My husband came home one night recently talking about the Howard Stern Show. Apparently his girlfriend made him some amazing chicken dish. A caller told him it was a recipe from Glamour Magazine called “Engagement Chicken”. The recipe is supposedly responsible for a few engagements. This is what amused my husband the most. What amused me was that the recipe in the magazine sounded good, and rather healthy.
We tested it out and behold. It was delicious. I am posting the recipe from the magazine. I don’t know if it gets you engaged but it’s pretty friggin’ delicious and easy. I have dubbed it Damn Good Chicken instead.
Damn Good Chicken
Ingredients:
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1 whole chicken (approx. 3 lbs.)
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2 medium lemons
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1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
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Kosher or Sea salt
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Ground black pepper
Instructions:
Place rack in upper third of your oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Wash chicken inside and out with cold water, remove giblets, then let chicken drain, cavity down, in a colander until it reaches room temp. (15 minutes).
Pat dry and pour lemon juice all over chicken inside and out. Season with salt and pepper. Prick the whole lemons three times with a fork and stuff up the cavity ass of the bird.
Place the bird tits down on a rack in the roasting pan, lower heat to 350 degrees and bake uncovered for 15 minutes. remove from over and flip it tits up. Return it to the over for another 35 minutes.
Test for doneness… let bake longer if it isn’t ready.
We had this with steamed asparagus and wild rice but it would work well with any side veggies or just a salad. I don’t know the Points but I can’t imagine it would be much. Just points for the chicken itself and the side veggies. Great with a dry white wine.
Credit: Glamour Magazine January 2004 Issue, Page 74.
I think I have just made the best pasta sauce I’ve ever made. Granted, I had help from the nice folks at Classico, but it’s what I added to the sauce that really made it, I think. To cut back on fat, I used ground turkey for this meat sauce, instead of beef and only used half, creating more volume by adding chunks of quartered mushrooms and onion.
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1 jar of Classico Cabernet Marinara
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1/2 lb extra lean ground turkey
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1 container of white mushrooms, quartered
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1 white onion, cut in chunks
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2 cloves of minced fresh garlic
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2 tbsp olive oil
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1 cup of red wine
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1/2 cup fat free parmesan or romano
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1 or 2 tbsp each of basil, oregano and crushed red pepper (to taste)
Cut the onions in chunks while heating the oil in the pan to medium high heat. Once the oil is hot, start browning the turkey and the onions (don’t let the onions get too carmelized—turn down your heat if you see this happening) and add your minced garlic. While this is going on, quarter your mushrooms.
Once all that’s going, dump in your jar of sauce, add the spices, cheese, and wine. Incorporate it all, then reduce your heat to low and cover. Let simmer as long as you want, checking on it periodically. The longer you slow-simmer, the richer the flavor becomes since the veggies and meat absorb the flavors.
Serve with pasta of your choice. Remember portion sizes… I don’t buy traditional spaghetti because unless you have a pasta measure, it’s hard to gauge what one serving is. So I’m using farfalle (bowtie) pasta, which is easy to control portion sizes with a measuring cup.
This recipe makes roughly 8 generous servings of sauce at 4 points a serving, according to my calculations on Weight Watchers Online. (for the sauce only—pasta is additional).
This stuff is so good, it’s taking great restraint to not eat it directly from the pot. You could easily eliminate the meat, which would probably cut the points in half.
Yum.
