Unstuffed Pepper Soup

I made this yummy soup in the crock pot last week and thought I'd share it with you.  I didn't take any pictures when I was making it, because I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out.  Both Michael and I liked it though.  It was good as leftovers too!  It made so much that I was able to freeze a lot as well.

Here's what you need:
1 Lb. 96% Lean Ground Beef, cooked

2 (14.5 oz.) Cans Diced Tomatoes seasoned with basil, garlic and oregano

2 (10.5 oz.) Cans Chicken Broth

1 Large Onion, chopped

3 Bell Peppers, chopped

2 (10 3/4 oz.) Cans Condensed Tomato Soup

1 1/2 Cups Cooked Long Grain Rice

 

Here's what you do:

Spray crockpot with non-stick cooking spray. Inside the crockpot, combine the cooked beef, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, onion, bell peppers and tomato soup. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Warm up the rice, stir it into the soup and serve.

Serves: 12 one cup servings, 3 WW points per serving.

Hungry Girl Lettuce Wraps

I told you about Hungry Girl last week and now I have a recipe review for you.  

This recipe comes from her original cookbook.  

It's called Veggie-friendly Asian Lettuce Wraps

I think it tastes pretty close to a lettuce wrap you may get at a restaurant.

Here's what you'll need.

 

6 medium Iceberg lettuce leafs (or leaves from another round, firm head of lettuce)

6 ounces ground-beef-style soy crumbles, defrosted if previously frozen

1 cup canned slice water chestnuts, drained and chopped

3/4 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms

1 cup bean sprouts

1/2 cup chopped scallions

2 T light or low-sodium soy sauce

1 T dark brown sugar (not packed)

2 t chili garlic sauce (found in the Asian food aisle)

1/2 t sesame oil

This makes 2 servings and is 4 WW points each.

1) Combine soy sauce, sugar, garlic sauce, and sesame oil in a small dish.  Mix well and set aside.

Bring a medium pot sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat.

Place all ingredients, except for the scallions and lettuce leaves, into the pot.

Add the prepared sauce and stir.  Cook 2 to 3 minutes.

 

Add scallions, cook for 1 minute more and remove from heat.

Divide mixture evenly among the 6 lettuce "cups" and enjoy.

(Ok, I put them in 4 lettuce cups, because the lettuce leaves are always so big!)

Very yummy.  Very filling.  Very healthy.

Diet Coke Chicken

Oh, I know what you are thinking... "Diet Coke Chicken?  What's that girl smoking?"  All I have to say is you need to trust me on this one.  It's a super easy, relatively "healthy", few ingredient and an absolutely yummy meal.  Honest.  Would I lead you astray?  (Your answer better be "of course not!")

Ok, so all you need is a pound of chicken, a can of Diet Coke, and some ketchup.
(Onions are optional--sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't.)

Really!!  That's it.

Start cooking your chicken in a nonstick pan.

Mix 1 12 oz can of Diet Coke with 1 cup ketchup and pour over chicken.

The recipe I read said cook about 45 minutes until the chicken is tender and the sauce is thick.  I have made this multiple times and it has never taken me 45 minutes.  I would say it takes about 20 to 25.  I guess it depends on the temperature you use.  I usually do it on medium, but I think some people simmer it on low.  It's up to you.

Once the sauce is thick, it's done.

(If you are observant you may have noticed that my 3 pieces turned to 4.  One was too thick and I had to cut it in half.  Good eye!)

The ketchup and Diet Coke magically turn into a BBQ type of a sauce.

I usually serve this over brown rice with a side vegetable.

1 pound of chicken should make 4 servings and one serving size is 4 WW points.

WAIT...

I think I can still hear you giving me excuses!!

"I don't drink diet soda.  Ever."

"I don't like Diet Coke"

"My husband doesn't like Diet Coke"

"It just sound gross to me"

"I can't cook with Diet Coke.  That's absurd"

Alright, stop your excuses.  Michael likes it.  If Michael likes it, your husband will too.  Don't tell him you used Diet Coke and see what happens.  I bet you'll both be shocked! :)  Now get cooking....

