White Chicken Chili

There are a few things going at my house that make it difficult to find recipes. One, we are starting a serious new budget.  Two, we have come to accept our "happy pounds" but we don't want to gain more so we are trying eat leaner.  Three, most recipes I find for lean meals are spicy (which I love!) but the pilot's esophagus does not.  Four, with a baby around we do not have much down time to plan, shop, prep, cook or clean so I want easy to make meals.  With all of those requirements, I am on a quest to find cheap, lean meals that are not spicy and are easy to make.  Got all that?

Luckily, after much debate over how spicy I can make the meal we found the perfect solution: White Chicken Chili.  The key to the flavoring is the Salsa Verde which is actually a mild flavor. 

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans of Northern Beans ($0.
• 1 can of corn ($0.49, Aldi)
• 1 jar of Salsa Verde ($1.49, Aldi)
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped (in house)
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped (in house)
• 1 tsp of cumin (in house)

First you take one of the cans of beans and blend it in either a food processor or blender.  This will add a thicker texture to your chili.

Then I place all of the ingredients into the crockpot EXCEPT the chicken and mix it all up with a spoon.  After that I drop in the chicken and set on LOW for 6 hours.

After 6 hours I remove the chicken and shred it with two forks.  The chicken should be super tender and moist, making it super easy to shred.  Here is where I pulled out some chicken to feed the baby.

Return the shredded chicken to the crockpot and cook on LOW for another hour.  After that, remove the lid and let it sit there for about 10 minutes to help thicken up the liquid. 

Pour into a bowl and top with your favorite chili toppings such as sour cream, cheese, avocados, Fritos, etc.  Okay, so it starts off lean but it can also become lethal.  Either way it is delicious.  Oh and more importantly it is cheap, lean, not too spicy and easy to make.  Enjoy!

Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls

In efforts to prepare quick, healthy and cheap meals I took the advice from a pin I found and placed a bunch of boneless, skinless thin sliced chicken breasts (that were on sale at Jewel for buy-one-get-one-free) in my slow cooker with some water, salt, pepper and two bay leaves. After it cooked while I was at work, I came home to shred it and packed away in snack size plastic baggies and placed in the freezer.

Having a ton of shredded chicken in my freezer, it was time to pull some out to create a meal for the hubby and I. We knew with the holiday weekend ahead that we would gain a few pounds so we wanted to started the weekend light. Browsing my previous pins on my Recipe board, I selected "healthy buffalo chicken rolls" for dinner.

Ingredients

Broccoli Slaw

Green Onions

Egg Roll Wrappers

Blue Cheese

Frank's Hot Sauce

Shredded Chicken

It was super easy!  I just took out the egg roll wraps and placed the other ingredients on an angle in the center just like this:

 Then I rolled up one corner just enough to cover the food.  I then wet the side corners and folded in.  All you have left is to continue rolling and just wet the final corner and press down.  Place them on a wire rack and spray with a cooking spray on all sides.  Cooking it on the rack allows the rolls to cook on all sides.  Bake at 400 degrees until it is golden brown.

They were quite yummy!  Especially with the side of ranch dressing to dip it in, even thought it made it a little less healthy.  We enjoyed them and I've already decided to make bite-size rolls (quarter each wrap) as an appetizer for New Years Eve.  

I also ended up with extra wraps so I think I will play around with other fillings.  We were thinking about Philly cheese-steak rolls for the next round.  Stay tuned...