Light & Flavorful Weeknight Chili

One of my favorite fall meals is a warm, savory bowl of chili... usually topped sour cream, cheese, chives, and a few crumbled chips... sometimes ladled over a roasted hot dog. My mom's homemade chili was a staple in the home I grew up in, and I still find it very comforting to this day. After starting Weight Watchers, I searched the internet for a similar but lighter version of the chili I grew up eating, and I finally found one that I'm the whole family is happy with--even my picky eater. This meal family-friendly, quick, and easy. I hope you and your family enjoy it as much as we do.

Light and Flavorful Weeknight Chili

adapted slightly from weightwatchers.com

Ingredients:
1 lb. 93% lean ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
2 Tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons of salt
 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar
28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
2 cups of beef broth
8 ounce can of tomato sauce
15 ounce can of kindey beans, drained and rinsed
Cooking Spray

Instructions:

Lightly coat a stock pot with cooking spray. Place ground beef, onion, celery, garlic, and jalapeno into a large stock pot and cook over medium heat until beef is browned. Add chili powder, cumin, oregano, bay leaves, salt, and sugar. Stir to coat beef and vegetables with spices. Add tomatoes, broth, tomato sauce, and kidney beans to the pot; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes. Remove bay leaves before serving. Top with toppings of your choice (sour cream, cheese, chives, etc).

Makes approximately 7 heaping cups of chili at 5 Weight Watcher Points Plus per serving (1 heaping cup, not including toppings).

Enjoy!

6 {Weight Watcher Friendly} Hotel Room Snacks

Happy Monday, everyone! Normally I would be sitting at home creating my menu plan and shopping list for the week, but this week I'm enjoying a little R & R at the beach with my family! Silas remembers his last visit to the beach, but little Liam was only 4 months last time we hit the sands of the gulf shores. Needless to say, he is soaking it all in and loving every minute!

 
So, of course, no cooking for me this week! Instead, we're enjoying hot lukewarm hotel breakfasts, quick sandwiches for lunch, and fun dinners out. But just like at home, we need a few fillers in between to keep our tummies happy. We have two little guys, so we have our fair share of fruit snacks and pudding cups lying around, but we've also got a stash of healthy snacks to keep us full without breaking the calorie bank. Here's what you'd find if our hotel pantry chest of drawers if you stopped by...

{1} Family Favorite :: Smartfood Popcorn (White Cheddar)

{2} Salty Fix :: Dry Roasted Edamame
  
{3} Fast & Fresh :: Assorted Fruit

{4} Hold Me Over :: Assorted Granola Bars

{5} Chocolate Fix :: Fiber One Brownies

{6} Mama's Must-Have :: Complimentary Coffee from the Hotel Lobby

Happy Snacking!

General Tso's Chicken

If I'm not munching on Mexican food it's likely that you'll find me savoring a delicious Asian dish. Last week I tried a new Weight Watchers recipe for one of my favorite Asian dishes--General Tso's Chicken. I had my doubts about how this recipe would turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. It was super simple to prepare and the whole family loved it (well, except for my picky eater, of course). Sometimes when I try a new recipe, even though it turns out delicious, if it was too time-consuming or if it required hard-to-find ingredients, I don't put it on our regular dinner rotation. Neither was the case with this recipe. It was just my style--quick and easy-- and I will gladly add it to our regular dinner rotation!

General Tso's Chicken
 (adapted from weightwatchers.com)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of chicken broth
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon olive oil
2 medium scallions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pound uncooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 cups cooked white rice

Instructions:

In a bowl, whisk together broth, cornstarch, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and ginger. 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add scallions, garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add chicken to skillet. Cook until chicken pieces are begin to brown, about 5 minutes.

Add sauce to the skillet and simmer until sauce thickens and chicken is cooked through.

Serve chicken and sauce over rice.

This recipe makes 4 serving. Enjoy about 1 cup of chicken with sauce and 1/2 cup of rice for 8 Weight Watchers points plus values. 

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade with NuStevia™

Nothing says summer like a tall glass of fresh, homemade lemonade. If you haven't made any yet this summer, now is the time to get on that! I haven't always been a fan of lemonade, but soon after I got married I discovered that my husband makes the perfect homemade lemonade. I was hooked.

We haven't always been so calorie conscious when it comes to our beverages, so for years we stirred cups of sugar into our homemade lemonade. I was hesitant to make the switch to a zero-calorie sweetener because I really don't like the taste of artificial sweeteners. Soon after I started Weight Watchers my Mom introduced me to a new zero-calorie sweetener that she had discovered at Whole Foods called NuStevia™, an all natural herbal sweetener. She told me it was the perfect addition to a glass of lemon water. She bought me a box, and I discovered that lemons and NuStevia™ are indeed a match made in heaven. We've since substituted NuStevia™ for sugar in our lemonade recipe. We also use it in our coffee, smoothies, oatmeal, and grapefruit-ade! Unlike other Stevia products, it's non-bitter and doesn't leave an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth. We love it!

Now for the recipe...

