Chili

This recipe is ridiculously easy.  You mix everything together, and then you let it sit.  That's it.  Its perfect for a cozy winter day, and it's great to make in advance for a quick weeknight meal.  I like to make it on the weekends if I know I'll be short on time later in the week. 

My mom has made this recipe for years.  She makes a massive amount at once, so we have it for meals all week, and then another batch gets frozen for later.  Leftovers get used to make chili dogs, nachos, or just a quick snack on the go.   We've always had it with shredded cheddar cheese on top, but its good with sour cream, tortilla chips or saltines as well.

Chili

Makes 8 servings
4 p+ per serving

Ingredients:
1.5 lb 93% lean ground beef
1 large can (16oz) red kidney beans (I use B&M brand)
1 large can (28oz) crushed tomato in tomato puree
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp curry powder

In a large skillet, cook the ground beef. Drain out any excess grease.

Mix together all the ingredients in a large pot.  Stir thoroughly.  Cover, and let simmer for at least 1 hour over low-medium heat.  Serve hot.

Note:  The longer you let it simmer, the more flavor will soak into the meat.  That's another one of the reasons we like to make it in advance... we aren't sitting around smelling it and getting hungry!

Apple Pie Cupcakes

I've seen a lot of methods out there to 'lighten' up cupcakes/cake recipes.  The most common is using diet soda in place of all of the other ingredients.  Just a box of cake mix + 1 can of soda, and bake as directed.  And voilà.  Cupcakes!

There are other substitutions out there.  You can use applesauce in replace of the oil.  Or instead of a can of soda, you can use pineapple, or pumpkin.  I saw the idea of using apple pie cake mix on pinterest. Unfortunately, it was a dead link.  So I couldn't find the original site to find out what exactly the poster, or creator, did to make this recipe. 

These cupcakes were deliciously moist, and the chunks of apple were a nice addition.  They were a nice combination of the two flavors, and managed to maintain each flavor individually, in addition to blending them together.

Apple Pie Cupcakes
recipe inspired by this pin

makes 24 servings
3 points+ per serving

Ingredients:
1 box classic yellow cake mix
1 can (21 oz) apple pie filling
1/4 cup all natural applesauce (no sugar added)

Preheat oven as directed on the box of cake mix.  Like 24 cavities in 2 cupcake tins with cupcake liners.

If apple pie mix is already in small chunks, proceed to the next step.   If they are larger chunks, crush or cut into smaller pieces.  The brand I used was in apple slices, so I had to cut each one into numerous smaller pieces.

Mix together the cake mix, pie filling, and applesauce until thoroughly blended.  Batter will be thick, and have the chunks of apple in it.

Spoon batter into cupcake tins, filling each tin approximately 2/3.  Cook as directed on back of cake mix box.  Let cool for 3-5 minutes, and then enjoy!

Lasagna Rolls

I'm not a big fan of lasagna.  I find it to be too heavy, and not worth the points.  This recipe, however, is light, cheesy, and extremely points+ friendly.  I paired them with a veggie, and 1 roll was more than enough for dinner.

One of the best things about this recipe is that you can make it ahead of time.  We made the rolls the night before, and then added the sauce and baked them for an easy weeknight dinner.

Lasagna Rolls
recipe inspired by SkinnyTaste Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Makes 9 servings
6 points+ per serving

Ingredients
1 tsp olive oil
1 1/3 cup ground chicken, cooked
4 cups spinach, chopped
,4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups FF ricotta cheese
3 T grated parmesan cheese
1 cup FF mozzarella cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp parsley
1 cup pasta sauce
9 T pasta sauce

Bring a large pot of water to boil, and add the olive oil.   Make sure the pan is wide enough to fit the length of the lasagna noodle.  I had to use a shallow pan, and boil the noodles in two batches.  Cook the noodles as directed on the box.  When the noodles are done cooking, remove them from the pan.  Coat a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray, and lay the noodles out to cool.  Make sure they are flat, and not overlapping.

While the noodles are cooking, place another saucepan over medium heat.  Coat with non-stick cooking spray, and cook the spinach and garlic.  The spinach will cook down to about 1 cup when its done. 

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta with the chicken, and the spinach and garlic. Beat the egg in a separate dish, and add that to the mixture, blending well.  Add in the parmesan and mozzarella cheeses and the spices.  Stir the mixture until it is well blended.

Place approximately 1/3 cup of the cheese mixture onto each of the cooled noodles.  Spread it out so that there is an even layer coating the whole noodle. Roll up the noodles, using toothpicks if necessary to hold them together.

