Glazed Chicken and Stuffed Eggplant~Hi protein summer recipe!

Hey All! I hope you had a wonderful July 4th! We did a picnic at the lake and saw lovely fireworks over the water. We were blessed with family, friends and a full moon which made the fireworks really beautiful! We pre-made all of our picnic food during the day, so i thought i would share a few of my recipes today~ Glazed Chicken and Stuffed eggplant.

1) Glazed chicken:

Ingredients:
4 skinless full chicken leg quarters (this includes the leg attached to thigh, or your choice of chicken pieces)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar,
1/2 cup natural honey,
1 teaspoon of herbs de provence ( if you can't find the blend, make your own: rosemary, oregano, basil, parley, onion powder)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper,
1 teaspoon chopped & dried garlic

To do: Line a baking tray with foil and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place chicken in large bowl. Combine the vinegar and honey and whisk until the texture is liquid. Add in all other ingredients and whisk together. Apply most of mixture to chicken. Set aside a little bit of the marinade for basting later. Marinate for a few hours if possible. Arrange chicken pieces on tray, leaving a bit of space between each piece of chicken. Bake for 20 minutes uncovered. Occassionally spoon the sauce in the tray over the chicken to moisten. Apply leftover marinade when needed. After 20 minutes, turn the chicken pieces over and bake another 20-30 minutes. Voila!! When it cools a bit, put chicken in serving dish. Some of the marinade will have collected in the baking pan-pour it over the chicken and serve. Serves 6-8

Stuffed Eggplants: ingredients:
about 12 mini eggplants. You can find this at your local Asian, Indian or Middle Eastern Grocery Store. They are about 4 inches long with a deep purple coloring.
1 cup breadcrumbs
3/4 cup pine nuts
2/3 teaspoon each of paprika, salt, black pepper, herbs de provence (if you cant find this, read ingredients in the chicken recipe above), chopped and dried garlic, onion powder
a pinch of sugar
a dash of cayenne pepper, or more if desired
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley
Olive oil
(optional: 1/4 cup dried parmesan cheese)

To do: rinse and pat try eggplants. Leave the stems on. While leaving the whole of the bodies intact, cut from the fat end towards the stem-deep wise. Cut again so that you and X cut. (tip: IF you continued to cut to the stem, you would have 4 wedges, but this recipe calls for leaving it intact, just for a visual of the cutting) Rub the eggplants with olive oil, both on the surface, and in side. Place the eggplants on a foil lined baking tray and pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

stuffing: Mirowave the pine nuts for about 40 seconds. They will become rather supple. Put nuts in a plastic sandwich back and lightly chop with a large chef knife. They will tend to get mushed, which is ok, but be sure to go lightly so there is a combination of chopped and mashed nuts.

Combine the pinenuts with the remainder of ingredients (not the eggplants though!) in a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Use a tablespoon and stuff the eggplants one at a time. Please note that because they are cut in X shapes, choose one SLANT to stuff. The x shape allows for the eggplant to keep its nice shape even after baking but you need only stuff it in one cross section.

Bake for 29-35 minutes, depending on your preference of texture. I did about 30 minutes which makes the inside of the eggplant soft with a slightly firm skin. Voila!! No forks needed! You can bite the eggplant by holding the stems!! Serves 8

This is a really fun meal to make and follows the High protein lifestyle. You will get protein from the chicken and pine nuts and antioxidants from the eggplants. Follow up with Cold water and Enjoy!!

**FYI: Interesting eggplant tidbit. I recently read in an article that Eggplant contains a nutrient that builds muscle faster than known steroids! Bodybuilders are now taking doses of an extract from eggplant which should in effect, DECREASE the use of steriods!! Apparently, the nutrient helps in the repair of muscle tissue: when we work out, micro tears occur in the muscles, the repair of these tears produce additional new muscle mass: this extract heals those tiny very quickly resulting in rapid muscle growth!!! WOOOO EGGPLANTS!!

xo
Sarah