Grits Souffle’s with Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Coulis
I adapted this recipe from one found in Vegetarian Times magazine. My ramekin dishes are half the size requested, so I halfed the recipe and changed some items out for healthier options. They were the perfect size paired with a fake chicken breast (1 point) and steamed asparagus (1 point). They had so much great flavor, I can only imagine how they’d taste with the full fat items and the gouda cheese that was originally used. The Coulis did not call for roasted red pepper, but it was a great addition.
Souffle’ :
To be used in 5 4-oz ramekin dishes. Double recipe if you have 8 oz dishes
½ cup grits
1 ½ cups fat free milk
1 tsp baking powder
Handful steamed asparagus, chopped
½ cup shredded 2% milk cheddar cheese
3 Laughing Cow Lite original soft wedges
1 ½ large egg whites plus ½ egg (use your eyes)
Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Coulis:
½ cup onion, chopped
7 ½ oz can diced Italian-style tomatos
2 tablespoons rinsed, drained roasted red pepper
1. To make Souffle’s: Preheat oven to 375F. Coat 5 4-ox. Ramekins with cooking spray and dust with grits.
2. Bring grits, milk, and baking powder to a boil in pot. Reduce heat to medium and cook 8 minutes, whisking constantly. Cool 5 minutes, then stir in asparagus, cheese, and whole egg.
3. Beat egg whites with electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold into grits mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Divide among prepared ramekins. Bake 25 minutes, or until puffed and golden.
4. To make Tomato and Pepper Coulis: Sautee’ onions in small pot with fat free spray oil. Add tomatoes and simmer 8-12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Puree with roasted red peppers in blender until smooth . Unmold soufflés and serve with Coulis and asparagus spears for garnish. I estimated each souffle' to be 3-4 points.

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So I had a seperate weight watcher blog just for daily stuggles and posting my food intake, but due to a server tragedy, that blog is gone. It was time to combine the two anyway. I didn't log yesterday, so I'll just post a photo of my bento box today, worth about 9 pts. You can view the details on my flickr.

Eggplant Lasagna

I watched The Victory Garden on PBS recently where they used fresh eggplant, basil, and garlic leaves (yes, the leaves or a garlic plant) to make a low fat eggplant lasagna. I used their idea and altered it to make it a little more like lasagna and a little lower fat. I cannot tell you how delish this dish came out! I used 1/2 point bread the next day with garlic spray and made an eggplant lasagna sammich in my old skool sammich maker. Even better the next day!
Eggplant Lasagna
Ingredients:
2 eggplants, grilled.
Fresh herbs (I used basil)
Salt, pepper
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ cup light pasta sauce, your choice
½ cup low fat cottage cheese
1 ¼ cup low fat mozzarella cheese

Directions:
Preheat Oven to 400, slice eggplant lengthwise into 1/2 inch strips. Spray with ff spray (I used butter flavor), lay on baking sheet and sprinkle salt and pepper. 2 eggplants took up 2 baking sheets. Bake till golden, possibly flipping midway (check after 10 minutes). Turn oven down to 350 and keep on after the eggplant. Make sure the eggplant is cooked thoroughly, not too tough.

You can heat up your sauce with the garlic and herbs to get them mixed well, or roast your garlic separately and just add that and a couple of leaves of basil, chopped, to the sauce later. Place ½ of the grilled eggplant in a casserole dish, laying down for even coverage. Add all of the cottage cheese and spread evenly. Add ¾ cup red sauce and ½ cup of the mozzarella. Add second layer of eggplant, then red sauce and ¾ cup mozzarella. I like more cheese on top. Place in oven and bake for 15-25 minutes. I can’t remember top on or top off. You just need to reheat it some and it depends on how you like your cheese top!

You will want to re-calculate the points as you make this, but if I am correct and you also use a light sauce, it should be about 4 pts a serving, and I made 4 huge servings from it.

Sweet Potato Fries!


I have been enjoying my baked zucchini fries lately, but I needed to break it up. I didn't want to get burnt out on them and I wanted to try something new. I have never really liked sweet potatoes much, but I have recently tried BBQ sweet potatoes and teriyaki sweet potatoes so when my boyfriend suggested we make sweet potato fries, I decided to give it a go!

