Thursday, March 27, 2008

Lightening up Mexican-Style Chicken with Penne

I adapted this recipe from the February 2008 issue of Food & Wine magazine, pages 88-89. The recipe originally called for 0.75 pounds of regular penne rigate, five tablespoons of olive oil, one pound of skinless, boneless chicken thighs, and 0.25 pounds of queso blanco.

First off, before the health police jump all over me, I KNOW olive oil is healthy and fairly good for you; however, in the interest of making this as HEALTHY and LOW CALORIE as possible, I sprayed the skillet with an olive oil spray and left the olive oil out. When the pan got too dry for my liking, I added a little low-sodium chicken broth, which I did not include in the calorie calculations.

I also substituted a new pasta product, Dreamfields – Healthy Carb Living, for the penne rigate, and I used the WHOLE BOX (16 ounces). Really, who uses 12 ounces of a 16 ounce box and then puts the rest aside? If you’re in a restaurant kitchen, where you buy things like penne rigate in bulk, then fine, but doing that at home leaves you with a whole bunch of different pastas in four ounce quantities. Then you have this urge to make macaroni and cheese and blow the whole healthy living, want to lose weight thing… but I digress. They claim that each serving (two ounces before cooking) has only five grams of digestible carbs. The key nutritition facts, calories, fat and fiber were 190, 1 gram and 5 grams, with 42 grams of total carbohydrates. A comparable regular white penne rigate has 210 calories, 1 gram of fat and 2 grams of fiber for each two ounce before cooking serving.

Since I made this recipe, I have compared various whole wheat pastas against the Dreamfields product, and they are comparable in calories, fat, and fiber, for about half the price.

The skinless, boneless chicken thighs are a better choice, health-wise without the skins, and would be slightly more flavorful, but I substituted skinless, boneless chicken breasts to save calories. I substituted 2% mozzarella as the recipe suggested for the queso blanco, as I was not near home and access to a market that sold queso blanco.

The instructions for the recipe pretty much stay the same as quoted from the magazine, with the exception of slopping the olive oil around.

Ingredients:

16 ounces Dreamfields penne rigate
Olive oil cooking spray
Low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch dice
Kosher salt (yeah, you can use regular)
Freshly ground pepper (buy a pepper mill, trust me – you don’t know what you’re missing)
1 onion, cut into ¼ inch dice (I used a 332 gram Mayan sweet)
1 large garlic clove, minched
One 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1 large chipotle in adobo sauce, seeded and minced, plus 2 teaspoons adobo sauce
½ cup frozen corn
¼ pound 2% mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated (1 cup)
¼ cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the penne and cook until al dente. Drain the penne.
2. Meanwhile, spray a large, deep skillet with olive-oil cooking spray. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, add it to the skillet and cook over moderately high heat until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add a little chicken broth if the pan gets too dry. Add the onion and garlic and cook over moderate heat until the onion is softened and the chicken is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Once again, add a little chicken broth when the pan gets dry. Add the diced tomatoes, chipotle and adobo sauce and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Add the corn, season with salt and pepper and cook until the corn is heated through, about 1 minute.
3. Add the penne and 2 tablespoons of chicken broth to the sauce and toss to coat. Add 3 ounces of the mozzarella and toss. Transfer the pasta to bowls, sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella and the cilantro and serve.

Makes 4 servings – big servings, over one pound each. My fiancĂ© couldn’t finish hers.

Nutrition per serving as modified: 670 calories, 9.04 grams fat, and 13.43 grams fiber.

Nutrition per serving as originally made, with the addition of five tablespoons of olive oil, substitution of chicken thighs, regular white flour penne rigate (only 12 ounces in original recipe), and queso blanco: 780 calories, 31.94 grams of fat, and 6.43 grams fiber.


1 comment:

Melissa said...

Well, it took FOREVER for me to find your blog, since this site won't let you search.

HOWEVER...I want to make sure that whoever reads this knows that this was one of the most AWESOME helathy meals I've ever eaten! TONS of flavor, a nice kick from the spices, and you can't even tell the pasta was thje healthy kind.

All I can say is YUM, YUM, YUM!!! This one's a keeper!