Healthy Alternative Spaghetti with meat sauce

Tonight's recipe is a little different than the normal. A friend mentioned, the other day, that I should start posting recipes with meat as well, especially since I'm a bit more of a carnivore than a vegetarian. Recently, I've decided to start taking my diet more seriously. In that statement, I mean the primary definition of diet. I'm hoping to make some real changes to how I eat, not just for short term weight loss, but for long term health. Tonight, I made a meat dish that incorporates two things I love and won't give up (red sauce and pasta). Tonight was a sort of Spaghetti Chicken Stir Fry.

This recipe is pretty simple. Here is what you will need:

• chicken breast cut into strips (1lb) or stir fry chicken (as sold at Albertson's and Publix)
• mushrooms (1 package)
• onion (1/2 large onion) - I prefer vidalia
• oregano
• cilantro
• pasta (1 package)
• marinara sauce (1 can/jar) 

1. Begin by putting the pasta on to boil, as this will take the longest. 
2. Spray a little pan cooking spray into your frying pan -- sautee the chicken, onion and mushroom until the chicken has browned on the outside. I usually cook on medium to medium high (5-7 on electric stove top), adding maybe a 1/2 tsp of oregano and 1/2 tsp cilantro  as chicken is just starting to brown. 
3. At the same time that you being the chicken, put pasta sauce on to warm, cooking at a medium temp -- I suggest covering
4. Serve together, topped with a pinch of parmesan cheese

Overall, you will find this to be fewer calories than spaghetti with ground beef or meatballs -- 3 oz of chicken with the mushrooms and onions makes it feel somewhat hearty and very satisfying. Let me know what you think!
 

Meatless Mondays - Vegetable Lasagna

Last night, I made my famous Mushroom Lasagna, a constantly evolving dish (read, constantly improving) that sort of morphed into Vegetable Lasagna (click the link -- every time I say vegetable lasagna, I think of this).

In our continuing effort to eat vegetarian on Monday nights, I made this lasagna meatless. It isn't necessarily low calorie, but its lower calorie than a typical lasagna.

I started with two types of mushrooms, baby bella and white mushrooms (just the caps, I don't use the stump, myself -- note, I often use cremini as well, but they weren't available at Target, so we skipped them), and sliced up some zucchini. In addition, I used lasagna noodles, red sauce (1.5 jars), white sauce (1/2 jar), low fat sour cream (you can use ricotta or cottage cheese in its place), mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese and spinach (i used frozen, but it must be defrosted and wrung out completely -- you can use fresh).

I don't cook the noodles in advance. Save the time and effort. I start with a very thin layer of red sauce at the bottom of the pan, and a layer of noodles, covered in a thicker layer of red sauce. Next, I made a layer of thinly sliced zucchini, followed by a layer of white sauce. On top of the white sauce, I put the layer of baby bellas and spinach, covered by a thin layer of sour cream. Next, the second layer of noodles, covered again in red sauce, with a second layer of zucchini and the white mushrooms. On a side note, for the mushrooms, I mostly just capped them, and cut them into halves (except the large ones) as chunky mushrooms, in my opinion, make it feel bulkier and more satisfying. On top, I put a good layer of mozzarella cheese, sprinkled a small amount of parmesan cheese and added a few small dollops of red sauce for appearance. You'll want to bake it for about 45 minutes, at 375 degrees. It is best if you let it sit for about 30 minutes, to solidify, but if your family are hungry hungry hippos (I'm not calling anyone fat here!), they won't likely want to wait. The final result looked like this:













I served this tasty dish with bread sticks and a veggie salad. The veggie salad was composed of the leftover zucchini slices (halved), carrot pieces and chunked tomato in a zesty Italian dressing and a little bit of mozzarella.

I would love to hear if any of you guys try this, and what you think of it. My family loves it, even though it changes every time. I wouldn't recommend shiitake musrooms or oyster mushrooms for this lasagna, as I didn't personally enjoy the lasagna much the times I tried adding either of those.

As always, happy eating! I'll be back next week, hopefully with something somewhat exotic (like lentil burgers).