A Few Recipes We Are Loving Recently...
/I've said it once and I will say it again. Thank goodness my wife enjoys and is good at cooking! Otherwise I would be over here with frozen meals and toast. That is about the best I can do in the kitchen.
I actually remember one of the first - and only - times I cooked for my wife, I made grilled chicken and microwaved green beans. Jealous folks? ;) She politely ate it and that was pretty much the last time I was in charge of a meal.
Thankfully we have a good balance in our relationship. I will buy the ingredients and clean up after the meal as long as she does the cooking. How about that for a partnership?
The wife and I are working on eating home more and out less. Not only is that beneficial for our budget (hello Disney), but is another way to help our waistlines!
While I am counting Points on Weight Watchers, the wife is tracking calories on My Fitness Pal. Either way we are being more mindful of our food choices. Luckily there are a ton of great recipes online since we are not that creative when left to our own devices.
Enter my go-to salad for lunch the past week:
4 Weight Watchers SP: lettuce (0SP), shredded carrots (0SP), cucumbers (0SP), bac'n bits (5.6g=0SP), wonton crisps (17.5g=2SP) and Panera Bread Poppyseed Dressing (2tbsp=2SP)!
Here are the three recipes we enjoyed last week...
1) Weight Watchers Stir-Fried Chicken with Broccoli, Red Peppers and Cashews
This is a great Weight Watchers recipe that we found. Now I don't think non-WW members can see WW recipes.
BUT...
I found the recipe on a different website.
The recipe, which takes about 15-20 minutes to prep, yields 4 servings (according the WW website). I calculated this out as 5 SP per serving. I couldn't find the recipe on WW since the upgrade so I entered each individual item into my tracker after diving each by 4.
We paired it with brown rice (2/3 cup = 4 SP, 3/4 cup = 5 SP, 1 cup = 6 SP).
2) Skinny Ms Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup
Since it is winter in New England, I have been in a serious soup mood. We rarely eat or make soup in our house so the idea was sort of out of our comfort zone. I could've easily gone to the store and bought some Progresso Soup, but I wanted to save myself some of the sodium associated with that brand.
The wife cut up the ingredients the night before (about 15-20 minutes) then she set this up in the crock pot on Thursday morning before work (10-15 minutes) and I had the pleasure of smelling it all day long as I was working from home. I couldn't wait to eat some that night.
Here is the link to the recipe!
For those counting WW points, 1 cup = 4 SP, 1.5 cup = 6 SP and 2 cups = 9 SP! I like to check the points for multiple options depending on how hungry I feel at that time.
While the wife found it a little bland, I thought it was delicious and super filling. We have been heating it up for a couple of days and it is just as yummy reheated.
I will say most of the broth ended up evaporating away so it didn't really feel all that soupy. You know what I mean? I ate it with a fork rather than a spoon.
But even so it was a great treat for a cold Boston winter night.
3) Hungry Girl Orange Chicken
Now this is a long-time favorite and staple in the Holmes-Kirk household.
The recipe, which takes about 20-30 minutes to prep, makes two servings (6 SP). The wife and I have doubled and even tripled the recipe based on how many guests we were having over and it was delicious every time.
We opted to pair it with broccoli and brown rice.
This really is an amazing alternative to ordering out for Chinese food.
Now the first few times we made it it seemed like a huge ordeal, but now that we have made it so often it isn't as time consuming. Note I say this on the wife's benefit. Either way I am off to the side supervising with a glass of wine. ;)
It has been awesome exploring the web for new healthy recipes and I can't wait to see what we find next.
Does your family have a go-to healthy recipe? Please share!
