2 WW Friendly Recipes- Chicken & Wild Rice

[twoponys]

We had this for dinner tonight. It was yummy! This makes 4 generous servings of each. The rice is 3 pts per serving and the chicken is 4 pts. If you don't like balsamic vinegar or find the taste overpowering, use less and more water or broth. The broth from the chicken is so good you might want to have some crusty bread around.

Balsamic Chicken

1 whole chicken breast, boneless, skinless, cut in bite size pieces
3/4 lb of mushrooms
1/4 balsamic vinegar
1 c fat free chicken broth
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp of thyme
3 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
bay leaf
olive oil cooking spray

Mix the flour, salt, and pepper together. Dredge the chicken in the flour and spice mix. Heat a skillet on med-high heat. Spray pan with cooking spray, add the chicken, saute until brown. Add the mushrooms and garlic, cook for another 3 minutes. Add the thyme, broth, vingar, and bay leaf, simmer covered for 10 min. Add the butter and cook for another 7 min to reduce the liquid.


Wild Rice Casserole

2/3 c brown rice
1/3 c wild rice
1/2 c finely minced onion
2 c mushrooms
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 c chicken broth
cooking spray

Heat oven to 325. Heat cooking pan over med heat, spray the pan with the cooking spray, saute the onions and mushrooms until the onion is translucent. In a baking dish pour the mushrooms and onions in, add the salt, pepper, rice and broth. Bake covered for 1 hr or until rice is tender and broth is absorbed.

[Mary Ann]

This sounds great! My kind of eatin'!

Thanks, Twoponys! ;D

[twoponys]

I forgot to mention that it is very filling and satisfying for the amounts.

[Sheryl]

Question about the balsamic chicken. That is one chicken breast for 4 people? The chicken breasts I have are around 4 ounces each, boneless, skinless - I would think to use more then one with the recipe proportions.

[twoponys]

Oops 2 chicken breast halves. I cut them in bite size pieces.

[Sheryl]

I made the balsalmic chicken and it was very good. I had chicken breast tenders, so I just weighed out enough for 3 of us and it worked fine. As usual I had to do a few substitutions, but it turned out really good. I had a mistake with the garlic since I use the chopped stuff from a jar and a leettlee bit extra fell in; okay ALOT but everybody liked it. The balsamic flavor was not overwhelming... since it was 1/4 of something of balsamic vinegar, I just chugged some in out of the jar. My husband described it as "tangy and flavorful."

I use basalmic vinegar with a bit of olive oil as my salad dressing so I have shopped around for a brand that tastes good. It is actually an inexpensive choice from trader joes that one of the store clerks there recommended.

[twoponys]

Thanks Sheryl for posting your review. I m glad your family enjoyed it. I was thinking about adding maybe a tsp of sugar to the recipe to round out the flavor of the balsamic. Maybe it was the vinegar I used but mine came out a little more bitey than I like.

[MJ]

I'm going to try this recipe this weekend, it sounds great especially for a family that loves mushrooms.

[Sheryl]

twoponys, I am not sure I would add sugar. I think that using good quality (and not old) Basalmic helps - use one that tastes good enough to put on a salad. I am sure i did not use more then 1/4 cup (I glugged some in) and probably had more chicken then you did - so maybe reducing the quantity slightly would make it taste better? I also used ALOT of garlic, by accident, but I am guessing that influenced the taste.

So, this is something my husband and kid find annoying. I will make something that they LOVE and I can't exactly replicate it because I am a little loose with quanties, ingredients etc!