Recipe: Chicken with 4 Cheese Marinara Sauce

[ishte]

Served With Broccoli, Buttered Carrots, and Grapefruit

Recipe (serves 4)
 
Ingredients
4 Thawed Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 Cup Ferratos Four Cheese Pasta Sauce (usually available at Save-a-Lot)
If you can’t find an equivalent sauce just make some:
 1 8oz can tomato sauce
⅛ Cup Grated Romano Cheese
⅛ Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Tbs fresh minced garlic
2 Tbs Oregano
1 Tbs White Vinegar
1 tsp Salt
Mix ingredients in bowl and set aside
4 Fresh Mushrooms, chopped
¼ Small white onion, chopped
7 medium sized olives with pimentos, chopped
½ cup finely shredded cheese (I use Mexican Blend from Save-a-Lot)
2 medium sized carrots, sliced
¼ cup Maple Grove Farms Cozy Cottage Sugar Free Maple Syrup (available at Kroger)
1 medium sized head of broccoli, separated into florets
4 tbsp. Butter
4 slices of pink grapefruit (out of 6)

Directions
Heat oven to 350°F.  In small bowl mix up sauce, mushrooms, onion and olives.  Spoon a little sauce into bottom of baking dish and spread out enough to provide a bed for the chicken to lie on.  Lay chicken breasts on top of sauce.  Spread the rest of the sauce over the chicken so that none of the flesh is exposed.  Sprinkle 90% of the cheese over the chicken and sauce. Bake uncovered for 1 hour.  Start the veggies in the steamer at and steam them until they are tender.  I usually steam at full boil and will start about 10 minutes before the chicken is to come out.   Remove chicken from oven. The cheese should be just starting to turn golden brown.  Sprinkle remainder of the cheese over chicken breasts this is just to add a bit of contrast.  Serve chicken with some of the sauce spooned around the edges. Do not spoon the sauce back over the top of the chicken.  You will ruin its appearance.  Serve buttered broccoli.  Serve carrots with a little drizzle of maple syrup. The grapefruit slice can be placed on the edge or corner of the plate.

Information
Obviously this is an Atkins friendly meal.  I worked this meal out to about 13g of carbohydrate per person which is probably a little higher than it is. A whole medium carrot I think is 5g, and we’re only serving half a carrot for a bit of extra contrast and texture. The bottle reads the sauce as 9g per serving at ½ cup per serving, but we’re actually only using ¼ cup per serving with some extra stuff factored in so I called the sauce 7g which it probably isn’t that much when all is said and done.  However, I always prefer to err on the high side.  It's probably not a meal suitable for induction since it takes more than half your carb intake, unless you have managed a really tight day with the rest of your meals.  Should be fine for all other phases.

Can I also just say that presentation is really everything when I serve a meal. There’s nothing I hate worse than to be served a meal that has just been slopped onto a plate. Half of a meals enjoyment is having it look nice on the plate. Pleasant arrangements, nice looking accouterments, can really make a meal taste better too I think. So I try to choose a plate that will display a meal in the best light, with nice place settings. I bought this plate at Save-a-Lot. I usually use it for fish, (because it’s etched with fish) but it’s a favorite right now. What can I say? The place setting I got in a set of 6 for about $3 from eBay. The tray and napkins I picked up at St. Francis for $2 maybe $3.

13 grams per serving