Dinner Guests, Chips, and a Chick Flick!

Where did the weekend go? On Friday I raced home from work to shower, clean my place, and begin cooking for our dinner guests, Steve and Krissy.  Its been a really busy fall and we've barely seen a lot of our friends, AND Krissy is five months pregnant, so every time we see her there are big changes happening. 

For an appetizer, I made some baked pita chips. This was very easy, and its nice because you choose what seasonings to add!

I used two whole wheat pita pockets, cut them into triangles and brushed them with my oil/spice mixture (I used a couple tablespoons olive oil mixed with some red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and a little bit of salt and pepper). Bake these at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, flipping halfway through.

I served these spicy pita chips with some roasted red pepper hummus.

I also served some organic baby carrots with lemon hummus.

For dinner Pat and I made Baked Rice and a chicken dish we once had at his aunt's house, I'll call it Cheesy Baked Chicken with Stuffing. In my showering/cleaning/cooking whirlwind, I failed to take many pictures of the dishes in progress, but both recipes are very easy to follow.

Baked Rice

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 stick margarine 
• 1 can beef consomme (I didn't know what this was and neither did anyone at the grocery store, so instead I used about 10 ounces fat free low sodium chicken broth)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Put all ingredients in a dutch oven.
2. Cook at 350 degrees for one hour, stirring halfway through.

I told you this was easy!!

Ingredients before:

Our dutch oven:

And the finished product:

The rice was done before the chicken, so we just let it sit (with cover on) until chicken was cooked. The dutch oven kept the rice hot for a half hour before serving.

Cheesy Baked Chicken with Stuffing

Ingredients:

• 6 chicken breasts, filleted.
• 1 can Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup (I used the low fat, low sodium version)
• 1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup (I used the low fat, low sodium version)
• Sliced Swiss cheese (about 1/4 pound)
• 1/2 can skim milk
• 1 canister Stouffer's stuffing
• Less than 1/4 cup canola oil

Directions:

1. Fillet chicken breasts and put on bottom of oven pan (this amount of chicken ended up making enough to fill a lasagna pan and a 9 by 9 pan).
2. Place Swiss cheese slices on top of the chicken breasts.
3. Mix together both cans of Campbell's soup and 1/2 can of milk. Pour on top of chicken and cheese.
4. Mix stuffing with oil (use just enough to make moist) and distribute evenly in pan(s).
5. Cover with tin foil and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour (until cooked through). Remove tin foil for last 10-15 minutes of cooking so stuffing gets crunchy.

 

Dinner is served:

The baked rice was so delicious (there is something about butter and slow-cooked onions that makes everything taste amazing) and the cheesy baked chicken with stuffing was wonderful too! This is the perfect meal for a cold fall evening, and can be thrown into the oven in 10 minutes. For a vegetable we had organic mixed greens with heirloom cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and red pepper.

For dessert Krissy made pumpkin pie bars, which were so great! I don't have a picture of them, but she did give me the recipe, so I'm hoping to make them sometime in the next week.

On Saturday I got up nice and early, did some things around the house, hit the gym, and got ready for my lunch and movie date with Steph. After the gym I wanted a light snack to hold me over until lunch, so I made a little whole wheat pita sandwich using the roasted red pepper hummus and salad fixings from the night before.

Yum! I also made some more baked pita chips to bring to the movies, and this time I opted for sweet instead of spicy. I swapped out the olive oil and spices for some melted butter and cinnamon and sugar.

Before being cooked:

Flip them halfway:

And packaged for our purses!

These were very good, so much better than anything you can buy at the movies! We saw Morning Glory, which I'd been wanting to see because I love Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford. The movie ended up being more of a predictable chick flick then I'd hoped it would be, but it was definitely still enjoyable.