Sweet Potato Topped Chicken

Since I have had to learn how to cook again, I have been scouring for the internet looking for things to cook that fit my dietary requirements and taste good too. I am not a fan of boring food! So, I found this recipe on the Better Homes and Gardens website for Sweet Potato Topped Chicken. This recipe has cream in it, but since I can't have dairy, I had to modify it a little. I didn't buy canned sweet potatoes - I peeled, sliced, and boiled fresh sweet potatoes. I personally think they tasted better. I also didn't add butter to my potatoes. I made the mashed potatoes with my almond milk and some salt and pepper and they were tasty. And I used sweet potatoes, not yams. Yams would be fine, but yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing. In place of the Cream of Mushroom soup, I used some chicken broth and mixed it with some almond milk and some rice flour just to thicken it up. This tasted really well in the recipe! If you like Cream of whatever soup, that would be fine too!

I assembled the recipe in my enamel coated dutch oven. It made the dish yummier and since the dutch oven is over safe, I was able to put it into the oven in the same pot when I was ready to broil it.

After I had assembled the dish, I turned on the broiler and broiled the dish just to kind of give the potatoes a little bit of a crust so this would feel more like a chicken pot pie only without the crust. I will definitely make this again, but I would probably use more almond milk and rice flour in my cream substitution next time so the mixture is a little thicker. I think I will also use rotisserie style chicken next time too. And if you are a vegetarian or vegan, you could easily omit the chicken and just add more vegetables to the mixture and use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. I always like dishes that can be switched up!

I didn't take a picture of my attempt at this dish, so you will have to be satisfied with a stock photo. Tonight's recipe is called "Lime in the Coconut" Drumsticks! I am looking forward to it!


Sweet Potato Topped Chicken:

Day 1: Dinner

I must admit I was pretty hungry when I got home from work and eating mainly vegetables sounded extremely unsatisfying and boring to me, so I decided to let the creative juices flow! There may be restrictions in what I can and cannot eat, but that doesn't mean I can't be creative with it.

Thank the heavens above for Rachael Ray's Magazine! Her staff who put together this amazing magazine really do take the time to bring together recipes that anyone can enjoy regardless of their dietary needs, restrictions, or preferences. I was flipping through the December edition when I found a recipe for Roasted Chicken and Carrots. I reviewed all of the ingredients and they were all things I could eat, so I decided to make it for dinner!

While it was only Day 1, I can honestly say that I felt like dinner was a cheat on the diet, but it wasn't. The marinade\sauce that I put on the chicken and carrots was so yummy. It was basically a chili\lemon sauce with garlic! Oh it was heavenly! For anyone who loves garlic, this recipe has a lot of garlic - 16 cloves! That is like a full bulb of garlic! But it is so good!

The only thing I didn't do that I probably should have was split the baby carrots in half. The recipe said to, but for whatever reason I didn't read that part, so I didn't cut them in half. The smaller carrots cooked through just fine and were tender and sweet, but the larger baby carrots were still a little crunchy. Next time I will remember to cut them up first.

Typically after I eat dinner, I always crave something sweet. I looked around and thought about what I could have that would satisfy my sweet tooth. In the group of recipes the doctor gave me there is a recipe for sweet potato mixed in with pecans that have been fixed in vanilla and cinnamon. So I decided to take my pecans I had bought and cover them in vanilla and cinnamon. I then took some peaches and banana and cut them in and put them in a bowl and sprinkled the "candied" pecans on top. The cinnamon made me think I was eating cobbler and then crunchy nuts just added that little texture I like when I sweet things! It was so good and I think the boyfriend liked it too!

So, all in all, I feel like dinner was a big success! I am ready for Day 2!

Roasted Chicken and Carrots:

Peaches, Banana, and "Candied" Pecans:

Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy!

So I made this for dinner quite some time ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cat had a freak accident and so I was dealing with that. He is all healed now, so now I blog.

I made Nut-Crusted Tilapia With Spinach and Carrots. This was so good! This was also a first for me in terms of cooking something I have never cooked before. I have grown up eating all kinds of fish, but I have never cooked it myself unless you count frozen fish sticks. The tilapia was quite easy to cook. I ground up some bread and cashew nuts in my food processor and then coated the fish with some horseradish infused spicy grainy mustard and the nut mixture and then baked the fish. It turned out really well and was very tender and flaky! With the leftover fish I cooked it a few days later and "fried" the pieces. That was good too! I consider this a hit because my friend ate the fish with me and she isn't a big fan of having nuts in her food, but she didn't even know until I told her. So I think if you are someone who hates nuts in food because of texture, this is the perfect recipe because the nuts are ground up into a powder almost, so it eliminates the texture that nuts tend to have.

The recipe also had spinach and roasted carrots on the side. The carrots were roasted in the oven. They turned out really well. The only I would do different is double the carrots, because there wasn't that much after I was done cooking them. And hey, they are vegetables so there is no guilt in doubling up on them! The spinach was easy to cook. The recipe suggested adding a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes to the spinach, so I did -- won't do that next time! It definitely took the spinach up another level, but it was spicy! Next time I will omit the pepper flakes.

So, all in all, this was a great recipe and I think kids would love this recipe! It would expose them to something more than frozen fish sticks but still have that fish stick appeal with the nut crust. I am thankful that my parents didn't always have money for eating out and even store bought meat. My dad always went fishing and so we always had fish in the house, and so I grew up loving fish and still do to this day! If prepared right, fish is mighty tasty!

Nut-crusted tilapia with Spinach and Carrots: