Healthy Eating and Recipes

A friend of mine recently started a cooking blog for healthier eating options. I have tried several of her recipes and LOVE them Here is the link to Emilee's blog. Check it out today! Try the Carribean Jerk Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Black Beans. It is one of my absolute favorites. I have made it twice. Fair warning though: it is quite spicy and I had to scale way back on the Carribean Spice (even half of the amount called for was too spicy for my kids!). Her lettuce wraps are to die for too. And....I'm off to the kitchen. All this talking about food is making me hungry! Happy eating!

Tin Foil Dinner Cooking Tips

Tin Foil Dinners are a fun and delicious way to cook when camping and after doing a lot of research on the internet, I learned a few things:

Tin Foil Dinner Cooking Tips:

* Use heavy duty foil. That way you don't have to worry about your packet ripping open before it is finished cooking. I like to double layer mine, even with heavy duty foil

*Use cooking spray (like Pam) on the foil before you put the food in. It helps your food to not stick to the packet.

*Add a little fat to the packet-oil or butter. Really adds to the flavor. Toss raw veggies (like potato slices) in a little oil to help them not stick together and brown.

*Place meat on the bottom, as it takes the longest to cook. You can add some high-moisture vegetables like onion or tomato to the meat to keep the meat from drying out and add some more flavor. Mix slices of onion right into your meat.

*Be sure to use a thin slice of raw meat (like hamburger) to ensure doneness and not having to cook it too long. Ham slices and stew meat are a nice change too.

*You can use canned vegetables if you want to speed up your cook time. Just beware: they can sometimes be a little overcooked and tend to be mushier than fresh, raw veggies.

*Onion soup mix is a great flavor additive!

*Don't be afraid to experiment. Sweet potatoes, fresh green beans, etc. are wonderful cooked this way!

Cake Batter Truffles

My cute daughter, Stacy, made these the other day and brought some over. We made awfully quick work of them! They are pretty yummy and taste just like cake batter, which is always a favorite of the kids! She got the recipe from Landee on her blog where she gives credit to two other sources. Give them a try! They are yummy. (Just for your information, I made the cookie batter truffles from Landee's blog but we all preferred these!)

Cake Batter Truffles

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 yellow cake mix

1 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

about 1/4 cup milk

hand mix:

2 T. sprinkles

white dipping chocolate

Beat together sugar and butter. Add remaining ingredients, adding milk in slowly until you reach desired dough-like consistency. Mix in sprinkles by hand. Roll into balls and place on wax paper lined cookie sheet and chill for at least 15 minutes.

Melt dipping chocolate and dip batter balls in. Put back on wax paper and top with more sprinkles if desired. Keep refrigerated. Makes approx. 30 truffles.

Banana Pudding Weight Watcher Style

I recently attended a family party/picnic to which I volunteered to make dessert. You know, if you make it you will have something "safe" to eat. This was delicious and pretty lowcal! Everyone loved it.

Banana Pudding
2 pkgs. sugar free pudding (make as directed on box reducing milk to 1 3/4 cups)
1 8 oz. container fat free cool whip
1 cup light sour cream (optional)
5-6 bananas
box vanilla wafers

Mix pudding as per directions reducing milk as above. Gently fold in cool whip and sour cream. Layer in 9x13 pan: wafers, bananas, pudding mixture, wafers, bananas, pudding mixture. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Mini Fruit Pizzas

I hosted my book group today at my house. While I was looking through recipes looking for a treat to make (that also was lowfat, low cal....still doing Weight Watchers!!), I came across this great idea!!

Mini Fruit Pizzas

Pillsbury sugar cookie dough in the roll
fat free cool whip
weight watchers yogurt, fruit flavored-any
strawberries
kiwi
bananas
mandarin oranges
grapes, etc.

Slice the cookies 1/4" thick and bake. Let cool.

Mix the cool whip and the yogurt together. Spread on cookie and top with assorted fruit! Very tasty! The kids would love to make their own little fruit pizzas, don't you think?

