alice springs chicken knockoff

happy hump day!

earlier this week, i made one of our favorite chicken recipes: a knockoff of alice springs chicken from outback.

i used to eat outback a lot, and my go-to meal was always alice springs chicken with cheese fries. doesn't get much better than that! now that we cook a lot more than we eat out, trips to outback are less common, but thankfully i can replicate the chicken at home.

[original recipe link here]

you will need:

-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
-6 bacon slices
-about 1/2 cup honey mustard
-1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
-2 cups shredded colby jack cheese
-lowry's seasoning salt

1. prepare chicken (which to me always means pounding to an even thickness and trimming fat). season both sides of each chicken breast with lowry's seasoning salt. place in refrigerator.

2. cook bacon in a large skillet until crispy. you want to crumble the bacon, so getting it crispy is important!

yum.

3. remove bacon from pan and set aside, leaving grease in the pan.

4. saute chicken in bacon grease for 3-5 minutes per side, or until browned. then place chicken in a foil-lined 13x9" pan.

chicken + bacon grease = heaven

5. here is where you start assembling the chicken. you start with honey mustard, which you can buy already prepared, or just make your own. we don't normally have prepared honey mustard in the house, so i made my own using, wait for it...honey and mustard. i start with mustard then just stir in honey til it gets sweet! 

looks like a wal-mart ad

6. spread honey mustard on top of chicken.

7. next, add sliced mushrooms. (it may look weird to add fresh mushrooms to this, but you really don't need to saute them beforehand! they will cook up just fine in the oven)

8. then comes the crumbly bacon.

9. finally, cheese!

10. bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

we had our chicken with pasta salad and sauteed asparagus, and it was so good. i'm getting hungry thinking about it! one of my favorite meals for sure.

enjoy!

mexican chicken & veggie casserole

i've had this recipe in my cookbook for quite awhile, and i'm not sure where it came from. regardless, it's a really simple, healthy casserole that could quickly become a go-to dinner meal.

you'll need:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 cups chopped or sliced zucchini (i thinly slice mine, but either will work)
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 can corn, drained
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can diced tomatoes with green chiles, drained
• 1 can ranch-style beans
• 1 1-oz package taco seasoning
• 1/2 cup light sour cream (i subbed in non-fat greek yogurt since i don't love sour cream)
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 8-oz package low-fat cream cheese
• 12 5" corn tortillas
• 3 chicken breasts (the original recipe did not include chicken, and this is a great vegetarian meal if you'd like it to be. we added chicken this time though!)

1. preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9x9" baking dish with cooking spray.

2. heat oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. add zucchini and onion and cook for 8-10 minutes.

3. add corn, black beans, ranch-style beans, tomatoes, and taco seasoning. stir and turn heat to low.

4. in the meantime, if you prefer to add chicken, cook it any way you like. i used my grill pan, but you could bake it or cook it in a saute pan. once the chicken is done, slice it into bite-sized pieces.

5. in a small bowl, combine 1 cup of cheddar, cream cheese, and sour cream/greek yogurt. mix until blended.

6. layer 4 tortillas on the bottom of the prepared baking dish. top tortillas with 1/2 of the zucchini mix, then top evenly with 1/2 of the cheese mixture. you can add the chicken to the zucchini mix or just place separately on top of the cheese layer.

7. place 4 tortillas on top of the cheese layer, then top with remaining zucchini mixture. add the rest of the cheese mixture on top, then cover the casserole with 4 more tortillas. sprinkle with remaining 1 cup of cheese and bake for 30 minutes.

i forgot to take a picture before we dug in! this is
after we each had a serving so excuse the rough appearance :)
it's way prettier when it's fresh out of the oven!

enjoy!

spicy thai noodles

last night i branched out from my typical weeknight meal and made spicy thai noodles with chicken and veggies. i don't make asian food a lot, except for the occasional simple stir fry with rice, so this was pretty different for me. it turned out really well and i liked the flavors a lot.

the one drawback...it was a lot spicier than i realized it was going to be! i teared up and sniffled the whole time i ate. michael can handle a lot more spice than i can, so i think he enjoyed it a little more. i may just cut back on the amount of crushed red pepper i use next time!

i got the original noodle recipe from a small snippet.. i modified it in a few ways:

1. didn't add the carrots, green onion, cilantro or peanuts that the recipe calls for. i don't love cilantro or green onion, and i'm not a fan of peanuts (unless they're boiled or peanut butter of course). i ended up adding carrots as part of my veggie mix but i didn't care enough to go buy carrots when i was shopping for this recipe.
2. added grilled chicken. a meal isn't a meal to me without some source of protein (preferably lean), so i grilled up 2 chicken breasts and sliced them to add to the noodle bowl.
3. added veggies. as i mentioned in #1, i didn't buy any extra veggies to add to this because i assumed i'd have some sort of veggie laying around waiting to be used. thankfully, i did! i had some frozen stir-fry veggies left over from a meal a week or 2 ago, so i added those to the mix.

spicy thai noodles with chicken & veggies

1 box whole wheat linguine or angel hair (i used angel hair...you probably don't need to use a whole box but i knew my pasta-loving husband would eat it)

1 tbsp. crushed red pepper (next time i may be using more like 1/2 tbsp.!)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup toasted sesame oil

6 tbsp. honey

6 tbsp. low sodium soy sauce

2 chicken breasts

stir-fry veggies

pepper

ginger

garlic powder

1. cook pasta according to package directions; drain.

2. pound chicken breasts to even thickness. season with pepper, ginger, and garlic powder (approximately 1/2 tsp of each for each breast.) cook for 10-14 minutes on preheated grill pan.

3. add vegetable and toasted sesame oils to a small saucepan. add crushed red pepper and heat until simmering. let simmer for about 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

4. strain crushed red pepper out of oil. i didn't have any cheesecloth or mesh strainers in the kitchen, so i used a coffee filter. worked like a charm!

5. add honey and soy sauce to oil and whisk until thoroughly blended.

6. once pasta is done and drained, add sauce and toss until coated.

7. saute veggies in a small frying pan until tender. (i skipped any seasoning here since the chicken and sauce were both pretty heavily seasoned.)

8. slice chicken into thin strips and add, along with veggies, to noodles. toss until combined.

tadaaaaa!

sidenote: i had a happy accident when i took my grill pan off of the stove and put it on my wood trivet to cool off. i should've thought better of it, but i didn't, so after it cooled, it was stuck to the trivet. i'm really glad no one was there to see me struggle to separate the 2. anyway, it turned out well because look how cool my trivet looks now!