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Weight Watchers Sesame Chicken & Rice

March 11, 2015 By Linda 4 Comments

This is not the regularly scheduled post for today.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Today I planned to share a St. Patrick’s Day craft. And it was going to be amazing …

AMAZING …

truly.

🙂

Crepe paper and a dollar store shamrock were going to be so artfully – and amazingly — hot glued together that you would drop everything and race to the dollar store to get your very own crepe paper and shamrock supplies. You know, so you could make your very own crepe paper St. Patrick’s Day wreath like me …

which would turn out AMAZING!

Truly.

Only, it didn’t turn out that way. At all. Not even in the tiniest teeniest way. After I hot glued those first few crepe paper rosettes onto the dollar store shamrock, the amazing vision in my head did not come to fruition.

It just turned into a hot (glue gun) mess.

🙁

So I abandoned the crepe paper and dollar store shamrock project less than half way through. Which left me with nothing to share with you today.

Well, except my lunch …. 😉

Which, by the way, tastes truly amazing.

AMAZING!

Truly. 🙂

{… adapted from The Comfort of Cooking …}

Weight Watchers Sesame Chicken & Rice

Makes 4 Servings | 10 Weight Watchers Points per serving

ingredients

12 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup diced onion (and if you’re looking for a diced onion how to, click here …)

2 gloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup ketchup

1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce

1/4 (generous) teaspoon red pepper flakes

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1/3 cup water

1 cup uncooked minute rice

1/2 tablespoon of sesame seeds

3 scallions, chopped

directions

1. Put chicken in crock pot and season with salt and pepper.

2. Combine onion, garlic, honey, ketchup, soy sauce and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Pour over chicken.

3. Cook on high for 2 hours (or on medium heat for 3-4 hours).

4. Remove chicken (leaving sauce) and cut/shred into bite size pieces.

5. In a tea cup, dissolve 1/3 cup water with 4 teaspoons of cornstarch. Mix well. Slowly add to crock pot, stirring well. Cover and cook for 10-minutes on high (or until thickened).

6. While sauce thickens, make rice (boil one cup water; when boiling, add 1 cup rice; turn off heat, cover, and let cook for 5-minutes).

7. Serve chicken over rice. Add sauce, chopped scallions and sesame seeds.

8. Enjoy!

And now I have to come up with a new amazing craft project using those 50+ green crepe paper rosettes I spent hours upon hours making yesterday …

🙂

Linda

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Weight Watchers Breakfast

February 13, 2015 By Linda 8 Comments

Yesterday was one of those days where what I wanted to do and what I needed to do were at odds …

and at the end of the day, very little was accomplished.

Sigh.

Now I have even more projects on my ‘tomorrow’ list. Which is today. Which means I’m a very busy girl right now.

Fingers crossed.

I hope today isn’t a repeat of yesterday. Otherwise you’ll find me curled up in a fetal position, rocking back-and-forth on my tomorrow’s tomorrow …

The source of my what-need-to-do-vs.-what-want-to-do conflict is a new-to-me project I’ve been putting off. Plus it needs a coat of spray paint primer first. And I don’t have any. Which is always a hassle, because Chicago continues to uphold its ridiculous ban on the sale of spray paint.

Ugh.

Let’s just hope while you’re curled up with a warm cup of coffee reading this, I’m battling the elements to make my way to the suburbs. To purchase a few cans of spray paint primer. But before I left …

insert super smooth transition here …

😉

I made sure I ate a hearty and healthy breakfast: my new favorite Weight Watcher’s 6-point Blueberry Cheese Danish …

Blueberry Cheese Danish

6 Points | Serving Size: 1

Ingredients

2 Slices 35 Calorie Bread

4 TBS. Whipped Cream Cheese

1/2 cup fresh blueberries

1/4 tsp. Truvia 0 calorie sweetener

Directions

Lightly toast bread slices. Spread 2 TBS. cream cheese on each slice. Evenly distribute blueberries on each slice. Sprinkle with Truvia. Place under broiler for 2-3 minutes (until blueberries are about to burst).

