Saturday, August 4, 2007

Tomato Grilled Chicken and Roasted Veggies - Yum!


We are going strong on our kids' cook nights, but I need a little work on my cooking nights. After all, dinner is kind of important - especially for my hubby, who has been working all day. He thinks I pretty thoughtful when I cook for him. You can really only eat cereal so many nights, right?

I was suffering from recipe fatigue, but my friend Tammy (and also Elizabeth) came to the rescue. Recipes and pictures of two of my new favorite dishes are at the bottom of this post.

My other habits this year:
Kids' Cook Night - great!
Exercise - will shoot for 3 times again this week
Strategizing - needs more work, I tend to do it all on one night
Flossing - HABIT
Meaningful prayer - always working on this
Scriptures w/kids - HABIT
Going to bed early - way awful - no other way to put it
No Soda - got better the week Lara's computer died and then not so good this last week, yeah, uh my reason is right here
Drinking water - HABIT
Making dinner - need to reinforce
Medical papers - oops, w/o chemo every 3 weeks and the accompanying mountain of paperwork, I have let this one slide off the habit wagon
Journal - HABIT (100% year-to-date, a first)

See Lara at the Lazy Organizer for other habit ideas

This recipe is one my friend Tammy gave me, and it's a perfect summertime meal.

Sun-Dried Tomato Grilled Chicken

1 bottle Kraft Sun-dried Tomato dressing (it is similar to Italian dressing)
desired number of chicken breasts
Roma tomatoes, 1 per chicken breast, diced
Grated parmesan cheese, 2 Tbsp per breast
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese (we like to use a 6 cheese italian blend)
Fresh or dried (2 Tbsp) basil

Place the chicken breasts in a ziploc bag or covered container. Pour 1/3 -1/2 the bottle of dressing in for 4 or less breasts. Marinade all day in the fridge, turning periodically.

Heat the grill when ready to cook. Sear the chicken 6 mintues each side on high. Prepare a piece of tinfoil large enough to place the chicken on and still tent over the top. Spray it with a non-stick cooking spray.

Turn the grill to low, put the foil on the grill. Place the chicken on the foil and sprinkle the diced tomatoes on top. Put one to two tablespoons of Parmesan cheese on each breast. Then cover the chicken with mozzarella. Place desired amount of fresh basil leaves on top or sprinkle the dried basil evenly.

Tent the foil over the top and cook until thickest part of the chicken reaches 170 degrees - or about another 10 minutes (it will appear pink on the outer edges from the coloring in the dressing). Remove and eat!

My kids don't love tomatoes, so I just left them off of their chicken.

We love to eat this (or a Sunday Roast) with this next recipe also from Tammy.

Tammy's Garlic Roasted Vegetables

1 lb baby carrots (or fresh carrots cut to baby-size)
4 red potatoes, quartered
4 yukon gold potatoes, quartered
12 garlic cloves, peeled & smashed or cut in half
1-2 walla walla onions, peeled & quartered
butternut squash, peeled and seeded cut into large chunks (will cook quickly)
red pepper, seeded & cut in half then quartered
fresh green beans (throw in the last 20 minutes)
1/4 c. olive oil

Toss all vegetables in large bowl with olive oil until coated. Pour into 9x13 pan. Salt and pepper to taste and cover with foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Your house will smell amazing as you cook this. Tammy says she loves to use whatever vegetables need to be used up at the end of the week. This will make mountains of veggies, but they are so good you will eat them all!

Tammy is working on a cookbook. I can't wait until it's done, she is one of the best cooks/bakers I know. She also has incredibly good decorating taste and sewing ability. Pretty much whatever she touches turns to gold.

Was that last one over the top? Try these recipes and tell me what you think.



11 comments:

A Juggling Mum said...

Oh yummo, great recipes, thanks for sharing them with us :)

Rachel xxx
A Juggling Mum
http://jugglingmum.blogspot.com

Rebecca said...

Good job on your habits. I'm saving the recipes into my recipe file right now. Dinner is something I'm working on this week as well. Have a good one!

Montserrat said...

I love trying new veggie recipes. This one looks so good!

Unknown said...

Good luck. I think most of us suffer with the "what should we have for dinner tonight" syndome. Linking up for Menu Mondays at Organising Junkie helps me (though I have been slack on this recently). Funnily enough I am working on breakfast this week....this is even a bigger struggle than dinner for me

Myth said...

that looks yummy - I'm lucky at the moment - Yeti is still doing the cooking, which he took over when Wombat was born... I do the toddler-entertaining!

Elizabeth-W said...

They look good! I remember you talking about the chicken one. Sounds good, too.

Andrea said...

Great habits.
Thanks for the good recipes. It's always nice to have something new to try.

Anonymous said...

Great recipes! You made me hungry : ). Great habits this week!

Anonymous said...

Those look so good!

I really need to get on track with the weekly habits.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your vegetable dish me! The garlic flavor was quite delicious even though I didn't eat it until a day later. An appreciative mom!

Mrs. O said...

Just have to say - it was delicious! I have seen the chicken recipe elsewhere as Chicken Bruscetta.