A Twist on Lasagna

You're probably used to getting Mexican-themed recipes from me. Well, here's another one! This time, I do a remix on lasagna. And it's pretty easy to put together!

Salsa Verde Lasagna (Makes 9 servings)

• 12 whole wheat lasagna noodles, uncooked
• 2 12.5-oz. cans of chicken
• 2 16-oz. jars of salsa verde
• 1.5 cups of reduced-fat cheese
• Minced garlic, to taste
• Diced onion (dessicated), to taste
• Salt, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Drain chicken and place in a large bowl. Break into chunks. Add one jar of salsa verde, and the garlic, onion and salt; mix well.
3. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray, and add salsa verde from the second jar to the pan, about one-third of the jar, more than enough to cover the bottom.
4. Add 3 lasagna noodles, top with a third of the chicken mixture. Add 3 more noodles, top with another third of the remaining chicken mixture. Add 3 more noodles, top with the rest of the chicken mixture.
5. Add the final 3 noodles. Top with the remaining salsa verde. Top with the cheese.
6. Bake until noodles are tender.

With a salad or a side of vegetables, this is a reasonable Weight Watchers meal. To tone down the heat of the salsa, you could mix in fat-free sour cream to the chicken and salsa mixture, or top your serving of the lasagna with 1/4 cup of fat-free sour cream. Buen provecho!

Mexican Trifecta

Here are a few Mexican-themed recipes for ya. I made a Mexican feast last night!

Marinade for Taco/Fajita Meat

• 1 T canola or vegetable oil
  
• 3 T hot sauce
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 T ground cumin
• 1 T minced garlic
• 1 T dry minced onion (or fresh onion, chopped; I'd go with at least 1/4 cup of fresh)

Mix the ingredients together and add to at least 1 lb. of meat. Marinade can be used with poultry or beef.

Marinate for at least 20 minutes, or as long as 24 hours. Grill meat when ready to cook. You can then slice the meat to put in soft corn or flour tortillas for tacos or fajitas, respectively. Or, you could serve the cuts of meat as-is with side dishes.


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Pineapple Salsa

• 1 ripe pineapple, peeled and cored
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro (leaves and stems), packed tightly
• 1/3 cup red onion, diced
  

Dice the pineapple. Finely dice the jalapeno. (Seed the jalapeno if you want a less spicy salsa; if you want some heat, you can include some of the seeds.) Finely dice the red onion. Finely chop the cilantro.

Mix everything together in a bowl and chill the salsa for at least an hour. After chilling, add salt, lime juice and/or cayenne pepper to taste if desired.

This can be eaten with tortilla chips or served on top of grilled pork or poultry.


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Salsa Bean Salad

• 1 15-0z can of pinto beans
• 1 large, ripe red tomato
• 1/4 cup cilantro, tightly packed
• 1/3 cup red onion, diced finely
• 1 lime
• Salt
• Cayenne pepper
• 2 scallion stalks (optional)
  

Drain the pinto beans and place the drained beans in a medium-sized bowl.
Seed the tomato and dice it finely; add to the beans. Chop the cilantro finely and add to the bowl. Chop the cilantro finely and add to the mixture.
Juice the lime and add the juice to the bowl. Chop the scallions (white and green parts) and add at this time, if using.
Chill the salad for at least an hour. After chilling, add salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

Note: You can make a delicious fresh tomato salsa using this recipe by omitting the beans.

Easy Tortilla Chips

I made lunch for my husband this morning, a Mexican feast with chicken tacos and tortilla chips. But rather than break out a bag of greasy chips, I whipped them up in the microwave.

In 2 minutes of cooking time, you can have crisp, low-fat corn tortilla chips! All you need is taco-sized corn tortillas. These are the flat discs of corn that you heat in the oven to make soft tacos, as opposed to a box of the already crisped taco shells. I can get a bag of 36 of the soft corn tortillas from my local Aldi for less than $1.50. You'll see that this will keep you in tortilla chips for a long time.

