ArcaMax

30 Pounds in 30 Days...

Thirty pounds in 30 days. Yep. Sounds pretty incredible, doesn’t it. Can you imagine how good it feels? I’ve lost 30 pounds and counting.

Whew! I’m strutting like peacock on a large green lawn.

Yet, there is work to be done. I have more to go. At least that much more.

I find it quite remarkable that I can design recipes like the one you are getting today, and I’m still on a pretty dramatic diet. The food is really good. My husband has been anticipating dinner every night. He loves this food and keeps remarking about how he’d love to eat this way forever. He’s lost 18 pounds just “hanging around me” while I’m on a diet. What a deal for him!

I don’t have to exercise to lose it either. Truth be told I can’t exercise at the moment. Those of you who are regular readers might remember that I had to have minor surgery on my left big toe so I was hobbling around. I had also broken my second toe on my left foot just walking down the street. No sooner did that heal, then I fell down about 5 stairs at my house and slammed my right big toe into the wall. I’m back to hobbling again. My mother used to joke about my feet. I was a gymnast of sorts as a youngster and I loved to vault. I refused to wear the proper shoes so when I landed “wrong” I broke a toe. I never hurt anything except my feet. My mom said “If you’d just get your feet amputated, nothing would go wrong with you”. She was joking of course, and I’m glad I don’t make a habit of breaking my arms, but my feet are a regular victim of the punishment I seem to inflict on them.

Part of what has been challenging me in this diet is the low carb count, but I am working with it. For instance, I found out that if you only bread one side of the chicken you hardly notice the breading on the other side is missing! Go figure. Sure keeps the carb and calorie count to a minimum that way. The lack of dairy can be a challenge too. With this chicken dish, if you conjure up a chicken parmigiana recipe you certainly expect parmesan cheese to be in the breading. Nope. Not there. And you’d expect it to be smothered in mozzarella cheese. It's missing too, but the flavor is not missing. It’s so satisfying the way it is that you don’t really need the cheese. It’s amazing what we can do without. And it saves on the budget. Saves on the dishes too. Every meal I make these days takes about two minutes to clean up. Brilliant.

Enjoy this chicken dish and feel good about your health.

Italian Breaded Chicken with Warm Chunky Tomato Sauce
Serves 2
This is my favorite recipe development of quite some time. It’s so simple. It’s so satisfying. Sort of like a warm version of bruschetta sauce or a chicken parmagiana with no cheese.

Ingredients:

1 large Grissini bread stick ground to crumb consistency (or two pieces of Melba toast works fine)

8-12 oz. scaloppini chicken (4-6oz per person), (this is breast meat sliced thinly. Or you can use regular breast meat whole. It will just take longer to cook. A third option would be to pound down your chicken breast so it will be thinner and will cook well in the pan)

1 large tomato, diced

5 green onions (scallions), chopped (white and light green part only. Roots removed)

2 tsp minced garlic (jar garlic works fine)

2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 8-oz can of Hunt’s Tomato Sauce (Sugar Free. Just check the label on the back to make sure they didn’t put sugar in it. Hunts is one brand that is now leaving the sugar out. )

Directions:

Slightly spray top side of chicken pieces with Olive Oil spray

Dip that side of the chicken in the bread crumbs.

Lightly spray large sauté pan with Olive Oil spray

Place chicken breading side down in pan.

Cook on Medium High for approximately 3 minutes until lightly brown, and then turn over.

Cook on Medium until done, approximately 5 minutes longer or until no pink remains in chicken.

While chicken is cooking put tomato, Italian seasoning, garlic and scallions in a medium sauce pan. Cook on medium high just until tomatoes are hot and begin to loosen. Stir often. Then add tomato sauce. Stir and cook until thoroughly heated. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with chicken.

Dieters get one third cup of sauce with their chicken. You will have extra sauce left over. You can use that to top grilled fish. Serve asparagus with this or a nice salad on the side and you are all set.

Cheers
Enjoy,
Zola

Send email to Zola at dinnerwithzola@hotmail.com.