It’s been a pretty decent holiday weekend so far…yesterday was a great experience, which I will tell you all about another day. (It’s not my story to tell, so I have to wait until it’s written!)  I did get in a four-mile run, in a new (to me) town, and we all know how much I love to discover new towns!  😀

Today, I spent probably way too much of my day organizing my menus on menu-planner.com, a site I mentioned in a previous post about meal planning.  The more I use it, the more I love it! Today I culled through all my pictures and added my own photos to the recipes I’ve entered on the site, and, as a visual person, seeing pictures for nearly all the recipes listed (and my pictures, too boot!) just makes my heart happy. 🙂

Once I was done, I then spent way too much time pinning new recipes on Pinterest.  I’ll admit that once I’m on Pinterest, I can totally get sucked in, but only for recipes.  I’m just not crafty enough for all the other stuff! I was surprised at how quickly my recipes were being “re-pinned” this evening, to the point where I’d pin something and 5 minutes later I’d get an email telling me that “so-and-so and 14 others repinned one of your pins.”   Which immediately made me think, “Do I even have 14 people following me on Pinterest?!” 😉 But I guess Pinterest is open to the whole wide world, and I must have been pinning stuff people were interested in. Plus, there were probably a lot of other people off work today with time to kill, lol!

I’ve been making and taking pictures of lots of recipes lately, with the dual intent of having the pictures for my menu-planner.com account and for posting them to my site.  I lot of the recipes I’ve made have been ones I’ve found on Pinterest.  Sometimes I alter them to make them lighter or to fit my tastes, and sometimes I just make them as shown with no alterations at all.  I’ve been wanting to post another recipe to my site, but while I do have some cool ones I want to share from Pinterest, I really wanted to post my own recipe.  And the one I’ve chosen almost fits the bill. 😉

J’nice (pronounced ja-NEECE) is a former coworker of mine from about a dozen years back (back when I was at my heaviest), when I worked at an automotive engineering facility.  We sat next to each other and worked together for 18 months, and although she was about 10 or 12 years older than me, we got along wonderfully, never lacking for things to talk about.  J’nice was actually very instrumental in my initial weight loss efforts: she was the “coworker” that I mention in my weight-loss story with whom I walked at lunch every day. J’nice is really tall, and she walks fast, so keeping up with her long strides for a 30-minute lunch period around the great big automotive plant was great exercise for me.  I honestly don’t think I would’ve lost that first 50 pounds if it weren’t for J’nice!

 

 Besides being a fantastic friend and valuable coworker, J’nice was also an incredible cook.  She was very generous with her recipes, too, and I loved trying out all her great ideas.  I think most of the recipes she’s given me are still staples in our house.  I plan to share several of J’nice’s recipes on my blog (especially her desserts–good Lord, could that woman bake!), but the first one I wanted to share is one of my favorite super-easy, super-yummy chicken recipes.  It’s a simple marinade that is positively delicious–even my youngest loves it, and he is uber-picky!  There are probably a hundred versions of this out on the web somewhere, but this particular one is a favorite of mine, and I hope it becomes a favorite of yours, too!

 

 

 

J’nice’s Sweet & Sour Chicken Marinade

 

from my friend J’nice
4 Servings, 8 PointsPlus per serving*

 

1 can Pineapple (drained and juice reserved)
⅓ cup Cider Vinegar
⅓ cup Ketchup
½ cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Seasoned Salt
1 tsp Ground Ginger
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
16 oz Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 c. Chopped Green Pepper
1 c. Chopped Red Pepper
1 c. Chopped Onion
½ c. Chopped Carrots

Directions:

1. Drain pineapple and reserve liquid, adding enough water to make 1 cup.
2. Mix remaining ingredients through soy sauce; reserve 1/3 for basting. Use the rest as a marinade chicken in sauce for 30 minutes to 3 hours.
3. Drain chicken and grill, basting with reserved marinade (or, you could heat the reserved marinade to use as a sauce, which is what we do).
4. For vegetables and pineapple, either stir-fry them or use a grilling basket (my husband has one, and it’s pretty cool!) to cook them right on the grill.
5. Slice the chicken and serve over rice with vegetables and pineapple (and the heated marinade, if you wish).

*I’ve mentioned before how I feel about the points values of marinades. While it’s true that if you divide the above ingredients by four, you get 7 points per serving (including the chicken), I don’t necessarily agree that it’s an accurate measurement, since you toss so much of the “sauce” after you marinate the chicken. So here’s my dirty little secret: I actually enter the sauce separately from the chicken into my eTools tracker, and I count is as 7 servings instead of 4, which then makes the sauce 2 points per serving, plus the addition of the chicken at 4 points per 4 oz, so 6 points total.  Calculate it however you want, but every time I throw away that marinade, I feel like I’m getting gypped, so I use “Stephanie math” to make myself feel better. 😉