Fajita Chicken

Johnny B's Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Eating: Number 2

For those looking to eat real, affordable food that they can cook themselves with a busy life, here is my biggest source of meals throughout the week: FAJITA CHICKEN.

Fajita chicken requires a couple things besides ingredients: a George Foreman-type grill, and the foresight to marinate the chicken a day or two before cooking. You can cook it on a skillet, but this takes forever, and burns the outside. So, pick up a double-sided electric grill at a thrift store for $5. You'll save more than that the first week you eat this instead of going out!

Here's the process:

Buy some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Frozen or fresh, but avoid chicken "tenders." They're just cut into smaller pieces, and they cost more. I get a 5-pound bag at Wal-mart and keep it in the freezer, thawing 6 or so at a time. It should cost about $2/pound - incredible value for meat.

Pop the chicken in a gallon Zip-loc bag, add ~1/4 cup water and a splash of olive oil (optional), and dump in a packet of taco seasoning (about $0.75). Close the bag and mush it around till the seasoning is thoroughly distributed. Put the bag in the fridge and leave it for a day or 2. Don't forget about it! Raw chicken goes bad fast even in a fridge.

On cooking day, preheat your grill, and cook the chicken breasts for 10 to 12 minutes. Sometimes there are really thick pieces, so I'll cut into them to make sure they're not a little translucent in the middle.

Set the cooked pieces on a plate and let them cool. Then cut them into strips or smallish cubes, dump them into a leftover container, and keep it in the fridge. Voila! You have the core of a full meal sitting there, available to pull out at a moment's notice!

Here's what I do with the cooked, sliced pieces:

• Fajitas. This requires tortillas, cheese, sour cream.. whatever else I want to put on them. I don't do this much anymore - too much time to prepare.
• Mexican Rice Bowl. This has staved off starvation on many a rushed afternoon. I often have cooked rice in the fridge, and I just dump some into a leftover container, throw in some chicken, cheese and sour cream (salsa if I have it), and heat it in the microwave. Filling, easy to eat in the car, and delicious.
• Fajita Chicken Salad. A staple of my diet. Chop/tear up some lettuce, chop up some vegetables if you have them (broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, celery, etc.), and top with chicken chunks and some ranch. I also add cheese, sour cream (less salt than ranch), salsa if I have it, and crushed-up tortilla chips (so good!). For a bonus, microwave the chicken and cheese separately and dump on top. Tasty, and lots of veggies!

That's it, folks. Marinade (5 minutes & thinking ahead), cook (~30 minutes), and use (4 minutes for rice bowl, ~10 minutes for salad). Chicken is cheap, lean, and you control the amount of sodium in it. With cheese and dressing it's a bit salty, but still a far cry from a burger and fries, or anything at Taco Bell. A few strips put over a big salad is as healthy a meal as you could want while still feeding an active human.

That's it for now. Eat well! Don't cave to the system of over-priced prepared foods!

Cool Fruit Smoothies

Johnny B's Tips for Healthy & Thrifty Eating: First Edition

It's starting to warm up (at least here in Tennessee), and when you start craving something cool and refreshing, don't run to Sweet CeCe's or DQ! Make a smoothie at home, with about 50¢ worth of supplies!

[Note: this tip requires a modicum of foresight. Have a couple bananas a day past ripe? Got some fresh berries at a good price? Got a can of peaches sitting around? Lay them out on a tray and pop them in the freezer. Once they're frozen, stash them in a Zip-Loc bag for some future date. It will be well worth your while.]

Two weeks later, it's 85°, sunny, and you want a cool treat. You're in luck! Grab that bag of frozen fruit, your jug of milk, and a couple ice cubes. Unless you have a top-notch blender, start with the ice first. This works for food processors or blenders, food processors just require more patience to get things blended up well. Blast the ice until it's not getting any smaller, then add the frozen fruit, bananas last. The point is to put the stickiest/wettest things in LAST, so everything else can get busted up pretty well by bouncing around and hitting the blades. SO, go ice, then, say, strawberries, then peach slices, then banana chunks, stopping and stirring as necessary to break up clumps. I even shake my Cuisinart while it's running, to dislodge things. At last, pour in just enough milk to make a homogeneous mixture. You will find, to your delight, a thick, smooth creamy treat more like ice-cream than your typical watery smoothie. You can add more milk to make it runnier, if you want. I like mine thick like frozen yogurt.

Here's a ratio I've used with good success (makes 1 big serving):

3 ice cubes

5 to 8 strawberries (sliced and frozen)

4 peach slices

~1/3 cup whole milk (whole milk = very rich and creamy)

If you're looking to be knocked over the head with intense flavor, this isn't it. But if you want a COOL, HEALTHY, CHEAP snack, plus the satisfaction of making something yourself and beating the over-priced retail food market, this is it!

Additions to try:

Vanilla extract

Fruit jam to intensify the flavor

Lemon or lime juice to intensify the tartness

Honey if you really want more sweetness (dont' give in! Train your tastebuds!)

If you try this, let me know how it turns out! If you have any requests for ways to eat healthily and cheaply, let me know, and I'll try to cover them.

Cheers