Italian Sausage and Peppers Pasta {9 WW+ Dinner}

I love trying a Weight Watcher recipe from their website and find that it actually tastes flavorful! So many times in the past I've tried one and it's just been waaaay too bland. Maybe it's just me but I always find myself adding lots of herbs and spices to their recipes.

Not this one. It was perfect. The onions and peppers were delicious when paired with the red wine and my son loved that the onions got stained "burple" from the red wine. The italian sausage was definitely the way to go with this meal. I think if you subbed anything else it wouldn't be as tasty without a LOT of spices thrown in.

And while I didn't absolutely love this dish, I'll probably make it sometime in the future. Just not every month :)

Inspiration: WeightWatchers.com

Italian Sausage and Peppers Pasta

• 2 teaspoons olive oil, extra-virgin
• 1 green peppers, cut into 2-inch long thin strips
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
• 15 ounce canned diced tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt 
• fresh black pepper
• 1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 3 links mild Italian sausage
• 8 ounces gemelli (or fusilli) pasta

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.

Meanwhile, to make sauce, in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, cook sausage, stirring and breaking up meat with back of a wooden spoon, until cooked through, about 3 to 5 minutes; remove to a plate.

Heat oil in same skillet. Add yellow peppers and onion; cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are lightly colored and crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.

Add wine and garlic; cook until most of liquid evaporates, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, crushed red pepper, salt and browned sausage; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until vegetables are tender and sauce is heated through, about 10 minutes.

While sauce simmers, add pasta to boiling water and cook according to package instructions. Drain pasta; return to pot. Add sauce and basil; toss to mix and coat. Yields about 1 1/3 cups per serving.

6 Servings | 9 WW+ Points

Cranberry Walnut Gorgonzola Dressing {2 WW+ Dressing}

Best Salad Dressing EVER!

Want to know how to make a low point salad that's super tasty and full of lots of yummy veggies? Use this dressing! A friend of a friend (maybe I can just call her a friend now...) suggested it and could only rave about it so I figured what the heck? And I picked up a bottle of it at Trader Joe's.

I grabbed some spinach, romaine, shredded carrots & sliced cucumber and piled them high in my bowl. I then carefully measured out two tablespoons of dressing and poured it over the veggies. And started eating. I don't think I stopped for a breath after starting because it was soo yummy!

Confession - I even went back and licked the dressing off the measuring spoon...

No need for adding anything else. The dressing has all the flavor you need. Walnuts, gorgonzola AND cranberries!! So perfect. And only 2 WW+ points per 2 tablespoon serving. I tried it last night with my dinner and than again for lunch today.

 

Even Molly approves: 

 

Baked Peanut Butter and Banana Oatmeal Squares {4 WW+ Breakfast}

If you're a peanut butter lover AND watching your figure don't walk, run to go make these! They are soo tasty. And super filling. And really, if you look at the recipe, there's nothing "diet" about them. I mean they have butter and real sugar! No skimping out on this one. And if you're like me and eat a hearty breakfast every morning help yourself to two servings piled with bananas on top and non-fat vanilla yogurt on the side for an awesome and very tasty breakfast.

Seriously... go make these now.

Inspiration: Two Pink Hippos (if you don't already follow these ladies you should!)

Baked Peanut Butter & Banana Oatmeal Squares

• 1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup 1% milk
• 1 egg
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x13 baking dish. Mix all ingredients in a bowl then spread out evenly in the baking dish. Bake 20-25 until the edges are golden brown.

15 Servings | 4 WW+ Points

Smothered Buttermilk Chicken with Peas {9 WW+ Dinner}

When planning this week's menu I think that tonight's meal was the one I was most looking forward to. The recipe sounded almost like a chicken pot pie filling over a biscuit and it ended up tasting pretty similar to it! The only thing I'd change is I'd add more spices.

Since I had to work today I had Joseph prepare this meal and he did great. He changed the amount of water added from the original recipe since he didn't think there was enough and he added in a splash of chicken broth to add more flavor. Another change he'd make is to switch the water with chicken broth for more flavor as well.

All in all I loved this meal and will definitely be attempting it again with some more spices. I even had a second helping (don't worry... I had enough points!). Don't get me wrong, one serving would have been more than enough to satisfy me normally but I hadn't eaten since lunchtime due to a busy day at work. I also paired this with a delicious spinach & romaine salad.

