Recipe of the Week!

While its been ages since I have even decided to start posting, my recent culinary adventures have been too nummy not to share with others!
Luckily, I enjoy figuring out the tastes of all sorts of foods and figuring out the good ways to put them together. Throw in a copious amount of wine while doing so and its inevitable to at least make one successful dish.
I have been on a quest to stick to a $350 a month food budget, and still stay within the confines of a clean and healthy diet. In the future, I do intend on posting my meal plans and recipes I come up with ... for now ... on to the tasty adventure I made tonight.

And so we continue ...

Chipotle Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

its sweet. its spicy & smokey. its cheesy. its healthy ... and approximately 350 calories per serving!
hell. yea.

- 1 chicken breast (approx 6 oz)
- 6 cloves of garlic, minced (is that a lot of garlic you may ask? yes. yes it is. get use to it)
- 3 medium to large sized sweet potatoes
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- about 1.5 tsp chipotle chili powder, divided (adjust to your flavoring ... it is spicy!)
- 1 tsp cumin
- 2 pinches garlic salt
- 1 cup raw spinach, sliced
- 1 15 oz can of reduced sodium black beans
- 1/2 cup dry quinoa (i also recommended cooking the quinoa with "better than bouillon chicken" ... if this is not available to you, use another chicken/veggie bouillon of your choice to cook quinoa per directions instead of water)
- 1/2 cup (ish) of shredded cheddar or mexican blend cheese
- 1 avocado
- 1/4 cup sliced green onions, divided
- handful diced cilantro
- salsa of your choice - I recommend a sweeter salsa for this recipe - a corn or peach salsa would be fabulous
- also recommended - Trader Joe's Coconut Oil Spray (its the bestest)

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Slice potatoes in half and place cut side down in a baking pan coated in Coconut Oil Spray. Give a nice lil spray to the skin side of the taters and sprinkle with salt, pepper & a dash o chipotle chili powder. Cook for approximately 25 minutes. Keep the oven nice n toasty (still at 400) after you remove your sweet potatoes.
2. While the taters are cooking, place 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil in a deep cooking pan and melt. Sprinkle both sides of a chicken breast with garlic salt and chipotle pepper & cook just until thoroughly white. Remove from pan and add the rest of the coconut oil & saute garlic until golden.
3. Now that your garlic is awesome, add your cumin & 1/2 cup quinoa and cook per directions (typically for 1/2 cup quinoa, add 1 cup water with bouillon)
4. In the same quinoa pot, mix in the can of black beans, approx 1/2 of the sliced green onions and spinach until the spinach is wilted. Dice your chicken breast & also add into the mix.
5. Take your cooled potatoes and remove the flesh from the skins. Add the flesh into your bean/quinoa/spinach/chicken tastiness & mix until everything is well distributed. Place the skins back into a re-coconut oil sprayed baking pan & now fill those skins!
6. Sprinkle copiously with cheesy goodness & place in your hot oven until cheese is melted.
7. Remove from oven and add as much cilantro, green onion. avocado and salsa as your little heart desires
8. Nomnomnomnom ...

Calories and health information per serving (sans salsa ...)

Calories: 323

Total Fat (g) 12.2
Saturated Fat 5.2
Polyunsaturated 1
Monounsaturated 3.1
Trans 0

Cholesterol (mg) 23.2
Sodium (mg) 451.8
Potassium (mg) 733.7

Total Carbs (g) 41

Protein (g) 13.3

Now I'm new ... comment, compliment, criticize ... ask me whatever! Mostly ... enjoy! :)