Pretty Healthy Dinners

Click on this link to see two wonderful recipes I have posted.  I have made both of these healthy dinners for my family, and they rock! 

Technorati Tags: chicken, crock pot

Another one of my healthy dinners…

I created this cobb salad variation for a contest I entered a few years back.  After creating this and taking pictures, I shared it with my family.  It was awesomely good.  I was actually surprised how good the French dressing tasted on it!

The Super Target Super Salad

½ head green leaf lettuce

3 green onions

8 mushroom caps

3 boiled eggs (discard yolks)

1 large boiled boneless chicken breast

½ cup blue cheese

1 ½ cups grape tomatoes

1/3 red pepper

6 strips crisp bacon

½ cup “Market Pantry” California French dressing

Arrange 4 large lettuce leaves on the platter.  Finely chop remaining lettuce and place on leaves.  Place dressing in a dipping dish in middle of platter.  Chops remaining ingredients into ¼ inch cubes.  Arrange in “Target” shape.  Enjoy!!! 

Technorati Tags: chicken, salad

I planned to make these, so I had the ingredients on hand.  I had bought onions and two bell peppers at the store.   I happened to get one green and one red because it’s a bit prettier.  I boiled a 4-pack of chicken for a meal last week and used two of them.  I froze the other two, and I took them out last night, so they’d be thawed in time for dinner.

I put the following into a hot wok pan:

• 2 bell peppers (chopped into 1-inch pieces)
• 1 very large onion (equivalent of the 2 peppers, chopped into 1-inch pieces)
• 1 Tbsp (added after about 5 minutes of cooking, so I wouldn’t scorch the oil

It took about a total of 10 minutes to get the peppers and onions cooked good enough to eat.  I proceeded to cut up the chicken in to 1-inch pieces and added them to the hot veggies.  I shook on a lot of Worcestershire sauce, a bit of soy sauce, and a bit of mustard.

Time to serve it up!  On the table I set out some large tortillas and small tortillas.  I put out some sour cream and salsa.  I skipped the cheese this time.  I love love love cheese, but by keeping it off the table for this meal, we’ll save on both calories and money.

We made this even better by serving it with corn on the cob.  These healthy dinners are great!

Technorati Tags: 5 points, chicken, fajitas

Friday afternoon, we were invited to a friend’s house for a little get together on Saturday afternoon.  I was happy to say “yes”, but I wasn’t ready to worry about my pot luck dish that night.

On Saturday, I ran some errands.  I was SO ready to be done, and the baby was getting cranky, so I decided to forego the grocery store and grab some chips near the checkout stand.  I didn’t even consider getting salsa because, like everyone else, we’re pinching pennies.

After getting home and tucking the baby into bed, the wheels starting turning.  “Hmm,” I thought. “I think I have all the stuff to make fresh salsa!”  I Googled a few recipes, so I could figure out what things mainly make up fresh salsa, and here’s what I ended up putting in the food processor:

• 3 1/2 tomatoes (the 1/2 came from a tomato I partially used from lunch the other day)
• 1/3 cup onion (it was WAY too big to use the whole thing)
• juice from 1 lime (found it in the back of the fridge, almost forgotten forever)
• cilantro (I had bought this for soup, so I just rinsed the bunch, and ripped off 4 pinches of leaves, so there wouldn’t be any stems.  This way, I didn’t have to cut anything with a knife and get a cutting board dirty.  You will soon learn the lengths I go to, to have LESS dishes to wash!)
• salt to taste

It turned out to be a big hit!  All of the food at this party was delicious, and I was very pleased to be part of that club.  This salsa virtually has 0 Weight Watchers Points (TM), so when I eat it, I pile as much on each chip as I possibly can.  Why not?!?!

Give this a try as one of your healthy snacks for kids, or a side to one of your healthy dinners.  It is delish!

Technorati Tags: 0 points, pot luck, salsa

After spending time away from home, and helping my other family members make a meal, I always realize how much I appreciate having the tools in my own kitchen.  I think I’m spoiled and very lucky to have all the things I think I need to make healthy dinners.

I wrote an article on another site that lists the top ten tools that I highly recommend having in your kitchen at all times.  Click here to read more!

