Blackened chicken with "not so dirty rice" and spinach

Hello! It's been a week since my last blog post. I will attribute the silence to a sick toddler, a sick husband and now I'm sick too! This has been a great excuse for recovering hubby and almost recovered toddler to go to her art class together as I finally get some much needed quite time to write this post.

Firstly, I am super excited about the overwhelming response to my Spring flower hat. This hat was such a huge hit that it earned me two new followers and earned me my first time being featured. So, please head on over to Kadie's at Seven Alive to see all the wonderful crafters, cooks and DIYers that she has so kindly featured.

Now, some of you may or may not remember my grill pan chicken post from last week. Well, we had a lot of leftover Kasha from that night. So, I actually ended up upcycling (can you upcycle food?) the kasha for another meal late last week.  I followed another Cooking light recipe for the blackened chicken. Now they served it with Dirty rice which I substituted with Kasha. The reason I call mine not so dirty kasha is because, I swapped the rice out for the kasha and I omitted the chicken livers. I didn't have any and I wasn't motivated enough to go out and buy livers, something that I have never cooked with. Anyhow, my not so dirty version was yummy and super flavorful.

The blackened chicken recipe was fantastic and I would totally make this again to use in wraps, salads or sandwiches. Plus, it is lightened up from a more traditional blackened chicken recipe so it's guilt free too. We've been getting our chicken breast thinly sliced so it helps with the portion control a little more.

I served this with a side of organic spinach sauteed with fresh garlic.
Here is the big reveal, theirs vs. mine.

I am loving this theirs vs. mine theme so much that I think I'm going to make it a weekly feature! What do you think?

Grill pan chicken with mushroom sauce & garlicky asparagus My entry into Wow Me Wednesday sponsored by Appliances Online and Bosch Washing Machines

Every now and again, I get bored of the same old kitchen concoctions and seek out new ideas and recipes. Recently, we scored a free subscription to Cooking Light magazine and I am just so thrilled about it. Clearly, they can think of so many ways to jazz up chicken.

This particular recipe is for grill pan chicken with a mushroom sauce and garlicky asparagus.

This is what mine looked like versus theirs.

My version of Grill pan chicken with mushroom sauce 

 To save myself from washing couple of extra pans, I pan steamed the asparagus. To shave a few more calories from the sauce recipe, I substituted Smart Balance for the butter. I served this with a side of Kasha which is made out of whole grain buckwheat. This was an easy way to get in our whole grains for the day!

This is what was cooking in our kitchen! What's cooking in yours? I'd love to know!