It’s so yummy it doesn’t even feel like diet food …

🙂

Linda

P.S. If you feel so inclined to pin this recipe to Pinterest, may I recommend the image below …

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Weight Watchers 4-Point Cannellini Bean Soup

February 5, 2015 By Linda 9 Comments

I did it.

Finally.

After weeks of talk, talk, talk, I’ve finally pulled the trigger.

I got rid of the port wine cheese. And the cookie dough ice cream. And the three-cheese ravioli. And the Domino’s pizza … and cheesy bread. And any and everything with even the remotest traces of chocolate.

And by got rid of, I mean I ate it all.

It was almost like, in anticipation of eating healthy, I binged on all my favorites.

And my appetite for carbs and chocolates has been sated.

For now.

This past weekend, I shopped and chopped and boiled and brewed and stocked the fridge and freezer with great-tasting-good-for-me foods.

I also adopted the annoying habit of photographing everything I eat …

… like this super easy and super tasty Cannellini bean soup.

And don’t let the fancy name scare you away. Cannellini beans are simply white kidney beans you can find in the canned veggie section of any grocery store.

Serving size: 1 cup (8 oz.) | Recipes serves 4

ingredients

1 cup uncooked carrots, sliced

15 oz. canned cannellini beans

32 oz. fat-free reduced chicken broth

Fresh dill, chopped

directions

Combine carrots, cannellini beans, and chicken broth in soup pot. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 40-minutes. Before serving, chop dill (about 1/4 teaspoon) and garnish.

Next up: exercise.

Ugh.

Does painting mason jars count?

Linda

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0 Point Spicy Tomato Cabbage Soup (click here)

Weight Watchers Soup Recipe

January 23, 2015 By Linda 31 Comments

I need your help. Your wisdom. Your guidance.

You see, I need to instill self-confidence in my teen daughter. Only problem: I had zero self-confidence when I was a teen. A problem only exacerbated by my six-foot-tall-model-thin-chiseled-cheeked-beauty of a best friend.

Who, by the way, had her own deep-seated insecurities; but that’s a post for another day.

Let’s start with a mother’s bias: My daughter is beautiful. Tall. Leggy. Blonde. Blue-eyed. With a heart-shaped face. And a big heart.

And let’s start with one of her closest friends. She’s that girl. Every boy wants to date her. Every girls wants to be her best friend. She’s easy, breezy. Pretty. Approachable. Uber polite. She’s the girl who wins the student council President election. She’s the girl voted head cheerleader. And she’s the girl selected to perform the spotlight dance at the upcoming tea dance performance …

… the very spot my daughter had hoped to land.

And that’s when the green-eyed monster reared it’s ugly head. But she kept it to herself (good girl). She only shared her true feeling with me.

She’s truly proud of her friend. But …

her insecurities took hold.

Took over.

I tried to reassure her. Tell her how beautiful she is. The importance of not focusing on what’s on the outside, and to work on what’s inside. How the spirit within is what shines through; what truly makes a person beautiful.

I tried to tell her to not focus on the “good things” that seem to always come to others. Because if she does … if she spends her time obsessing about others … she’ll completely miss all the “good things” that come her way. She’ll disregard them; denigrate them. Discount them as not good enough.

I may have even discussed her journey. Versus the journey of others. And how she should try and enjoy each day. Each step. Even missteps. Because even those missteps can be valuable learning opportunities. And can help shape that journey …

She listened. She truly did. Both earphones out and everything listened.

We’ll have to wait and see what (if anything) sinks in …

and I’m 99% sure we’ll be having this same conversation over and over and over again. Especially when she enters high school next year.

Sigh.

And any advice you, my wise and worldly readers, wish to impart on what else I can say — or do — to help build her confidence, I’ll forever be grateful.

My daughter (mom-bias-warning) truly is beautiful. If I looked like her when I was fourteen, I wouldn’t have been nearly as insecure as I was in high school!

Speaking of self-confidence, I’m not feeling much of that for my body at present. I need to step it up. Literally.