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade with NuStevia™

Ingredients

4 Medium Lemons (about 3/4 cup of juice)
12 packets of NuStevia™
6 Cups cold water

Instructions

Juice the lemons. I use a simple manual juicer. Combine the lemon juice, NuStevia™, and water in a pitcher and stir. Serve over crushed ice or add 1-2 cups of crushed ice to the pitcher before serving.  

Optional: place a few lemon slices in the pitcher for a beautiful garnish and added lemon flavor.

Divided between 6 tall glasses, this lemonade is zero Weight Watcher points plus per glass.

iHerb.com is the cheapest place I've been able to get NuStevia™. It is also a wonderful place to pick up other quality herbal supplements and all natural products. They offer free 1-3 day shipping on all orders over $40, and, if you're a first time customer you can use the code NUJ843 and get $10 off your first order!! Browse through the health links page while you're there. There's a lot to learn! And don't forget to add some NuStevia™ to your cart so you can make some tasty, fresh-squeezed lemonade! You won't be disappointed!

P.S. Before starting any herbal supplements, it's always important to check with your physician!

Butternut Squash Fries

Meet my little friend, Mr. Butternut. He's been helping me to overcome my french fry addiction by offering me a healthy alternative. I highly recommend his services.

I LOVE french fries. As in, I could skip the burger and just eat the fries. They are the ultimate comfort food, but unfortunately, the ultimate fatty food. When I started Weight Watchers back in 2012, I came across Hungry Girl's french fry alternative, and gave it a test drive. To me they fall somewhere in between the french fry and the sweet potato fry, but unlike french fries and sweet potato fries, these butternut babies are ZERO Weight Watcher points plus values! Score! Almost a year later, and I'm still relying on this simple recipe to curb the fry craving.

You start out by slicing the ends off of your butternut squash and peeling it with a vegetable peeler.

Oh yeah, and now would be a good time to preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Next you slice it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds from the round bottom half. 

From there you can cut it up into French fry shapes/spears however you please. I usually cut each half right when the neck meets the round bottom and go from there.

Once your squash is cut into french fry shapes, lay the fries out on a paper towel and sprinkle them lightly with salt. This part is pretty cool. The salt will slowly pull the moisture out of the squash fries, and they'll start to look like they're sweating. I leave mine for about 5-10 minutes. Once they're worked up a good sweat, blot them dry with another paper towel to remove the moisture.

Skipping this important step will lead to soggy fries, so no shortcuts!

Now it's time to bake them! To bake mine, I take a wire cooling rack, spray it with non-stick cooking spray, and lay it inside a cookie sheet. This helps the fries to breath better and to cook more evenly, which leads to crispier fries. If you don't have a cooling rack, just spray the cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray and lay them directly on the cookie sheet. No bigs.

Bake the fries for 40 minutes, flipping halfway through. Fries are done when they start to brown on the edges and get crispy.

Serve them with your condiment of choice and enjoy!

{shared with Homegrown & Healthy's Mostly Homemade Mondays}

Lemony Low Calorie Hummus with Garlic & Cumin

It's no secret that I'm a chips and dip kinda girl. When the smoothness of a dip meets the crunchiness of a chip, my mouth just can't resist. Consequently, it's very easy for me to overindulge when chips and dips are at my fingertips, so I've refrained from buying them for quite some time. Last week, I welcomed guacamole back into the fridge, and this week I'm welcoming hummus! Normally, I buy Sabra hummus, but it's 2 Weight Watcher points plus values for only 2 tablespoons, which isn't worth it to me. The recipe I'm about to share with you is only 1 Weight Watcher points plus value for 1/4 cup! Can we say, "score"?! And I think you'll be very happy with the flavors. I over-salted my first batch, so be careful with the salt. Other than that, I thought the flavor combination was delicious for this low calorie treat.

In case you're unfamiliar with the main ingredient in hummus, let me introduce you to the garbanzo bean. (When the word "garbanzo" comes out of my mouth, it triggers visions of Gonzo from the Muppet Babies in my head. But I digress. Now back to the bean.)

Garbanzo beans are also called chickpeas. Like other beans and lentils, they are very high in fiber and also a great source of protein and iron. And they're cheap, so you get lots of bang for you buck. I used canned garbanzo beans for this recipe, but you could also buy the dried variety (which would increase your preparation time greatly because you would need to soak and cook them first). In my opinion, canned works just fine!

And now for the recipe...

 

 

Lemony Low Calorie Hummus with Garlic & Cumin

(adapted from Not Done Yet blog)

Ingredients

2 cans of garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained (about 2 cups of cooked beans if using the dried variety)
3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on your taste for garlic (I used 5)
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth (or vegetable broth if you prefer)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Put all ingredients into a food processor and blend until all ingredients are fully integrated and the hummus is a smooth, thick texture. I started by pulsing the mixture several times, scraping the sides and stirring the mixture every few pulses. After pulsing for a while, I let the food processor run for about 1-2 minutes to get the mixture nice and smooth. Pour prepared hummus into a bowl and serve with pita chips, pretzel sticks, or your favorite veggies. Enjoy!

This recipe makes approximately 3 cups of hummus or 12 {1/4-cup} servings. Each serving is 1 Weight Watcher points plus value.