Wednesday, August 28, 2013

RECIPE: Chicken and butternut squash stew with quinoa

I never really cooked a lot of squash until the little one came along as it wasn't really a food that I ate growing up.  It's an easy and nutritious first food, so we've bought both spaghetti and butternut squash to make for him.  It's full of vitamins, calcium, and fiber, so a great food to have in rotation.  Having made a squash/potato/lentil stew over the weekend for the baby, I still had a ton of squash to use and went looking for a healthy recipe for us big kids.  Pinterest as usual came to the rescue and I quickly found this recipe for Chicken and squash stew with quinoa.  Quinoa is also something relatively new to our pantry, but a fantastic alternative to the regular items (i.e. pasta or rice) that we may use to fill out foods.

The only substitution we made on this one was to use chicken breast instead of chicken thigh.  We also added a little feta cheese on top (which was an indulgence seeing as I was under both my caloric and Points+ targets for the day).  Without the cheese, this recipe came in at 248 calories per serving, and 281 calories with the feta added.

Those numbers are interesting for somebody like me, who thinks that putting cheese on top makes everything better.  In fact, my husband is always telling me that we need more cheese, and I'm always telling him to go lighter on it.  Apparently, yelling "diet" at him while he's pouring it on is helpful....although my sample size is small!

Anyway, this was delicious and one pot made enough for 2 meals, so we'll be having the rest tonight.  I suspect this would also freeze well and even the kids would like it.  I would make it again for the baby using a low or no sodium broth. 

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