Salsa Chicken with Tortilla Black Beans & Rice – SUPER Easy

This is very similar to my Balsamic Chicken. What can I say, I like the ease of taking something simple (balsamic vinegar, salsa, salad dressing, etc.) and using it as-is for a marinade, it’s easy and tastes good.

For this one, I usually take about one cup of salsa (depending how many chicken breasts I’m cooking, but it’s usually 1-2) and let the chicken just soak it up. Again, the longer it marinates the better, but you can get away with 30-60 minutes.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes (or grill if you prefer).

For the super easy and quick dinner, serve this with some Spanish rice (this is actually one version of the Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice that I’m not a fan of, but if you don’t want to try making Spanish rice from scratch there are a variety of other easy mixes or pre-made options). I usually round out the meal with a salad, or some corn or some tortilla chips…whatever suits your mood.

Or you can serve this with my new Tortilla Black Beans & Rice; which is also pretty easy!

I really like salsa, so I make sure there is plenty of salsa on top of the chicken before I bake it.

Here's the recipe for my Tortilla Black Beans & Rice; I'll also be getting this new recipe posted up on Tasty Kitchen within a couple of days if you want a printer-friendly version to download.

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Tortilla Black Beans & Rice

1 bag Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice Brown Rice (can substitute with any brown rice)
1 can low sodium black beans; rinsed and drained
1 cup (or more or less to your liking) of your favorite salsa (I used Pace Medium Salsa)
1 cup crushed tortilla chips (my favorite is blue corn tortilla chips)
Optional: low fat sour cream

Optional: 1/8 cup shredded cheese
Optional: Corn

Heat the beans up in a pot over low to medium heat. As they start warming up, add in the salsa. Cook the rice in the microwave according to package and then dump into the pot with the beans and salsa. Stir everything together and turn the burner to low heat to keep it warm until ready to serve.

Just before serving mix in the crushed tortilla chips. I actually mix the crushed chips into each serving so that if there are any leftovers the chips don’t get soggy; then I just add more crushed chips in when I reheat the leftovers.

I also like to add in a dab of low-fat sour cream and mix it all up, it adds a nice contrast to the salsa; but it is also very good without the sour cream.

I haven’t tried this yet, but you could also top the mixture with a pinch of shredded cheese just before serving or you could also mix in corn or mexicorn with the beans and rice.

Tortilla Black Beans & Rice pictured above before sour cream was added.

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I hope you enjoy!

Dinner with a Tropical Twist

A while back I asked the fiancé to go through a few of my cookbooks and mark recipes that he thought sounded good. One of them was Mango Chipotle Pot Roast from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes. It is a gluten-free recipe which would made it perfect for dinner Friday night since my parents were coming over.

I also remembered a recipe I’d wanted to try from an old Whole Foods magazine; Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread). I thought the coconut would go well with the mango and thus started a meal inspired by a semi-tropical theme.

Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad
Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)
Mango Chipotle Pot Roast
Brown Rice (to go with the pot roast and because not everyone could have the rolls since they definitely were not gluten-free)
Hawaiian Crispies (for dessert)

Details, reviews, pictures, thoughts and recipes are listed below if any of the above menu items catch your interest.

Clearly I’m still infatuated with spinach, I’m not sure this would even qualify as a recipe since it’s so incredibly simple, but it was very good.

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Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad

Spinach
Mandarin oranges
Sliced almonds
Poppy seed dressing

Place spinach in bowl(s), top with mandarin oranges, sliced almonds and poppy seed dressing.
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Aside from the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls, I’ve never made any type of bread/dinner roll. It actually wasn’t that hard at all. The majority of the time is spent waiting on the dough to rise. The rolls turned out very well. They didn’t taste as coconut-y as I thought they would, it was more a hint of coconut, they were still good though.

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Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)

From Whole Foods magazine March/April 2009
The recipe is also online and can be found here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2253

I would note that I did two things different from the recipe. One, I used Light Coconut Milk; it worked fine, but I wonder if regular coconut milk would have provided a stronger coconut flavor to the rolls. Two, I used sweetened coconut because I couldn’t find unsweetened.
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The pot roast was pretty good and pretty simple since everything went into the crock pot in the morning and just cooked all day. I will say though, I’m not a fan of recipes that have you place hot vegetables and juices into the blender. As the recipe instructed, I covered the blender with a towel but it still exploded hot liquid all over my arm and the kitchen.

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Mango Chipotle Pot Roast

If you like slow cooker recipes, check out Sandra’s book.
Make according to recipe in book; serve with brown rice.
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Since everything else was a bit tropical I wanted to keep the theme going for dessert, so I went over to Tasty Kitchen and searched for some recipes. Actually, originally I was going to try to spice up the rice that went with the pot roast so I entered rice into the search field and Hawaiian Crispies was one of the results.

If you haven’t checked out Tasty Kitchen you definitely should, it’s a lot of fun. It’s not just an online resource with TONS of recipes, but it’s also a community of people that enjoy cooking and sharing. If you sign-up, let me know and I’ll add you to my friend list. I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe (noted below) and it turned out great; my mom LOVED them.

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Hawaiian Crispies

The recipe can be found here. Although, I did make a couple of changes to the version I made Friday night.

First, I halved the recipe. Second, I added a little bit of coconut milk in with the melted butter and marshmallow mixture, not a lot, I’d guess maybe about a teaspoon at most. Third, I didn’t cover the top completely with candy melts, I thought that might be a little too much sweetness, so I just drizzled some on top and then topped with shredded coconut.
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Hope you enjoy!