Baked Chicken with potatoes and Kale.

“I was a Kale hater but now, I'm still not a lover"

My sister is a lover of potatoes hence the constant struggle to give up completely on McDonald fries. Boiled, fried, baked, she will eat it but I don’t know if she has eaten raw potatoes. That would be weird.

We have been trying to eat different types of potatoes just so we can get out of the everyday Russet potato taste hence the Yukon gold potatoes. Kale was a vegetable that I was just like umm I’m not so sure but hey I’ll try almost everything so I decided to figure out what the best way to cook it would be for me.

For this dish, you need;

·         2 chicken whole legs

·         1 pound Kale stem

·         1 pound medium sized Yukon gold potatoes

·         ¼ cup extra virgin oil

·         Salt to taste

·         Ground pepper

·         1 teaspoon paprika

·         1 cup chopped onion

The quantity for the ingredients should be at your own discretion because it depends on how many people you’re cooking for. This serves 4-6 people.

Instructions:

1.       Preheat oven to 450 degrees, chop onions, kale and cut potatoes into two or three depending on the size of the individual potatoes.  

2.      In a baking or roasting pan, toss kale, potatoes, onion, olive oil and the seasoning and spread out in the pan.

3.      For big chicken pieces, I usually cook them on the stove before boiling them because it saves me the time of having to pop them back into the over if they are not cooked all the way.

4.      Cook with salt, pepper, onion and paprika and brush with olive oil before setting it on top of the kale and potatoes; cover with a foil and bake for 20 minutes.

5.      Remove the foil and let it bake for another 25-30 minutes till the chicken is cooked completely and vegetables are tender.

6.      The juices from the chicken should keep the vegetable and potatoes moist and delicious.

Coconut Rice and Tilapia stir fry.

In my desperate attempt to eat healthy, I have been eating a lot of fruits and fresh vegetable salad and rewarding myself with lovely dinners. Even with the rewards, the portions are not even enough to fill my baby Nathan who is only 18 months. Sigh this body of mine will eventually make its way to my youthful body one of these days. Anyways the goal is to lose 10 pounds before the end of March since I gained 8 pounds in 2 weeks from eating any and everything while I was in Nigeria. I can’t even be mad because in my opinion it was 8 pounds well gained. From all the suya consumption to my grandma’s cooking to the random street food, I’d gain the 8 pounds again. Anyways in 2 weeks I have been back, I have lost 2 pounds so I can say it works without me starving myself and going without food the whole day.

Saturday Breakfast at about 1pm: Fresh diced mango and vanilla yogurt.

Skipped lunch because I was out of the house till about 5:30 pm

Dinner had to be lovely hence the posted meal.

Ingredients

·         6 pieces of small Sweet peppers (Red and orange)

·         ½ lbs. of Tilapia

·         2 cups of white long grain rice

·         2 tbsp. of teriyaki sauce

·         Small onion chopped

·         I tsp. black pepper

·         Pinch of salt

Instructions

·         Parboil rice for about 15 minutes then wash. Pour in half of the coconut milk or enough to cook the rice depending on the portion of the rice. Add salt to taste.

·         Cut up the small peppers along the longest side so it comes out in thin slices, chop the onions and boil for 5 minutes.

·         Season the fish with the salt and black pepper and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Enough to make it easy to cut into small pieces.

·         After drain out the water from both the fish and the pepper, add a tsp. of olive oil in a saucepan, add the pepper and the fish and let it start to break up the fish in the pan, don’t break it up too much where it’s not visible, you want some small pieces but also some chunks.

·         Let it cook for about 5-7 minutes then add the teriyaki sauce. Use your discretion, you don’t want the sauce to be too watery but not dry as well. Add salt and black pepper and let it cook for another 2 minutes before serving.