Chicken Gloria

Chicken Gloria has obviously become really popular on Pinterest. It kept popping up in the Food & Drink category, and the picture looked really delicious so I visited this blog multiple times, mainly because my iPad ONE kept shutting down my Pinterest app... incredibly annoying. It was really simple and obviously I didn't have all of the ingredients exactly, so substitute I did. I swear I rarely have everything that a recipe calls for, but this still tasted very good. I didn't take step-by-step pictures this time, but I did think these pics of what I would call a casserole turned out relatively pretty. I served it over brown rice and garnished with parsley. Since cream of mushroom soup is only 90 calories a serving and I used chicken breast tenderloins and skim milk, it really wasn't too terrible for you. Charlie loved the Chicken Gloria, but I'm starting to think maybe he's not a good scale for judging the quality of my food, because he literally likes and eats everything.

Big pan of awesome. I love really hot, wet foods. Sounds weird, but true.

 

A bird's eye view of my plate.

So I totally recommend following the instructions for Chicken Gloria from this blog, since she totally created this recipe. But if you want to see the types of substitutions I made, here is my recipe... which worked out lovely:

Chicken Gloria

• Chicken breast tenderloins
• Flour (season it)
• Olive oil and Butter (enough to brown chicken and cook mushrooms)
• 8 oz. container of Mushrooms (I used Baby Bellas)
• 1/2 cup Marsala wine (had this leftover forever; any fortified wine would work)
• Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• Shredded mozzarella
• Parsley
• Salt and Pepper (duh)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Dredge seasoned chicken breasts in flour and brown in a combination of oil and butter. They don't need to be cooked through because you're gonna put them in a small casserole dish next.  Remove chicken from pan (obviously).

Add butter to pan and brown chopped mushrooms. They should be golden when you add the Marsala. Reduce for a minute and then add the cream of mushroom and the milk. Mix until blended. Taste and season if needed.

Pour sauce over the chicken breasts in the pan you plan to bake in. Seal with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Uncover the chicken, sprinkle a good amount of cheese on top of each chicken breast and cook uncovered until melted and browned. It will look like it's ready to be eaten... I may have even thrown on the broiler (but do not forget it! I almost did).

Add parsley to make pretty and serve over rice. Or egg noodles... they'd probably be good too. Hell, maybe even whole wheat penne.

Profile picture of my meal

See... almost burned the top. Almost!

Delicious and Beautiful. Especially with that parsley.

Healthy Healthy, or The Most Boring Post Ever

Between trying to catch up on my Bar prep and recover from the weekend, I haven't posted my meals in a couple of days. Well, it hasn't been that exciting. The trip to Aldi on Monday brought a lot of good fruits and vegetables back to the study den, and that night for dinner we had butternut squash soup (out of a box) and sandwiches with some leftover bacon, cheddar cheese, and wheat bread (and some of that chipotle yogurt sauce I still have leftover). It was good but I was too tired (and really sore from all the activities from the weekend- umm wrestling?) to take nice pics of them and try to make it look like a fancier meal than it was. We were just trying to survive at that point. Things have picked up since then and I've revived myself with healthy foods, running, and sitting by the pool. Studying the whole time, of course. We had another salad on Tuesday- many chopped vegetables, more homemade tzatziki, and chicken. Pretty boring but I kind of gorged myself over the weekend. Also, the new snack of choice is now cherries! They are so good. So so good. And a 1 lb bag at Aldi was only $2.99.

One of the Top 3 best kitchen appliances.
Others include the Kitchenaid mixer (obviously) and immersion blender.

Salad, blah blah salad. It was good, but it was still a salad. (I may have put part of mine at a tortilla at one point).
Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, avocados, spinach, lettuce, chicken, feta.

Added feta to go along with the tza.

 

Breakfast of not-yet-champions. This is enough for an hour or so. Then I cook an egg.

Don't worry, I'm not dead yet from all this rabbit food. Last night we went to Provence in Carrboro with Matt. I have many pictures. As soon as I am caught up on my studies, I shall post. It was very good French food. Pretty big time weeknight dinner.

The Boyfriend Cooks and the End of Torts (for now)

It took me from about 7:00am to 6:00pm, but I finished the Torts section that lasted 3 days (except for completing that heavily discussed one-page study guide) and I got done with the Contracts Foundation course. It was rough. Between eating regular meals and going to the gym, there ain't much time for anything else. I did pretty excellent on the torts quiz if I do say so myself, but tomorrow begins the "deep dive" into Contracts. Vomit.

We agreed last night that the boyfriend would cook dinner... based on what I had planned that is. Kidding, it was very good and surprisingly filling for a salad. He cooked the fresh sweet corn we bought last week and some chicken to go on top of an iceberg and spinach salad with tomatoes and avocado. He even used some of the leftover tza as a "base" salad dressing, meaning he mixed up all of the stuff/vegetables in it until lightly coated. I put way too much of that spicy chipotle-greek yogurt sauce (that I made last week) on my salad, and my nose was running by the end of the meal. REAL spicy. However, the addition of Ranch dressing to that mix made for an excellent combination of flavors. [I mean, come on, chipotle-ranch is critical.] I'll have to remember that. It's SO southwest, Bobby Flay would be proud [yeah right, like Bobby eats Ranch dressing. Also, the Internet is ambiguous on whether or not to capitalize "ranch" in this context]. I tried my best on these lovely pics, as Charlie tried his best on this meal:

Wait for it....

Okay, we are in business now. I just got a new photo editing app [Aviary]. This is the only pic of this blog post that uses it, but you can damn sure tell a difference. Will be using it again soon. Again, this is still the salad plain, wait for it...



It doesn't look like a lot, but that chipotle sauce will burn you up. Yes, this amount only.

Oh, and again I'll be having leftovers during bar-studying tomorrow... for the fifth day in a row. It is very convenient though. And quick. Maybe tomorrow I'll have my roasted red pepper tomato soup outta the box alongside the salad with its all of two chunks of chicken that are left after tonight. Based on my progession in the studying routine right now, it looks like I'll have some catching up to do over the weekend (womp womp), but for once I am not going out of town. The good news: dinner date night for tomorrow is still happening anddddd a FOOD TOUR of downtown Durham is on for Saturday afternoon. Get ready for pics on pics on pics. [I'm writing this like I have an audience... nerd.]