Inspiration: Food.com

Smothered Buttermilk Chicken with Peas

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
• 1 1/2 cups carrots, sliced into coins
• 1/3 cup onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 chicken gravy mix packet
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup(s) frozen green peas, thawed
• 6 Trader Joe's refrigerated Buttermilk Biscuits

In a 4 to 6 quart slow cooker, mix together the chicken, carrots, onion, water, butter, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours.

During the last 20 minutes of cooking time, stir in the gravy mix.Remove the bay l eaf; mix the buttermilk and flour together; stir flour mixture and peas into chicken mixture. Increase heat to HIGH; cover and cook 10-15 minutes or until peas are hot.

While the chicken mixture is cooking, prepare biscuits as directed on can. Split biscuits; serve chicken mixture over biscuits.

Serves 6 | 9 WW+ Points

WFD? {Weekly Meal Planning}

Along with joining Weight Watchers again comes menu and meal planning. I haven't been doing it for the past few weeks but now that I'm going into week 9 I feel like I have to be more accountable for what we fix for dinner. Plus, I don't need any excuses to forego a meal at home for fast food or restaurant food that's double what my homemade cooking would cost me in points (as well as money!).

So I'm going to start posting my weekly dinner meal plan for all to see. I may blog all of the dishes, I may blog just one, and I may just be using another meal I already blogged about. But I'll list them all here and will try to review each and every one at the end of the week (if my kids give me the time).

Week of 3/27/2011

Sunday - 9 WW+ Points
Italian Sausage and Pepper Pasta via Weight Watchers
Monday - 10 WW+ Points
Smothered Buttermilk Chicken With Peas via food.com 
Tuesday - 5 WW+ Points (plus pasta points)
Skinny Italian Spinach Meatballs via Gina's Skinny Recipes
Wednesday - 9 WW+ Points
Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken via Crockpot 365
Thursday - 8 WW+ Points
Enchilada Lasagna via this blog
Friday - 9 WW+ Points
Honey Teriyaki Salmon via Joelen's Culinary Adventures  
Saturday -
Disneyland for Joseph's birthday

Fried Rice Revisited {4 WW+ Sides}

For the past few nights we've been having brown rice as a side to our meals. And since it's just two and a half people eating we always seem to have left over rice. So instead of reheating or putting it into a casserole I wanted to make some fried rice for dinner tonight. Fried rice is awesome... so versatile and you can basically put anything in it and it'll taste good! So I just raided the freezer and pantry to come up with this version.

Luckily Joseph put out some chicken so it wasn't just fried rice for dinner :) I marinated the chicken in teriyaki sauce to add in with the fried rice and it was very yummy! The chicken only added 4 more points for 4 ounces of cooked chicken.

Fried Rice

• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (I used corn, carrots & green beans)
• 3 cups cooked brown rice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (or more to taste)

Heat pan on medium high. Spray with Pam. Scramble egg. Remove scrambled eggs from pan and set aside.

Add olive oil into the pan and saute onions and garlic for about 1 minute. Add frozen veggies into the pan and continue to saute for another 2 minutes. Add in the rice and cook for a few minutes until the rice is heated through.

Add soy sauce and toss everything together to mix well. Enjoy!

6 servings | 4 WW+ Points

Eggs Done Right... Again {7 WW+ Breakfast}

This has been my go to breakfast when I need something hearty enough to hold me over until lunchtime. It may be a lot of points but it's worth every one of them! So super tasty. And I told you I was making good use of the left over pulled pork we had the other night!

I really think you can't go wrong when you mix eggs with salsa. They just always taste right. And I'm sure I'll start putting more veggies in my eggs. I think zucchini would work really well with this dish if I sauteed a bit before scrambling into the eggs. Or some diced mushrooms... mmmm! The best part is that I can scramble up the egg yolks for my son's breakfast so I don't waste a thing! He likes his with cheese and a side of fruit.

You can also use a La Tortilla Factory Low Carb tortilla and shave off a point from this meal. You can also do without the pork and shave 2 points off this meal.  There are so many variations to scrambled eggs. Don't stick with the same ol' same ol'. Spice it up!

Pork and Salsa Egg Scramble

• 1 egg
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tablespoon milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 serving pulled pork
• 1 tortilla
• 1/8 cup Trader Joe's Lite Shredded 3 Cheese Blend
• 1/3 cup salsa

Spray non-stick pan with some Pam cooking spray. Blend egg, egg whites, milk and seasoning together with a fork. Add pork to the pan and cook for 1/2 a minute. Add eggs on top of the pork. Scramble and cook until done to your liking.

