Pasta Primavera

I'm a visual person.  If a recipe doesn't have a photo, I'm less likely to cook it.  Maybe that's why I'm such a big fan of Food Network...

Anyway, a few weeks ago we were in the car for a road trip and I packed my stack a magazines along to occupy my time.  I currently have a (cheap) subscription for the Racheal Ray Magazine.  To me, this magazine is hit and miss.  One issue will end up in the garbage, unused.  A total flop.  The next issue will be dog-eared, torn to pieces and covered in food splatters.  The issue that contained this recipe happens to be one of those!

It ended up being a bit of an adaptation because I don't have a wok (although I don't think it mattered as much) and Jason and I miscommunicated on the ingredients.  I asked him to chop half of a red onion for Red Beans & Rice and he chopped the entire one.  I couldn't complain, though, since he was chopping the onions while I went to bunko.

I usually complain that RR recipes take forever and a day to make, but this one ended up being pretty quick and tasty!

Pasta Primavera adapted from Rachael Ray

• 3 cups broccoli florets
• 12 ounces whole wheat spaghetti
• 2 T olive oil
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup carrots, sliced 1/4" thick
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 bunch kale leaves, trimmed and chopped
• salt & pepper
• 3/4 cup light cream
• 3/4 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Heat salted water to boiling in a large pot and add the broccoli.  Cook for about 30 seconds, until bright green and remove from the water.  Add the pasta and cook to al dente.  Drain the pasta, keeping 1/4 cup of the pasta water aside.

Heat the oil in a large saute pan (or a wok if you have one).  Sautee the garlic until fragrant, add in the broccoli, carrots & kale stirring until the carrots and kale start to wilt.  Stir in the tomatoes and salt & pepper.  Pour in the cream, stir and bring to a boil.  Remove the pan from the heat and add the parmesan cheese & basil. 

Add the pasta and remaining pasta water, tossing to coat.

WW PointsPlus: 5 servings, 8 pp per serving

Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar, Sweet Onions & Thyme

Chicken can get boring.  We've gotten in a rut of grilling chicken and just eating it on pita breads or salads.  And that gets a little boring.  Recently we just haven't been cooking much chicken, but it is low in points you can do quite a bit with it.  If you don't get boring!  I came across this Weight Watchers recipe last week and decided to try it out.  It wasn't a weeknight meal, by any means.  For us, weeknight meals need to be 30 minutes or less.  This took a bit longer, but ended up being a great weekend meal.

Oh, and bonus points - low WW points for a surprisingly flavorful meal.  And, it tasted great the second

Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar, Sweet Onions & Thyme from Weight Watchers

• 3 T flour
• salt & pepper
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1lb total)
• 2 t olive oil
• 1 small vidalia onion, sliced thin
• 1 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
• 2 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 T fresh chopped Thyme or 1/2 t dried
• 2 T butter

Combine the flour with salt and pepper in a shallow dish.  Dredge the chicken breasts in the flour.  Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.  Cook the chicken, flipping once, until browned - about 7 minutes.

Remove the chicken, covering to keep warm. Add the onion to the pan and cook until lightly browned.  Stir in the broth, vinegar, thyme and salt & pepper.  Bring to a boil and simmer until the onions are tender.  Remove the skillet from the heat and add in the butter to melt.

WW PointsPlus: 5 points for 1 chicken breast and about 1/4 cup sauce

[Your favorite beer] Hamburger Buns

Since I finally tackled baking bread and was successful at it, I've branched out.  A little.  Let's not get carried away here!  My next project was to try Shawnda's hamburger buns.  I read the recipe and we had everything I needed at home...except the Shiner.  Normally Jason and I are fans of Shiner, but Sunday we were in the mood for something lighter.  It's starting to get warm again (I'm afraid winter has left us for good...) so we grabbed some Corona Light.  I figured, what the heck?  I think the darker beer would give this a richer taste, but they were still very much raved about.

[Your favorite beer] Hamburger Buns adapted from the Foodie Bride

• 2 t yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 T honey
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 bottle Corona Light (or your favorite beer), room temp and flat
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• Sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 350.  Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.  Let that sit for about 10 minutes and add in the honey, oil and beer.  Add in the dry ingredients and turn the mixer to low.  Once the dough is mixed, increase the speed to medium and knead the dough for about 5-7 minutes.  You may need to add more flour, 2 T at a time.  Once the sides of the bowl are cleaned and the dough looks smooth, place it into a lightly oiled mixing bowl and over with plastic wrap.

