WIAW: Skinny Sweet & Sour Chicken {20 Minute Meal!}

Happy Wednesday!

It's time for another rousing installment of What I Ate Wednesday!

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The theme for this month is "falling into good habits."  I think my habits are mostly decent, but sometimes I make poor nutritional choices.  So for me, the theme is always "making better choices."

Sometimes I'll crave something like a BLT, so instead of driving to Sonic and picking up the gut bomb of a sandwich from them, I will make a healthier choice and make myself a turkey bacon BLT on whole grain bread (with no mayo).  See, it's still a BLT, but it is a healthy swap (plus it's cheaper to just make it yourself).  Yay!

Dinner on this night was a healthy spin on a take-out favorite of sweet and sour chicken.  It's so, so much better tasting and better for you.  I hope you try it!

Ok, onto the eats for the entire day...and we'll get to that healthy swap in just a sec.

Breakfast: Frosted Mini Wheat Cereal & Banana

I'm glad my boyfriend is cool with waiting to eat his breakfast until I take a picture of our meals together.  I wonder if he'll ever get tired of me doing that...
Anyways, we both had some frosted mini wheats with banana and almond milk.  Mine is the purple bowl.  Coffee on the side, as usual.

Morning Snack: Shake & Kit Kat

While I was waiting for coffee to brew this morning, I whipped up a shake to take with me for snack.  It contained half of a frozen banana, about a cup of frozen strawberries, a couple chunks of frozen mango, a squirt of honey and almond milk to get everything moving.
Also, there was a Kit Kat I had put in the office freezer the day after Halloween that I  found today.  So I ate it.  Sigh.  It's all about balance, right folks?

Lunch: Butternut Squash, Black Bean & Swiss Chard Quesadilla & Veggies

This concoction was leftover from Monday night's dinner.  It's such a quick and easy meatless meal.
I just microwaved some pre-cubed butternut squash, some pre-shredded swiss chard and some frozen rice/quinoa blend and combined it with a can of black beans.  Add some cheese and a Flat Out wrap (this was Light Italian-90 calories) and you got yourself a colorful and filling meal.
I also had some roasted carrots, peppers and butternut squash on the side from Sunday's dinner.  Leftovers Queen, I tell ya.

Here's the inside of the quesadilla:

Colors!!!

I had gone home for lunch to check on these cuties...who watched me eat, of course.

Reggie & Bizzy=Best Friends Forever! 

I had a cup of coffee with a dollop of fat free Cool Whip (and a sprinkle of cinnamon) and a handful of chocolate chips as my dessert.

 Sweet Tooth Satisfied!

Afternoon Snack: Peanut Butter Toast

I got home a little earlier than usual yesterday, so I fixed myself some peanut butter toast and got started prepping dinner for the next night.

I actually like chopping veggies.  It's therapeutic.  Plus, I get to work on my knife skills.

All packed up to make my favorite soup!

Then I went to my evening boot camp class before dinner time...

Dinner: Skinny Sweet & Sour Chicken with Rice & Veggies

Here's a healthy swap on Chinese take-out for ya...and you know what?  It literally took me 20 minutes to make!

Skinny Sweet & Sour Chicken

serves 2

2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized cubes
salt + pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 cup egg substitute
3/4 cup flour (whole wheat works great)

For the sauce:
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp sugar free pancake syrup
2 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (I used garlic seasoned)
1 Tbsp ketchup
1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1-2 tsp hot sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and either spray pan or line with parchment paper. Pour the egg substitute in a small bowl. Put some flour, salt and pepper and paprika in another bowl and stir.  Dip your chicken in the egg, then in the flour and put it on your lined baking sheet. Bake for 15-17 minutes. While it is baking, make your sauce.


To make the sauce, combine broth and cornstarch in a sauce pan and stir to dissolve. Heat the burner to medium low heat and add the other sauce ingredients Let it heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until it thickens up. Once the chicken is done, put it in a bowl and pour the sauce over it and toss to coat.

recipe adapted from Hungry Girl

Here's how I made it a 20 minute meal:

The first thing I did was throw the bag of stir fry veggies in the microwave for 5 1/2 minutes and got my chicken prepped and in the oven.  The chicken stays in the oven for 15-17 minutes, giving you plenty of time to cook your rice and peas in the microwave as well!

Then I mixed 1/2 cup of peas to the rice mixture and that's how I served it.  I just used about 1/2 cup for each plate, so there was half a bag of rice as leftovers.

Here's a prettier picture if you happen to want to pin this on Pinterest.

This recipe is easily doubled to serve 4...I just only had 2 chicken breasts.
It's probably a good thing, because I would have gobbled up more than one serving for sure, if I had made more.

After dinner, I was hovering around the freezer deciding if I wanted to spend 270 calories on Ben & Jerry's.  I decided NOT to.  So I rummaged around and found some frozen bananas and made banana soft serve, instead.

All you do is just pulse 1 1/2 frozen bananas (cut in chunks) in a mini food processor until creamy.  I added chocolate chips to mine, as well.  Then I put it in a bowl and nestled it in some ice in the freezer for about an hour.

Such a creamy, delicious alternative to high calorie ice cream (and frozen yogurt).  Hooray for smart choices!

Have a super fantastic rest of the week!