The Weight Watchers low down

So I really don't want this to become a Weight Watchers blog, but I figured since I was giving points for things like my recipes and some of my "good finds" I better explain.  I became a member of WW online over a year ago.  I did it for a couple of months, lost 17 pounds, and then gave up around the holidays.  I've spent this last year eating pretty good.  But here's the thing, you can eat TOO MUCH healthy food.  As stupid as that sounds, I think it took me a long time to realize that.  Even if I am eating good for me foods, I could still be taking in too many calories.  I like WW because you can eat whatever you want.  You just have to stay in your allotted points for the day.  I am not signing up for WW again, but I am going to "sort of " follow the program.  It just helps me know that I am eating the right portions.

I wanted to explain the points to you, so when I say a meal is 5 or 7 points, you know exactly what that means.  It breaks down like this...

1. Gender:
Female- score 2
Male- score 8
A nursing mom- score 12

2. How old are you?
17-26- score 4
27-37- score 3
38-47- score 2
48-58- score 1
over 58- score 0

3. What do you weigh?
Enter the first two digits of your weight in pounds.
(for example, if you weight 199, you will add 19 to your score)

4. How tall are you?
Under 5’1- score 0
5’1-5’10- score 1
Over 5’10- score 2

5. How do you spend most of your day?
Sitting down? score 0
Occasionally sitting? score 2
Walking most of the time? score 4
Doing physically hard work most of the time? score 6

Now add them all together and that’s your daily total.  Obviously, when you drop weight, your points drop.  So if you are at 199 like the example, your points added to the total were 19.  When you drop down to 189 your points will drop a point because your 19 just went to 18.  Make sense?

On top of those points, you get 35 extra points to use a week.  You can divide them out and eat 5 extra points a day, use all 35 in one sitting, have a day where you don't count, or use them how you wish. 

You are suppose to use all your daily allotted points.  By not eating all your points, you will sabotage your weight loss.  I've heard different things about the 35 points--some people use all of them, some people don't see success unless they only use some of them, and some don't use them at all.  REMEMBER--whatever you are eating now and training your body to do is what you will have to do in maintenance. 

Points are found using the calories, fat grams and fiber grams in a serving of an item.  Generally speaking, 50 points is one point.  The higher the fat grams, the higher the points.  The higher the fiber, the lower the points.  The fiber caps out at 4 grams.  I use this on line calculator to help me calculate my points for new items.

You are suppose to get in your 8 glasses of water, 5 fruits and veggies, 2 servings of dairy, and exercise.

So now you know.  Any questions?

Pumpkin Fluff

Brace yourselves..........

I am about to share with you a little piece of heaven.  Can you handle it?  I hope so.

I found this recipe on one of the Weight Watchers online boards when I was a member.  It is like a pumpkin mousse of sorts.  If you love pumpkin, then you will love this.  (low calorie or not!)  It's so simple too!

Here's what you'll need:

8 oz Cool Whip Lite (thawed)

1 package instant sugar free/fat free vanilla pudding

16 oz. Pure Pumpkin

(Did you know there was recently a shortage on this stuff?  So glad it's back in stores!)

1 cup skim milk

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

That's it!  You just throw it all in a bowl and mix it together.  I prefer to use a hand held mixer, but it would work just as well with a whisk or spatula.

It looks a little something like this

Yep, I could eat the whole bowl.  I make this numerous time around the holiday season, but truly it would be good year round.

Thoughts:  I use only about a 1/2 tsp of the pumpkin pie spice.  I like it, but 1 1/2 tsp is just too much for me.  My boss puts this in a graham cracker crust and calls it pumpkin chiffon pie.  Little man LOVES it.  I've also heard of people just sprinkling a graham cracker on top of it.  It makes about 4 cups.  1/2 cup=2 pts, 1 c=4 pts.  Yummy yum yum!!!!!!!!

Bubble Up Enchilada

About a year ago I signed up to do Weight Watchers online.  It went alright until the holidays hit (last year).  It was all downhill from there.  But while I was a part of the online group, I gathered many recipes to help me.  Some I made and some I just stashed away.  Cuz that's what I do.  Hoard recipes.  Anyway... I came across a recipe called Bubble Up Pizza that everyone was raving about.  I made it and thought it was alright.  Then I started seeing many variations of this meal.  One of those variations is the Bubble Up Enchilada.  I hoarded sent myself an email with the recipe, but that's as far as I got.  Recently I came across a site that had posted the Bubble Up Enchilada recipe again.  I figured it was time to give it a try.