When you are ready to cook the lasagna rolls, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Coat the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray, and then pour the 1 cup of sauce over the bottom.  Place the lasagna rolls in the pan, and top each one with 1 T of sauce.  I used Prego chunk garden, onion and garlic sauce. Bake the rolls for 35 minutes, or until hot in the center. 

Chicken Fried Rice

This is an outstanding recipe.  It's fairly easy to prepare, and even easier to double or triple in order to make more servings or bigger portions.  It's a really good recipe to make for a crowd, or to prepare and divide into tupperware for go to lunches all week.  It's just as delicious as leftovers as it is fresh off the stove top.

This recipe makes 7 generous servings, all with a good amount of chicken and vegetables.  It's filling, and a reasonable amount of points+ for each of those servings.


Chicken Fried Rice
recipe adapted from Weight Watchers recipe

Makes 7 servings
6 points+ per serving

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds raw chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/3 cup diced scallions, white and green portions
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 large carrots, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
1 small can corn (about 1 cup)
3 cups brown rice, cooked
5 T reduced sodium soy sauce

Coat a saucepan with nonstick cooking spray.  Season chicken with salt and pepper, and brown the chicken until it is almost cooked through.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Re-coat the pan with cooking spray, and place over heat.  Scramble egg and egg whites until thoroughly blended, and pour onto hot saucepan.  Cook egg mixture, keeping the scrambled consistency.  When cooked through, remove from heat and set aside.

Re-coat the pan for the 3rd time.  Pour the scallions and garlic into the pan, and cook for about 1 minute, until the garlic starts to brown and becomes fragrant.  Add in the chicken and carrots.  Cook for 4-5 minutes, until the carrots soften and the chicken is cooked through. Stir in the rice, corn and egg.  Pour the soy sauce over the mixture, and combine well.

Each serving is a generous 1 cup scoop.

Cranberry Cookies

My mom cut this recipe off the back of a Pillsbury Cranberry Quick Bread box years ago.  Since she found it, it has been one of our family favorites.  The recipe was a favorite from the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest 38.  I've tried to find it online, but have been unsuccessful, so I'm glad we still have the cutout from the box.

This is a very tasty recipe.  It has the sweetness of the sugar, blended with the tartness of the cranberries. It's quick and easy to make, because the mix is already prepared.  It's also a little more sophisticated than your regular chocolate chip, so I find it to be a good recipe to bring along if I'm going to be eating at someone else's house.  If you want to add a little crunch, you can add 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.  

Cranberry Cookies

from Pillsbury quick bread recipe
 

makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies (1 per serving)

2 points+ per serving

Ingredients:
1 package Pillsbury Quick Bread mix

1/2 cup melted butter

1 egg

2 T sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  

Combine bread mix, egg and butter.  Roll dough into 1 inch balls, and place 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet.

Pour the sugar onto a small plate.  Using a glass, flatten a ball of dough, then dip the bottom of the glass in the sugar.  Press the glass back down on the cookie, and press down to get the cookie to a 1/8th inch thickness.  Repeat with the rest of the balls of cookie dough.

Bake the cookies for 7-10 minutes, until the edges begin to turn a light golden color.  Don't wait until they become crispy, or the cookies will be overcooked. You want them to be soft so they are somewhat chewy, rather than crunchy. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet, and put them on a wire rack to cool.

note the light, golden edges

Apple Muffins

I love the flavor of apples and cinnamon.  Whether its just a fresh apple with a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar, homemade applesauce, or baked goods.  I baked an apple into a batch of my cinnamon sugar donuts the other night, and it was a great addition.

My mom makes this recipe as an apple raisin bread.  Equally as good.  However, I don't really care for raisins. I also prefer to use muffin tins versus a bread pan.  You tend to get more servings (which ultimately lowers the points+ value ;) )  So I took her recipe, made a few alterations, and came out with these delectable muffins.  They can be served as a breakfast or as a dessert.  If you want to make it as a bread, it would work out the same way.  You can also substitute one of the cups of apple for a cup of raisins.

Apple Muffins
recipe adapted from Mom's Apple Raisin Bread recipe

makes 24 servings
2 points+ per serving

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 T vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup natural applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups diced apples

Preheat oven  to 375 degrees.  Line 2 muffin tins with 24 muffin liners, or coat with a nonstick cooking spray.

Mix dry ingredients.  Add in all the remaining ingredients except for the apples. Mix thoroughly.  The batter will be thick.  Stir in the apples.

