Ancho Chicken Tacos with Cilantro Slaw and Avocado Cream

It's a cold, wintery April 22nd.  To chase the blues, I wanted to make a fresh, exotic sounding meal.  It definitely worked! Yum!

Photo from today

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/4-inch strips
• 3/4 teaspoon ancho chile powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• Cooking spray
• 1/8 teaspoon grated lime rind
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided
• 1/4 cup light sour cream

• 2 tablespoons 1% low-fat milk
• 1/2 ripe peeled avocado, diced
• 2 cups packaged angel hair slaw
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 (6-inch) corn tortillas

Preparation

1. 1. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Sprinkle chicken evenly with chile powder, garlic salt, and cumin. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken to pan; cook 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove chicken from pan.
2. 2. Combine rind, 1 tablespoon juice, and next 3 ingredients (through avocado) in a blender or food processor; process until smooth.
3. 3. Combine remaining 1 tablespoon juice, slaw, onions, cilantro, oil, and salt, tossing to coat.
4. 4. Heat tortillas according to directions. Divide chicken mixture evenly among tortillas. Top each tortilla with about 1 tablespoon avocado mixture and 1/4 cup slaw mixture.
   

Good meatloaf

2 lbs. ground turkey
8 oz can of tomato sauce (I omitted this since I didn't have any)
3 T soy sauce 
1 T onion powder
1 T dried parsley (I just put in other random spices since I didn't have this- some red pepper flakes, Trader Joe's 21 seasoning salute, and a spicy pepper mix)
ground black pepper to taste
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 whole eggs (you could use Egg Beaters if you want... I used free range eggs)
1/2 c Parmesan cheese (you want the powdery kind, like Kraft in a can, not shreds. This is the binder).
1 piece of raw bacon (trust me. I used Hormel frozen bacon, 40 calories in 1 slice) cut up as fine as you can
I also put in some ketchup and yellow mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix everything together in a bowl. I use my hands. Mix, but not too much, because I've read that over mixing makes it not stay together well, which is what happened to me last time.

Put the mixture into a meatloaf dish. Smooth the top a bit. Bake uncovered for 1 hour 10 minutes. Let the meatloaf rest for 10 minutes, then serve. Yummy! (p.s... it does NOT taste like soy sauce. At all. So don't worry about that). Hope you enjoy it!

cauliflower mashed "potatoes"

Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes

I HATE CAULIFLOWER.  Ever since I was in elementary school, and there was cheesy sauce with globs that I thought were broccoli.  I bit into it expecting cheesy wonderful broccoli, and was shocked to find that it was gross cauliflower.  Also, I LOVE mashed potatoes.  I tried this recipe because my twinnie Corynn made it for her low-carb eating fiance and couldn't believe that it was actually good.  IT WAS.  I made it for my suspicious boyfriend, and he loved it too!  He wanted seconds, and wanted to save some for lunch the next day!  I loved it, too.  Success!  This is a good, healthier alternative to regular mashed potatoes.  I added cheese and garlic for extra measure.

Top with chives (or whatever you normally like on your mashed potatoes) and you’ve got one heck of a side dish.

cauliflower mashed "potatoes" recipe

Servings: 4 Prep Time: 8 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes

ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower3 tablespoons milk1 tablespoon butter2 tablespoons light sour cream1/4 teaspoon garlic saltfreshly ground black peppersnipped chives

directions:

1. Separate the cauliflower into florets and chop the core finely.

2. Bring about 1 cup of water to a simmer in a pot, then add the cauliflower. Cover and turn the heat to medium. Cook the cauliflower for 12-15 minutes or until very tender.

3. Drain and discard all of the water (the drier the cauliflower is, the better) and add the milk, butter, sour cream, salt and pepper and mash with a masher until it looks like "mashed potatoes." Top with chives.

http://www.steamykitchen.com/20966-cauliflower-mashed-potatoes-recipe.html