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.