Baked Zucchini Sticks

Baked Zucchini Sticks

Servings: 3 servings • Total Time: 25 minutes • Points: 1.33 ww points (sauce extra pts)

3 medium zucchini sliced into 3" x 1/2" sticks
1 large egg white
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 tbsp grated Pecorino Romano cheese
cooking spray
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt
fresh pepper

Preheat oven to 425°.In a small bowl, beat egg whites with salt and pepper. In a ziplock bag, place breadcrumbs, garlic powder and cheese and shake well. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray and set aside.Dip zucchini sticks into eggs then into bread crumb and cheese mixture, a few at a time and shake to coat. Place the breaded zucchini in a single layer and spray more cooking spray on top. Bake at 425° for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with 1/2 cup marinara sauce for dipping

DUMP CHICKEN

I found a website that has a bunch of "dump chicken" recipes that sound easy and yummy. Here is the one I decided to try for dinner tonight!

Spicy Sweet Glazed "DUMP" Chicken

2 tsp. minced garlic
2/3 cup apricot preserves
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tsp. tabasco sauce
1 1/2 lbs. chicken pieces (can be frozen)

Put in ziplock bag and freeze. For immediate cooking: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all ingredients into a large baking dish, turn chicken to coat. Bake until chicken juices run clear (45-60 min. for chicken pieces, or 20-30 min. for chicken breasts).

To cook from frozen: thaw overnight. Preheat oven to 350. Empty the contents of bag into large baking dish and bake until juices run clear (45-60 for pieces and 20-30 for chicken breasts).

I doubled the recipe, but NOT the tabasco. I think my kids might not love it that hot. I tasted the sauce and it reminds me of buffalo wing sauce. You could taste the tabasco, but it was not overpowering.

Nutrition information: 277 calories; 12 g total fat; 16 g protein; 28 g carbohydrate; 70 mg cholesterol; 1145 mg sodium.

*Note: I made mine with 0 pt. jam (no sugar) and pulled the skin off the chicken pieces. WW points=thigh 3 pts., drumstick 1 pt.

March Freezer Dinner

BACON-WRAPPED CHICKEN

Ready in 1 hour or less

Ingredients:
12 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
2 cartons (8 oz each) whipped cream cheese with onion and chives
2 tablespoons butter
salt to taste
12 bacon strips

Flatten chicken to ½ inch thickness. Spread 3 tablespoons cream cheese over each. Dot with butter and sprinkle with salt; roll up. Wrap each with a bacon strip. Place, seam side down, in a greased pan. Bake, uncovered, at 400 for 35-40 minutes or until juices run clear. Broil 6 inches from the heat for 5 minutes or until bacon is crisp.Freeze these uncooked.

Mini Cinnamon Rolls

Ok, I found this yummy and easy recipe for Mini Cinnamon Rolls made from Crescent Rolls. (Maceys had these on sale last week 11 for $10 and I stocked up.) Give it a try.

Mini Cinnamon Rolls

1 pkg. Crescent Rolls

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

raisins (optional)

glaze:

3/4 c. powdered sugar

1/2 Tbsp. milk (or apple juice)

Unroll crescent rolls into rectangles. 2 rolls pressed together to form rectangle. Spread with softened butter. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up from short end. Cut into 5 slices. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned. Put glaze on while still hot.

January Card Group

Here are the cute cards from our card group on Thursday night. Looks like the main theme for the night was valentines day!

By the way, if you have never had this fruit dip, you should really try it...delicious!

Fruit Dip

1-6 oz carton fruit flavored yogurt (I used 2-4 oz. strawberry)
1/2-1 container of coolwhip topping (8 oz.)
4 oz. softened cream cheese (optional)

Fold together and serve with cut up fruit: berries, oranges, pears, apples, etc.

Frozen Potato Wedges

These were great! They cooked from frozen in about 1/2 hour. They were crispy and yummy and just right! Yahoo. I also did twice baked potatoes and froze them. They are dinner tonight! No more rotten potatoes in the basement waiting for me to decide to cook them....cook, freeze, eat whenever we want. Now, that's what I'm talking about :p

Jauary Freezer Meal Recipes

Okay, I admit it. I am trying potatoes in the freezer for the first time. But I found a link where a woman describes how she does all kinds of potatoes for the freezer and I am giving it a shot. These are the best oven fries I have ever eaten, I will let you know how they do in the freezer! After all, wouldn't it be wonderful to pull out precooked fries (homemade and yummy) to go with a meal, or maybe even Roasted Red Potatoes?? I will let you know! This is my mom's made from scratch Sloppy Joe recipe too...love the curry! Enjoy.

