Healthy Eats

I finally picked up a copy of Power Foods yesterday.

I stayed up late last night flipping through the pages, most everything looked delicious.

Tonight I tried three recipes, Walnut Crusted Chicken Breast, Baked Plum Tomatoes with Herb Rice Stuffing and Steamed Artichokes.

SO GOOD, is all I have to say about that.

Walnut Crusted Chicken Breasts

2 slices day old wheat bread (or throw bread in toaster)

1/3 cup walnuts

2 tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan cheese

Course salt and freshly ground pepper

1 large egg white

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

2 tablespoon grape seed oil (I used olive oil)

Lemon slices for serving.

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine bread, walnuts and Parmesan in food processor until fine crumbs form.

Transfer to bowl.

In a separate bowl beat egg white until frothy.

Season chicken on both sides with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper.

Dip each chicken breast into egg white (coat completely) then dip into bread crumb mixture pressing to adhere.

Heat oil in large oven proof skillet over medium heat.

Cook chicken until lightly browned on one side 1-3 minutes.

Flip chicken and transfer skillet to oven, bake until golden brown 8-12 minutes.

Serve with lemon slices.

Baked Plum Tomatoes with Herb Rice Stuffing

 1/4 cup brown rice

8 large plum tomatoes 

Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper

2 tblspoons finely chopped fresh basil

2 tblespoons minced shallots

2 tspns grated parmesan cheese

1 tspn extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup dry white wine.

Preheat oven to 375. 

Cook rice as per rice bag instructions.

Cut thin slices out of bottoms of each tomato so they stand upright. 

Cut a small portion of the top off and scrape the flesh, seeds and juice from the center.

Save the seeds and juice in a bowl.

Stand tomatoes om a baking dish, sprinkle a pinch of salt into each.

Add 1 tspn salt to reserved seeds and juice.

Mix basil, shallots and rice together add to tomatoes.

Sprinkle parmesan on top of each.

Add wine to reserved seeds and juice mix and pour into the bottom of the baking dish.

Bake tomatoes until the tops are golden brown, 45-60 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Steamed Artichokes

1 lemon

4 artichokes

Prepare a bowl of water large enough to house artichokes

Peel 1 lemon, cut in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl.

Remove any tough outer leaves from artichokes.

Cut off the top quarter of each artichoke.

Use shears to trim the sharp tips of the leaves (be careful, I nearly stabbed straight through my finger with the leaves)

Trim the bottom stem just enough to stand upright.

Place the prepped artichoke in lemon water to keep them from growing brown until the rest are done.

Fill large pot with 2 inches of water, set a steamer basket or colander inside of pot and bring the water to boil.

Place the lemon peel and artichokes ends down in basket.

Cover and steam until bases of artichokes are easily pierced with a knife, 20 minutes.

Serve with dipping sauces of your choice.

We used butter and lemon.

Enjoy!!

xoxo