The Nifty Foodie

Skinny

Smothered Chicken

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I’ve been challenging myself to cook more often when I’m at my fiance’s house. Lately, the cooking has been so-so until now. This recipe has been the BEST recipe I’ve made, and it’s Weight Watchers friendly!!! I made this using the non-crockpot method, because we didn’t want the meat too tender. My fiance requested rice with this dish, instead of pasta as well, which was a WONDERFUL combination :).

I was given this recipe from a knottie on my club board. It was a pdf form of Weight Watchers recipes, so I don’t really know the original source, however, I will say this isn’t mine. I did adapt it, though, for more flavor.

Smothered Chicken
adapted from Weight Watchers Crockpot recipe pdf (from a knottie)

Ingredients:

  • 4 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 12 ounces Mushrooms — fresh
  • 1 can 98% fat-free Cream of mushroom soup
  • 1 can 98% fat-free Cream of chicken soup
  • 1 can French Onion Soup
  • 1/2 onion (added)
  • 1 clove garlic (added)

Directions:

  1. Cut chicken breasts into stew size chunks, and sauté while washing and cutting mushrooms in half. Then simply add all other ingredients to chicken and simmer about 1 hour (I did this for half an hour covered and half an hour uncovered). You can also do this in a crock pot and simmer all day ’til dinner. Serve over rice, noodles or potatoes.

This makes 6 servings.


Check out our new funky plates. They match our kitchen perfectly!

Here’s a zoom-in of the yumminess!

Points* (without rice): 7

Since I had 1 cup of brown rice with mine, this dinner was 11 points. Yep, a little on the high side, but this was some SERIOUS comfort food. 🙂 I will be making this again when the fall comes!!

Turkey Enchilada Pie

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I officially rejoined Weight Watchers last Monday. I’ve been really good on my diet this week. Totally within points, and I’ve worked out 5 days in a row using Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred DVD (which I highly recommend!!).

Anyways, being a member of Weight Watchers means I have an eTools membership. So, points values* will be determined using that tool instead of SparkRecipes. Along with that, eTools gives me GREAT W/W friendly recipes that I can adapt (and it will count points as I adapt). So, here is my first recipe that I made for Joey and I last night.

To me, it was spicy and I wish I would have used green chiles instead of jalapenos. I also cut this into 8 wedges instead of 6. (didn’t read directions well so I ate less points than I thought for supper)

Before I show the results of this dish, I want to give a shout-out to Rachael Ray (yes, I *heart* her!). This Furi tool pictured below, rocks my world in chopping vegetables. I usually cut myself a lot with using knives, and with this tool, my hands are safely on the grip! 🙂 I found it (with cutting board) for $15 at Tuesday Morning!!


Look at how fine that chop is…I’m wowed by myself!!

Turkey Enchilada Pie
Source: Weight Watchers

Ingredients:

  • 1 sprays cooking spray
  • 3/4 pound lean ground turkey (used 1 lb.)
  • 1 medium onion(s), chopped
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup fat-free skim milk (used lowfat at FI’s request)
  • 4 oz canned jalapeno peppers, drained and chopped
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 3 large burrito-size wheat flour tortilla(s)
  • 3 cup tomato(es), chopped (omitted because I’m a creole tomato snob and they are out of season for the year 🙁 )
  • 10 Tbsp low-fat shredded cheddar cheese (used 2% mexican blend cheese)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a large skillet with cooking spray. Heat skillet over medium heat. Place turkey, onion and chili powder in skillet and cook until turkey is browned, stirring occasionally to break up meat, about 8 minutes. Remove turkey mixture from skillet and set aside.
  2. Place skillet over medium-high heat and add flour. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium; simmer until thickened, about 2 minutes.
  3. Remove skillet from heat; stir in turkey mixture, jalapenos and cumin.
  4. Wrap tortillas in damp paper towels and microwave on HIGH until softened, about 15 seconds. Place 1 tortilla in bottom of a 9-inch pie plate. Spread 1/3 of turkey mixture over tortilla. Spoon 1 cup of tomato on top and sprinkle with 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of cheese. Repeat layers with remaining ingredients ending up with 2 tablespoons of cheese.
  5. Cover pie plate with aluminum foil and cook until cheese melts and filling is warmed through, about 15 minutes. Let stand, covered, 2 minutes before cutting into 6 wedges.


