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 ;)