Once the dough doubles in size, turn it out on to a floured surface and divide in half.  Create 6 buns from each half and place on a lined baking sheet, cover with oiled plastic wrap.  Let these rise for another 45 minutes or so.

Whisk the egg and brush over the buns before baking.  Sprinkle them with sesame seeds and bake for 15-20 minutes, until browned.  Let them cool on a baking rack before slicing.

WW PointsPlus: 6 points each, yields 12 buns

On top of spaghetti...

all covered with cheeeeeese!

I can't wait until Cooper giggles at the words for that song.

Sunday, Jason requested spaghetti & meatballs for his birthday dinner.  I realized that I've only made spaghetti & meatballs once before.  We've been together 10 years.  It was a take on this Williams-Sonoma recipe that turned out really good, but was also a huge pain in the butt to make.  This time I decided I'd kind of make it up.  And not stuff it with cheese, because really - that was the hardest (most time-consuming) part.

I did a little asking around, specifically about the cooking process since I wanted to go as low-fat as possible, and was pointed to Alton Brown's recipe.

Spaghetti & Meatballs adapted from Alton Brown

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1/2 pound sweet Italian turkey sausage links
• 1/2 onion, chopped fine
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 t dried basil
• 1 1/2 t dried parsley
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup dried breadcrumbs, divided

Preheat the oven to 400.  In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients except 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs.  Roll into 2" sized meatballs and roll in the remaining breadcrumbs.  Place a rack on top of a cookie sheet (or you can use a broiler pan).  Place the meatballs on top of the rack and into the oven.  Bake 20-25 minutes, or until done.

I ended up with right at 30 meatballs.  For that amount, I calculated them at 2 WW points each.  A serving for me was about 4 of them.

We served the meatballs with whole wheat spaghetti and Jason's version of marinara sauce.

Lesson: How to get your baby to eat his vegetables

Cooper likes most vegetables, but he can be pretty picky.  Like with green beans and broccoli...not going to happen.  He'll take one bite and spit it right back out.

He does, however, have a passion for cheese.  My child has eaten more varieties of cheese in his 14 months than I did the in the first 14 years of my life.  If he sees the package of cheese come out of the fridge, he starts reaching and grunting until I hand it over.

This weekend I bough some fresh broccoli and was looking for something different (but healthy) to do with it.  We usually roast it, tossing the broccoli in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar first.  Or we just steam it topped with a little salt and pepper.  I like it steamed but I wanted something different.  Cue the cheese sauce below.  It is actually a Cooking Light recipe, so score!  I have a love/hate relationship with cheese sauces that start with "stir milk into flour over medium heat."  I usually end up with clumpy flour and non-melted cheese.  This time, though, was a success!  We loved the sauce and it was so easy.

But the best part - Cooper ate his broccoli!  We were hesitant to let him try it, but he was a fan.  Lesson learned.  If you want your baby to eat his vegetables, then cover them in cheese.

The only downside to this recipe is that it makes quite a bit and leftover broccoli isn't that great. 

Broccoli with Cheddar Sauce adapted from Cooking Light

• 1/2 T flour
• 1/2 cup skim milk (I ended up adding a little more than 1/2 a cup)
• 1/4 cup fresh shredded 2% cheddar cheese
• 2 T grated parmesan cheese
• about 1/2 t Dijon mustard
• salt & pepper
• a pinch of ground thyme
• steamed broccoli

Place flour into a sauce pan and gradually stir in milk.  Over medium-high heat, stir until milk is smooth and it begins to bubble and thicken.  Continue to heat for an additional minute, stirring constantly.  Remove from the head and stir in remaining ingredients.  Pour over steamed broccoli.

WW PointsPlus: 2 PP per serving

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

I've made a butternut squash soup before that is pretty good, but this one was much easier!  And it had a different taste to it. 

Curried Butternut Squash Soup from Weight Watchers

• 3lbs butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1" cubes
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
• 29 oz chicken broth
• 1 1/2 t curry powder
• salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425.  Place squash, onion & broth in a large dish and bake for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  Remove from oven and let cool about 15 minutes. 

In a small skillet, toast the curry powder over medium heat until fragrant, about 15 minutes.  Add the curry powder, salt & pepper to the veggies and puree.  I used an immersion blender to puree the vegetables, but you can also use a food processor or a blender.

We served this over light 4 cheese ravioli (Cooper was a fan!) with a salad.  You can also add a little sour cream and green onion.

