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Honey Glazin

26 Apr

I had to use both a pork loin and shrimp by the same day and, unfortunately, I found myself on that day.  I’m always nervous about letting food go past expiration dates, but pork and seafood are on the top of my fearful list. I had a Weight Watchers recipe for a honey glazed pork loin so I figured I’d just double the sauce and use it for the shrimp.  It works great for both!  So much flavor for just 4 points.  We paired it with some garlicky spinach and quinoa. Nom Nom Nom.

Pork loin is so easy to cook and so tasty!

The shrimp in the same sauce was also sooooo tasty.

Full pot of raw spinach and garlic:

Reduces to tiny bit of cooked spinach and garlic in the same pot.

(I’m always so impressed with how the volume of raw spinach reduces to the volume of wilted spinach)

Full plate with quinoa.

The sauce was soooo good over the quinoa!

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RECIPES
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Honey Glazed Pork Tenderloin (Just use the same sauce for the shrimp!)
4 points!

Ingredients:

  • 16 ounces Extra Lean Port Tenderloin
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce, low sodium
  • 2 cloves garlic — minced
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

    • 

Instructions:

  1. Trim excess fat from pork. Tie it to make it even shape. Place in a heavy plastic bag.
  2. Mix the soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. Add to bag. Coat pork well. Marinade for 2 hours or over night in refrigerator.
  3. Remove pork from marinade. Pat dry.
  4. Combine honey and sugar. Brush over pork. Coat with sesame seeds.
  5. Roast for 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees F.
  6. Slice thinly and serve.

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Weight Watchers Cooking Take 3: Sweet and Sour Chicken, Roasted Veggies, and Diet Potato Au Gratin

21 Apr

I’ve had a recipe for Sweet and Sour Low Carb chicken in my stash for years.  I was pleased to see that the point value was quite low and I could take one of my favorite recipes from the past and use it without alteration.  The key is diet orange soda (I’m a huge Diet Sunkist fan now anyway).  I have served this recipe to many who haven’t been any wiser that it’s a “healthy” version.  It has a ton of flavor.

It takes a good amount of time for the sauce to cook down to look like this…

We decided to pair it with broccoli and yellow cauliflower roasted with garlic.



(I have a new camera that I love… and this picture marks the point where I learned how to use it)

I also found a recipe for Weight Watchers au gratin potatoes sounded so good.

I was shocked that this was so low in points and tasted so good.  Next time I’ll make it in a larger, shallower dish so the top crisps more, but it was delish and definitely worth adding to the recipe stash… Weight Watchers or no Weight Watchers!



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RECIPES
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Low Carb Sweet & Sour Chicken

4 Servings
3 Points per Serving

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown chicken and onions in a non-stick pan sprayed with cooking spray.
  2. When chicken is brown, add the remaining ingredients.
  3. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until the chicken is tender and thoroughly cooked.
  4. Uncover and reduce liquid until it makes a syrupy sauce (about 20-30 minutes- Keep an eye on it that it doesn’t burn).

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Weight Watchers Au Gratin Potato

3 Points per Serving
8 Servings

Instructions:

  • 1 spray cooking spray
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1 medium onion(s), thinly sliced
  • 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 2 cup fat-free skim milk
  • 2 pounds Yukon Gold potato(es), thinly sliced
  • 1 cup low-fat shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 tsp table salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
  2. Coat a 2-quart covered baking dish with cooking spray.
  3. Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to brown, about 5 minutes.
  4. Stir in flour; add milk slowly, stirring. Add potatoes and stir to mix. Bring to a boil.
  5. Stir in 3/4 cup of cheese, salt and pepper.
  6. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish and level out surface.
  7. Bake for 1 hour, uncovered.
  8. Cover and bake until potatoes are fork-tender, about 20 minutes more.
  9. Change oven temperature to broil.
  10. Sprinkle remaining cheese over potatoes.
  11. Broil 6 inches from the heating element until the cheese is golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes.
  12. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before slicing into 8 pieces.

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Family Passover

12 Apr

(Bumping this entry up for timeliness, so apologies for the lack of order lately!)

Want to know one of the worst weeks to be on a diet? On a holiday that is completely surrounding food.  I decided that I would try to keep my weight even this week rather than trying to lose anything… knowing it would be VERY difficult to make it through 2 Seders without going over my point allowance. I still tracked everything, however, and managed to gain less than 1 pound that week.  So I call that even and a success!

Passover has what you eat and eating your meal actually written into the prayer book.  It’s meant to be shared with family and at the meal, the story of the Jews leaving Egypt is read aloud.  Now that you have had your little lesson in Passover, onto the food!

Passover has been hosted at my Aunt and Uncle’s house for a few years now, and you can always count on some standards.  A new addition, this year, was matzo pizza.  Unfortunately, I was trying to be good and I skipped this. Only to learn too late that it was fantastic.  Bummer!  But there is always next year.

Charoset is a traditional part of the meal.  It is made of apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon (mostly).  It is meant to symbolize the mortar that the Jews put between the bricks while building as slaves for Pharaoh.  It’s DELICIOUS and one of my favorite parts of the Seder.

It makes matzo quite delectable.

Not quite part of the Seder, yet still traditionally served at every Seder I know of, is gefilte fish.  I didn’t eat this for years.  Partly because it was typically embedded in horse radish jell-o at my Grandmother’s Seder (and I hate horse radish) and partly because it has the name fish and partly because it just doesn’t look particularly appetizing.  It has grown on me, however, and I now each it happily (though only this once per year)

Another tradition that isn’t written but always stands is matzo ball soup.  Always delicious.  I love a good, fluffy, buttery matzo ball.

Then we go buffet style.  Lots of goodies… most of which I cannot remember.  A highlight for me this year was the “make your own salad” portion  of the meal.  Base lettuce was there and then there were add-ons like kidney beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.  It made it a LITTLE easier to fill my plate with items that wouldn’t kill my points for the week.  I was still doing pretty well with dinner.  Just took a little bit of everything else to sample.  There were so many things, however, that it filled my plate.  I managed to keep it mostly under control, however, until…

Dessert!  I should have known better.  Everything was good, but I managed to take only a nibble here and there.  Until…

I stupidly stood in front of the chocolate, peanut butter, and peanut butter & chocolate matzo.  I had SO much of this.  WAY too much.  This was where the points went overboard. 

The peanut butter + chocolate version is just fantastic.  It’s a little extra sweet and the peanut butter is like candy on top.  My favorite part of the meal. 

‘Til next year!

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