Technorati Tags: kitchen tools

I love eating out, don’t get me wrong, but I would rather stay in.  It always ends up costing more than you expect, it’s difficult to entertain a 15-month-old, and I always eat too much.  It turned out all right tonight, but I’ll talk about that in a second.

Why couldn’t we eat at home tonight?

On Wednesday, two days ago, I dropped off my kindergartener at the bus stop and proceeded to walk around my neighborhood for my exercise.  It’s a tiny bit more than a mile, and it’s not all flat, so it’s a pretty good workout.  Also, it takes between 20 and 25 minutes, which is plenty for me.

So, I got home from my walk, and when I opened the door, I heard it raining in my kitchen.  RAIN!  I looked at the floor, and there was a small lake forming in my house!  I threw my glasses and keys into the dry room, grabbed the baby from the stroller and walked further into the house to see what I was going to have to deal with.  Oh my… there was water pouring from the ceiling!  I grabbed the phone, called my hubby, and ran upstairs to see if one of the kids had left the water running in the bathroom.  That would be the most likely explaination, right?  Everything upstairs was normal and dry.  I asked my hubby where the water shut-off valve was, ran to the basement and turned it and turned it, for what seemed like forever, then I alerted him of what was going on.

After calling my landlord next, and assessing the problem, we figured out that a pipe had burst in the kitchen ceiling.  It was SO wet.  While I was waiting for the landlord to show up I took a bunch of photos.  After that, the baby and I were luckily upstairs putting some things away, when I heard a CRASH!  I went to see what it was, and the kitchen ceiling had caved in!  The sheetrock obviously got too saturated and heavy with water, so a 4 x 6 piece had fallen down.  I am SO SO glad that we weren’t in there!!!

So, after the plumber, the cleanup, the smelly carpet, and whatever else, the “disaster cleanup” guys came in today and tore a few things apart, so they could set up fans to dry the basement and all the walls.  There are three giant humidifiers and ten industrial fans running in our home right now.  They pulled the wet carpet padding up and out, and all our furniture is moved to the corner of the living room.  Last, they put some anti-mildew treatment on the carpet and made us leave the home for an hour.

THAT is why we went out to eat tonight.

We ended up going to Mimi’s Cafe, where I had a coupon for a free meal.  We order from the “Just Enough” menu for the adults, and the older kids got kids meals.  There were healthier choices where they even dared to print the calories in the meal, but neither my husband or I got one of those.  He got a meatloaf meal, and I got a pasta and fried chicken breast meal.  Hmmm… just for fun, let me look up the points right now…

The meatloaf (stroganoff) meal was 14 points.

The pasta (artichoke asiago) meal was HOLY CRAP 31 points.

I am embarassed.  OK… do NOT do what I did at the restaurant.  I considered getting one of the healthy meals, but I wasn’t in the mood.  I figured “how much worse could it be?”  Gross!  Now this is even grosser.  Imagine if it was a “normal” restaurant meal, and not a “just enough” meal.  Gross.

  Now I am sad.  The only thing that makes it okay, is that now I’ve found a tasty recipe, and I am now DETERMINED to turn this into one of my healthy dinners.  Seriously.  It won’t be for awhile because my house is torn apart, but don’t let me forget.  I have to redeem myself for making this dumb mistake.

Anyway, I’m really not that sad, just annoyed that restaurants even serve that kind of food.  How dare they!?!?

Technorati Tags: blog, restaurant

Make this to eat with one of your healthy dinners tonight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhsA11HNiOg

Technorati Tags: 4 points, desserts, fruit salsa

This article I wrote talks about healthy dinners and healthy snacks for kids.  It has a short list of some great ideas to help you keep your family on the right track…

http://healthydinners.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/healthy-dinners-vs-your-kids/

Technorati Tags: articles

Let me share one of my healthy breakfast ideas.  I had to make something for breakfast today, as I do every day, and I only like to eat cereal if I don’t feel like cooking something special.  This way, I only eat cereal maybe 75% of the time, instead of 95% of the time.  We know how easy cereal is!

