Perfect Summer Dinner

Soooo YUM!  I made the PERFECT SUMMER DINNER tonight!!! My boyfriend rated it a perfect 10 and asked me to make more for him to take for lunch this week.  It all started with a bit of a debacle…I THOUGHT I was thawing fish for dinner, but when it was done thawing and I reached in the freezer bag to pull out the filet’s I found CHICKEN instead of fish.  I was upset for about a minute but then I remembered that I had a chicken recipe that I had been DYING to try!

The recipe is actually from Devin Alexander’s book I Can’t Believe it’s Not Fattening! Devin Alexander is actually the mind behind The Biggest Loser Cookbook and also has several other cookbooks published under her own name.  The recipe is SUPER simple and takes about 15 minutes TOTAL to prepare!!!

Preheat your oven to 350F

Take a skillet at drizzle a little EVOO on the bottom and turn to medium heat.

Take your trimmed, boneless chicken breasts and season with a little salt and pepper.

Sear the chicken in the pan for a few minutes on each side (a few minutes on each side).

Remove from the heat and top with either tomato slices or canned diced tomatoes (her recipe calls for the canned, I didn’t have any so I used fresh) and crumbled goat cheese.

Put the skillet in the oven for 5-9 minutes until the cheese is melted and the chicken is no longer pink.

Top with chopped herbs (optional…I forgot this step)

Here’s what it looks like fresh out of the oven!

To compliment the chicken I decided to try and replicate a yummy salad that I had recently at Champps, with a few changes.

The salad that I had was their Chopped Salad Americana and it was chopped lettuce, dried cranberries, sliced apples, candied pecans, bacon, chicken and blue cheese tossed in honey mustard dressing.

Well I was missing the dressing, the blue cheese and the candied pecans (and omitted the chicken since we were having it as the main course) but I made it work and I actually liked mine better!!!

In the mix:

romaine lettuce, torn not chopped

dried cranberries

slivered almonds

thinly sliced Pink Lady apple (about half the apple)

1 and a half pieces of well done bacon, crumbled

goat cheese

all tossed with….

Let me tell you, this salad was OUT. OF.  THIS..WORLD!!!!!!!!!

Check it out

Close up!

And the finished plate

Another close up!

So yes..the perfect summer dinner 🙂

You’ll notice that the quality of my pictures have improved (hopefully) right?  I busted out my DSLR…I figured I should start taking my food photography a little more seriously 🙂

For those of you that are curious the nutritional info for the chicken (courtesy of I Can’t Believe it’s Not Fatting!)

171 calories, 29 g protein, 2 g carbohydrates, 4 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 72 mg cholesterol, trace fiber, 198 mg sodium

Not bad!!!

If you want to check out her book you can order it here

Oh by the way, since it’s WEIGH IN WEDNESDAY, my boyfriend weighed in and he lost 2 POUNDS!  I’m so proud of him, he’s thinking of starting a blog too, I’ll make sure that I link it when he does.

What are some of your favorite summer dishes?

Which City is the Fattest in America?

Men’s Health magazine recently ran an article which listed the top 10 fattest cities, as well as the top 10 leanest cities in America.  Their findings were based off several statistics:

• The number of people diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes
• The percentage of a city’s population that is overweight
• The amount of money spent on junk food per city (via the Bureau of Labor Statistics )
• The number of people who dine on fast food at least nine times per month (via Mediamark)
• The percentage of people who haven’t left the couch in a month (via CDC Behavioral Risk Surveillance System which is an ongoing telephone survey)

If you’re a fan of the Biggest Loser (I didn’t start watching until this season, and now I’m hooked) you’ll remember that they did an episode recently based off the results of this survey.  They went to Texas to help motivate the people there to live healthier lives because FIVE of the ten fattest cities in America are in Texas.  The episode was very heartfelt and motivational and I loved that they showed were some of those people are now and that they have made changes in their lives to live a healthier lifestyle and to ultimately save their lives.

The Top 10 Fattest Cities in America

1.  Corpus Christi, TX
2.  Charelston, WV
3.  El Paso, TX
4.  Dallas, TX
5.  Memphis, TN
6.  Kansas City, MO
7.  San Antonino, TX
8.  Baltimore, MD
9.  Houston, TX
10.  Birmingham, AL

The Top 10 Leanest Cities in America

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Burlington, VT
3. Washington, DC
4. Seattle, WA
5. Austin, TX
6. Albuquerque, NM
7. Portland, OR
8. Cincinnati, OH
9. Denver, CO
10. Aurora, CO

    Where does your city fall on this list?  I live near Chicago and I would say that there’s a pretty even mix of healthy lean people and overweight people.  I loved San Fransisco, and I can understand why they hold the title of the number one leanest city, when I was out there people were walking, running and biking everywhere and I had never seen so much locally grown, organic food in my life.  Its definitely and ideal setting for a healthy lifestyle.