan. Repeat dredging steaks in flour mixture, and adding to pan. Do not over crowd.

Cook on high until blood rises to the top of the steaks, turn to cook the other side. When blood rises from second side, turn once more for about 1-2 minutes.

Remove steaks to plate and tent with foil.

Add a little bit of beef broth to pan, scraping up brown bits.

Add mushrooms, allow to toast for 2 minutes. Add rest of broth, boiling until sauce slightly thickens.

 

Add the cube steaks, spooning sauce and mushrooms over top. Allow to cook for 1-2 more minutes until heated up and gravy has thickened.  

Serve and enjoy!

 

Tips & Tricks:

·         Cube steak is typically used for Chicken Fried Steak. This is a very tough piece of beef, which is why it’s sliced super thin and it looks like it’s been mutilated by a bunch of knives. This is the only way this piece of meat can become tender.

·         The beef broth is used to deglaze the pan, pulling up all sorts of yummy goodness that seared to the bottom of the pan.

·         I was lazy and bought sliced mushrooms—Baby Bellas—which are a little sturdier than your basic white mushroom. You can slice them yourself, but the price was the same at my store so I bought them sliced

·         I didn’t calculate the WW points, but I don’t think it added up to too many.

·         I served this meal with oven roasted potatoes and green beans.

Enjoy!

FOODIE FRIDAY--Veal Cutlets w/Mushrooms and Tomatoes

When I went to the store after we came home from vacation, I bought all sorts of meat. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to fix, but I was feeling the urge to be the next Master Chef. One the items that I picked up was a package of veal cutlets, thinking I might make some sort of recipe with them. I also had mushrooms and tomatoes. So I flipped through my huge recipe collection and found a few cutlet recipes that would work nicely. I picked this one because there was no heavy cream in the sauce.  I ran it through the Weight Watcher recipe builder and it was quite reasonable in the point’s values. To lighten it even more, use olive oil cooking spray instead of olive oil.

Remember, I’m still watching what I eat as I lose weight.  I’ll still watch my weight after I lose it all, but especially when I’m in the losing phase.

Veal Cutlets with Mushrooms and Tomatoes

4 Tbls olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, chopped
¾ tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
12 oz. plum tomatoes, seeded, chopped

1 lb. veal cutlets
All purpose flour

1 cup low-salt chicken broth

½ cup dry white wine

Heat 2 Tbls. oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and rosemary; stir 30 seconds. Add mushrooms. Cover pan and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and sauté until mushrooms are golden brown, about 5 minutes longer. Add tomatoes and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Sprinkle veal with salt and pepper. Dust with flour. Heat 1 Tbls. oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of veal. Sauté until brown and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer veal to platter; tent with foil to keep warm. Repeat with remain oil and veal, remove veal to platter when done.

Add broth and wine to same skillet. Boil until reduced by half, scraping up browned bits, about 4 minutes. Add mushroom mixture and stir to blend. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper; spoon over veal and serve.

4 servings

Enjoy!