Sauteed Kale Salad - 8 points

This recipe comes compliments of my girlfriend, Olivia. I was feeling tired, she wanted a salad and the only green we had in the house was kale. I think I like kale more than she does, but even I can't eat it raw. I know people who love kale in their salad or in their smoothies, but there is something about the texture of the leaf raw that I can't deal with.

So, Olivia decided to saute the kale first, and do an otherwise cold salad. Inspired!

Here's what you'll need:
1 tbsp olive oil
As much kale as you'd like (0 points!)
Approx 1/2 cup cut strawberries
Approx 1/2 cup cut cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp cilantro
2 oz crumbled goat cheese
1/2 avocado
Approx 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (to taste)

This is super simple. Heat the oil in the pan and add the kale. Cover the kale, because that will help steam it while sauteing it. If you've cooked with kale, you know that it cooks down to nothing, so use a LOT of kale. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile, cut up your strawberries and cherry tomatoes to whatever size you like on your fork. I tend to cut mine in quarters. Score your avocado half. Grab a handful of cilantro and give it a rough chop. About a tablespoon should do. Cilantro is incredibly polarizing. I don't know anyone who would say "I could either take it or leave it." People either love it or despise it. I've been told it tastes like soap, but I'm in the "more the tastier" camp. I like lots and lots of cilantro! Use whatever amount works for you and whoever you're cooking for/with.

Then simply combine everything in a bowl, add the cheese in and drizzle your balsamic vinegar over the top. The bowl is about 2 servings. It's a delicious 8 point side dish, which may seem like a lot for a side dish, but that kale and avocado are so damn good for you. It's very filling and has a lot of those good fats, oils, and antioxidants.

I've also done this with 1 oz goat cheese and 1 oz gorgonzola. This adds one point to your total, and a nice flavor variation to the dish!

Vegetable Rice Pilaf - 3 points

I've been told by Pilaf Purists that there is one way to make rice pilaf and anything else might be tasty, but it's not rice pilaf. I understand how they feel. An apple-tini might be a tasty vodka cocktail and it might be in a martini glass, but it's not a martini. I almost feel so strongly that if I've had enough real martinis, I'll tell you that your glass of vodka and slice of lemon isn't a martini, either.

But I'm not a Pilaf Purist, and I've tasted a variety of rice pilaf dishes that that delighted me. This is my vegetable pilaf, which makes a delicious side dish that's really low in points!

Here's what you'll need:
1 cup brown rice
2 tbsp orzo
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup frozen corn
1/4 cup frozen string beans
1/4 cup frozen peas and carrots
1/3 tsp Smart Balance spread (or comparable butter spread)
Optional: 1 tsp minced garlic

First, the butter spread goes into the hot pot to soften. One of the key points of pilaf is to saute the rice and pasta before boiling it. Put the orzo in first and get a nice brown color on it. Once it's nicely toasted, add the rice, and just saute a little. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. If you'd like, for a little extra flavor, you can add a teaspoon of minced garlic in with the rice. You don't want to put the garlic in too early, or over too high a flame, otherwise it will burn. Putting it in right before the chicken broth keeps the flavor strong, as well.

From here, you simply cook it the same way you'd do rice. Once the broth boils, bring the heat down to a simmer and let it sit, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. When the rice and pasta have absorbed most of the broth, add in the frozen vegetables. I did a combination of corn, string beans, and peas and carrots, mainly because that's what was in my freezer. The only element that will affect the points is the corn. You can add as much or as little of each as you like. You can put the veggies in still frozen while there's still some liquid in the pot, because the hot liquid and the steam will defrost and cook them up quickly.

I made mine as a side dish for a pork chop with mushroom sauce, coming to an 11 point meal in total (I had two servings of pilaf, because it was so good!) The pilaf itself comes to only 3 points per serving, which shouldn't add too much to your dinner as a whole.