Here is the pie out the oven 🙂

Check out how gooey those layers look…YUMMY!

Points*: 6

The site provided says it’s 4 points but eTools’ recipe link (which I can’t give because W/W has recipes in flash so bleh…) says 6…so I would calculate 6 to be safe here!

Slow Cooker Zesty BBQ Chicken

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Last weekend, I was off and I wanted to blow Joey’s socks off with some killer food. We had chicken breasts in the freezer and a slow cooker for me to use while I was running errands…I found this recipe on All Recipes and was NOT disappointed…this chicken literally fell apart and shred beautifully into some TASTY bbq chicken sandwiches…mmm…


Not at all attractive looking…kinda looks like dog food actually but I promise it’s good!!


Check out how well it shreds…we used a fork with little effort!! mmmm…

Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken BBQ
Source: AllRecipes

Ingredients:

  • 4 frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
  • 2/3 (12 ounce) bottle barbeque sauce (We used Jack Daniels original sauce)
  • 1/3 cup Italian salad dressing (I used Fat Free Dressing to lighten it up a bit)
  • 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

Place chicken in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the barbeque sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the chicken. Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.

Serves 8…these breasts can easily split into two servings!!

Nutritional Information:
Calories 206.3
Fat 1.6g
Fiber 0.1g

POINTS*: 4

**add standard whole wheat hamburger bun for 2-3 points and easily have an entree for 6-7 points**

Blueberry Pound Cake

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So, a few weeks back, I was in the grocery store…looking for cake mix for my first fondant cake, and these blueberries at $2/pint caught my eye. I had to buy them…just had to bake something with them. However, I had NO idea what to make. So, being on my diet, I looked at Cooking Light and searched blueberries…lo and behold, this recipe for a blueberry pound cake came up. It was on my “to make” list…

I finally had the opportunity to make this cake Monday, and with a few healthy substitutions for an already healthy recipe, it came out great. However, moreso like a sweet bread than a pound cake. Regardless, my stomach was happy and so was my diet!

I will admit, though, the cake looks purple because after I put all the ingredients in the pan, I forgot to put in an extra egg (that was called for)…so I mixed it in stupidly and realized OH NO! THE BLUEBERRIES!!!….thus my cake is purple….


The loaf 🙂 I made this in a loaf pan instead of a tube pan because I didn’t have a tube pan..it worked out well!!

Blueberry Pound Cake (gone bread)
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups granulated sugar (used 1 cup splenda, 1 cup sugar)
  • 1/2 cup light butter
  • 1/2 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large egg white
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided ( 1 cup WW flour, 2 cups AP flour)
  • 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 (8-ounce) carton lemon low-fat yogurt (I hate lemon in desserts, so I used blueberry yogurt instead)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • Cooking spray

For the glaze:

  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar (omitted…I don’t want a glaze on it)
    4 teaspoons lemon juice (omitted…same reason)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 5 minutes). Add eggs and egg white, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
  3. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 2 tablespoons flour and blueberries in a small bowl, and toss well. Combine remaining flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  4. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with yogurt, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Fold in blueberry mixture and vanilla; pour cake batter into a 10-inch tube pan coated with cooking spray.
  5. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
  6. Cool cake in pan 10 minutes; remove from pan. Combine powdered sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl; drizzle over warm cake. Cut with a serrated knife.


My end slice 🙂


Look at that crumbly goodness!

Makes 16 servings.

Nutritional Information:
Calories 278.9
Fat 8.5g
Fiber 1.8g

POINTS*: 6

**I’m not sure how accurate Cooking Light is here…because their dessert had less fat, 10 more calories and 0.3 less g fiber/serving (weird!)**

Mexican Night: The Salsa

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OMG…this stuff was the BEST part of tonight…I love salsa :). Once again, I chose a highly rated recipe from All Recipes and this wasn’t a disappointment at all and SUPER easy!

