Tag Archives: chicken

Recipe | Cajun chicken with Mango Avocado salsa

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I have made a few variations of this over the last few years and I will explain where I vary it. This is usually a summer dish because of the Mango factor. I would also like to brag that the mint, rocket, curly lettuce, baby spinach and flat leaf parsley all came from my garden.

Home grown

Ingredients:

  • 250g of raw chicken (you can substitute this for prawns or probably most other proteins)
  • 1 teaspoon Dried Cajun spices
  • 2 pieces of Shortcut bacon
  • 50g Danish Feta
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • Rocket, baby spinach or other mixed lettuce.

Salsa ingredients

Diced and chopped salsa ingredients, stir through Mayo and lemon/lime juice.

  • 2 mango cheeks diced ie 1 mango
  • 1 medium avocado diced
  • Fresh or dried mint approx. 1 tablespoon (I have also used Coriander)
  • Flat leaf parsley ¼-½ cup finely chopped
  • 40g whole egg mayonnaise
  • ½ green apple diced
  • ½ cucumber diced
  • Pepper to taste.
  • Optional – squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

Destructions (my version of instructions):
Chop chicken into Tenderloins or smaller, place on baking paper (have enough paper to double over) sprinkle Cajun spice over chicken and fold baking paper over, beat chicken with rolling pin or other heavy object to flatten so that it cooks evenly and tenderises (I learnt this tip from Jamie Oliver). The other thing I find is flatter chicken appears to be more than it actually is, therefore feeling like you are eating more, (remember food is all in your head). Cook chicken in frying pan with Oil about 3-4 mins each side and flip it regularly.

Layer the lettuce, salsa, grilled chicken, top with bacon and feta and make it pretty with a sprig of parsley. Bon appetite!

Dice and cook bacon.

Combine all Salsa ingredients together and stir through Mayonnaise add lemon/lime and pepper.

Layer the Rocket/lettuce on a plate, add salsa, stack chicken on top, sprinkle bacon over the top and crumble over the Danish feta. Garnish with a sprig of parsley if you want to pretty it up.

For a lighter option:

Reduce the amount of Feta, take out the bacon (if you dare), you could also reduce the amount of Mayo (or use light Mayo), reduce avocado and eliminate the apple (but it does add a nice crunch).

Another variation:

Dice the cooked chicken and stir it into the salsa for an easy take to work lunch.

Serves: 2

Nutritional Info per serve: (you will find this on most of my recipes as I can be slightly calorie/carb obsessed)
Note this as per the recipe not the lighter option*
Calories                669
Carbs                     36
Fat                         42
Protein                   45
Sugar                     20
Sodium                 801 (a lot of this comes from the Cajun seasoning and bacon so eliminate or replace if you want to reduce sodium)

Masterchef quality if you want my honest opinion!

*Nutritional information is only as accurate as My Fitness Pal.

Portion Sizes

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So I am doing a Photo a Day Challenge for October as found on Fat Mum Slim blog and to be honest I have never participated in anything like this before in fear of losing interest. But I have caved and thought I would give it a go.

  1. Yesterday was titled “where I stood”, and the picture I put up on my blog yesterday was of my runners sitting on my bike as I had just been for a swim/ride, ie I had just stood in those shoes.
  2. Today’s topic was lunch so I thought I would take a picture of my lunch (so creative).
  3. (stay tuned I might just keep doing it)

With Hubby being home sick Miss “Almost 3” and I ventured out to the Gym, post office and then I thought we would grab a bite to eat, giving hubby some quiet time, (something that never happens with us 2 girls around).

This post is not about exercise so I won’t bore you with what I did at the Gym today, but I did go. We went to a nice little Café called Jaffa* and I perused the menu for something good to eat, the only thing that seemed moderately healthy and to my liking was a grilled chicken club sandwich, although it did have a bit of mayo and bacon, it seemed like a good option compared to Jumbo Burgers, chicken parma or focaccia etc. My thought was I could deconstruct it and eat bits off it. When I re-read it I realised (although I knew but wasn’t paying attention) that a club sandwich has 3 slices of bread, which to me is ridiculous, so when I ordered, I asked for no 3rdslice and hold the lettuce (I feel it is unnecessary on a sandwich and makes it difficult to eat). It was also served with chips/fries which I thought Miss “Almost 3” would like.

Chicken Club Sandwich, hold the “Club”

When my not quite a Club Sandwich came out it was enormous, the bread was THICK white sliced bread which I loooove (imagine if there was 3 slices) and all the fillings looked delicious and moderately healthy. It came with potato wedges which I was not happy about, I am not a fan, too thick and gluggy for my liking, but suffice to say Miss “Almost 3” loved them and of course I was not going to eat them anyway.

To cut to the chase and the purpose of this post, I could only eat half of the sandwich and left the crusts, Miss “Almost 3” ate a good handful of the wedges but there was heaps left over and I asked the lady to pack up the other half of sandwich to take home for hubby.

So our 1 meal fed 3 people. Old Rachael would have eaten most of it until I felt sick and ordered extra chips/wedges for the child (because I never used to share well with others).

Are portion sizes just crazy at some places?
Would you like to ask for a half serve of something?

* Jaffa had the best skim Chai latte I have tasted in a long time.