And get my diet in line. Starting with this zero point Weight Watchers Soup Recipe:

Makes 12 One Cup Servings

Print Recipe

Weight Watchers Vegetable Soup

0-Point Weight Watchers Recipe

Course: Soup

Servings: 12 one cup portions

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium uncooked carrots, sliced
2 cups savoy cabbage, shredded
2 cups Swiss chard, shredded
2 cups uncooked cauliflower, cut into pieces
2 cups uncooked broccoli, cut into pieces
1/2 cup each red, green, yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 rib uncooked celery, sliced
2 tbsp fresh thyme, diced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (optional)
6 cups reduced sodium, fat-free vegetable broth
2 tbsp fresh parsley or chives, chopped

Instructions

Place garlic, onion, vegetables, thyme and broth in large soup pot. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat; reduce to low and simmer 20 minutes.
Stir in parsley or chives. Season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.

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Now if I could just find a 10-point-self-confidence-building soup recipe …

Linda

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Weight Watchers Fajita Recipe

January 8, 2015 By Linda 5 Comments

Weight Watchers Fajita Recipe: 9 Points

In addition to my renewed commitment to the blog, I’m also making a renewed commitment to my health.

And when I say health I really mean my waistline. And my commitment is to reduce its size.

The health part will be an added bonus.

But it sounds so much more altruistic if I say health. And then talk about how I’m doing this for my family. And it sounds so much more vain and selfish if I say I want to be thinner. That the image looking back at me in the mirror just does not look good. No matter how hard I squint my eyes. Even taking out my contacts – and trust me, my eyesight is horrible – doesn’t help.

So I’ve spent this week preparing. Gathering recipes and making adjustments to reduce fats and calories. In fact, Weight Watchers has this great recipe builder tool that lets me play around with portion sizes and ingredients and tells me how many points per serving my recipes are (and, no, this is not a sponsored WW post; I just love this tool. It’s well worth the online membership fee).

I’ve also been putting together meal plans and grocery lists. This weekend will be spent chopping and slicing and dicing and cooking …

so I can kick off next week with a fridge and freezer filled with pre-prepared soups and stews and slow cooker meals. Apportioned in their own single serve containers that can easily be microwaved …

and consumed.

Because without the advance prep, I’m destined for failure. I know this to be true because I tried to wing it this week.

I’m pretty sure I gained another pound or two.

So advance prep is key. Because I need foods that are quick. And easily. And readily available. Because when I’m hungry, I’m huuuuuungry …

And if I don’t have easy-to-prepare healthy choices, I’ll resort to eating whatever I can get my hands on. Or drive through to get my hands on.

With that said, this Weight Watchers fajita recipe is one of my easiest, filling-est, and delicious-est go-to favorites. Especially since the grocery store sells a container of pre-chopped peppers and onions in the produce section.

I also pre-cook a few chicken breasts at the beginning of the week so I can cut them up for use in my fajitas, or to include in a salad.

Weight Watchers Fajita Recipe

Makes 1 Servings * 9 Points

Ingredients:

3 oz. cooked skinless boneless chicken breast

1 small uncooked onion

1 uncooked bell pepper

1 TBS teriyaki sauce

2 medium flour tortillas

Cooking spray

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place chicken breast on cookie sheet and season with salt & pepper. Cook in oven for 10-12 minutes, turning over half way through. Once cooled, cut in to strips. Turn off oven.

Slice onion and peppers into strips.

Spray skillet with Pam. Turn heat on high and add chicken strips and onion and pepper. Stir continually until you see the chicken and peppers getting a bit of a char (3-5 minutes). Add 1 TBS teriyaki sauce.* Continue to stir and cook for 1-2 minutes.

*When you add the teriyaki sauce, turn the oven on. Place the tortillas on a cookie sheet to warm for 1-2 minutes.

Spoon into tortillas. Roll up and enjoy your Weight Watchers Fajitas!

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I’m counting on these fajitas to help me shrink my waistline …

um, I mean, help me get healthier.

🙂

Linda

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