1709 Tuesday with recipe

Saucy Scale: 7 

I dragged my lazy butt to the YMCA this morning.  It had been awhile.  I dropped the boys off at childcare & I headed down to the pool.  Where I was displeased to learn that my swimming cap & goggles were missing from my bag.  Bah.  I went out to the pool anyway & decided I’d just go tread water in the deep end for awhile.  I stepped out on the pool deck to what appeared to be hundreds and hundreds of children.  Grooooan.

I bypassed the pool and headed straight into the whirlpool.  It felt great to soak my weary foot.

I’ll have to plan better next time around. 

We had to make a quick stop at Trader Joe’s for a few things for tonight’s dinner.  I picked up a super cheap & really yummy bottle of white wine for a mere $3.99

Tonight’s Real Age/YOU: on a diet dinner was pretty tasty.

We had Cranberries, Walnuts, & Crumbled Cheese Over Greens (p. 275) with Apricot Chicken (p. 291) and brown rice

The salad is pretty basic.  I’ve made one like this for a long time.  I substituted goat cheese (because I love it & the fact that I accidently grabbed the wrong cheese from the fridge).  I made the dressing per the recipe & then decided that the greens were a little dry & sprinkled some additional balsamic vinegar over the salad.

Apricot Chicken

• 2 skinless/boneless chicken breasts (approx 4 ounces each)
• 4 dried apricots, chopped
• 2 tablespoons white wine
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Saute’ everything (except the chicken) until tender.  Transfer to blender or food processor and puree.  Spoon over chicken and bake at 375 degrees until chicken is done (15-20 minutes).

Here are my changes:

I didn’t have shallots, so I used chopped onion. 

I couldn’t get my bottle of wine open, so it was skipped, but I imagine it would’ve been tasty.  It also would’ve added some moisture to the sauce.

I ran out of cinnamon (HUH?) and replaced it with pumpkin pie spice (since it contains cinnamon). 

I’ll try it with the wine.  If I don’t like that, I’ll try lemon juice.

I will say that I like this sauce better than my own recipe for apricot chicken.  Go figure.

The own downside to all this healthy cooking: more dishes to wash!

2 Things That Make Me Happy…’cause my sleepy hubby wants to go to sleep:

1. Good stuff on the DVR
2. Blueberries are so sweet and yummy right now!