Baked Chicken Parm & Green Beans

Since Karen introduced me to SKINNYTASTE.COM, I have had a lot of new recipes I've wanted to try. The first one I tried was her BAKED CHICKEN PARMESAN because it is one of the most popular recipes on the blog. This did not disappoint, and everyone (the 2.5 year old, Kyle's uncle, Kyle, & I) loved it. I will be making this again!

Also, FYI, I just used store bought spaghetti sauce. It was nothing fancy, but oh so yummy!

 Sorry my picture isn't too pretty, but trust me, it was good!

One of our sides with the chicken parmesan was plain ol' fresh green beans (we also had whole wheat pasta & berries). I like to say I've perfected my green bean recipe. You may think this is funny because it consists of throwing them in the oven, but it took me awhile to get them to the "perfect" consistency.

Here's how I do it:

 to make my life easier I buy the green beans like this in the produce section. This saves time snipping the ends off, BUT I've used the others too.

 Dump them on a foil lined baking sheet and spread out as evenly as possible.

 I then drizzle them with olive oil & one of these seasonings. They are our favorite, but you could easily use minced garlic, salt, and pepper with your olive oil OR olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and seasoning...it's pretty easy to mix it up.

 After seasoning, toss them so they are all evenly coated and then cover them with foil

 Pop them in a preheated oven at 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes COVERED & about 5-10 minutes UNCOVERED.

They will look a bit like this when they are done. We eat these about once a week and they are a family favorite!

Chicken Avocado Soup

This chicken avocado soup is an absolute favorite in our household (even the husband loves it)! For the most part I follow the recipe as is, however, if we're feeling up for it I also add in a jalapeno for some extra spice (add the jalapeno when you add the green onion and garlic to the pot to saute). The more seeds you leave generally the spicier the soup. Even if you add the jalapeno without the seeds it adds nice flavor to the dish.

Typically when we store the soup we keep the chicken separate from the broth but I'm sure you could store them together. During Lent I definitely ate this soup on Fridays without the chicken and it's still amazing! Just add a little extra avocado to make up for the lack of chicken.

The recipe also calls for serving the soup with a lime wedge - just make sure to squeeze the lime into the soup. The citrus adds some nice flavor!

Happy cooking sisters!!

Chicken Avocado Soup

Spiralized shrimp scampi

Hello Friends…this is so exciting!! Here is the recipe for the yummy zucchini dish I did last week with the shrimp. It was super easy and made enough for me to eat all week long but I did use 4 zucchinis instead of 3 because I feel like the ones I got at the store were a little on the small side. Also I added cheese on top because let's be honest everything is better with cheese!

Two things I will do differently next time is to cut up the zucchini noodles a little more before cooking them in the olive oil because some were super long and hard to spoon into a dish. Tip two I think I would take the time next time to remove all the tails from the shrimp before I put them in because it's kinda annoying to do that while you're eating it. 

I did use frozen cooked shrimp instead of fresh shrimp but I thought it still tasted great. Happy Sunday friends!!

Shrimp Scampi with Zucchini Noodles

joyfulhealthyeats.com

Healthy never tasted so irresistibly good with this easy Shrimp Scampi and Zucchini Noodles.

Have a good week and love you all!

Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini and MOZZ CHEESE

Woo hoo! My first blog post ever. I feel so hip. Thanks Zick Family for introducing us to this wonderful world wide web trend!

So I'm pretty boring (shocker) and don't venture out to try cooking new types of meat often, it's either chicken or... chicken! Sometimes ground beef if I'm feeling wild.

Anywho, I was getting sick of my boring seasoned chicken breasts every night, so I started hunting for new recipes to spice it up. I love Skinnytaste's blog (so much I even bought her cookbook--big step for me), so I started here and found this recipe that even Michael ate without complaining it was a "healthy meal". 

Skinnytaste Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini

I found pre-sliced zucchini in the fresh produce section at my grocery store and threw that into the food processor quickly to get the shredded consistency. I also had parmesan cheese in my fridge already so I used that instead of the Romano.

I served these with a side salad and it was an easy, quick weeknight success :) The serving size listed is 1 cutlet but we each had 2 because they seemed pretty small.

Enjoy!

Our Favorite Salsa

I have made this salsa about ten times since I first tried it about eight months ago. I HIGHLY recommend it!!

PIONEER WOMAN RESTAURANT STYLE SALSA

I have the recipe memorized, but I do make a few modifications. I don't add the sugar because I don't even notice it's not there. I usually add a little extra cilantro because we love it. PLUS, I usually only use about half of a jalapeno to make it more friendly for smaller mouths aka the kids. If I decide it needs more spice you can always throw in extra jalapeno after the first taste test.

Here is the salsa over some hamburger and spinach:

You can put this on anything & everything! Chips, eggs, southwest style meatloaf, tacos, etc.

Getting Started

"Giggle Group Grub" is a place to share our favorite recipes. Post the link to the recipe, tips & tricks, maybe a picture or two, or anything you changed or would change in the future. Can't wait to try all of these new recipes!