Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Aloha!

With the recent trend of "deceptive cooking," I've found a way to try and include veggies I normally can't tolerate in our diet. I've always had an issue with the textures of foods, especially anything slippery or slimy like pudding, jello, yogurt, pumpkin pie, squash, etc. However, I know that I need to be able to get things like pumpkin, squash, beets & spinach into my system. So when I saw "Deceptively Delicious" on the shelf at the grocery store (and for a discount), I decided to grab it. I'd also gotten a "sneaky veggies" type book at the library, but the Seinfeld book looked more appetizing.

The basic premise is that you steam your veggies and puree them. Then you include the puree's in other foods that you would normally make. So my first recipe was for Aloha Chicken Kabobs, although I just did them as chicken nuggets.

1 cup bread crumbs (whole wheat if you can find them)
1/4 flaxseed meal
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 cup pureed pineapple
1 TBSP low sodium soy sauce
1 large egg white
1/4 unsweetened coconut (if you can't find that, just rinse the sweet coconut)
1 pound chicken breast, rinsed, dried, & cut into fingers or nuggets
1/4 tsp salt
2 TBSP flour
1 TBSP olive oil

1. IN a bowl, mix the crumbs & flax meal and set aside.
2. IN a second bowl, combine the sweet potato and pineapple, soy, egg, & coconut. Mix with a fork.
3. Sprinkle both sides of the chicken pieces with salt & then flour. Dip the chciken into the puree mixture and then roll it in the breadcrumbs until fully coated.
4. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cookin spray and set it over medium high heat. When the pan is hot, add the olive oil.
5. Addthe chicken in a single layer and brown for 3-4 minutes on one side, until the coating is crisp & golden (reduce heat if browning too quickly). Turn the skewers and cook 4-5 minutes on the second side, until the chicken is cooked through and browned all over.

These were REALLY good. The pineapple was subtle but tasty. Hubby LOVED these.

To puree the sweet potato: Cut the potato into 1-2 inch chunks. Steam until soft. Peel off the skin & place flesh in blender. Puree, adding small amounts of the steaming water if necessary to make mixture more moist.

I don't have a photo right now, but I'll be making these again, so I'll post one later.

3 comments:

Laura said...

What is flaxseed meal? And it's a 1/4 what? Cup?

zebe912 said...

Oops. Flaxseed meal is just ground up flax seeds. You can get it in bulk at foods for living (in other words you can buy just the amount you need) or I've seen it occasionally at Meijer in the "healthy" section of the baking aisle. I"ve been told it can spoil though since it is high in oil content or something, so it is good to store in the freezer.

And yes, a 1/4 cup.

Nikki57 said...

You've been tagged

http://crazydeliciousfood.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/ive-been-tagged/