Christmas is a time of lights and cute ornaments and delicious baked goodies. Every year for Christmas my mother and I worked hard in the kitchen making our signature Peanut Brittle, chex mix, and a huge assortment of cookies and other baked goods that we gave away in mass quantity to friends and family. Since I've moved out I've continued the tradition year after year. Tons of people on our Christmas list get some of the best gifts we can give - and they don't come from stores. Treats from my kitchen are received with delight, and that makes it worth all the hard work that goes into it.Tonight we brought home our Christmas tree. I always underestimate the low-ness of our ceiling and it didn't fail that again this year we brought home a tree that is just a wee bit too tall. We'll probably have to nip a bit off the top to get our star on. I'll never forget the first year I moved up here - we got a lovely Christmas tree, splurging since I was only working part time and work was tight for Aj - we somehow managed to get it up the curved stairs of our tiny apartment, and found a nice niche for it in the living room, right next to the window (I am extremely vain and think that the tree should be blatantly visible from the window). It was a great tree. Smelled good, looked good... was up a little too long. By the time the middle of January rolled around the tree hadn't been watered in over a month, the needles were barely holding on and we were just not interested in trying to take it down the stairs and vacuuming up after it all the way down and out the front door. In fact, we were convinced that if we tried that there would be no needles left on the tree when we made it outside.
So we concocted a great plan - we would squeeze it out the window!! Yes, quick relief! Funny thing - trees do not like to be pushed out of 3x3 windows. By the time we got out out of our second story window it slid down the roof and landed with a huge thunk on the ground (Don't worry, Aj was below making sure it didn't hit anyone) and it lost 75% of its needles on the walkway. The other 25% were on my windowsill and living room carpet. Ah, Christmas!
During the holiday season I like to try to temper my huge intake of delicious sweets with some more low-fat options. I was poking around on the internet a month or so back trying to find some good low-fat recipes with flavor, and I stumbled across this Spinach Stuffed Chicken recipe. It's absolutely yum and I've made it three times since I found it (which, for me, is a lot in a 1-2 month period). The recipe had no photos and didn't really have anything else to recommend it to me, but I took a look at the ingredients and knew it would be a winner. This is a fast meal for a night when there's not a lot of time to cook. I served this with garlic and olive oil couscous, and a saute of mushrooms and Japanese leeks.Spinach Stuffed Chicken
- 4 chicken cutlets (breast meat) or chicken breast cut in half lengthwise
- 5 oz. (frozen) thawed and drained spinach
- 1/4 C. Parmesan cheese, shredded
- 1 scallion (green onion) finely chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 C. red wine vinegar
- 1 Tbsp. light margarine or spread
- Put chicken cutlets one at a time between plastic wrap and pound quite thin with a meat mallet or rolling pin. (The thinner the better)
- Rub chicken cutlets with salt and pepper to taste.
- In a small bowl, mix together the thawed and drained spinach (make sure to squeeze out any excess water), scallions, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper.
- On one end of the chicken place 1/4th of the spinach mixture and fold the chicken over, pinching the edges to seal. Repeat with all chicken cutlets.
- In a nonstick pan, spray very heavily with olive oil nonstick spray and let the pan get hot.
- Cook the chicken in the pan approximately 6-8 minutes on each side, flipping once, over high or medium high heat.
- Remove the chicken from skillet and place the red wine vinegar into the skillet for about 1 minute, letting it simmer and thicken a bit.
- Mix the red wine vinegar with the margarine until melted and pour over the chicken
Per Serving: 243 Calories; 5g Fat (18.1% calories from fat); 2g Saturated Fat;45g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 110mg
Tonight I also made a tester batch of a brittle I spotted in Martha Stewart Living's 2010 holiday issue. It turned out pretty good. It's got a slightly scorched, honey taste and a really light and fluffy texture. It was beyond easy to make. I'm thinking it needs a little something extra... Maybe a sea-salt coating or dipping it in chocolate? It could just need a little vanilla extract or butter. I'll mess with it a little more as we go into the holidays, since it was so simple and inexpensive to make. Once I find just the right recipe, I'll pass it on to you guys. I'm going to take it in to work tomorrow and see what everyone thinks of it as it is.
If you want the recipe as MS Living gave it, here is a link to another blogger that gave it a try: Honeycomb Brittle.
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