Happy Wednesday! Now for a great hump day treat I am going to share with you all what I normally eat during the week for lunch. Now if you ask any of my family members as a child I hated vegetables. You couldn’t pay me to eat one even if I got just plain pasta at a restaurant and they put any green on it as a garnish I wouldn’t eat it. Yes I was one of those kids when it came to certain things. However, I now eat vegetables every single day. I try to have for lunch everyday a protein and a veggie. Now for some of you who don’t necessarily like veggies there are so many ways to eat them that you didn’t think of before. Like if you don’t like steaming your vegetables another great way to eat them is by cooking them in the oven. Another way to eat veggies that is a huge craze is by spiraling them. I saw a 4 year old eating a plate full of zucchini pasta out at a restaurant and he had no idea because it was spiraled and he thought it looked fun to eat. So today for lunch I made it simple. I took a little bit of olive oil and coconut oil and drizzled it over some broccoli and cut zucchini in a baking pan that I normally use for brownies. I lined it with aluminum foil to help make it less messy. I know that coconut oil is better for you, but I with certain things I still don’t fully like the taste of it if there isn’t any olive oil in it so I am slowly transition all my veggies being cooked with coconut oil. I set the oven to 400 degrees and every 5 – 8 minutes I stir them around so they don’t stick to the pan and also so they brown on both sides. While the veggies are cooking I heat up a small fry pan with some coconut oil and I grill some onions. Now I am like my father where I like my onions cooked well done to the point where they are almost black in color. Once the veggies are close to being done in the oven and the onions are almost done cooking I add a ¼ tsp of chopped garlic into the pan and then cut up raw chicken. I found that the coconut oil and the onions with the garlic gives the chicken enough flavor. The vegetables in the oven shouldn’t take more than 20 – 25 minutes tops. You should always have some sort of protein and vegetable in the middle of your day especially at work because it will help boost your energy. Hope everyone is having a great day! <3
Hump Day Treat: Garlic Chicken Pesto Pasta
It’s Wednesday and you know what that means? Time for a hump day treat recipe that I am sure you are all going to love. I am constantly trying to find new recipes and new things to make that are different from my everyday things that I cook. I am currently really into eating pesto, but even though people say pesto is really easy to make I still buy the jar of fresh pesto from the store. Here is a recipe that I saw from Tasty on Facebook that is Garlic Chicken pesto with whole-wheat pasta.
Ingredients:
1 box of whole-wheat pasta (bow ties or penne)
1 box of cherry tomatoes, cut up
1 tablespoon of canola oil
2 chicken breasts sliced thinly
2 tablespoons of garlic chopped
½ tablespoon of kosher salt
½ tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ cup of pesto
Parmesan cheese to garnish
Directions
- Heat a pot full of water with a little salt in it for the pasta
- Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box
- Drain the pasta and leave on the side for when you are done cooking the chicken
- Heat the oil in the pan
- Once the oil is hot put the chicken with the salt and pepper and garlic to cook until the chicken is browned
- Once the chicken is browned,mix in the heavy cream and pesto until everything is evenly combined
- Cook the chicken to a boil until the sauce has reduced for about 8 minutes
- In a bowl toss the pasta, cherry tomatoes and continue to stir until everything is evenly coated
- Sprinkle with a little bit of parmesan cheese
- ENJOY!
(picture taken from google)