5. Learn five new healthy dinner recipes. (3/5)

Balsamic chicken, roasted red potatoes, and roasted asparagus

As I mentioned earlier today, I actually cooked dinner last night.  This is major because I honestly cannot remember the last time I cooked dinner for the hubby and myself.  Sure, there have been some pots of pasta, some grilled cheese sandwiches, and various freezer items - but no dinner dinner.  Damn this past semester and all its craziness (and, oh yeah, I hated the smell of a bunch of foods for a month or two there).

I was originally going to make this dinner on Sunday, but after shoveling out from Saturday night's snowstorm, the hubby and I were too hungry and tired to wait another hour and a half to eat, so we went out to eat (may as well put the shoveled-out car to use, right?).

But I had already bought the chicken, potatoes, and asparagus so this dinner was happening at some point this week.  I snagged this group of recipes from Food Loves Writing last week:

Balsamic Chicken

Ingredients:
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tablespoons white sugar
1 clove garlic, chopped (I used, um, maybe 6x this amount? I <3 garlic.)
Italian seasonings
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, chopped into chunks (I used chicken tenders)
Olive oil, for the skillet

Directions:
Make the marinade: In a bowl, whisk together balsamic vinegar, chicken broth, sugar, garlic and herbs, and place the chicken breasts in the marinade. Let sit for 10 minutes on each side.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and reserve the rest of the marinade. Place the chicken in the heated pan and cook until they start to brown and are no longer pink inside, about 7 minutes per side. Then, here comes the fun part where the magic happens: add the rest of the marinade into the skillet, and cook until it thickens slightly, turning the chicken breasts over once or twice, about 5 minutes.

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Roasted Red Potatoes
These turned out particularly brilliantly.  I think I will always boil and then roast my potatoes from now on.

Ingredients:
Bag of baby red potatoes (mine was 3lbs), rinsed and chopped in halves
A couple Tablespoons of olive oil
2 to 3 Tablespoons minced garlic (again, I multiplied this significantly)
Sea salt and pepper

Directions:
Boil baby red potato halves in large pan until cooked through. Drain and lay potatoes on baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil all over and toss. Sprinkle with garlic and salt and pepper. Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes in a 400-degree oven. Potatoes are ready when the tops have turned golden and crispy.

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Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:
One bunch of fresh asparagus
Lemon olive oil (or you could use regular olive oil and fresh lemon juice)
Sea salt and pepper

Directions:
Wash asparagus and snap off white tips. lay flat on a baking sheet drizzled with olive oil, and toss. Roast in a 400-degree oven.  The directions say to leave them in there for 20 to 30 minutes, tossing once.  I set the timer to 15 minutes so I could toss at that point - and they were done then!  So cooking time may vary based on your oven (and, possibly, the asparagus).  Asparagus are ready when they’ve bruised and crisped on the tops.

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This dinner was deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious.  Yum, yum, yum.  The hubby usually eats without giving a lot of compliments (whereas in my house it's routine to take a bite of everything and then tell the cook how good it all is) but he actually said yesterday that this was good - which means it really was really good.  Yay!

Last note: in checking my 101 in 1001 list to see how many of these healthy dinners I had done, I clicked on the first one to remind myself of what it was (it was Chicken Scaloppine with Sugar Snap Peas, Asparagus, and Lemon Salad) but what caught my eye is that we ate that dinner the night we decided I wouldn't renew my birth control prescription in the summer and we would try to have a baby.  *sniffle* And here we are.