Healthy Chicken Parmesan

Well, I haven't cooked an original meal in quite a few days. There have been a lot of meals out, scrounging for food, unoriginal salads with added protein, and other excuses not to cook. Today though, was rainy and just begging for a good comfort meal.

I don't know about you, but Italian food just screams comfort food to me. Something about the warm richness, the interplay between cheese and red sauce, it just does something for me. So when I came across this really easy and healthy recipe, I decided to try it out. It's not quite as rich as many chicken parm recipes, but that's probably because it is really straightforward and is so low cal. Try it, because it's surprisingly delicious and filling.

Ingredients

1 pound chicken (about three breasts each cut in half)

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

2/3 cup parmesan cheese, divided

1tsp flour

basil

oregano

rosemary

salt

pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425.

2. In a shallow baking dish, place chicken breasts in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper followed by a mixture of 1/3 cup parmesan cheese and flour.

3. Bake for about 20 minutes or until they start just getting browned on the top.

4. While the chicken is cooking, mix the tomatoes and herbs in a saucepan. Heat to a boil and then simmer on low heat until slightly reduced. I mixed the herbs until I got a taste I liked. The recipe called for garlic, too, but the garlic I had went bad, so I skipped it.

5. Remove chicken from oven and pour the sauce over it. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Reduce the temperature to 360, and then bake for about 15 more minutes.

6. Serve with veggies of your choice. Also, help yourself to two servings if you're hungry. There's plenty of wiggle room with these!

Nutritional Info (Makes 6 Servings)

Calories: 116

Total Fat: 1.0 g

Cholesterol: 43 mg

Sodium: 83 mg

Total Carbohydrates: 5.5g

Dietary Fiber 2.2g

Sugars: 3.3g

Protein: 17.3g

Vitamin A: 9%

Vitamin C: 9%

Calcium: 1%

Iron: 3%

Lasagna Roll Ups

Here's another great recipe for leftovers. I like making dishes in big batches, so I don't have to cook every night if I don't want to, and so that the husband has some healthy lunches for work.

This one I got from Caloriecount.com, but have adapted to add meat for more protein, and expand for more servings.

Ingredients:

12 lasagna noodles

12 oz fat free ricotta cheese (The recipe called for 14, but I actually used closer to 12 oz, mostly because I used the ricotta in another dish a week or two ago.)

three cups spinach (I used fresh spinach and tore the leaves by hand.)

4 oz reduced fat mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1 medium egg

14 oz pasta sauce (The recipe called for a full bottle of pasta sauce, but I only ended up using about half that amount. You can add if you like, but I don't like too much sauce on mine.)

1 pound lean ground beef (You can of course skip this for an even healthier version. I'll include the nutrition information for both at the bottom.)

Directions:

1. Cook lasagna noodles according to the package directions. (Basically boil for about 10-12 minutes.)

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. While water is boiling and oven is heating, in a large skillet, brown the ground beef, draining off any excess oil when done.

4. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, spinach, egg, and cooked ground beef.

5. When noodles are done cooking, rinse them with cold water and spread out on a clean towel. You don't want them to stick to each other, and it's much easier to work with cooled noodles.

6. In a glass baking dish or two, pour about 1/2 cup of pasta sauce on the bottom of each, and spread it out so it covers the dish.

7. Spread the cheese and beef mixture on each cooked pasta noodle, like so.

8. Roll the cheesy noodles up into rolls.

9. Set in to the dish, seam side down (This will prevent them from unrolling while they cook.) and top with the rest of the pasta sauce (or with however much you want).

10. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes. The cheese will be nice and gooey and melted by then.

11. Enjoy!

Again, these make great lunches and are delicious single serve lasagna treats.

Nutrition Facts: with/without beef

makes 12 servings

Calories: 255/150

Total Fat: 11.6/4.7g

Saturated Fat: 5.1/2.5g

Cholesterol: 64/30mg

Sodium: 237/201mg

Total Carbs: 17.7/17.7g

Dietary Fiber: 1.1/1.1g

Sugars: 1.9/1.9g

Protein: 19.3/9.3g

Vitamin A: 21%

Vitamin C: 4/5%

Calcium: 18/17%

Iron: 13/7%