Here's what to do:

• Get two to four tortillas, depending on how hungry you are.
• If desired, cut the tortillas into triangles. Cut in half, stack the halves and cut those in half. (If you want, you can cut smaller by stacking the quarters and cutting them into half. Or, you could leave the tortillas whole to crumble in the end, if you're eating them with a tortilla soup, a taco salad or something similar.)
• Put the tortillas on a plate. This should be a Corelle plate (which I use), melamine or ceramic, as opposed to a paper plate or a foam one.
• Heat the tortilla pieces for 1 minute; turn them over and heat for another 30-60 seconds, or until crisp and dry from the steam created during cooking.

That's it! As I mentioned, you could crumble the hardened tortillas over tortilla soup or a taco salad, eat them with salsa as a snack (1/2 cup of a fat-free salsa is a generous portion), or make a nachos meal with reduced fat cheddar (1 oz., or 1/4 cup), fat-free sour cream (1/4 cup), veggie toppings and beans (pinto or black), grilled chicken or lean ground beef or turkey (3 oz.).

Buen provecho!

White Chili With Chicken

This one was not only easy, it was economical, too!

• Half-pound of frozen grilled chicken breast strips
• 1 15-oz can of white beans, drained (Great Northern, small white, cannelini—any type will do)
• Jar of salsa verde
• Diced red onion to taste
• Cilantro to taste

1. Heat the chicken in the microwave; dice into small pieces and add to a bowl.
2. Add in the salsa verde.
3. Add the red onion.
4. Add the cilantro.

When I made this, I actually didn't cook anything, besides the chicken. I just heated the end product in the microwave when ready to serve. I served it with corn tortillas crisped in the microwave, and low-fat cheddar cheese.

Easy Fajitas

I mean really easy:

• Frozen precooked, pre-sliced, grilled chicken breast (I purchased this wonderful find from ALDI and used maybe 3/4 of a 2- to 3-lb. bag)
• Frozen bag of sliced peppers and onions (Probably 12 oz. Sorry, I'll have to pay attention to quantities and sizes more!)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• Garlic powder to taste
  
• Small corn tortillas
  

Heat the oil and add the chicken and vegetables. Stir until everything is coated with the oil. Add the garlic powder. Cover the mixture but check back regularly to stir. Cook until the meat and veggies are thawed and everything is heated through, not more than 15-20 mins.
Heat the tortillas in the microwave and add the meat and veggies mixture. Voila! I guesstimate the meat/veggies mixture is enough for about 10 fajitas.

Getting the Most for Your Money

My grocery store is Shop Rite, and their sales start on Sundays. I made a special trek there yesterday morning to take advantage of a sale on pork loin. A 99-cents-a-pound deal? I'm there!

To my surprise, these were whole pork loins instead of remnants, monstrosities of many pounds. I figured I could cut one up and use it for several meals. And that's exactly what I did with my $13 hunk of meat. I slow cooked a pound worth of it (more on that later) and cut the rest into 3 roasts.

With the pork loin on Sunday, plus a sale on ground turkey for which I grabbed 5 packages costing less than $2 each, my freezer is now full! These finds join about 6 packages of meatballs, boneless chicken breast, other assorted chicken parts, turkey and chicken burgers, assorted veggies and tater tots, and pita bread for pizzas. Freezer bags are my friends--I generally take the ground meat and burgers out of the pillow packs. I also buy large packages of chicken quarters when they're on sale, cut them into the separate drumsticks and thighs myself, and freeze them in bags.

So for pork hunk #1: I trimmed the visible fat off of it and did a mock rotisserie in my slow cooker. I first learned about this method from the Weight Watchers message boards, for chicken. Basically you spray your slow cooker all around with cooking spray, then set foil coils in the slow cooker for the meat to sit on. Season the meat with spices, then spray with cooking spray. Set it on the coils and cook on high for 4-6 hours, depending on how big the piece of meat is.

I wanted to make a Latin-spiced pork loin, so I added salt, pepper, garlic and cumin. Once the meat was finished, I got it in my mind to make a Latin pork fried rice. That experiment went well!