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One More Little Thing

Dreaming of an easy way to be SUPER Mom

Archives for May 2017

Chicken Broccoli and Rice For the freezer

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Freezer Meal logo

I know you are all probably sick of me plugging the electric pressure cooker.  I promise I do not get paid by them I just cannot express how awesome this thing is.  A crock pot is wonderful also but man this thing really moves along.  Especially on those days that you forget about dinner…who forgets dinner…only moms who are hiding from cooking it!  This weeks freezer meal comes from Brianna Thomas’ wonderful cookbook Necessary Foods. It is called Chicken Broccoli and rice and is on page 62 of the cookbook.  You can support my Blog and get your cookbook on the link below.

Chicken Broccoli and Rice

Chicken Broccoli Rice

Although I do recommend this cookbook you can also find this recipe on her blog here.  If you have not read about my easy way to make warm and healthy meals each night of the week you should definitely check it out too.  This will help you understand my theory on how I cook and why.  Each week I try to share a healthy Trim Healthy Mama (THM) recipe that you can make four pans of and be done cooking for the week!  Even if you are not following the THM plan you definitely can eat these meals and really enjoy them.  It always feels good to put a good healthy meal on the table.

Make it Easy

Now again, I LOVE any way to make my time in the kitchen fast and easy. My pressure cooker is always on the list when I need to speed things up.  Again I do not get paid to plug this machine but I cannot say enough good about it.  When you are making this recipe you certainly DO NOT need a pressure cooker.  You can follow the cookbook or website recipe as it is but if you want my speedy tips, order up that pressure cooker!  Below is the exact one I have.  You can also get them at Sam’s club or Costco.

For this recipe, I again just loaded everything into my pressure cooker including the RAW chicken and uncooked rice. I then set it to the medium meat setting and let it go.  When it was done I took it out and divided it into my 9×13 pans.  When I’m ready to cook it I will thaw it and bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes.

PS Next week I will try to NOT use my pressure cooker…no promises though!

Southwest Chicken Jar Salad- THM E

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Weekly Mason Jar Salad logo

Why is lunch always such a hard meal to make for myself?  I almost always have leftovers in the fridge that I can easily heat up but instead, I’m in the pantry looking for something fast. We all know that fast usually does not mean healthy.  I also try to not even go in my pantry unless I am getting something for someone else because the good food our bodies need is in the fridge.  It needs to be kept fresh.  Not in the pantry.  Once again this week I just cannot stress how much these jar salads save my lunches.  They are so easy to prep once a week and they are large and filling and SO good!

This week’s Jar Salad is a Trim Healthy Mama (THM) Energizing (E) Salad.  I know what you are thinking…wow…I do not think Jill has ever done an E salad!  Well I know I know…E salads are hard because I love all that good fat on my salad.  This week though I have found a new one.  I even had two testers…one on THM and one not and they both loved it!  YIPPEE!!

Southwest Chicken Jar Salad

 

Southwest Chicken Jar Salad

I based this salad off of a chip dip that I enjoy.  Last time I was eating it I thought hey this could be a great jar salad!  Anyway as always you just layer everything into the jar as listed in the printable recipe below.

I do have to share that I branched out from my bagged shredded lettuce this week!  I know amazing. Well, have you been to Subway lately? I went there while I was away on vacation and on the menu it said you could make any sub into a salad.  Of course I wanted to just indulge and eat that yummy bread but instead, I thought I would try a salad.

The kind employee asked me what kind of lettuce I wanted and I, again, wanted to say shredded but I had him do romaine and add some spinach in too.  He then added all the ingredients on top of the lettuce into a large bowl and that is when the magic happened.  This cool handheld knife thingy (that’s the technical term again) joined the party and he started basically mixing the salad using this knife.  The knife not only mixed but it chopped the lettuce all up perfectly.  By perfectly I mean I could not even taste the spinach in with the “good” lettuce. The whole salad was mixed perfectly and it was bite size, so I had no awkward moments with lettuce hanging out of my mouth when I ate.  I know you have been there.

Salad chopping knife

Very impressed and of course I knew I had to have one!  I ordered this one from amazon (below left) but I have to admit the handle is too close to the blades so the lettuce kind of gets stuck from shooting up between the two blades and where your hand is so I have one of these other ones (below right) on order. Basically, I wanted you to know I may not be running to Sam’s Club or Gordon Foods for bagged lettuce every week anymore because this week I used head lettuce and spinach for these salads.  Are you so proud of me!

Printable Recipe

 

Southwest Chicken Jar Salad
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Southwest Chicken Jar Salad- THM E

Ingredients

  • 1 T Olive oil or MCT oil
  • 3 T Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1 Donk Stevia
  • sprinkle Pepper
  • 1/8 t Chili Powder
  • 1/8 t Garlic Powder
  • 1/8 t Onion Powder
  • 2-4 T Greek Yogurt
  • 1/4 cup Cooked and Shredded Chicken
  • Quarter Roma Tomato
  • 2-4 T Black Beans
  • 2-4 T Canned Corn I mixed the corn and beans together and did 1/3 cup of the beans and corn
  • Stuff to the top with Lettuce!

Instructions

  1. Cook and shred your chicken.

  2. Drain and Combine your corn and black beans.  I did a 15oz can of each and then used 1/3 cup of the mix for each salad.

  3. Add exactly in this order to your quart size mason jar.

  4. Make sure to stuff full of lettuce and seal them up!

I hope you enjoy this wonderful salad.  I love to have a filling E lunch option.  Something other than oatmeal and apples!  If you are just getting started with jar salads you should check out my Jar Salad Tips and tricks! You can also find a list of all the Jar Salad recipes I have shared by clicking on the jar salad link on the menu above. Have an excellent week!

Crock Pot Burrito Bowl THM E

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What’s for dinner tonight?  Is that a question that looms over your head all day long? Who doesn’t love an easy crock pot meal?  Even if you are not following my freezer meal theory, it a blessing when you find a good recipe you can just throw in and let it go.  Life just has to be easy sometimes doesn’t it?  This week I want to share with you a crock pot burrito bowl recipe.  It is easy, it is good and you should make it up quickly so you are ready for dinner tonight.

Crock Pot (or pressure cooker) Burrito Bowls

Crock Pot Burrito Bowl

As you all know I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE…did I say LOVE my electric pressure cooker.  It is an 8qt pot and usually, I can make enough for two 9x13s if I am doing the complete meal.  If I am just doing the meat or some part of it I can do the full 4x in one load.  Either way, I set it and forget about it so I LOVE that!  This recipe is one you can do in your crock pot or your pressure cooker, either way, it will come out wonderful!

I found this recipe on cleanfoodcrush.com and you can find it here.  This recipe says it feeds 4 people so for my family I would need to double it or at least do 1 1/2 times the recipe just for one meal.  I’m also going to make four of these so it’s going to get my brain working!  This meal can be a Trim Healthy Mama (THM) Energizing (E) meal.  If you want to use another meat other than chicken you can…I did… I used ground turkey. For some reason, I like ground meat better in things like this. To keep it as a THM E meal you need to make sure you choose a lean meat.  I also do not use the cheese, you can just keep it minimal or know you are moving into crossover world.

Make it easy

To make this recipe nice and easy I just dumped EVERYTHING into my pressure cooker.  I then set it on the medium meat setting and let it go.  When it was done I used my pampered chef chopper doohicky (that’s the technical term) and mixed it all up right in the pot.  After that, I moved it into two 9×13 pans.  I repeated the process to get my four pans for the week.  When I’m ready to use this meal I will thaw it and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.  If you have kids who do not need to eat the Trim Healthy Mama (THM) way you can also serve this to them on tortilla shells!

Again I know I’m sharing with you how I did this in my pressure cooker but you can DEFINITELY follow her directions and do it in the crock pot.  You also could cook your meat and then just combine everything into a freezer bag and when you are ready to cook it dump it into your crock pot.  That’s a GREAT and easy way to make this recipe happen also.

If you are not worried about the THM world you can top these with sour cream, salsa, guacamole and even some crushed tortilla chips.  mmmm mmmm MMMMMMMMM good!