Place eggs on your plate. Put tortilla in the pan and heat for 1 minute. Flip and sprinkle heated side with cheese. After about 1/2 a minute fold the tortilla in half and remove from pan. Add to plate with eggs and serve with a side of salsa.

Load that tortilla up with some eggs, top with the salsa and take a bite... 

1 Serving | 7 WW+ Points

Lobster Lovin' {6 WW+ Points Lunch}

Another fabulous and easy meal from Trader Joe's is their lobster ravioli in the refrigerated pasta section by the cheeses (usually). This pasta is soo good. And if you go off of the nutritional info from the label you'll see that there are 2.5 servings in the package. But if you are neurotic and count how many ravioli are actually in the package you'll see that you can really get 3 servings out of one package and won't even be able to tell the difference because you'll still be full!

So if you go by the package, one serving is 7 WW+ points. But if you divide the ravioli into three portions you are brought down to 5 WW+ points. Plus you can add some olive oil to get in your healthy oils and add on one point to your meal as I did. Pare this with a salad or some grilled or sauteed veggies and you have yourself one delicious pasta dish!

Lobster Ravioli ala Trader Joes

• 1 package Trader Joe's Lobster Ravioli
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 2 teaspoons olive oil

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil and salt water. Add lobster ravioli and cook for 5 minutes (longer if raviolis are frozen). Remove from water and toss with olive oil and seasoning.

You can also enjoy with your favorite sauce. Just adjust the recipe and figure out the adjusted WW+ points. 

Enjoy!


3 Servings | 6 WW+ Points

Skinny Sloppy Joes {5 WW+ Dinner}

I think I've said it before but I love Gina's Skinny Recipes. She is such an inspiration for taking a normal, full fat recipe and making it work for the Weight Watchers lifestyle. Plus everything I've tried from her blog always tastes super good.

I did tweak the recipe a bit as I only had certain things on hand but I still think that this tasted fabulous. And you definitely couldn't tell there were so many veggies in here. My husband may have but he couldn't identify more than onions when I asked him to tell me what veggies he was eating. I served this with a nice green salad and low fat balsamic. But it'd also be perfect mixed with quinoa or brown rice!

Inspiration: Skinny Taste

Skinny Sloppy Joes

• 1 pound 85/15 organic ground beef sirloin
• 1 tablespoon Mrs Dash garlic & herb
• 1 cup baby carrots, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup Trader Joe's fire roasted peppers & onions, minced
• 4 oz sliced crimini mushrooms, minced
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• salt & pepper to taste
• Bun or bread of your choice (not included in WW+ calculation)

Dice all of the vegetables really fine (Gina suggests using a food processor or blender but I just minced them up and sauteed really well).

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the meat to the pan and break it up as it cooks. Season with seasoning and cook the meat until it browns, then add onion, garlic, carrots, mushrooms and red peppers to the skillet.

Reduce heat to medium and add red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, cook 5 more minutes. Add tomato sauce and paste to pan, stir to combine. Cover and reduce heat to simmer and cook an additional 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Using a measuring cup, pile 1/2 cup of sloppy meat onto toasted buns.

Serves 7 | 5 WW+ Points

Simply Perfect Berry Breakfast {4 WW+ Breakfast}

I have this for breakfast just about every other day. It's my go to for a simple quick meal that will keep me full until snack time. It's also the perfect meal to give to my son as well (sans the cereal). He LOVES yogurt and he loves fruit so putting them together is just a natural combination. But he gets the plain full fat version while I indulge in the fat free vanilla version. He doesn't know the difference yet so why ruin a good thing?

Yogurt and Berries with a Crunch

• 1/2 cup Kashi GoLean Crunch
• 1/2 cup Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt
• 1/2 cup strawberries (or fruit of your choice)

Mix everything together and enjoy with a hot cup of coffee. I take my coffee with splenda and hot cocoa mix (YUM!).

1 Serving | 4 WW+ Points 

Mahi Mahi Done Trader Joe's Style {4 WW+ Dinner}

We frequent Trader Joe's just as much as we frequent Costco... weekly. And we always like to keep our freezer stocked with their awesome frozen meals. One of those meals just happened to be perfect for Ash Wednesday. This marinated mahi mahi is one of our favorites and I know it'll be one of yours too! And the best part is that not only does it taste good but it's inexpensive as well! I think the one we bought was around $5.

