Living Lean and Green With Your Garden: How To Cook Healthy For $10 or Less – Chicken Piccata with Potatoes and Green Beans

 

Chef Ryan and Shawna Coronado building a fantastic recipe!

Chef Ryan’s inspirational dinner is $10 or less and very easy to cook as well. It features onions and green beans from my very own garden.

Green beans are remarkably easy to grow. They thrive in sunshine and in partial shade best, however, the photo features green beans I grew quite successfully in full shade without watering once the entire season. Amazing and delicious!

Another amazing fact – green beans have lots and lots of vitamin power! While low in calories, a single cup of green beans is loaded with nutrients including vitamin K, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin A, dietary fiber, potassium, folate, and iron. Green beans are also a source of magnesium, thiamin, riboflavin, copper, calcium, phosphorus, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and niacin.

There are several different types of green beans. A benefit of growing them – they take up less ground space. If you have a limited area for planting, green beans are great planted close together with climbing poles.

Cook Healthy: Chicken Piccata with Potatoes and Green Beans

2 large boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
1/2 oz flour
2 2/3 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs garlic, smashed
3 fluid ounce wine, white
1/4 cup juice, lemon
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup capers, rinsed
1/2 Tbs cornstarch
2 Tbs parsley, fresh, chopped

Potatoes

3 large potatoes, sliced thin (any variety, we chose Yukon from the garden)
1 red onion, sliced thin
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Green Beans

1 lb green beans, cleaned
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Wrap the first four ingredients in foil and bake or grill until tender.
2. Pound chicken until it is nice and even.
3. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour and brown the chicken on both sides in a hot pan with a small amount of olive oil. Remove the chicken to a sheet pan and finish in the oven if necessary (chicken should reach 160 degrees).
4. Pour off any spent oil and return the pan to medium heat. Coat the pan with a little olive oil and add the garlic, stirring until fragrant and turning lightly golden. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and cook scraping up the crust. Stir in the lemon juice and sugar. If necessary, make a slurry with the cornstarch and a little water and add to the simmering sauce to thicken. Add the rinsed capers. Season the sauce and finish with the chopped parsley.
5. Return chicken to saucepan and coat well with Piccata sauce, keep warm while next step finishes.
6. Place 1/2 a red onion in a hot skillet with olive oil. Add green beans. Saute until cooked.

Servings: 4 — cost is under $10

To learn more about rainwater cisterns and rain exchange systems for your garden and lawn, please go to the sponsor for the “Living Lean & Green; How To Cook Healthy For $10 or Less” video series, Aquascape Inc., at www.aquascapeinc.com. They have an amazing website filled with ideas to help you live more sustainably by collecting and utilizing rainwater, particularly to water a garden.

The “Living Lean and Green; How To Cook Healthy For $10 or Less”video series features Chef Ryan Hutmacher, The Centered Chef of Centered Chef Food Studios (http://www.centeredchef.com), cooking with me (Shawna Coronado) in my front lawn vegetable garden. Together, we are creating meals that cost a family of four $10 or less to prepare and feature organic vegetables I have grown myself.

— Burpee Home Gardens supplied the vegetables grown in the garden this season. I  write many instructional stories and videos with their incredible vegetable products and donate a large portion of the vegetables to the local food pantry when harvested.
— Organic Mechanics Soil supplied the worm castings for the garden areas which were not crop-rotated this season.
— Aquascape, Inc. sponsored the videos and supplied the rainwater cistern for easier watering of the vegetable garden.

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