Psych night smothered Tamales!!

Smothered Tamales???  What??  Come on son!!!  Sorry, it's Psych night tonight. One of Jeremy and my mini dates weekly.  Atticus is tucked in and we watch one of our faves Psych.  What better dinner than smothered Chimichangas for Jeremy and GF SF smothered Tamales for me!! Oh yeah and I made them in half and hour.  Crazy you say?????  Nope...this is thanks to cooking days and freezes.  I cooked tamales one night and froze them up and Chimi's another night and froze and then today when I needed a quick fix for everyone here I heated them for a few in the micro put them in 9 x 9 in glass pans, poured over Verde salsa and sprinkled Tillamook pepper-jack cheese and Tillamook sharp cheddar over thees top and put in a 350 degree over for about half an hour.

All you have to do is pick up a bag of Masa in the Hispanic section of your supermarket made for Tamales and the recipe is right on it. (Spanish on one side and English on other) It is very easy especially if you make like three batches and freeze them for the next few months of easy grabs without the easy on lbs.

2 med Tamales  10pts
2oz. cheese        6pts
Salad                  0pts
Verde salsa         0pts
Ranch                 6pts
Psych'd Dinner    22pts

Lettuce Wrapped Sliders

We had lettuce wrapped sliders tonight! With carmelized onions, extra sharp Tillamook Cheese, tomatoes, baby pickles, Apple slices and Lays potato chips.  Super yummy!!!

2lbs. Natural anti-biotic free lean ground beef, shake in some garlic salt, pepper, and onion powder, and 1Tbls. Olive oil, and mix in by hand.  Form little pattys and cook on grillplate on stove or your preferred method.  Add 2Tbls. Olive oil to a large skillet and add 2 softball size onions chopped and cook stirring frequently till soft sweet and browned.  Build your burger on large green leaf lettuce and I put it into a wax paper bag to hold together.  Super yummy, super fast!

I had two wraps, one serving of Lays, and an apple and it came to 12pts.WW

This soup rocks for just about anyone!!! Spinach Soup!!!

Okay...this soup really is awesome.  Even my Veggie-shy Husband loves it.  It is low cal and only 2pts per cup on WW without the cheese.  The gluten free cornbread is my old standby of Bobs Red Mill GF cornbread mix, and is moist and dense and delish!  It's 5pts per serving and worth every point!!!


Spinach Soup
In a 12qt pan on med\high heat add three Tbls. Olive oil.  Add two softball size onions chopped and cook them for about seven min. stirring occasionally.  Add 4 large garlic cloves chopped and cook for 5 more min.      
Add two large breasts of  raw chicken chopped and cook thoroughly.
Then add two to three Jalapenos chopped finely and 2 Large carrots shredded and cook for 5 min more.  Add 2 Tbls. Thyme and 1 Tbls Oregano and salt and pepper.  Add 10 cans or equivalent of chicken broth and 1 can of black beans.  Bring to a boil on med heat.  Then add 3-4 large tomatoes chopped.  Bring to a boil again.  Turn off heat and add immediately 1 lb. of spinach and stir to incorporate gently.  This tastes even better the next day.  We love to garnish with fine shredded romano...but it's delish without!!  Salt and pepper to taste if needed.

1 Cup of this soup is 2pt. WW
1 oz. of Romano is    3pts WW
1/16 cornbread is      5pts WW   (above is an 8th of the pan and 10pts)

Old school spaghetti night

Old school spaghetti night!!!  Are you sure this is a diet????  Saved points for date night in with Jeremy.  Atticus slumbering made this a leisurely meal tasting better than most spots we could have gone in this town.

Half this plate was 21pts.  Not too shabby, especially topped with the balsamic reduction I made.  Trader Joes sure knows aged balsamic.

Dinner for two
Start salted water boiling.  Add 8oz. Tinkyada Brown Rice Spaghetti pasta and stir.  Then start your sauce.
Med high heat skillet, add 3 Tbls. Olive oil. Put in about 3 to 4 cups of grape or cherry tomatoes.  Let them cook till they pop and their juices come out.  About five min.  Then add salt and pepper and four large garlic cloves sliced thin.  Stir and turn heat to low.  Stir pasta.  In a small saucepan add 4 Tbls. of aged balsamic vinegar on med. heat, and cook about 5-7 min. until a little thicker.  Take off heat and set aside.  When pasta is done, drain and plate.  Then add 1 Cup of torn fresh basil to tomatoes and stir.  Remove from heat.  Add tomato mixture on top of pasta and add fresh grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.  Then drizzle reduction over top.

My dinner portion was ;
4oz. pasta              11pts
1.5 Tbls. oil            4pts
tomatoes                0pts
Basil                       0pts
Romano 2oz           6pts
Garlic                     0pts
Date night dinner=   21pts

Tostada Night

I love Tostadas!!!!!   Tonight we needed quick, so this is pretty easy.  Plus we cooked extra meat and put in fridge for easy taco salads etc. for everyone to eat lunches for tomorrow.

Homemade taco meat
2 lbs  85/15 ground beef
1 (softball size) large onions
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbls Ground Cumin
2 teasp. Ground coriander
Salt and pepper to taste
2 small tomatoes chopped up small for meat
2 Tbls. Cilantro (dried) or 1/2 cup chopped fine
1 teasp Garlic powder
Then tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and fresh cilantro to top.

In a large skillet on med/med high heat add 2-3 Tbls. EVOO.  Add chopped onions and sweat down for about 5 min.  Add meat and spices and cook till browned.  Add tomato and fresh Cilantro if using and cook another 5min or so on med. heat.

1 cup of meat mix        7pts
2 tostada shells            4pts
1 oz. cheese                3pts
chop tomato                0pts
baby leaf lettuce          0pts
2 teasp sour cream      1pts
Dinner=                       15pts

Leftovers open faced Sammie

So, here is an example of leftovers making my life easy.  This is a sun dried tomato Aidelle Sausage one of the three I cooked a couple nights ago. Makes life easy!!

So ...Rice Cake            1pt                                          
 1/2 an avocado            4pts                                        
1 Aidelle sausage          5pts                                        
1 Babybel Semisoft       2pts                                        
2 50 cent size tomatoes 0pts
salt                                0pts
1 honey crisp apple
thinly sliced                   0pts
Lunch=                       12pts  

 So just cube and scoop out avocado and salt and
  stir together with cut up tomato.  Spread onto rice
  cake.  Slice babybel and sausage and stack.  And
  it's so worth thinly slicing the apple, tons of cruch!

Dinners Salads with Jeremy

Dinner tonight with Jeremy.  (Costco grapefruits rock, by the way.  We got mangos from there all packaged so they weren't bruised the other day.  It was awesome.)  Jeremy had salad with cheese and a ton of sunflower seeds...he loves this. I on the other hand love this one as of late.

Salad greens 0pts
Tomatoes 0pts
1oz Cheese 3pts
1/4 cup pistachio nuts 5pts
2Tbls. Hidden Valley Ranch 5pts
Grapefruit with Truvia 0pts
Dinner=13pts total.