Healthier Mashed Potatoes

You must have mashed potatoes and gravy for Thanksgivings in July. But what about the diet? Inspired by a Cooks Illustrated recipe for "Lighter Mashed Potatoes" but simplified. About 200 calories per serving with only 2 gms. of fat so really a healthy side.

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Kid Can Make Grilled Pizzas - A KISS Recipe

It's ideal for a kid pizza party. Kids love pizza but they're way picky about what is on them plus they like to help... if you call it that.  Well get the camera ready for pictures. Less than 30 minutes from start to eating. And oh so simple and good to boot.

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Healthy Quick Lemon Garlic Marinade Grilled Chicken

While I love my usual lemon-garlic chicken but the 6 tablespoons of butter is not your basic healthy recipe. So some substitutions and changes and we have a much heart heather and I'm sure lower caloric recipe.

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Grilled Paprika-Garlic Bone-in Skin-on (Split) Chicken Breast for Two

What to do with those bone-in skin-on chicken breast (AKA split chicken breast)? I usually buy then with no specific plans. Then I end up freezing all or some of them. So I set out to change that.


What I wanted to do:
1) I wanted a KISS (keep it simple stupid) recipe. As little fuss as possible so no rub that has 8 or 9 components. Check.
2) Quick. I want to start the gas grill to preheat and then do the prep and start grilling. No brining. No 2 hours in the frig after the rub. Check.
3) Truly a "For Two" recipe. I'm not cooking for left overs because it is so simple I won't mine doing it over and over. Check.
4) Use common kitchen components and a scalable recipe you can use for the family. Check.
5) Lastly, I wanted skin that was crispy and had great taste. Check.

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Grilled Boneless Country Style Pork Ribs with Simple Rub

An update to my most popular post Grilled Boneless Country Style Pork Ribs. While the cooking of  the ribs is straight forward, many people are looking for a recipe that include a rub. See my previous post on 8:3:1:1 rub for more details but here is the complete recipe. Add my Memphis BBQ sauce and your good to go.

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8:3:1:1 Rub

I have been looking for a "simple" rub for my country style boneless pork ribs. Well I have found more than my wishes. This is exactly the type of recipe I love. It depends on ratios and it's flexible. Usable for not only pork but beef and chicken.

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Freezer Burnt Chicken Breasts Rescue - Shredded Mexican

****SEE ANOTHER OPTION CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP ****
I'm guilty. I'm sure nobody out there has ever had a full bag of freezer burnt skinless boneless chicken breast. But on the unlikely event this would happen to your stupid brother (my brothers are smarter than this), let's see if we can do something with this. 

I found a bag of those wholesale club chicken breast in the back of the garage refrigerator freezer we replaced last week. So this poor meat is dehydrated, tough and tasteless. In other words, it is already hockey pucks. So I need to add moisture, texture and taste. A job ideal for Mexican. I love to have shredded chicken for burritos and enchiladas so on with the rescue.

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Grilled Stuffed Tomato - Italian Style

I'm "into" grilled sides for my grilled meat. After the very successful grill peaches the other night, I thought a veggie was in-order (yes, I do know a tomato is really a fruit).

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Italian Grilled Skinless Boneless Chicken Breasts

A nice Italian flair that was very moist and a nice change of pace from the usual BBQ on the grill.
I wanted Italian on the grill. I was going to fuss with cheese and tomato but really got lazy.

So I went Googling again and all I could find was multiple recipes with two ingredients... the chicken and a bottle of Italian dressing. I'm lazy but not that lazy. A few had dry Italian seasoning. So I substituted for that and went with it.

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Grilled Peaches for Under 70 calories

A wonderfully quick and simple dish for your sweet tooth without guilt with under 70 calories per peach (two halves). I used Splenda to decease the  calories but even with sugar  you will only add 45 calories per peach.

I started to think of this after a post on Nibble Me This. It looked great but wasn't quite what I wanted to do. First, today is the first day of our new diet and the sugar syrup and ice cream just would not do today. Second, I wanted simpler. So I winged it. I just cut them in halve, oiled, grilled one side, flipped and topped with mixture of Splenda and cinnamon and cooked indirectly until soft (internal temp was 165).
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Alabama BBQ Chicken with White BBQ sauce

They eat really good in Alabama. This is a Cooks Country recipe but really it is all over the net with only minor variations. I'm just pointing it out to you.

CC used half chickens and I used pre-cut whole chicken for my convenience. It did cook a lot faster, making this in about an hour including soaking some wood chips and preheating the grill.

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Alabama White BBQ Sauce

I'm making this a separate post for several reasons. First, it is wonderful. Second, I plan on using it in other applications and lastly it is easier to refer to if it's a separate post.

The picture is from the next post Alabama BBQ Chicken with White BBQ Sauce
which is simply wonderful.

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Pineapple Mango Salsa

I'm trying to expand my horizons. Salsa has always been tomato based and spicy. So I thought the tuna steaks needed a change of pace. A fruit salsa. The basic recipe is from tasteofhome.com. I used chopped red onion to replace the green onion I was out of and otherwise had no changes.

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Grilled Southwest Tuna

Tasty moist and tender. This was my first time doing tuna other than that associated with a can opener.  We somewhat inherited two tuna steaks that need to be used. Most of the recipes were shall I say fancy. The CI recipe only was a oil marinade for several hours followed with salt and pepper and looked like a good start but I wanted some flavor. Fine Cooking had a southwest that would do just fine but they just brushed on the spiced oil rub and cooked in 5 minutes. I combined the ideas and let it marinade for several hours.

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Grilled 4 Cheese Chicken Pizza with Whole Wheat Crust

Ain't it beautiful. A modification of one of my oven recipes and a home run on the grill.

So I did my usual research and really didn't come up with any great inspiration. But I did learn a few pointer which I'll cover in a little while. But first what I wanted.

• Some whole wheat in the crust
• Not hard nor complicated (my instructions look a lot worse than it is)
• Adaptable to any topping so I could do our 4 cheese chicken thing.

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