Ingredients
* 2 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
* 1/2 onion, finely diced
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 1/2 lime, juiced
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup canned sliced green chiles, or to taste
* 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
* 1/2 tsp chili powder (an addition that I added for more flavor)

Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic, lime juice, salt, green chiles, and cilantro in a blender or food processor. Blend on low to desired consistency.


Mmm…hand over a bag of tostitos!

Mexican Night: Shrimp and Corn Fajitas

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Tonight’s Menu was time consuming but it was a good dinner. However, by the time I was done cooking, I really wasn’t that hungry…figures right?

Oh! And by the way, you get pictures tonight 🙂 I used my fiance’s camera hehehe 🙂

We had: Shrimp and Corn Fajitas, Mexican Rice, Refried Beans, and Chips and Salsa.

The shrimp and corn fajitas were from the What’s Cooking recipe exchange for June/July. The original submitted recipe was from I&R4_23_06 of the Nest, and the source is unknown.

Shrimp & Corn Tacos

Ingredients:

  • 2 T vegetable oil (we used canola)
  • 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 jalapeño, seeded & ribbed, minced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • coarse salt & ground pepper
  • 2 plum tomatoes, chopped (omitted)
  • 1 10 oz. package frozen corn, unthawed (canned b/c FI rathers canned veggies)
  • 1/2 pound shrimp, cut into 1/2″ pieces (We had 1 lb. of shrimp, 19-25 ct. and left whole)
  • 12 6″ corn tortillas, warmed
  • Taco accouterments- salsa, cheese, sour cream, cilantro, lime wedges

Directions:

  1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add onion, jalapeño, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened, 4 to 5 minutes.
  2. Add tomatoes and corn; cook, stirring occasionally, until corn is heated through and tomatoes are soft, 4 to 5 minutes.
  3. Add shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until opaque throughout, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately with tortillas (which we heated in the oven for a couple minutes)

Faux Tiramisu Trifle..as sugar free as I could

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Yesterday was mother’s day, and I got a call from mom to go to the grocery store to pick up a sugar free dessert for my grandma’s dinner that she was making. (Grandma is diabetic). I figured, I could make a great dessert for the family in a pinch that would go with the spaghetti dinner. It’s a faux tiramisu trifle! 🙂

Tiramisu Trifle

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz. sugar free cool whip (ideally but the store only had fat free)
  • 8 oz. 1/3 less fat cream cheese (it actually has 1 g less sugar than fat free!)
  • Sugar Free instant chocolate pudding mix (large box)
  • 2 tbsp instant coffee
  • 2 cups 1% milk
  • Sugar Free Angel Food cake
  • Grated chocolate (didn’t use for grandma’s sake but thought this would be great to add)

Directions:

Thaw cool whip and soften cream cheese. Fold 1/2 of cool whip into cream cheese and put aside. Prepare chocolate pudding by mixing 2 cups of milk with coffee, whisk, then add pudding mix and whisk for 2 minutes (this has less milk that required to keep it firmer). Cube angel food cake or cut into 3 rings. Layer trifle as such…cake, cream cheese cool whip, pudding…then when the last layer of cake is laid, add remaining cool whip on top. Add grated chocolate on top, and refridgerate until serving.

(Sorry, I’m not a writer, but this took 10 minutes to make and was WONDERFUL!)

I can’t calculate the recipe b/c Spark Recipes doesn’t have Sugar Free Angel Food Cake in it’s database :(.

Guinness Braised Beef Brisket

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This is a recipe I found off Cooking Light. It was our first experience with a slow cooker, and I learned the lesson of never, ever open the cover of the slow cooker…after 8 hours, we seared the brisket in the Le Creuset and put it in the oven at 350 for 1 additional hour. The meat was still super tender (the meat literally fell apart) and was delicious!


Ingredients
2 cups water
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup Guinness stout
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped fresh or 1 tablespoon dried dill
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can low-salt beef broth
6 black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
1 (3-pound) cured corned beef brisket, trimmed

Preparation
Combine first 11 ingredients in a large electric slow cooker, stirring until well blended; top with beef. Cover and cook on HIGH 8 hours or until beef is tender. Remove beef; cut diagonally across grain into 1/4-inch slices. Discard broth mixture.