Sloppy Joes
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Mix and brown. Drain off grease (if necessary) and add 1 T. flour.

Add:
2 cups ketchup
2 cups water
1/2 tsp. curry powder
2 bay leaves
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Simmer on low heat for 2 hours. The longer you simmer, the thicker it will be.

From freezer: defrost overnight and warm on stove. (Add a little water, if needed.) Serve on hamburger buns.

Oven Fries (wedges)
6 unpeeled, medium sized potatoes cut into 6-8 lengthwise wedges
Canola Oil (just enough to coat potatoes)
Spices:
1 1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/4-1/2 tsp. coarse black pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. parsley
1/2 tsp. sugar

Wash potatoes and leave skins on. Slice into eighths, lengthwise. Put oil, potato wedges and spices in gallon sized Ziploc bag and toss until evenly coated (or stir together in large bowl). I add a little sugar to the spices to help brown and crisp the wedges. Place on non-stick baking sheets or baking sheets sprayed with non-stick spray; bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. (These will only be partially cooked.) Place on brown paper bags or paper towels to cool. Place on clean cookie sheets and freeze solid. Place in labeled freezer bags and return to the freezer.

To cook from frozen: DO NOT DEFROST!! Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Bake 30 to 45 minutes, turning halfway through. Cooking time will depend on the size of the fries or wedges. The oven fries can also be finished in a deep-fryer.

Freezer Meals

OK, so as if I need one more "group" to be a part of....book group, card group lunch, card group make and take.....LOL. Anyway, I am now part of a freezer meal group! Once a month (or every 6 weeks, I think) you meet and swap (just like card group only with food!) homemade frozen dinners. I just made mine today! Of course, since I had my old energy-hog freezer hauled away about a year ago, I had to purchase a new freezer first! But it was delivered on Monday and is up and running and beautiful! I made crock pot ham and potato casserole x 20. There are 10 people in our group and all but 1 of us want half meals (which means they get 2 of whatever meal I make and the full meal gets 1 double sized one). It was crazy trying to figure out how many pounds of ham=30 cups! But it turned out perfect! And the really wild thing is that in the past two weeks, everything that I needed for my recipe just happened to be on sale at one store or another! Here's the recipe in case you want to try it!

Crock Pot Ham and Potato Casserole

1 1/2 cups ham, cooked and cubed

2 cups cheddar cheese, divided

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 can evaporated milk
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 bag frozen hash brown potatoes (32 oz.)

Mix ham, 1 cup of cheese, pepper, salt, evaporated milk and cream of chicken soup together with frozen hash browns. Place in greased 3 1/2-5 qt. crock pot and cook on low for 4-6 hours. 1/2 an hour before done, sprinkle last cup of cheese on top.

Twilight Movie Tickets

I just found out about this site from a friend of mine (thanks, Susette!). It is called Gracious Rain and she is running a contest where you send her your favorite soup recipes and she enters your name into a drawing for 2 Twilight tickets at the Jordan Commons in SLC. Just thought I would pass along the news. Give it a try! http://www.graciousrain.com/ Can't wait for this movie!

Monkey Bread

Cooler weather makes me want to bake. We had these yummy pull apart cinnamon buns last Sunday morning....I can't get enough of them-and they are soooo easy!! Enjoy.

Monkey Bread

4 tubes refrigerator biscuits
1 1/3 cup sugar, divided
2 tsp. cinnamon, divided
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup butter

Cut each biscuit into 3 pieces. Mix together 2/3 cup sugar and 1 tsp. of cinnamon in a bowl and roll each biscuit piece in the mixture. Grease a 12 cup bundt pan. Drop the biscuit pieces into the pan.

In a small saucepan, stir together the remaining sugar, butter, cinnamon and vanilla. Heat until boiling. Pour over the biscuit pieces and bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. When done, turn the monkey bread onto a plate and serve warm.

For variety: can add chopped pecan or walnut pieces or raisins.

Only Cook 3x a Week?

I was talking to a friend of mine recently who gave me a great idea for simplifying a week of meal planning and cooking. It may not work for everyone (I'm skeptical, but I'm going to try it!), but it sure sounds good!

