Italian cheese & herb veggie skillet

Easy.  Low-calorie.  Quick.  Healthy.  Filling.  Delicious.  Cost efficient.

All of us can appreciate the above adjectives... especially when it comes to making a great dinner!
In late spring I bought a little tub of the Philadelphia Cooking Crème . It sat in the back of my fridge in the land of pickle & jalapeno jars waiting for me to use it.  I don't know why it took me so long to try this ingredient.  Since I made this, I have purchased 3 more flavors to try!


Notice there are FOUR servings in this. Here is where you can alter both flavor & calorie count.  I took a butter knife and scored the crème inside in half to help ensure I only used half the tub to make 5 servings. 

Math: 1 tub= 110 Calories  / 2 = 55 calories per half.  55 calories/5 servings = 11 calories a serving.

Now that I have fully covered this delicious, flavorful addition to the recipe I will talk about the recipe…
I boiled 2.5 cups (measured dry) of whole wheat wide egg noodles.


*Optionally, and for about 100 more calories a serving you can brown some chicken in the skillet...or use some you prepared on Sunday like I told you about in this post.  After it’s browned, I used my phenomenal specialty bamboo cookware tools from Pampered Chef {thank you Momma!} to haphazardly cube and shred the chicken. The flat edge helps you do so much more than stir.  I toss in most, if not all, a bag of vegetable mix that has broccoli in it.

I always have several bags of this “California Style Veggies” frozen mix on hand because it can literally go in ANY dish.

Calorie count here: 30 calories a serving. 

Remember when I talked about how there are good calories and bad calories?  Well, these are good calories so if you have more than a serving it is absolutely ok.  It is the proper fuel for your body!

          

My delicious version seen above has chicken in it which adds an additional 80 calories ( I used 4 4 oz breasts and split the servings up so I have 5 servings.)  Additional calories in chicken also add about 17g of essential protein!

This cooking creme has made a quick weeknight meal into a healthy, delicious dinner like you won't believe!

Natural Peanut Butter

They say smell is one of the greatest ties to a memory.  The smell of peppermint makes me think of my mom, everytime I smell a Werther's Original I think of a family friend of my parent's, and peanut butter makes me think of my husband.  His favorite food is peanut butter. Steak and chicken are a close second...

He goes through a jar of Skippy Natural every 10-14 days.  At about $7/jar that gets to be a pretty expensive food.

Did you know peanut butter has no butter in it at all?  The butter-like texture comes from the oils within the peanut being broken down.  With that in mind, I pulled out my tiny food chopper, a canister of unsalted peanuts and conducted an experiement. 

My little chopper takes a while.  And I have to hold down the button the whole time.  Some people with their fancy food processors can be done a lot faster than 8-10 minutes.  (Do you sense my food processor envy?)  My first batch needed some salt.  I determined with my second batch I salted it too much.  Then I just started buying the salted, dry roasted peanuts to make the peanut butter with and found this to be so much easier!
                                                

Keep crushing!

We're getting there!!

Ta-Da!!!!!   And you've only used about 75 cents worth of peanuts and made 8oz of natural peanut butter.  A 2 tablespoon serving is the same as 1 oz of peanuts so check the back of your canister for nutritional info. This is such a fun thing to do with kids.  =)

(Or maybe it's just fun to make them try this "experiment" while you rest for a few minutes!!  I won't tell!)

You can also add some cinnamon & sugar.  I like making the No-Bake Naturals with this kind of peanut butter for a little extra flavor!

"I would do anything for love but I won't eat that..."

Why does meatloaf get such a bad rap?  Despite the title of this post I'm not talking about the singer... I mean the food.

Meatloaf is one of my favorite easy meals.  It may be weird that I sometimes crave meatloaf... afterall it is basically a hamburger, right?

Back when my little man was trying table foods, I decided to try making the meatloaf in a cupcake tin.  In the sweet words of my then 3 year old who was still working on his vocabulary, he named them "Meatloaf Pupcakes". 

They're super easy and the kiddos can help customize them.

Preheat oven to 350*
Spray your muffin tin

Mix together:
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 c onion chopped
1/2 c bell pepper chopped (I like the green ones)
1/2 c chopped celery
1/2 c Old Fashioned Oats
2 egg whites
1t pepper
1t red cayanne/chili powder OR Mrs. Dash Southwest
1 glove minced garlic or 2 tsp of the pre minced stuff you can get in the produce section!