WW Points: 3 (without ravioli) for 3/4 cup soup and 2 t fat free sour cream

Red Beans & Rice

Since we've spent almost 16 hours combined in the car in about a week, I used the time to purge my magazines.  I had a large stack to flip through, so I tore out recipes that looked good and put them all in a binder once we got home.  If I get around to cooking the recipe and it flops, I'll toss it.  If not, then I guess it's a keeper.

The first recipe I tried ended up being a keeper.  I'd post the Weight Watchers points value, but they changed their whole system.  I'm not sure if I like it...but I will have to give it a try.  I mean, I paid for 3 months when I started.  :-)

Slower Cooker Red Beans & Rice adapted from Southern Living

• 1 lb dried red beans
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 3/4 lb smoked turkey sausage, sliced thin
• 1 sweet onion
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 celery ribs
• 1 T creole seasoning
• 1 14oz can diced tomatoes

Chop the peppers, onion & celery.  Add all ingredients to a slow cooker with 7 cups of water.  Cook on high for 7 hours, or until the beans are tender.  Serve over cooked rice.

Updated 3/2/11 - I did the WW PointsPlus calcuation for this and if you get 8 servings (should be easy - it made quite a bit) then you're looking at 6 PP for the red beans plus whatever rice you add.  1 cup cooked brown rice is 5 PP, but 1/2 a cup (3 PP) is more than enough for a serving.

Pumpkin Pasta

A few weeks ago I flipped through a magazine at my mom's house.  I came across a recipe for Pumpkin Pasta and it sounded pretty good.  To me.  Jason made this gagging noise when I told him about it.  But, being the good boy he is, he agreed to try it...and order pizza if needed.

Last week I picked up the stuff at the grocery store and...it was approved.  We adjusted the recipe a little bit, but next time I make it I'd really like to try sticking with the way it was written.  I doubled the amount of sausage and added more pasta, so it wasn't quite as pumpkiny.  And the second night I added in more seasoning - mostly pepper and a little oregano.

Pumpkin Pasta

• 8oz Italian Sausage (I used 16oz sweet Italian turkey sausage)
• 1 can pumpkin
• 5 sage leaves, chopped
• 8 oz rotini pasta (I used whole wheat)

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Saute the sausage until brown in a little oil.  Add in the chopped sage leaves, saute for another minute.  Stir in 1 cup of pasta water and the pumpkin.  Drain the pasta and toss everything together.  As mentioned, I added in some salt & pepper, plus a little oregano, for some added flavor.  It has a creamy texture - almost like penne a la vodka without the tomatoes.

WW PointsPlus: 8 PP per serving, 4 servings

French Onion Soup...or so I thought

My favorite soup soup is French Onion from Panera Bread.  I could probably eat this every day for lunch.  But Panera Bread is expensive, people.  $10 for half a sandwich and a cup of oh-so-yummy soup on a daily basis just won't fly around my house.  And unfortunately we don't have a Panera Bread close to work so I can't justify that as my less than once weekly lunch out.

The temps here finally dropped (we ran the heater this weekend!) and I figured it was a perfect time to try the soup.  Especially since we're climbing back into the mid-80's later this week.  Ugh.  To stick with my diet, I searched and found a recipe on Weight Watchers.

French Onion Soup adapted from WeightWatchers.com

• 1 T butter
• 3 vidalia onions, cut in half and sliced thin (I used sweet yellow)
• 6 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 t dried thyme
• 1/4 t black pepper
• grated Parmesan cheese (2 T per serving)

Melt the butter in a large soup pot.  Add the onions, sauteing about 20 minutes.  Add in the remaining ingredients and simmer 20-30 minutes.  If you have oven safe soup bowls, you can scoop the soup into a bowl with a serving of your favorite baguette and the cheese, melting it under the broiler for a few minutes.  The recipe above makes 4 servings at 3 points each, however add points for the bread.

Now here is where I'm unsure.  I wasn't a fan of the recipe.  I was bland.  Like really bland.  I added more spices.  And more pepper.  And still...eh.  I just didn't like it.  Jason did, but I wanted it to taste exactly like the soup from Panera.  And it didn't.  So tonight I'm going for round two.  We consumed most of the broth (what wasn't soaked up by onions) and I have a ton of onions left.  I'm going to toss them back into the cast iron skillet and saute them until they are really brown and caramelized.  Then I'm going to add in beef broth and not vegetable broth.  And...we'll see.  Wish me luck.