She told me she only cooks 3 times a week! Sound too good to be true? Here's the plan. You cook a big meal on Sunday and eat leftovers on Monday. Cook again, another big meal (2nd time) on Tuesday--saving the leftovers for Thursday. Cook 3rd meal on Wednesday (again, enough for leftovers-are you getting the picture?) and eat them on Friday. Saturday: EAT OUT!! (or order pizza or whatever take-out).

Sunday-cook
Monday-Sunday's leftovers
Tuesday-cook
Wednesday-cook
Thursday-Tuesday's leftovers
Friday-Wednesday's leftovers
Saturday-eat out!













Now, this would probably work better if my husband liked leftovers!! But like I said, I'm going to give it a try. This could free up more time for making cards! :)

Smoothies for an after-school snack

Anyone with kids in school is familiar with the first words out of their mouths following a gruelling :) day in class....."What is there to eat? I'm starving!" This is one of my favorite afterschool snacks (and let's face it, midnight snacks, midmorning snacks, etc.). Whenever I have fruit that needs to be eaten....I pop it in the freezer, then add it to a smoothie next time the mood hits! I don't feel like I'm throwing away perfectly good food and my kids get a little more fruit in their diets than they would otherwise (not to mention calcium).

Fruit Smoothies

1- 6 oz. container of yogurt (any fruit flavor) or 1 cup

1 packet of crystal light (for individual drink bottles) the orange is really good, so is the pink lemonade

4-6 ice cubes

1 cup strawberries (frozen or not)

1 banana (preferably frozen)

1 cup milk

1 cup water

Mix up in blender and enjoy. Can add more ice depending on thickness desired and whether or not fruit was frozen. I have also added other fruit (today it was honeydew melon!).

Home Grown Tomatoes

Anyone else out there have tomatoes going on like crazy! I love salads and BLT's, but you can only have them so many times a week!! Here are a couple of my favorite recipes for using your home grown tomatoes!!

Fresh Homemade Salsa

4 cups of fresh, peeled and chopped tomatoes

1 T. vinegar

1 T. oil

1/2 chopped onion

1/2 chopped green pepper

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. salt

1 clove garlic, minced

jalapeno to taste, chopped teeny

Mix and refrigerate to let flavors mix for at least 1 hour before enjoying!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

2 cups chicken, diced

1/2 onion, chopped

olive oil

2 cups fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped

Cook spaghetti noodles. In large frying pan, saute onion and chicken in olive oil until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in chopped tomatoes with pan still over heat, just to warm through (not to cook!). Serve over spaghetti noodles and top with Ranch Dressing and Cajun Seasoning. Very yummy and low fat, too!

Tin foil Dinners and Bear Lake

Well, summer is over and it's back to school! I can't believe how fast this summer went. Besides our trip to Canada, we just got back from Bear Lake, Utah from our annual family camping trip. We had a great time! The weather was pretty good-could have used another 5 degrees higher temp. but it was perfect at night. We kayaked and swam and got sunburned had Bear Lake Raspberry Milk Shakes!! If you can't tell from my previous blogs, I'm all about the food!!

We did tinfoil dinners the first night and they were awesome! I par-boiled some baby red potatoes and put them in with a thin hamburger patty (sprinkled with au jus mix powder and onion soup mix), broccoli and onion and thinly sliced carrots. I added just a drop of oil and a little water for the au jus mix. The best thing I learned though, is to spray the tin foil with cooking spray (like Pam). NO STICKING!! I would love some other ideas for tin foil dinners, if you have them...just leave a post! Thanks in advance!

Cafe Rio Tomatillo Ranch Salad Dressing

I blogged about a recipe for Cafe Rio Sweet Pork last month, but had misplaced the recipe for the dressing....I found it! Ta-da! So here goes. Enjoy!!

4-5 Tomatillos
1 pkg. Ranch Buttermilk dressing mix (@2 1/2 Tbs.)
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/4-1/2 cup milk mixed with 1 tsp. lime juice
2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp. crushed cayenne pepper
1/2-1 bunch fresh cilantro

Add all ingredients except cilantro ito blender and blend until smooth. Add cilantro and blend slightly so you don't pulverize it. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.