Soup, Squash and whole grain GF bread

This is the same spinach soup I put on here before but we were out of black beans so I substituted kidney and I added 1 small zucchini chopped which I added into the chicken right at the end to get all those flavors before I added the chicken stock.  You can't hurt that soup it's so good.  Jeremy didn't even know the zucchini was in it!!  Then we roasted some squash in the oven with a little grapeseed oil over the top to keep soft.  My fave way to eat it! And the bread you see here is my Gluten Free bread that I baked into mini loaf pans so that the little slices are only 2pts WW each.  It is mostly oats, and brown rice flour, sweetened with honey.  If you want the recipe just email me at sashbillette@yahoo.com and I'll shoot it to you.

Quesadilla and Grilled Chicken salad

Talk about easy.  Grabbed a pack of the pre-grilled chicken I made yesterday from the freezer, made up a salad and took the fresh corn tortillas from costco in a pam sprayed skillet and cooked them then added cheese into middle and finished toasting and melting them together.  These have very little additives unlike the already cooked and packaged one on the shelf.  Costco has them for very cheap and they fill the house with a wonderful corn smell and they taste great.  You don't need more than oil than Pam to make these cooked, warm and comforting at 1 WW pt. each!!!

Faux Grilling to keep it juicy!!

So grilling makes everything taste better, but I don't like things dried out!!!  My favorite way to do chicken breast is place them in a 13x9 pan season them with garlic salt, pepper, (etc if you so desire) and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for 50-60 min. depending on size of breast.  Then I get the grill pan on the stove super hot and spray with pam.  I place the bottoms on first to get off the juices they were sitting in and then flip just till I get those grill lines.  It adds the smokiness and they are still moist and tender and delicious.  Our new fave way to eat the zucchini on the grill is the same.  I steam them and then paint lightly with and olive oil garlic salt mixture and put on the grill.  Super yummy!!!. I'll usually use the brush with leftover olive oil garlic salt mixture and just lightly brush a little on my steamed potatoes and its just enough for them to be scrumptious.   But I don't stop there.  I cooked three times the amount of chicken, grill and sliced them and put them in packs in a larger bag into the freezer to make life easy the rest of the week for salads etc.  Oh yeah!!!

Stuffed peppers

We made stuffed green peppers tonight.  Now my Aunt showed up late so the Cotija cheese is a little over browned, but it tasted great besides.  The traditional way to make these is horrid.  Put stuff in and hope it cooks all the way.  NO THANKS!! :)  I put on one cup of rice in the rice cooker with 1 tsp. Turmeric and 2 tsp. Cumin. and started on the rest.  I just cut up a softball size onion and sauted in a couple Tbls. of olive oil.     Added about six chopped cloves of garlic.  Added in 2 Tbls. Cumin, 1 tsp. Coriander.  When onions started to be translucent and get some browned color put in 1 large carrot shredded and stirred into mix and then put mix into a bowl and in the same pan threw in the 2lbs. hamburger.  This was a fattier cut from local cows that we get from our neighbor for very inexpensive and antibiotic/hormone free so worth this next step I did.  After the meat was browned I poured it into a colander in the sink and rinsed it with hot water.  This essentially makes for fat free red meat.  I would only do this when doing a highly seasoned recipe like this so you aren't asking.."Where's the beef?"  I then put it back into the hot skillet to dry it out for a min and dump in the yummy onion mixture. Then I added two tomatoes chopped, and a can of low sodium beef broth.  Then I tasted and added more garlic salt, pepper, cumin, and red pepper flake to taste. I simmered the meat mixture for about 10 min. and added in the finished rice.  Stuffed them into hollowed peppers to a half inch over, stuffed extra mix around the peppers to help them stay up and sprinkled Cotija cheese over the top and cooked in a 350 degree oven for an hour and a half. put on bottom rack to prevent my browed cheese up there..lol.  Each pepper is under 170 calories and is only 7pts. WW.

Fajitas ...so good.