Synthia Link's Mean Green Protein Machine - 5 points

This is going to be the first time I post a recipe directly from someone else. I will do this from time to time because when I see an amazing recipe and I want to know how many WW points are in it--especially when it turns out to be delicious and really low in points--I also want to share it with you.

Synthia Link is currently wowing Broadway audiences in Big Fish. She's also been featured in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. And as if that's not impressive enough, she also writes a flexitarian food blog, and does a much better job about updating hers than I do mine. This is a recipe I saw on her blog, Cookies to Kale. I made it for my girlfriend, who loves shrimp, broccoli, and goat cheese, and is developing an appreciation for quinoa. So this recipe sounded perfect!

I'm gonna post the ingredients right here, but Synthia is much better at explaining her own recipe, especially since I did not have everything I needed when I made it myself. So I'll post a link (a Synthia Link... see what I did there?) to her Mean Green Protein Machine recipe.

Here's what you'll need:
6 frozen or fresh shrimp
Roasted butternut squash
1 clove minced garlic
1-2 stalks chopped green onion
Broccoli, spinach and kale (as much or as little as you would like!)
1/3 cup black beans
1/4 cup quinoa
2 TBS goat cheese
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup milk of choice
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: Fresh chopped rosemary

Here's what I love most about this recipe: spinach, broccoli, and kale all have 0 points! (I don't know if you can tell, but that's a capslock 0 for emphasis!) You can add as much of this as you want to the dish, which can stretch it as far as you'd like or need. More servings, fewer points. When I made it, I got about four servings out of it coming to 5 points per serving.

Here's what mine looked like:

If you like healthy food that has a fun twist--and let's face it, you're reading this, so you must--then you should definitely read Cookies to Kale, as well. Chances are, Synthia will make something else that will pique my interest and after I make it for my dinner, I'll tell you what the WW points are. So you'll definitely see more of her recipes here!

Sriracha Lime Hot Wings - 8 points

I've been so remiss in my posting! Life has been crazy busy, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. I just haven't been posting, and I have so many wonderful WW friendly recipes for you! I'm gonna start back today with something really easy: my delicious Sriracha Lime Hot Wings and Drumsticks.

Here's what you'll need:
6-10 wings and/or drumsticks
3/4 cup Sriracha sauce
1/3-2/3 cup honey
juice of 1/2 lime

And that's it!

I did a lot of research trying to find a good hot wing recipe and this is the result of a lot of combining and simplifying. I didn't want to batter or fry my wings, because I'm looking to make these healthier. And I didn't want all the brown sugar and butter and all of that (though I've found brown sugar doesn't add too many points). I took a lot of ingredients out of the recipes I read, including flour, butter, ketchup, soy sauce, baking powder, and orange--though some orange zest or the juice from an orange would probably be nice without adding too many if any points.

Trust me, these few ingredients are all you need!

Get a big tupperware and combine all the sauce components together. And that's it.

Just kidding. But that's almost it. Put your wings and/or drumsticks into the tupperware, seal the lid on tight and shake it up. Then I like to put it in the fridge and make dinner or breakfast or whatever meal I'm on for the day while the wings marinate. It's really easy to make the wing sauce right before making a different dinner so that the chicken can marinate overnight. Sometimes I don't have the time or I don't think of it until right before, so I just let the chicken sit in the sauce for a few minutes, and that works, too. But it's better when they get to sit for a long time.

Once you're ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 400° line a baking sheet, spray it down with a little canola oil, and put your chicken in the oven. I like to keep a brush handy to continue basting the chicken. Cook for 15-20 minutes, then flip the chicken, baste, and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes. Give them a nice baste before you let them cool and then serve with whatever sauce you like.

I'm a huge fan of these because they're so easy and so delicious. Combining wings and drumsticks comes to about 8 points per serving (each serving being one wing and one drumstick). The drumsticks are much higher in points, so if you were to do only drumsticks it would be 12 points per serving. Just wings comes to 4 points per serving, which means a lot more wings per person!

