Too busy to type, but not too busy to eat!
Last night I came up with an interesting dish – stuffed yellow sweet potatoes!
I had taken a chicken breast out of the freezer before leaving for work thinking I’d make salads when I got home, but ham kept calling my name… I knew we had a couple of sweet potatoes, there was some broccoli in the fridge… Ham steak, baked sweets, and broccoli. Done.
Except…
When I was checking out, a coworker asked what the ham was for. I told him “Ham steak, baked sweets, and broccoli.” He replied, “Gee, that sounds awfully boring, for you.” I got into the truck and thought, “he’s right – it does sound boring”. Baked Stuffed Sweet Potatoes were born!
First, I baked the two sweet potatoes. Whilst they were baking, I took the aforementioned chicken breast and diced it. Into a skillet it went with a drizzle of olive oil. When it was about 3/4 cooked, I added the diced ham, some cut up steamed broccoli and about 2 oz of grated manchego cheese. A bit of salt and pepper.
When the potatoes were done, I sliced ’em in half, scooped out the potao, leaving a 1/4″ shell, and mixed the scooped potato into the ham/chicken/broccoli/cheese mixture. I didn’t add any butter or anything – I let the cheese and the potato be the binder.
IT got scooped into the shells, and back into a 350° oven for about 20 minutes. (I didn’t use it all. Most, but not all.)
Dinner was served.
It was a great combination of flavors – definitely not boring and reasonably healthy! A 4 oz plain, baked sweet potato is less than 120 calories. These spuds were probably about 6 ounces, so allowing for a bit more, call it 200 calories. Chicken, 100 calories, ham, another 100 calories, max. 25 calories for the broccoli and roughly another 100 calories for the cheese. 525 calories for dinner. Not too shabby.
Tonight it was time to have some fish! 6 ounce cod fillets – 135 calories. Baked in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil, and half a plum tomato – maybe 30 calories. 350° for 10 minutes.
I cut up a zucchini and a yellow squash (maybe 50 calories per serving) A drizzle of olive oil and another 2 plum tomatoes, diced – 50 more calories per serving – and then the big one – gnocchi! That was a whopping 240 calories per serving – half the bag for the two of us. What’s rather amusing about that was I used to cook the entire bag for the two of us and still think it wasn’t enough.
It was all sauteed with a bit of garlic, and a pinch of Italian seasoning, and then a splash of red wine. I would have used the fresh herbs out back, but it was pouring rain (as in torrential downpour) just as I started cooking. That’s why I keep a well-stocked larder – to cover emergencies and not wanting to get soaked.
Actually, the whole reason I decided to serve it up this way was because I thought a real-sized portion of the gnocchi would just look too small on the plate. This way, with the veggies and the gnocchi mixed together, it became a really generous accompanyment to the fish.
And it made for a better picture! 🙂
Oh… and we’re both losing a bit of weight!