Summertime Salsa

Easter is the one holiday where my dad doesn’t cook. Instead, my entire family goes to my aunt’s house for dinner, and it’s a good thing we do or else I would have never tried this salsa! I have a large family and were all in the kitchen trying to help my aunt finish dinner. My sister and I helped finish a black bean and corn salsa by cutting up avocado, red onion, tomato and a jalapeno pepper.  It took us less than five minutes to do and afterwords my aunt mixed all the ingredients in a bowl and served the salsa with tortilla chips. It's a healthy appetizer made of fresh veggies and perfect for summer. The salsa could even be turned into a light meal by serving it over a salad. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 avocado, diced
• 1 cup frozen sweet corn, thawed
• 1 cup kidney beans, black beans or pinto beans
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
• 1/2 large tomato, seeded and chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 2 tbsp freshly chopped cilantro

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Recommendation: we used black beans when making the salsa and I wouldn’t have changed a thing

Chicken, Broccoli and Rice

Growing up, one of my favorite meals was broccoli, chicken and rice. Even to this day, my mom makes it for me every time I go home for break. I recently asked her for the recipe, and found out it was really easy to make. The recipe is so simple, consisting on only 4 ingredients! However, even though it lacks ingredients, it doesn’t lack taste. I made the recipe last night and my roommates finished everything, they loved it!

Ingredients:

4 cups Broccoli

2 Chicken Breasts

1 cup Rice

2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup

Preheat oven to 350°, cook rice as directed by package, and boil 8 cups water. Trim stalk of broccoli and cut chicken into cubes. Add broccoli to boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to chicken for taste. Butter a pan and cook chicken on medium heat. Pour thoroughly cooked chicken and broccoli into an oven safe dish and cover with cream of mushroom soup. Bake for 15-20 minutes and serve over rice.

I recommend Campbell’s low sodium cream of mushroom soup, it tastes the same as traditional cream of mushroom without the extra salt.

 

Chicken and Mushroom Pasta in a Vodka Sauce

I actually made this recipe up because I happened to have all these ingredients on hand and it seemed like they would meshed well together. I was right! The recipe turned out wonderfully and was so delicious. It was quick and easy to make, and had few ingredients. It took me less than a half hour to cook and clean up! My roommates loved this recipe as well and I’ve made it many times again. Also, there are plenty of left over’s, so you can reheat it the next day if you don’t feel like cooking or are in a rush.

                                                  

Ingredients:

1 large chicken breast

4 large mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1½ cup fresh or frozen spinach

olive oil

½ can vodka sauce

½ lb. pasta

Add ½ lb of pasta to boiling water and cook until noodles are al dente. Mince garlic cloves and cut chicken breast into cubes. Coat the bottom of a pan with olive oil and sauté garlic and chicken. Slice mushrooms and roughly chop spinach and add to pan containing chicken and garlic. Pour vodka sauce and pasta over the chicken, mushrooms, spinach and garlic. Reduce heat to simmer and cover for 10 minutes.  

* I use and recommend victoria’s vodka sauce

Real vs Canola

I've always been a huge mayonnaise fan. I mix mayo in ketchup to make dipping sauce and even put it on my burgers. I was brought up eating Hellmann's Real mayonnaise, and typically stick to tradition, but I recently decided to try Hellmann's Canola Mayonnaise. If the bottle had said low fat, I would have never made the switch. In my opinion switching from real to low fat anything usually means skipping out on taste with the addition of artificial chemicals. However, in this situation low fat is both healthier and better. Canola Mayo tastes exactly the same as real with the bonus of less calories and less cholesterol. 1 tablespoon of Real Hellmann's mayo has 90 calories with 100% of those calories coming from fat which include saturated fats. 1 tablespoon also contains 2% of your daily value of cholesterol, although 2% doesn't seem to be a large number when put into perspective 2% of your total daily value comes from only 1 tablespoon of food! Hellmann's Canola Mayo, on the other hand, contains no Cholesterol and contains half the calories per tablespoon as real mayonnaise. Also, instead of 90 calories from fat, canola mayo only contains 40 calories from fat with no saturated fats, making Canola mayo one lower calorie substitution that's worth the switch!