Ingredients: 1 large Yam salt
pepper
Fat Free Butter Flavored cooking spray


Directions:
Cut into thin strips.
Spray baking sheet with ff butter spray, lay the fries out, spray them once more, and sprinkle salt and a little pepper on top.
Bake them at 400 degrees for about 20-30 mins, flipping then mid-way.


You want them to get just a little brown, a couple super thin ones might burn a tad, but I like then almost burnt. It's something about the sweet and salty combination that makes these addictive! We made them two nights in a row and I had to stop myself.
We ate these with fake grilled chicken (1.5 pts) on lite sourdough bread (1 pt) and a little mozzarella (1 pt)
One cup of yams is 2 pts, so I think our yam made 2 servings. So this is a 5.5 point meal!

Southern Comfort

After reading one of anna's entries, I decided it was time to get myself a GFG (George Foreman Grill). I don't cook meat too often, but I like the idea of being able to grill inside and I can even make veggies on the GFG.

So last night Robby bought us some lean tenderloin steaks. We christened the new grill and complimented our steaks with mock mashed potatoes and fake fried zucchini. I cut my steak almost in half to make it about 4 oz which was 3 points. It was plenty of beef for me. I altered my zucchini recipe a little so I'll update that.

Mock Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, chopped

1 tablespoon I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Light

1 tablespoon fat free sour cream

2-3 cloves of minced garlic (I like lots of garlic)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Place chopped cauliflower in medium sized pot of boiling water. Let boil 6-8 minutes. Drain well. Place in bowl, add butter and sour cream. Mix with handheld blender/beaters or in regular blender. Add salt and pepper as you blend. After this, you might want to reheat them in the oven or microwave just a bit.

These were 2 points for the WHOLE DISH and we got 4 servings out of it. My boyfriend isn't a huge fan of cauliflower but loves mashed potatoes and he ate this stuff up! I would consider that successful.

Fake Fried Zucchini

I followed the same directions as the last entry I did on zucchini, but I only used half of the bag of shake n bake and 1/2 of a cup of Fiber One cereal I ran through the food processor. Added 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper to this mix as well. Shake n Bake gives you bags to use for the coating and these do a much better job than rolling around the pieces in a bowl. I calculated both of these items together since the cereal has so much fiber and it came to 2 points total. Is this fair to do? I used 2 1/2 zucchinis for this and we got 2 extrememely large portions which we gobbled up. I have to say, it was not quite as good as when I use straight Shake n Bake, but it if makes one large serving for one point and stretches out the mix giving me extra fiber for the day, I'll probably stick to this in the future.

My goal was really to make a super low point meal of things I like. I would rather use more points when I go out to eat since I have less control.

So to be precise, I would say this meal was 4.5 points and incredibly satisfying and filling. As I try to get enough veggies in for the day, I'm learning which ones have zero points and trying to cook with those more and more.

Fake Fried Zucchini
A while back I was making Shake n Bake chicken (using Quorn fake chicken) and I had leftover mix. Instead of making my blackened okra, I coated the chopped okra in the seasoning mix and baked it. It turned out crunchy and DELISH! I am a huge fan of fried okra and honestly, I could stay away forever if I could eat my shake n bake. So after some failed zucchini coins using fish fry in the oven (my boyfriend's idea), I decided to try it with Shake n Bake and it turned out great. I've recently read a couple recipes for something similar using Fiber One cereal through a food processor. I'll add that to my mix tonight to bring the points down and stretch it out, but this is a great alternative. Here is my quick version

Ingredients:
2 small/medium zucchini's, sliced in sticks
1/2 packet of Shake n Bake of Kraft's Oven Fry (same points)
bowl of water

Directions:
Dip the zucchini slices in bowl of water
Coat them in seasoning (in a bag works best)
Place on non-stick pan
Spray with Butter or Garlic flavored fat free cooking spray, I go over the pan a couple times
If some slices look a little bare, you can sprinkle some extra mix on

Place in Oven on 400 degrees, 15 minutes, then flip and coat with more spray, another 15 minutes. I set my oven to Broil for the last 5 minutes to get them as crunchy as possible. They weren't , too salty, but they were still a little juicy on the inside and had such a good flavor. We got 3 decent sized servings from this so I would estimate 1.5 points. I wanted to eat all 3 servings!

We enjoyed the zucchini with 1/2 cup of cilantro lime rice and 1 grilled fake chicken breast (seasoned with lemon pepper, a touch of fat free italian dressing, lemon juice, salt, and black pepper)

So the entire meal was a total of 5.5 points!

