Finally craving meat!!!

As you know, I’ve been really struggling with meat these past months, meaning I could not even look at it without cringing. Therefore getting my much needed protein throughout my pregnancy has been a real struggle. I am not saying that being a vegetarian is wrong or anything, but I had a really good deal with meat before I got pregnant: I ate it once per week because I really do love a good steak, or burger. Since this has not been an option throughout the past six months, I ate lots of eggs, cottage cheese and other foods that provided the right amount of protein for me as well as for my baby.

Last week something weird happened and I found myself craving meat. Naturally D immediately got dressed and off to the supermarket he went to cure my craving – to be honest, he always does that for me, he immediately tries and satisfy whatever craving I might have. Since I can only have well done meat my only viable choices are turkey or chicken as I can’t stand the thought of a perfectly good veal or pork meat not being medium-done (it should be illegal otherwise). For some reason, chicken seemed to be the winner option as I always found it easier to digest than turkey and so a chicken dinner it was!

To make sure that I will not ruin my meat craving forever I tried to cook it with as many citrusy flavours I could while still taking advantage of the amazing indian seasoning we always seem to have in the house – we both love indian food so, so much! That being said, I also like my food spicy, but since heartburn has been a real bitch lately I only spiced things up at a moderate level. This dish is easy to make, but you have to take into account the time it takes the meat to marinate – in this case, I left it in the fridge for one hour, but you can leave it for as long as you’d like, even overnight.

Here’s what I used:

•  2 chicken breasts (no skin, boneless)
• 1 pink grapefruit (only the juice)
• 1 lemon (only the juice)
• 15 gr fresh oregano leaves
• 2 tablespoons tikka masala powder
• 1 tablespoon hot chilli powder
• 1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard (since I can’t drink my wine, I might as well use it in my food – or at least some variety of it)

What you need to do:

1. Cut the chicken breasts into strips – I did that in order for the flavours to get into as much of the meat as possible, plus it’s fun to eat chicken strips.
2. In a small bowl mix all the powder seasoning together.
3. In a large bowl prepare your marinade: both of the citrusy juices, the powder spices, the oregano leaves and the mustard and mix everything well.
4. Put the chicken strips making sure they are well covered in the marinade, cover the bowl with plastic foil and into the fridge it goes for as long as you want.
5. Give the cast iron pan a light spray of avocado oil and put the chicken in for about 4-5 minutes on each side.
6. That’s it! Mix some salad greens next to it and voila!: the perfect healthy dinner!

Since the chicken is grilled in virtually no oil, this is quite the healthy option that still has loads of flavour and does not feel like you are eating paper. The nutritional info is for 100 gr which is more than you can see on my plate in the photos and it has a decent amount of protein as well as virtually no fats or other nasty stuff. I love the fact that you can feel the citrusy taste so much and I think that complements chicken just perfectly especially when paired with indian spices!

L.