Scoop a spoonful of batter into each muffin tin.  Bake for 18 minutes, until a toothpick placed in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy :)

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

I've never really liked white potatoes.  Even as a baby, my parents couldn't feed me mashed potatoes.  I was a teenage before I started eating French Fries, and now I will eat home fries or roasted potatoes, but only if they they are loaded with garlic and salt, and even then I dip them in ketchup.  I'm actually afraid of mashed potatoes.  I can't explain it, but they creep me out.  I know... it's weird. 

The way my mom got around this was with sweet potatoes.  I love them.  I would refer to them as orange potatoes growing up. Whenever she made baked potatoes, she would throw one of these in for me. Or she would steam them and then bake them with maple syrup.  Delicious, but not WW friendly in the slightest.  While I'm not a fan of the fact that sweet potatoes have points, I still love them, and we usually have them on the menu a few times a month.   

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
recipe adapted from Sweet Potato Fries

Makes 2 Serving

6 points+ per serving

Contains 1 oil and 1 veggie GHG per serving

Ingredients: 

1 pound sweet potatoes, cut into small pieces

2 tsp olive oil

2 T grated parmesan cheese 

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with foil, and coat with nonstick cooking spray.

Pour olive oil over potatoes, and stir to get them coated.  Add the cheese, also making sure to coat the potatoes.  Add the garlic powder, paprika and cayenne pepper.  Note that the paprika and cayenne pepper can produce quite a kick, but we like it that way.

Pour potatoes onto cookie sheet, and cook for 20 minutes.  Flip potatoes, and cook for an additional 15 minutes.  They may need more (or less) time depending on the size of the pieces, and the desired softness. Just keep an eye on them. Ours cook for about 35 minutes total. 

Tips for next time:  This is a favorite for both of us.  We've played with the seasoning, and this is just how we like it!

WW Recipe Builder

I have a love/hate relationship with the WW recipe builder.  

Sometimes it's great, and using it can totally work out better for me.  I love seeing that changing a dessert recipe to 20 servings instead of 18 will cut the points value down by 1.  I also love being able to be creative with substitutions and seeing how I can change the points around to be in my favor.

But I hate how sometimes things come out to be more points than the individual parts.  I know that it tracks the nutritional value of fruits and veggies, and adds that in.  I also know that WW rounds the points values, so sometimes a serving is really 1.3 points, which is why 2 servings gets rounded up to 3.  Both things make sense.  But when you are working with just 26 points a day, every point counts. 

I play with the system a little bit sometimes.  For instance, if a majority of the recipe is made up of zero points value foods, then I will only count the ones that are points.  Or if I'm adding something to bulk up a meal, such as throwing 2 cups of broccoli into a casserole, I won't count the broccoli.

One of the the things that I try to do to avoid this problem is to make what I can as single serve portions.  For a lot of things I end up making 3 servings, 1 for me, and 2 for Dan.  I don't want the points for my serving to go up because I'm making all 3.  So I'll make the recipe 3 separate times.  That way I can track my 1 serving, and only add the ingredients to the tracker, rather than building a recipe.

Because of this, many of my recipes are only 1 serving.  You can easily make multiple servings at once, I just find it easier for tracking purposes to track my portions on my own.   It doesn't actually take extra time in the kitchen.  While the oven is preheating, I'll make my one portion.  I'll throw that on one portion of the cookie sheet, and then in the same bowl I'll prep Dan's 2 servings together.  With the help of a skillfully folded piece of aluminum foil, our portions are kept separate, and then easily transferred to our plates. 

Donuts!

I love to bake.  I would bake treats every day of the week if I could.  Dan gets mad if I bake too much, because he says he can't control himself around my baked goods.

Dan had a few points left, so I asked if he wanted me to bake him donuts.  They are a quick go to dessert.  I use this recipe from Emily Bites,  but we leave off the frosting.  It comes to just 2 points+ per donut, for a delectable baked chocolate treat!

I was on a roll, so I decided to see what other recipes I could bake.  I looked through my pinterest, to see what other donut recipes I had pinned.  I found one, but looking at the ingredients, I realized that I could make that quite a bit more WW friendly.  Cutting back on some of the ingredients, and adapting some subsitutions, and I came out with a treat of my own.

Cinnamon Sugar Baked Donuts

recipe adapted from King Arthur's Baked Doughnuts

makes 6 servings

2 points+ per donut

Ingredients:

1/2 cup white whole wheat pastry flour

2 T sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

2 T nonfat vanilla yogurt

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp canola oil

2 T natural applesauce

2 T skim milk

cinnamon
sweet and low (or other desired sweetener)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray donut pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients until fully blended.  Add remaining ingredients until thoroughly mixed.