Goals

I'm in sales.  My life revolves around goals.  Goals for how many phone calls I make.  How many emails I send.  The number I clients I see outside of the office...and in the office.  How many times I have lunch each month with clients.  And, of course, I have revenue goals.  I think being so goal-centric makes me set goals outside of work.  Goals for when I finish doing laundry, when we clean the house, everything I want to do before Cooper's birthday party.  I set "goals" for Christmas in how much money we're going to spend.  I guess that's more of a budget, than a goal. 

Anyway...I'm also not the best a meeting my goals.  I do great at work.  But that's how I get paid.  At home...things fall through the cracks rather quickly.  The Halloween costume for Cooper that I was going to make 2 weeks ago?  Yeah - I bought the fabric last night.  So when I started this diet I was asked to set a goal for how much I want to lose.  That's the point of a diet, right?  To reach a "goal weight?"  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm pretty darn close.  And yesterday I hit my first mini-goal.  5lbs.  I would have loved to drop 10 before our vacation, but I decided to be a little more realistic.  ((remember all of those lunches I'm supposed to have with clients?))  Instead I decided on 5.  I actually hit 5.5 and I still have 2 weeks before our vacation!  Score.

Swiss Enchiladas

Only they were not Swiss.  Last week Kelly and Eileen came over for the afternoon so that we could cook some dinners for the freezer.  I mean, if you're going to mess up your kitchen you may as well double the recipe and hang out with a friend at the same time.  I chose two recipes and we each went to the store for what we needed.

We also learned a valuable lesson.  This is not something that should be attempted when at home with two children and no husbands.  Especially if one child has boycotted his naps (ahem *Cooper* ahem) and is cranky.  It was like herding cats.  Or something.

In the end, we managed to get two recipes completed to put in our freezers.  This recipe had to be alterted a bit so that it was a little more Weight Watchers friendly.  I thawed it out Wednesday so that Jason and I could have dinner.  It was good the first night when I threw it in the oven, but the second night out of the microwave...it just didn't taste as good to me.  The sauce gets a little funky in the microwave.  Jason and I both decided that it was ok, but we'd rather have some other kind of enchiladas than try this again.

Swiss Enchiladas from Cooking Light

• 1 T olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 2 cups chopped cooked skinless, boneless chicken breast (about 2 breasts)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 4.5oz cans diced green chiles, undrained
• 1 14.5oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
• 2 T all-purpose flour
• 1/4 t salt
• 6 8" whole wheat tortillas (low-fat)
• 2 cups shredded 2% milk Mexican blend cheese, divided

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large nonstick skillet, heat olive oil.  Add onion and cook 5 minutes, or until tender. Stir in chicken, garlic, chiles, and tomatoes. Reduce heat, and simmer 7 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Set aside.
Combine milk and flour in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook 5 minutes or until mixture thickens, stirring constantly with a whisk. Stir in salt.
Warm tortillas according to package directions. Spoon about 1/2 cup chicken mixture and about 2 1/2 tablespoons cheese down center of each tortilla; roll up. Arrange filled tortillas in the bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Pour milk mixture over tortillas, and top evenly with remaining 1 cup cheese. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. Remove from oven.

Serving size: one tortilla, 7pts per serving

Chicken & Spinach Pasta

When I joined WW last week I spent some time looking for easy recipes to cook and plugging the ingredients into WW to get a points value.  This was the first recipe I tried and all three of us loved it.  Yes, I gave Cooper a few bites both nights we had this for dinner.

Chicken & Spinach Pasta Bake adapted from MyRecipes.com

• 8oz uncooked whole wheat penne
• 1  T  olive oil
• 1  cup chopped onion
• 1  10oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 3  cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1  14.5oz can Italian-style diced tomatoes
• 1  8oz container light chive-and-onion cream cheese
• 1/2  t salt
• 1/2  t  pepper
• 1 1/2 cups shredded part skim mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375.  Cook pasta according to the package.  Saute onions in olive oil until tender.  I actually cooked the chicken & onions together.  Transfer chicken & onions to a bowl.  Drain spinach and add to chicken.  Stir in pasta, cream cheese, tomatoes, salt & pepper.  Stir well and spoon into a 9*13 baking dish sprayed with cooking spray.  Sprinkle evenly with mozzarella cheese, cover and bake for 30 minutes.  Uncover and bake for another 15 minutes.

Next time I will make a point to spread the spinach out a little more.  Some bites were all spinach and others...not so much.  I think I could also add another can of tomatoes to add a little more veggies.

6 Servings, WW points: 7 UPDATED 3/2011 - 9 Weight Watchers PointsPlus