The ingredients include olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, parsley, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper in the marinade and, of course, mahi mahi. And each frozen pack includes 3 fillets at around 4 WW+ points each (depending on weight). It is enough for our family plus a small lunch the next day. I shredded our extra fillet up and put it over a salad for lunch and it was delish!

To prepare it you can do one of four things: bake, broil grill or pan fry. I chose to pan fry them since that's what I was in the mood for and I needed to get my daily healthy oils in. I used about a tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet to cook all three. I set them in the hot pan and set the timer for 5 minutes on the first side, than I flipped and set the timer for 5 minutes on the next side and it was perfectly cooked... not dried out or anything.

Just see how mouth watering this dinner looks... You have gotta try it!

Spicy Pulled Pork Heaven {6 WW+ Dinner}

We recently went to Costco, a weekly occurrence for this household, and stumbled upon a four-pack of 98% fat free pork sirloin tip roast. I found the cheapest one in the bin (doesn't everyone do that - search the whole pile for the cheapest pack?) and threw it in the cart. I was sooo excited. And I think Joseph was too.

He immediately wanted to make something with it for dinner the next day so I searched for a good pulled pork recipe we hadn't already used. I remembered listening to some show on Martha Stewart radio (don't judge!) about a marinaded pork recipe that you make in the dutch oven so off I went to Google to search. And while I didn't find the recipe on the show I did find this one. And boy was it GOOD! It had this hidden spice to it (enough to make my son not want to eat much) and was just delicious on its own and topped with a little barbeque sauce. Joseph took his in a wheat hot dog bun and I used a sandwich thin for mine. 

And since I had some left over I put some in my scrambled eggs this morning for a delicious breakfast. Recipe for my pulled pork breakfast burrito coming up... however there was no picture as a pulled pork breakfast burrito is hard to make look appetizing for pictures :)

Inspiration: Martha Stewart.com

Southern Pulled-Pork Sandwiches

• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 21 ounces boneless pork sirloin
• 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
• 4 soft sandwich rolls, split (or other vessel in which to bring the pork to your mouth without dirtying your hands... unless you're into that)
• Store-bought barbecue sauce, for serving (optional... but delicious)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in lower and upper positions. In a small bowl, combine sugar, cayenne, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper.

Place pork in a 3-quart Dutch oven or large heavy-bottomed pot; rub with spice mixture.

In a medium bowl, combine vinegar, garlic, and 1/2 cup water; pour over pork. Cover pot, and place in oven on lower rack. Bake until pork is very tender and separates easily when pulled with a fork, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Transfer pork to a work surface, reserving pan juices. With two forks, shred meat. Transfer to a large bowl, and toss with pan juices to moisten (you may not need all the juices... we did). Pile pork on rolls, and top with barbecue sauce, if desired.

I did not include the barbeque sauce or the rolls in the WW+ points calculation since this varies by type and brand. 

4 Servings | 6 WW+ Points

Delicious Peanut Butter Smores {4 WW+ Dessert}

A friend of mine recently mentioned the delicious low point dessert she made to curb a craving she had. She made some sugar free, fat free white chocolate jello and topped it with strawberries. YUM! So I started thinking about the dessert items I have made to hit the spot. One of them is a delicious smores recipe that uses marshmallow creme instead of marshmallows and uses mini chocolate chips instead of a chocolate bar. You bake it in the oven and within 5-10 minutes a delicious, mouthwatering snack comes out.

I just took that recipe and spiced it up for what I was craving. And while it did come out with a higher points value that's ok! It was so worth it! And I only ate one serving and shared the other with my little man. He was more than ecstatic to help me eat some points so I wasn't tempted to go after the other one. Oh, and if you want to eat both? Don't double the points, Weight Watchers fuzzy math makes 2 servings 7 WW+ points.

Peanut Butter Smores

• 2 graham crackers
• 2 tablespoons marshmallow creme
• 1 tablespoon chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter*

Preheat oven (or toaster oven) to 350. Place graham crackers on foil lined baking sheet. Spread 1 tablespoon of creme on each cracker. Sprinkle with 1/2 tablespoon of chocolate chips and drop 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter on each.

Bake for about 8 minutes and take out of the oven. Let cool for 2-3 minutes before biting into heavenly perfection.