Made yummy Fajitas tonight to use up the rest of the fresh tortillas.

We started by salt and peppering, and browning a pork roast and cooking in the pressure cooker.  These are awesome and make it easy to make inexpensive cuts of meat moist and easy to use.  But most people would cut up grilled chicken breast or get the cut pre-grilled strips from the freezer section to really save time.  We just don't have that option because of all the allergies in this house. My mom can't even have soy or artifitial flavors. I just halved onions and cut into strips and started cooking in a Wok on med/high heat in a few Tbls. of Olive oil.   Then I added 2 Tbls. Cumin, 1tsp. ground coriander, 1tsp. chilli powder, 1/2 tsp. Chipoltle powder, and 1 Tbls. Garlic and salt and pepper to taste.  Stirring into the onions until they were getting soft.  Then added frozen veggies from Costco and stirred.  Then I put on low and deglazed the pan with about a cup of broth from the pressure cooker and added 1 tsp of sour cream just to give the sauce some body.  I heated our cast iron skillet on med and sprayed with pam just to cook the tortillas till browned and soft.  I sliced the meat and stirred into the veggie mix and served.   I'm telling you that the tortillas fresh in the refridgerator section are really worth it.

Half Veggie Half Meat Tacos

Okay, you may think I'm crazy, but everyone loved these bad boys and they are half ground beef half zucchini, tomato, onion, and garlic.  Mostly the zucchini.  Everyone devoured them and couldn't tell without looking what was lurking inside!!

The corn tortillas we used are fresh that we cooked in a small amount of oil. We found these beauties by the wonderful Cotija cheese that is crumbled over the top in the refrigerated section at Walmart with other Mexican food products.  They were so worth it having a wonderful strong corn flavor.  The meat is antibiotic/hormone free 85/15 ground chuck from Windor Farms.  I just paper toweled out the extra fat.  Take a big skillet, add 4 Tbls. Olive oil and on medium heat sweat out two large onions.  Once looking more translucent, add 5 large garlic cloves chopped and cook a couple min.  Push this to the sides and add two pounds low fat ground beef.  Add 2 Tbls. Cumin, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 2 tsp. coriander, 1 tsp. Mexican oregano, 1 tps. black pepper course, and salt.  Break up and cook and mix in with onion mixture until cooked thoroughly.  Add two cans stewed tomatoes or one jar home canned stewed tomatoes drained.  Add half a bunch of cilantro chopped and stir and keep cooking.  Turn down heat a little while shredding 2-3 small zucchinis and add to meat and stir and cook.  Crumble Cotija cheese with hands into a bowl.  Chop tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, etc.  My three tacos above were 15pts.  And were AWESOME~~

Lasagna Night with old friends

We got to catch up with our old friends Tiffany and Ryan and their baby girl Ella, so we wanted to do something yummy for when they came over.  Tinkyada brown rice lasagna noodles, low fat Ricotta, and tons of shredded zucchini made this very healthy vegetarian lasagna.  The pork roast was awesome and the hit of the night was steamed zucchini halves brushed with olive oil garlic salt italian seasoning and pepper mix and sprinkled with Romano cheese and broiled until melted over the top!  Even Ella (9 mos.) was chowing down on the zucchini and her mom says she won't touch hers!!  Everyone loved it and couldn't believe there was zucchini in the lasagna.

In the ricotta I mixed two eggs, pepper and a lot of fresh basil sliced thinly. That was the layer I alternated with fresh marinara sauce I added to 8 chopped cloves of garlic and 4 cups of grated zucchini and cooked it down.  Super yummy with just a little Romano cheese melted over top at the end.  I made this the night before and covered with parchment paper and aluminum foil and then just popped it in the oven at 350 degrees an hour before our friends showed up.
This you'll want to figure out your own points for due to the differences in store bought sauces and homemade and brown rice pasta vrs. white etc.  But it was surprisingly low for me.  About 18pts for what's pictured above.