Sweet Onion Grilled Cheese - 11 points

I want to talk about two things in this post: patience and staying full.

This is a dish that can keep you full with a special added ingredient that has zero--count 'em: zero--points! One of the most difficult thing people find on a diet is how to not starve yourself. Or, if you're cooking for someone else as well as yourself, like I do, not starving them! My girlfriend is a ballet dancer. She does not need to lose weight. And I never want her to feel like she's on a diet just because the person cooking dinner is on a diet. So, I like to find things I can use to fill up my food for her, which won't add lots of points to my meals.

This has always been my MO when cooking meals on a diet. Finding ways to substitute or swap out so that the dish is not only delicious, but still feels complete. I've done the no-carb thing, the no-oil thing, the low-fat-good-fats-only thing, so I have a lot of experience creating dishes that fill me up without all the added stuff. And I promise you I'll post my favorite of those recipes here, because they are delicious and have done right by me in the past! But here's a new recipe that includes an addition to a traditional recipe that makes it more filling without adding a lot of points.

What will you need?

2 slices of whole wheat bread
1/4 cup of shredded part-skim mozzarella
1/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon Smart Balance
1/4 of a sweet onion

It's grilled cheese, so there's not much to it. You can change out whatever kind of cheese you prefer--especially if yours is lower in points! But the basis is that we're going to add flavor and substance in the onions, which don't have any points.

1/2 tbsp on Smart Balance will go onto your griddle to saute the onions in. I find that the thinner they're cut, the faster they cook and the better they fit on the sandwich. While the onions are cooking, spread the rest of the Smart Balance on the two slices of bread. Place the bread butter-side-down (like Dr. Seuss's Zooks) onto the griddle next to the onions.

Make sure the cheese that you shredded is mixed up nice and good (if you used multiple cheeses) and sprinkle those evenly on both slices of bread. This way the cheese begins to melt evenly before you start flipping the bread and pulling corners up to make sure the cheese is melting.

Now, here's where we get to that pesky part: patience. Patience is something I often have in small supply. That's why my grilled cheese always had this huge problem: the bread was always burnt and the cheese was never melted. I had a similar problem with my pancakes: they were always burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. Because I had my burner on high and I was constantly flipping and checking, wanting it done fast fast fast. But with this kind of dish (as with the onions) low and slow is the way to go. You want your heat on just about as low as possible because this helps to heat everything all the way through.

When you think about it, dieting works similarly. If you're doing two hundred sit-ups a day and wondering why you're in pain but not losing the weight faster, then you're burning the bread. Especially if you're not changing your eating habits. It's about getting used to a routine so your body changes what it expects from you. Attempting two-hundred sit-ups on the first morning of your diet and then eating a banana for breakfast is not going to help you lose weight, it's going to make you super cranky later.

That's the whole point of this blog. You need to find ways to fill yourself so you're satisfied while you're changing your habits and losing weight. I've perfected patiently cooking pancakes, as well. I'll share a special Halloween recipe with you soon!

BUT for those of you who are not as patient as you wish you were ("God, give me patience... and give it to me now!"), you're in luck. We don't have to cook these onions for too long, because we don't want them to be really soft caramelized onions; we still want a bit of crunch to them. AND when we place the onions onto one side of the cheese-covered bread, the hot onions will help to melt the cheese! Get out your spatula and put the two sides together (I recommend flipping the side without onions).

At this point, just let it cook a little bit more on each side, then serve!

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash Pie - 5 points per pie

Does it shock you that I came home from London with a bunch of recipes I wanted to try out? Britain, while known for many things, is not typically lauded for its cuisine, save perhaps for Fish and Chips. And pies. It's definitely known for pies. They put nearly anything we might serve alone on a plate inside fluffy pastry. And this entry is my take on one of the pies I had in London: a Butternut Squash pie. And I think you'll be surprised at how few points this delicious and rich-tasting pie comes out to!