Using a spoon, spread the mixture evenly over 6 donuts cavities.  I did this by putting two spoonfuls in each cavity, and then spreading it evenly across the whole thing, careful to leave the space in the middle.  

Bake for 7-8 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool for several minutes before removing from the pan.

Combine sweet and low and cinnamon to taste.  I used 8 packets of sweetener, and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Dip both sides each donut in the mixture, and enjoy!

Tips for next time:  Maybe cut up a small apple to mix in.  They were deliciously moist, and there is definitely room to add some different flavors.  Banana or more vanilla could work as well!

Egg Beaters Frittata

My WW leader loves Egg Beaters.  She talks about all the different things you can do with them all the time.  I've never been a big egg person, so using this as a substitute doesn't bother me.  Up until recently, I just made scrambled eggs with them.  I'd throw in some cheese, and it was a low point breakfast.  Then I started getting a little more creative. I'd saute some veggies and mix them in.  Then I started putting the whole thing in half a lavash.  It made a breakfast wrap for only one extra point.

I decided to do some investigation, and see what other things I can make, using this easy egg substitute.  I found myself on the Egg Beaters website, where there are a ton of different categories of recipes.   I'm definitely going to try some of the other recipes.  I love trying new things for breakfasts, either quick things to grab during the week, or more intricate things when I have more time on the weekends.

I've heard about putting omelets/eggs in the oven before, to finish cooking through a dish.  I didn't realize how much volume it would add to the meal!  The dish was easily twice as thick and fluffy than had I cooked it on the stovetop alone.  It's definitely something I'm going to have to try again.

Egg Beaters Frittata
idea based on Chicken Broccoli Frittata

makes 2 servings
5 points+ each
Contains 1 veggie and 1 oil GHG per serving

Ingredients:
2 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
1/3 cup diced tomato
1/3 cup diced onion
1 cup broccoli florets, cut into small pieces
1.5 oz cooked turkey bacon
salt, to taste
1 cup Egg Beaters original
1/2 cup FF cheddar cheese

Preheat broiler to high.

Heat oven safe skillet, and pour in oil.  Once the skillet is hot, put in garlic.  Personally, I like my garlic a little chunkier than minced, so I tend to cut it into bigger pieces.  If you would prefer minced, go for it.  Cook garlic for about a minute, until it starts to get a golden color.

When the garlic is ready, mix in the rest of the veggies.  I covered mine for a minute so that the broccoli could cook a little faster.  Cook the veggies for 2-3 minutes, then toss in the bacon and cook for another minute.  At this point you can add any salt, or seasoning that you want to try.  Pour in the Egg Beaters, and cover.  Cook for about 9 minutes, on low heat, until the frittata begins to set.

Sprinkle the cheese on top, and put your pan under the broiler.  Cook for about 2-3 minutes, until eggs are completely cooked.

Tips for next time:  I think adding peppers into it will add a lot of flavor.  I also think I would cut back on the amount of broccoli, as while it was good, it was overpowering in some bites.  I might also cook some of the cheese inside, and put some on top, rather than all of it on the top.  Another thing was that I didn't spray the whole pan.  While the olive oil adds great flavor, I definitely need to use nonstick spray across the sides to prevent sticking.

All in all, both Dan and I really like the recipe.  It was a great, low-point, filling breakfast!

My recipe box

I moved in with my boyfriend about a month ago, and it's nice having my own kitchen.  I've always lived with family or roommates, and always had to share my space.  While technically I share with Dan, he's completely ok with the kitchen being my domain.

Both Dan and I are members of weight watchers.  We both strive to lead healthier lives, and that starts in the kitchen.  I love finding new recipes to try out, and working with them to make them weight watchers friendly.  I cook almost every night, and am a big fan of baking when I have the time.  I'm not very creative, so I don't come up with much of my own, but I needed a place to sort out my thoughts and ideas.

Pinterest was one idea.  I could pin all my ideas and go to find any recipes that I had found, and now wanted to try.  I started on Pinterest last year before it became a huge thing, and then it exploded with popularity.    However, the idea that I could (and would) use it as a regular source got very overwhelming, very fast.  I pinned too much!  While I have a lot of ideas there that I want to try, its not very easy to locate the things that I have already done and want to repeat.  I tried having a notebook with all my recipes written out, but that was a pain to try to maintain, and then to locate what I was looking for.  So that prompted the idea of a blog.  Here I can keep track of the recipes that I have made, any substitutions or edits, and what we liked or didn't like about the recipe.  It's my virtual recipe box!