Spinach & Black Bean Quesadillas
So I found this recipe on Roni's WW Page, and wanted to try it myself. I was able to lower the points a little so that these tortillas, with a tablespoon of fat free sour cream and plenty of salsa is 3 pts total! Once I bought the ingredients, I ate this several nights in a week, making it a quick, easy, and low-point meal. When I come home at night, I'm not in the mood for a frozen dinner. I usually only like to eat those at work since they are easy and cheap.
Ingredients:
Handful of fresh spinach leaves
Chopped grilled onion or fresh green onion
Low fat or fat free refried Beans ( I only use about 1/6th of the can)
2 fat free La Tortilla Factory tortillas check it out
1 oz 2% cheddar cheese, shredded
Fat Free cooking spray (garlic or butter flavored)

Spread tortillas with black beans, add toppings, cook in skillet on medium to low heat (to prevent tortillas from burning before the cheese melts), about 2-3 minutes for each side. Let cool, cut, and eat with a side of fat free sour cream (I do one tablespoon) and salsa.

Anna's Guest Entry


Eggsellent!

Eating healthy doesn’t have to be boring or a time consuming process. I found an easy, delicious and low value point recipe on the WW website I prepared for dinner the other night. Luckily for me I had most of the ingredients in my fridge.

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Fried Rice straight from WW:

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown rice
4 large egg whites
1/2 cup carrot(s)
2 medium garlic clove(s)
1/2 cup frozen green peas
3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
12 oz uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 sprays cooking spray

Being the iconoclast that I am, I didn’t follow the instructions verbatim. Being creative in the kitchen is what cooking from the heart & soul is all about, right?

I used a medium frying pan and coated the pan with two sprays of Original Pam cooking spray. In went the egg whites. Scramble the egg whites for a few minutes; which are all it takes to cook the egg whites all the way through. Remove from the pan and set aside for later. Next I added the finally chopped garlic and scallions. Sauté until soft – about five minutes then throw in the peas, carrots and chicken breasts. I seasoned the chicken breasts with a little salt and a decent amount of pepper and cut into bit sized pieces. Cook and stir until the chicken is fully cooked then add the brown rice. Stir a little bit more then sprinkle the soy sauce in and stir again. Voila! Dinner in less than 30 minutes.

I added a couple of drops of Sriracha for added kick and it did nothing to increase the value points.

Chicken Fried Rice = 1 cup serving 3 points

Since I am cooking for one, I had plenty of leftovers. I found this interesting recipe from (where else?!?) WW for a fried rice breakfast omelet.... which I prepared and enjoyed this morning. The recipe is really simple. However, true to form, I didn’t follow the recipe on the WW website. I modified it to fit my daily points intake. Here is the recipe for my version:

Ingredients:

1 egg = 2 points
¾ cup egg whites = 0 points
½ cup chicken fried rice = 1.5 points
2 sprays cooking spray
salt and pepper

In a bowl, add egg and egg white then whisk.

Coat pan with two sprays of cooking spray then add the chicken fried rice. Cook until fried rice is heated. Then add the egg mixture and allow the eggs to sit for a minute until the egg mixture is solid:


Once firm, flip the eggs carefully to cook on the other side. The whole process will take less than 10 minutes.



I added a couple of slices of mango and some strawberries for garnish and the serving sizes are so small, it was 0 points. So the entire dish is a hearty and filling 3.5 points. Bon Apetit!

Relaunch

It's been quite some time since I posted last. I fell off the wagon a bit. I gained a few pounds, stopped keeping track and stopped being really good about buying weight watcher friendly groceries. BUT, I'm back! I've lost a few pounds in the last few weeks of gettin back in the swing and picked up my old (good) habits again slowly. Thankfully, I purchased an electronic weight watchers calculator last fall and that has been a savior while shopping. I'll post some photos of new recipes and favorite foods this weekend.

Relaunch

It's been quite some time since I posted last. I fell off the wagon a bit. I gained a few pounds, stopped keeping track and stopped being really good about buying weight watcher friendly groceries. BUT, I'm back! I've lost a few pounds in the last few weeks of gettin back in the swing and picked up my old (good) habits again slowly. Thankfully, I purchased an electronic weight watchers calculator last fall and that has been a savior while shopping. I'll post some photos of new recipes and favorite foods this weekend. In the meantime, check out this great ww blog