BF Family Style: Easy Cheesy Chicken & Brocolli Penne

Pssst...pledgers? Have you submitted your week 2 pledge yet? If not, go do it now! I'll wait...



Remember the other day when I posted Creamy Brocolli &Cheese soup and how I told you that it also makes a great pasta sauce for the family?

Well, I made this the other night for the divas and they absolutely LOVED it. Pasta and I are not friends, so I just put some chicken (a la Aldi "Grilled Chicken Bites") in mine. For some post-ops, whole wheat pasta sits fine and fits into their approved post-op plan. if so, go for it!

For the girls I used 100% whole wheat penne pasta. Since they rarely eat pasta, I don't get many arguments on feeding them the whole wheat variety!

Here's how you make it:

Nik's Easy Cheesy Chicken & Brocolli Penne
(Serves four)

2-3 cups Nik's Creamy Chicken & Brocolli Soup
2 additional cups of brocolli florets (can still be frozen)
1 box whole wheat penne pasta
2 large chicken breasts, cubed
Parmesan cheese

Optional: Onions and Peppers

Directions

Boil the pasta and brocolli in salted water until al dente then drain into a collander.

Cook chicken breasts, along with onions and peppers, in a heavily sprayed pan (I don't use oil to cook my chicken but you do it how YOU do it).

Return pasta to a pot and add the cooked chicken breasts, onions and peppers and add sauce. Bring to a boil over medium heat and then reduce to a simmer.

Toss together to get a good mix of everything on every plate and top with grated Parmesan cheese!

This dinner takes minutes to come together and will get you a standing ovation at the dinner table. I promise!

BF Family Style: Nik's Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap



We've begun to post kid-friendly recipes, but not very many things geared toward the whole family.

My family is my kids and I, but I realize some of you have hungry spouses who want to eat well too. My kids and I used to be McDonald’s fanatics before surgery (I stopped being one when I read “Fast Food Nation,” the divas stopped by force…i.e. me). Nowadays, both budget and health concerns keep us from eating out much anymore.

I already posted my answer to the limited edition McDonald’s “Mac Wrap” and that’s a favorite in our family. Here’s another.

Nik’s Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap

(this yields enough for at least two “you-sized” + three non-op sized individual portions)

Ingredients:

2-3 oz. grilled chicken bites (I use the Fit & Active brand from Aldi, Costco also has a brand called “Naked Nuggets” or you could just use 1 pound of chicken breast tenderloins cut into one-inch pieces)

8 slices of turkey bacon

1 c. Shredded cheddar cheese (1/4 c. for each wrap)

Four whole wheat wraps (I also use the Fit & Active which have the same stats as the more pricey Flatout wraps)

8 tbsp Light Ranch dressing (I used Fit & Active also but prefer Hidden Valley, 2 tbsp for each wrap)

Optional:

Shredded Lettuce
Tomato slices
Red onion slivers

Directions:

If you are making these from the pre-cooked grilled chicken nuggets, all you need to do is throw them in a sprayed pan to warm them through. If making from raw chicken, cook thoroughly and sprinkle both sides lightly with salt and pepper. If you have a grill pan, that works well.

While doing this, cook up your turkey bacon to your desired level of crispness.

Nuke the wrap for about 10 seconds just to make it more pliable then sprinkle the cheese over the entire wrap.

I got all wrapped up in this yummy dish! (/end corniness)

Add chicken, bacon and any garnishes you like and top with the ranch dressing.

Fold the top and bottom of your wrap then fold the sides over and slice in half.

Yummmmmmmm...

I served this to my youngest daughter with apple slices and peanut butter dip.

Nik’s Ridiculously Simple Peanut Butter Dip
2 heaping tbsp unflavored 0% Greek yogurt
2 tsp peanut flour (PB2 or Trader Joe’s brand)
2 packets of Splenda (or 1 tsp out of the bag)

Mix in a container and serve!