Serves 2 | 4 WW+ Points

* If you omit the peanut butter each serving is 2 WW+ points. Much more doable if you don't have the extra 10 points for breastfeeding ;)

Bacon & Parmesan Spinach {3 WW+ Side Dish}

We purchased a large "tub" of spinach from Costco the last time we were there and I was trying to figure out ways to prepare it. I was just going to use it for spinach salads but for some reason come lunchtime they never seemed appealing to me... so we were left with a large tub of spinach :)

Enter tonight's dinner... I hadn't taken anything out of the fridge and we hadn't been to the grocery store in a while so it was going to be a pantry dinner night. I scoured the pantry, cupboards and fridge to take inventory of what we had and came up with an amazing side that has quite a few wonderful ingredients (including BACON! How can you go wrong with bacon?!).

I searched Weight Watchers online for point friendly recipes and settled on one called Spinach with Parmesan-Bread Crumbs. It looked simple enough... but just didn't have a wow factor. So I decided to spruce it up a bit and am quite pleased with how it turned out. Joseph even ate his portion (with minimal complaints).The original recipe was only 2 WW+ points so if you don't have an extra point just omit the bacon.

Inspiration: Weight Watchers

Bacon and Parmesan Spinach

• 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs, chopped coarsely
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 3 pieces bacon (I used pre-cooked bacon)
• 1 1/2 pounds spinach, washed & well-drained

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat; add bread crumbs and cook, stirring often, until golden, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in Parmesan cheese. Spoon bread crumbs into a small bowl; set aside.

Heat remaining oil in same skillet. Add bacon & garlic, cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds (if using raw bacon, do not add oil & just cook bacon until crisp and set aside... toss with spinach at the end). Gradually add half of spinach to skillet, tossing mixture and adding more spinach as some of it cooks down. Continue cooking and tossing, until spinach is wilted and tender, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from skillet and repeat with remaining spinach.

Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with crumbs. Or toss with half of crumbs and sprinkle remaining crumbs over each serving. Yields about 3/4 cup spinach and 2 tablespoons crumbs per serving.

I served with whole wheat spaghetti & tomato basil marinara sauce. I even added the left over spinach to the left over spaghetti for lunch tomorrow. YUM!

4 Servings | 3 WW+ Points

A New Spin on Chicken & Rice {10 WW+ Dinner}

I took some chicken out of the freezer yesterday and placed it in the fridge but had no idea what I was going to do with it. I had made a simple meal that night of breaded tilapia, low fat scalloped potatoes and steamed veggies so I knew I wanted an equally simple meal for tonight. 


Around mid-day today my husband asked me to make Chicken ala King. I had no idea what this entailed so he went searching through our various cook books to see if the dish he thought he knew was truly what he was envisioning. But his search got cut short when he found this simple chicken and rice dish in our Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook. This cookbook is awesome for a variety of reasons but the most important one being that it is simple and to the point. So I had no problem trying out this recipe... with a few modifications to fit our needs and my Weight Watchers lifestyle. 


Oh, and just a note, I almost always dice up a few onions at once and put 1/2 cup portions in baggies to freeze. The onions I used in this recipe were used from the freezer. I just threw them in the pan still frozen and they thawed wonderfully. I also do this with bell peppers and get great results.

Inspiration: America's Test Kitchen

Skillet Chicken and Rice

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in 1/2
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 medium onion, minced
• 2 medium garlic cloves, minced
• sprinkle chile powder
• sprinkle cayenne pepper
• 3/4 cup long-grain white rice
• 1/2 cup water (or dry white wine)
• 2 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour to coat and shake off any excess. Heat oil in a 12 inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Brown chicken well on one side, about 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate, browned side up, and set aside.

Off the heat, add the butter to the skillet and swirl to melt. Add the onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt and return to medium-high heat until softened, 2-5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and spices and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the rice thoroughly and let toast for about 30 seconds.

Stir in the water (or wine) and let the rice absorb it completely, about 1 minute. Stir in the broth, scraping up any browned bits. Nestle the chicken in the rice, browned side up, and add any accumulated juices from the plate. Cover and cook over medium heat until the thickest part of the chicken registers 160-165 degrees, about 10 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a clean plate. Gently brush off and discard any rice clinging to the chicken, then tent the chicken with foil and set aside. Return the skillet of rice to medium-low heat, cover, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, 8-12 minutes longer.

Off the heat, sprinkle the peas over the rice, cover and let warm through, about 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice to the rice. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with chicken.

Serves 4 | 10 WW+ Points