Yield
6 servings (serving size: 3 ounces)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 226(39% from fat); FAT 9.7g (sat 3.2g,mono 4.7g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 17.9g; CHOLESTEROL 87mg; CALCIUM 28mg; SODIUM 1105mg; FIBER 0.9g; IRON 2.2mg; CARBOHYDRATE 15.2g

Points: 5*

Waist Friendly Chicken Marsala

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I had been craving some serious chicken marsala for a while, and so I asked my What’s Cooking sister from A Taste of Home Cooking, if she had a recipe, and SCORE! (she did!!) So, thank you so much for this recipe, which is from Everyday Food by Martha Stewart (my changes noted to make it weight watcher friendly)

Serves 4 (When the chicken was pounded out, it served 6)

Chicken Marsala

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (omitted)
Coarse salt and ground pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6 to 8 ounces each)
1 tablespoon olive oil
10 ounces cremini mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced (used Portobella’s)
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage, plus more for garnish (didn’t have this, used oregano)
1/2 cup sweet Marsala wine
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
added oregano
added 2 cloves of minced garlic
added 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Directions
Place flour in a shallow bowl; season generously with salt and pepper. Dredge each piece of chicken in flour, shaking off excess.
In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add chicken, and cook until golden on the outside and opaque throughout, 8 to 10 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate, and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm (reserve skillet).

Instead of this, I pounded the chicken to equal thickness, put the olive oil in a hot skillet and grilled/seared the chicken until cooked. I added salt/pepper, some oregano and basted with the balsamic vinegar for more flavor while cooking.

Add mushrooms, shallot, garlic, sage (not for me), and 1/4 cup water to skillet; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing frequently, until mushrooms are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add wine and cream; simmer over medium-high until slightly thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in butter; season with salt and pepper.
Top chicken with mushroom sauce, and garnish with sage. (didn’t have sage)



The results? Total yumminess! Here are the stats:

6 Servings

Amount Per Serving

Calories 191.4

Total Fat 8.2 g

Total Carbohydrate 21.9 g

Dietary Fiber 0.8 g

Weight Watchers Points: 4.5 *

Strawberry Bread

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Hard to believe, but I reduced the calories by 100 calories per serving on this bread, and am sure that I didn’t impact the taste much at all!

My dad bought a flat of Louisiana strawberries late last week, and so I have been trying to figure out ways to get rid of the strawberries since their lives are at their end..lol. This helped me rid of a pint and in an awesome way!

This bread is delicious, especially with a dollop of cool whip. I want another piece but I know I snacked enough earlier when I got home lol. Here is the original recipe with my substitutions from AllRecipes.

Strawberry Bread

INGREDIENTS

* 2 cups fresh strawberries
* 3 1/8 cups all-purpose flour (1 cup whole wheat flour and 2 1/8 cups AP flour)
* 2 cups white sugar (1 cup splenda, 1 cup white sugar)
* 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (12 oz. no sugar added applesauce)
* 4 eggs, beaten
* 1 1/4 cups chopped pecans (omitted because I hate pecans)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.
2. Slice strawberries, and place in medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle lightly with sugar, and set aside while preparing bread mixture.
3. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl: mix well. Blend oil and eggs into strawberries. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Stir in pecans. Divide batter into pans.
4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until tester inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn loaves out, and cool completely.

I did end up just baking this in a 8×8 pan since I couldn’t find the loaf pans :(. Worked out just fine!

All in all this was delicious and I’m looking forward to this for breakfast tomorrow morning!



Original nutritional facts:
Fib
16 servings

Calories: 285
Total Fat: 17g
Fiber: 1.5g
Points: 7*

With my substitutions and omissions (especially note the fat changes):

16 servings

Calories: 165.5
Total Fat: 1.6g
Fiber: 2.1g
Points: 3*

That’s a 4 point difference per serving! I’m sure that was just the applesauce vs. oil difference but that’s amazing!