Healthy-ish Grub

We've been stuck inside the past few days due to the frigid weather. (See previous post about how mother effing cold it is)

So we've been baking, a lot.

And dancing. But I'm not going to share that here.

I had some random stuff in my fridge so we made a healthy-ish tortellini dish. It's pasta, so it's not the best of course, but it doesn't involve additional cheese so that's a plus.

Grilled stuff and tortellini 

Why am I not on the Food Network?

1 package tortellini
1 jar tomatoes - stewed or diced, whichever you prefer. You could also roast a bunch of grape tomatoes to add. I had a jar of tomatoes from the garden so that's what we used
1 pepper - red or orange
1/2 onion
3 chicken breast
lemon juice
1/2 cup of red wine
1 tsp minced garlic
salt/peppah to taste
oregano
basil
pinch of sugar

Cook tortellini to your liking. I like mine a little hard. You know, al dente!

In a nutshell, grill or saute your chicken and veggies. I popped mine in the oven with olive oil, garlic, basil salt and peppah and a squirt or three of lemon juice. While that's cooking, throw some onions in a pan with buttah and saute. Once they start to soften, add minced garlic. Next, add your tomatoes. As I mentioned, I had a jar from the summer which are essentially stewed. Add your spices and cook on low until nice and bubbly. Then add wine and sugar. You'll want to cook that down for a bit, you'll know it's finished when you can't taste the wine. I usually start tasting my sauce at this point to see if I like it and then add whatever I think is lacking. It's really whatever you like.

Once your chicken and veggies are cooked, you'll want to dice them up and add to sauce. Cook for a bit and then add tortellini. I threw some shredded parmesan cheese on top and it was pretty darn good. It was sorta that middle ground between comfort food and light enough so you didn't want to kick yourself in the ass for that second portion.

 Boom donezo.

In addition to bread and smoothies yesterday. Kingy and I made banana chocolate chip muffins. He loves to cook and we need things to do so it's a win win.

I looked for a healthy version but didn't have much luck. The King ain't got time for mom to surf the net for a good recipe. So this is what we used.

Assemble Shop - A healthier banana chocolate chip muffin

The stick of butter doesn't exactly scream healthy to me. Next time we make them I'm going to swap in some applesauce and greek yogurt for the butter. I didn't have either one this time. I have no clue in what proportions but if you try it, let me know what you come up with. Also, I split the wheat flour and all purpose flour proportions in half - 3/4 cup of each and added a 1/4 cup of brown sugar.