You are going to see other pies as I continue creating recipes with this blog. In part because I like pie a lot and wish Americans would serve their lunches and dinners in pies more often. And in part because, in a fit of what must have been some sort of fever, I ordered the "My Lil' Pie Maker" (yes, the apostrophe is in the wrong place) from Publisher's Clearing House on a curious day when I was wondering what my chances of winning $5,000 a week for life might be.

And I finally got the chance to try it out!

First off, and this makes a world of difference, I used Trader Joe's frozen pie crust, which is one of the tastiest pie crusts I've ever had. You can use any pie crust you like, and if you have a Weight Watchers friendly pie crust recipe, I'd love to know about it! Here's what else you'll need:

About 1 cup cubed butternut squash

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp fresh sage

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 oz crumbled goat cheese

3 tbsp coconut oil

3 tbsp corn starch

Egg white wash

First, put the cubed butternut squash into 400 degree oven with a little cooking spray and some salt and pepper to taste. These will roast up while you make the gravy.

And so, onto the gravy! Begin by heating your coconut oil and stirring the corn starch in to create a roux. This will be the base for the gravy filling of the pie. Roughly chop the sage and stir the sage, thyme and nutmeg into the roux. Keep it simmering for a while until everything's incorporated and your kitchen smells like autumn.

Your butternut squash doesn't have to be in  the oven for too long, because it's gonna go back in soon. Get your pie crust into the four trays and brush the edges down with a little egg white. Then separate your butternut squash into the pies. Sprinkle the crumbled goat cheese in and then pour the gravy over the top, making sure to get it into the crevices.

Cover the pies and brush egg white over the crust topping. Pop it into the 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Depending on your oven, you may need to turn the pies to make sure they all cook equally. Once the tops of the pie are beautifully golden brown and glistening, take them out, let them cool, and enjoy!

P.S. I will be back with an edit to this recipe, once I get my hands on a certain delicious seasonal item at Trader Joe's. I'll let you know how it goes!

Quinoa Steel Cut Oatmeal - 4 points

Good morning!

I've been so busy I haven't had time to post. I actually have two recipes saved in my drafts that I haven't completed, but we'll get to those soon. I wanted to share what I made for breakfast this morning because it's easy, delicious, packed with protein, and comes in at only 4 points per serving (and that's including the butter and brown sugar)!

I've had pre-made frozen Quinoa Steel Cut Oats before, and wanted to try it myself. How hard could it actually be, right? Right! Here's what you'll need:

1/4 cup quick cooking Steel Cut Oats
1/4 cup White Quinoa (or whatever kind you have or like)
1 tsp butter or SmartBalance (both are  just 1 point)
1 cup water
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
4 tsp brown sugar

Yields: 2 servings

So, here we go, super simple. Bring your cup of water and half cup of almond milk to a boil (I find that adding milk makes it a little creamier, but if you'd prefer, just do a cup and a half of water) with one tsp of butter, for a little more flavor.

Quinoa is a grain that has the same amount of carbs as rice, but it's packed with protein, which makes it a great addition to breakfast cereal. It has a bitter outer coating, so rinse it in the sink first. Add in your quinoa and simmer for about 7 or 8 minutes. Then, bring it back to a boil and add the oats in. Simmer for 7 or 8 more minutes.

While it's cooking, stir in your pumpkin pie spice and brown sugar. I really like pumpkin pie spice, and I think it makes things taste like pumpkin without having actual pumpkin in it. And Fall means pumpkin spice EVERYTHING, as this cute cartoon illustrates:

In any event, you can add cinnamon or nutmeg or whatever spice you like. Then, just wait until it's thick and creamy and all of the liquid has been absorbed and let it sit for a minute or so to cool. I just finished mine and I feel ready to take on the day! Cheesy? Maybe so... hey... maybe I can make it with grated cheddar cheese sometime! With a little parm on top... well, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, Happy Fall! It's time to start enjoying some hot cereal, and I hope you enjoy this one!