Roasted Chicken Breast with Mardi Gras Veggies: Fat Tuesday, Skinny Eats

Belated Happy Mardi Gras! 

Several of my friends use this period after Mardi Gras as a de facto diet, "giving up" many of the delicious indulgences in an effort to be summer ready. I am equally guilty of this and thus have been trying to clean up my act and my diet at the same time.

One of my absolute favorite dishes my grandmother makes is her roasted red peppers, which she usually serves with her extra thin fried chicken cutlets. 

Just of the thought of them has my tummy grumbling. 

[Crazily enough the store didn't have red peppers so I used the green ones. They definitely were less sweet than my grandmother's and so in the future I highly recommend sticking with the red.]

I wanted to see if I could replicate my grandmother's peppers and serve them with a leaner choice of protein. I had some of the boys over for dinner, as well as one of their beautiful girlfriends who brought the most delicious pastries and one of the most competitive games of Jenga... we had a blast!

Grandma's cutlets while delicious pieces of perfection are not exactly diet friendly. 

As an alternative I roasted chicken breasts in chicken stock with parsley at 325 for about an hour. Halfway through I rotated the chicken on top to keep all of the chicken moist.

Thoroughly wash your peppers and remove any labels or stickers. Place your peppers on a baking sheet.

Since the peppers are going to be broiled, thus exposed to an open flame, make sure there is no paper on the peppers.

Set your oven to broil, rotate the peppers until all the skin is charred.

Check to make sure all sides of the pepper are charred. 

This one needed a little more time.

Once all the peppers are thoroughly charred, place all the peppers in a paper bag and allow them to cool. 

Once cooled, tear open the bag. 

I found that the bag absorbs a lot of the moisture during the cooling process and for the sake of easy clean up I always leave the "paper bag dumpling" in a bowl. 

The skin should peel off easily, use a knife to remove any stubborn skin, the seeds and the top of the peppers. 

Slice the peppers into slivers, and add to a large mixing bowl with garlic, salt, and olive oil. 

Allow the mixture to stand at room temperature until you are ready to serve. 

For the seven peppers I roasted, I used 1/2 tsp. of salt, 1/2 cup of olive oil and 2 cloves of garlic. 

I also served the several other vegetable sides with the chicken. 

Roasted Eggplant with cubed butternut squash, and onions. 

Fresh tomato salad.

Sautéed dandelion greens with eggplant and spicy red pepper. 

The boys came to dinner armed with flowers and wine. 

I have the sweetest brothers in the world. 

My favorites from one of my favorites.

We also had one brother join us via Facetime. 

His perfect attendance record remains technically intact.