You could also serve this with a side of my zucchini fries. Just sayin...
This is a lunch I feel good about serving to my kids and you can feel good serving it to your family. Some notes: yes, you can use regular bacon if that is what your heart desires. For some freakish reason, both me and the divas like turkey bacon better. If you use pork bacon, I’d suggest, for convenience, using the pre-made kind and just nuking it to get it crispy.

Also, in these kinds of posts I often get questions about how much of this I can actually eat. I can eat about half a wrap with no garnishes on it. I usually opt to just make it for the divas and have a bite of theirs. I’m weird like that :)

Recipe Remix: Nik's "No Fail, No Noodle" Tuna Casserole

~by Nikki

La Petite Diva's reaction to no-noodle tuna casserole: "It kinda looks like the cat's food but it tastes really good!"

So remember last week when I made cheesy mashed cauliflower in cups? Well, I used two small heads of cauliflower that I had in the fridge and ended up with more than enough mixture to fill 12 muffin cups.

With the leftovers I decided to make something completey different. Tuna casserole!

Now I find that tuna casserole is a love/hate dish. If you love it, you REALLY love it. If you hate it, you can't stand it.

I love it. There's something about it that just SCREAMS comfort food to me!

But me and noodles? We are not friends. And, much as I love you peeps, no need to suggest your favorite noodle. I've tried soy noodles, I've tried Dreamfields, spelt noodles, shirataki...everything. My pouch does NOT like noodles.

And rather than try to force the relationship, I decided to re-invent my casserole so that I could eat a decent amount of it. Now...this strays a bit from the traditional path but follow me on this one, ok? I mean...have I EVER steered you wrong? (don't answer that)

Nik's No-Noodle Tuna Casserole

Ingredients

2-3 c. mashed cauliflower/veggie/bacon mixture

(I literally used the cauliflower, zucchini, squash, onion and bacon mixture from the cheesy cups. In the absence of that, I'd use a medium sized head of cauliflower and, for speedy preparation, add in a can of peas and carrots in place of the can of peas listed below + 1 extra can of tuna)

3 cans of tuna in water, water reserved
1 c. Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP...if you're going "Jigga what?", click here for more info)
1 can of peas, drained
1 (12 oz.) can reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup
About 8-10 slices of your favorite cheese

Directions:



Pre-heat oven to 350. Then, in a bowl (or a pot, as I did above), combine cauliflower mixture and tuna (with water included). Add TVP and stir. Let that sit for about 5 minutes.

Add peas and cream of mushroom soup and stir until fully incorporated. Transfer to a 13x9 baking pan.



Cover with cheese slices (I used what I had, which was cheddar and pepperjack) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until cheese has browned on top.

Serve hot!

This is soooo...warm and satisfying. Perfect "snow weather" food. Not that I am hoping for snow. It is my aspiration to retire someplace where it never, EVER snows. Well...maybe I'd go to Sundance every year...but that is IT.

Enjoy!

New Feature: Recipe Remix

~~posted by Jen

So we promised lots of cool new things once we reached 1000 Facebook fans, and now we're well on our way to the 2000 fan mark! If you haven't already liked our page, please go do so! That way you won't miss out on any of our announcements, special contests, or polls we do only on Facebook.

This week we're premiering our new feature called "Recipe Remix". What that means is we take an ingredient (like a sauce) or even the actual finished dish, and make into a completely different recipe. As post-op Weight Loss Surgery patients, our capacity is greatly diminished. I don't know about you, but I get sick of eating the same thing over and over for days on end. 

But in this economy, I feel guiltier than ever before wasting food. Nik and I are both pretty passionate about using up what we have on hand, and I know we have lots of readers who do the same. This will be a fun way to experience re-creating leftovers into a completely different dish. 

Our first "Recipe Remix" premiers tomorrow morning, and was actually contributed by one of our faithful readers, Dee. For those of you who frequent the RNY board on Obesity Help, you know her there as Deedles. Her delicious recipe will be posted tomorrow morning. 

Like always, we encourage you to Play With Your Food! If you make one of our recipes, then create a completely different dish out of the leftovers, snap a pic and send it to us so we can share it as a Remix!