So, I glanced at all the food I had, and I made a double-take at these loads of bananas I bought the other day.  When I purchased them, I tried to get a bunch that was barely ripe, and a bunch that was a bit greener, so I could space out our family’s banana-eating frenzy.  Unfortunately, I must have miscalculated because there,  in front of me, were over fifteen bananas.  I know.

So, I grabbed the “just-add-water” pancake mix.  I always make my batter in my 2-cup Pyrex.  I would guess I poured about a cup of batter, water to make it runny enough, then I quartered a banana and sliced little bits of the whole banana into the mixture.  Waalaah!  Banana pancakes!

They turned out pretty yummy.  Seriously, I’ve never made these in my life, but what could go wrong with yummy+yummy?  This made 10 pancakes for the adults and the baby, and the other kids ate cereal.  Go figure.

When you can fit 4 round pancakes into a 12” skillet, they are 1 Point ™ each.  Since the banana displaced some of the batter, I am not going to add or subtract for anything, and still count my four pancakes as 4 Points ™.  They tasted great with syrup and butter, or in my case, sugar-free syrup and spray butter.  I used such a small amount, that I didn’t add any extra points for these.  I’ll round “up” later today for something else.

Try these for yourself!   I would be happy serving these as one of my healthy dinners.  I just might have to serve more or prepare a quick side dish like an egg or OJ.  In the past I have added the following to pancake batter: blueberries, strawberries, and chocolate chips.  I don’t think the last one is very diet, though.

Technorati Tags: 4 points, bananas, pancakes

Friday night, I pulled a tiny roast (1 lb.) out of the freezer.  We finished dinner last night, and what was going on in my mind?  Dinner for tomorrow, of course!  Since I was lucky enough to think about this early, and the roast was mostly thawed by now, I pulled out the crock pot.

Hmmm… I wasn’t sure how to cook it.  I had a head of lettuce in the fridge that I forgot to use the other day for my lunchtime salad, so I decided to make some kind of shredded beef salad.  I’ve heard in the past that the meat shouldn’t touch the bottom of the crock pot dish if it can be avoided, so used two quartered onions to ‘hold up’ the meat.  Not yet prepared to make a taco salad, I covered the meat with Season-All and called it “good”.

I put the thing on HIGH and planned to turn it down to LOW when I went to bed, which I amazingly remembered to do.  We planned to eat our healthy dinners at noon and probably 6PM.  Because it was Sunday, I figured we’d have the big “to do” first, then eat the same thing or other leftovers later in the day.  It would be nice to get the harder meal out of the way.

Time to eat!  Here’s what I grabbed and threw on the table – forget the fancy serving dishes and keep it easy! (This was also when the meal turned into TACO salad.):

• The crock pot of meat.  My hubby shredded it with a fork.
• Lettuce.
• Cheese and the cheese grater.
• Fat-free sour cream.  We had bought this for chili that I plan to make on Monday, so hopefully we don’t use too much of it.
• A tomato.  I had this left over from my planned lunch salads, and it was getting very ripe.
• We opened a can of kidney beans.
• Salsa.
• Corn.  We had this in the freezer, already half-gone from other similar meals, and we just nuked like 3/4  cup of it for our salads for 2 minutes.
• Chips.  Seriously, we had like ½ cup left from taco salads a month ago.  I’m glad I didn’t try eating them as a midnight snack some other time!  Now, my taco salad will be complete.
• Tortillas.  Really, there were not enough chips, so we’ll see who gets what!

So, I was successful at figuring out how to make a healthy taco salad.  I ended up counting 3 Points ™ for the meat (that thing had NO fat, and it better not, for only being 1 pound in size), and I got to have a lot of meat flavor mass due to the onion overload.  Mmmm… those onions were surprisingly good on the salad.  I counted 2 for the cheese because I put more on about halfway through, 1 for the sour cream, 1 for the chips, 1 for the beans and corn together, and that is it!  It’s another one of my healthy lunch ideas and for some reason my salads always end up being 8 Points ™ or less.

Oh!  I must mention that one of the boys had a salad, too.  My husband and my middle son made some PHAT burritos with all the same stuff in them, minus the chips.  It was amusing to see my 5-year-old holding the over-stuffed tortilla, but he ate more than half of it!

Technorati Tags: 8 point, crock pot, healthy taco salad, roast, salad