So here you go...

You will need:

1 pound extra lean ground beef

1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1 (4 oz) can sliced black olives, drained

1 can reduced fat refrigerator BISCUITS

(notice mine are cresent rolls--more on that in a bit)

1 1/4 cups Shredded Weight Watchers Mexican Cheese

NOTES: Ok, so I went to the store and I needed both reduced fat biscuits AND reduced fat crescent rolls.  Unfortunately, the store I went to do not have the reduced fat biscuits.  I figured I'd just pick up the biscuits at another store, another time.  Later in the week I went to make this recipe and didn't even think about the fact that I needed the biscuits.  I started taking pictures...crescent rolls and all.  It wasn't until I was half way through that I realized I had the wrong thing.  Oh well.  That's life right?  Some things don't turn out.  Some things turn out better.  Some things people quickly hide under the rug for no one to see.  Well, you know me.  I'm a keep it real kind of girl.  So here I am... posting on my blog for all the world to see... that I messed up the recipe.  It turned out OK though. :)

Also, I just used reduced fat Sargento cheese instead of WW cheese.  I also added onions.  You can add or take away whatever you want.

The steps:

Preheat the oven to 350*.

Brown the ground beef (drain if needed).

Mix in a can of enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, and can of black olives.  (Plus onions if you choose)

Cut the biscuits into fourths and stir them into the meat mixture.

Here's where I noticed I had a problem.  Because crescent rolls don't "cut into fourths", I just cut them and then rolled them up a little to resemble the size of a biscuit fourth.  You do what you gotta do! :)

They will start to get a little gooey, so don't keep them in there that long.  Just long enough to be covered by the sauce.

Then you just dump it all in a greased casserole dish and bake for 25 minutes.

Take the casserole out of the oven and sprinkle with the cheese.  Obviously if you are not concerned about the calories or "points" you could use the entire 2 cup bag of cheese instead of 1 1/4 cups.

Bake an additional 10 minutes to let the cheese melt.

Let stand for 5 minutes and serve.

It is 8 servings at 6 points a serving.  However, men (or women not so concerned about weight) could eat at least 2 pieces as one serving.  It reheats well and I've even heard it freezes well.

I didn't think it tasted too far off from the Bubble Up Pizza.  I also didn't think it tasted too much like an "enchilada".  I don't know if tomato sauce was used instead of more enchilada sauce to help keep the points low or what.  I may consider putting more enchilada sauce in next time.  Either way, it was still good.  I served it with a salad and sugar free jello.  The true test is whether or not Michael liked it, and he asked for seconds!

7 Ingredient Chili

I promise, I really do cook using more than a few cans of this and a few cans of that! :)  However, I am at work a little over ten hours a day.  With travel time, I am gone for almost 11 and a half hours.  That means I need fast and easy dinners.

I found this recipe a few years ago on an internet recipe site.  I later found out that it is actually listed on V8's website.  Either way, it's good.  It's probably not going to win a chili cook off or anything, but it will be a nice hearty meal for those nights where it's rainy, dark, and you don't feel like cooking.

Here's what you'll need:

2 pounds ground turkey

1 large onion, chopped

2 T chili powder

1/2 t ground cumin

3 1/2 cups V8 juice (I used reduced sodium)

1 small green pepper, chopped

2 cans (15 oz) kidney beans, rinsed and drained

Note: I actually didn't use an entire onion.  Michael isn't a fan of onions, and I like raw onions on my chili anyway.  I used about half of a large onion and then used some of the leftovers as a topping.  This can vary according to your family.  I've also cooked it with less beans before too.  I'm not a huge fan of kidney beans.

Here's what you do....

1. Cook turkey, onion, chili powder, and cumin in pot until turkey is browned.

2. Add V8 juice, green pepper, and beans.  Heat to a boil.

3. Reduce heat and cook over low heat for 15 minutes.

Serve with cheese and saltine crackers.  Yum.  It makes between 6 and 8 servings.  (8 WW points plus toppings based on 8 servings.)

It also freezes well.