Add to muffin tins & bake for 35-45 minutes.

If you want to get the kiddos involved, leave the veggies out of the initial mix. 
Put the meat/spices/oats/egg white mixture in the cupcake tin.
Kids like ketchup so it can be the "frosting" on top and have them add the veggie "sprinkles" before baking. 

Ketchup has a lot of carbs but Heinz offers a low-card Ketchup advertised as Reduced Sugar.  I eat my Meatloaf Pupcakes with Frank's Thick hot sauce because it only has 10 calories and a ton of flavor =)  I also add a little mustard to it since it is a free food and y'all know my love for mustard!

These have 75 calories, 2g fat, 2g carbs and 9g protein per pupcake.  Pair these with some green beans and mashed cauliflower and you have a wonderful comfort meal with a fraction of the calories!

Lean Mexican

We have a Mexican inspired dish weekly in our home and one of my favorites is so deliciously lean and easy we have it quite often.

• 1 lb of ground chicken (the leanest of the ground meats. You can use turkey or lean beef)
• 1 packet of low sodium taco flavoring
• 1 can of black beans (rinsed and drained)
• 1 c of frozen corn

Calories: 260 Carbs: 30 Fat: 7 Protein: 24

This is the base of the dish. I recommend to make it once this way, then figure out what else to add to it!

1. Brown the meat and drain any grease. (I like to put the heel of my bread loaf down in the grease to soak it up, then toss the bread.)
2. Add corn, drained & rinsed black beans and taco packet and stir.
3. Sometimes I add some water, depending on what kind of texture I want.

We often add onions, peppers of all colors, diced tomatoes, jalepenos, etc. I recommend to steer clear of sour cream, substitute plain greek yogurt if you're like me and just need that creamier flavor. I also like to scoop out half an avacado and mash it to add a creamy taste. I omit the taco sauce and use Frank's Hot Sauce instead since the calorie count is lower.

This takes about 15 minutes to make and has about 5-6 1 cup servings depending on how many veggies you toss in there.

Ole!

Grab & Go's

Every now and then I look at the ingredient list of a recipe and think Psht.  That cannot taste good.  No way.  It's too easy and there's only 5 ingredients.  And then this happens....

On the left you have what I call "Whey Too Goods" and on the right are my "No-Bake Naturals".

These are easy to whip up.  They're a healthy little snack.  It's hard to have only 2 but you will have to have some self discipline.  Here are the magical recipes:

As if this wasn't enough to share with you, below you'll find all the nutritional breakdown!!

Now- go make these and enjoy, I can't wait to try some of the "Whey Too Goods" with mocha protein! Or the graham cracker we have!  Oh wait- that cake batter would be good too! It's fun being the official recipe tester of Club Fit =)

 Moderation, not deprivation!! 

Dude...Ranch!!

I love 75% of my food with ranch dressing.  At some restaurants I've been tempted to spoon ranch like soup.  That buttermilk base, those calories are soooo high with each tablespoon but oh mah' word does it taste good.  If you fall in the same boat as I do please have a seat.  If you don't what I'm going to tell you will knock you down.

I just made ranch with 30 calories for a normal 2 tablespoon serving.
Wait- it gets better...
It also has 1.25 carbs and 3g of protein.
Hear those fit angels singing?

All you need is 1 packet of ranch dressing mix (I used Hidden Valley Buttermilk for $1.42) and two Oikos PLAIN Greek Yogurt cups ($1/each).  Kroger has the same yogurt for $.80 but I just happened to be in Wal Mart.

Add the yogurt to a mason jar or another container.  I bought a 2c. Ziploc Twist'n'Seal while I was at Walmart.  Then pour your ranch dust in the container and mix together.

I was a skeptic.  I thought meh- if its even edible I can make the change since its saving all these calories.  I was so surprised that it was not only edible but it was SO GOOD!  Mine was a little thicker which tells me I can use it for a veggie dip.  And if you eat your salads like I do by dipping the fork in the dressing then stabbing your salad you will be good to go! Clings to the fork and what great flavor.

You're welcome.