Garlic Roasted Chicken Leg Quarters

Garlic Roasted Chicken Leg Quarters

This recipe was a little different for us in our house. We almost always cook with chicken breast because the white meat is lower in points than the dark meat is (although my personal preference is dark meat...love me some fried chicken legs!) However, when I was shopping at Aldi one week, I saw this huge package of chicken leg quarters that were marked down to like $2 or $3 because they were almost to their "sell by" date, so I just couldn't pass it up. I'm always looking for ways to save money, and I am so not above buying marked down meat. (Just make sure to stick it in the freezer when you get home unless you are cooking it that night!) So once I had the meat, I went searching for a recipe and found this one. It was soooooo delicious! We had my in-laws over for supper and they loved it too! Yes, this is definitely one of those higher point meals, but as long as you plan your day so that you know what you'll be eating, you should be good to go!

Ingredients:

4 cloves diced garlic

1 tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. cumin

Dash of pepper

2 T extra virgin olive oil

4 chicken leg quarters

½ c. chicken broth 

Directions:

1.   Heat oven to 425

2.   Combine garlic, oregano, salt, chili powder, cumin and black pepper. Add olive oil and mix well. Mash it up with a fork

3.   Rinse chicken leg quarters and pat dry. Snip off any excess skin. Arrange chicken in a shallow baking pan. (I used a jelly roll pan). Pat the garlic mixture over the leg quarters.

4. Pour chicken broth in the pan to keep chicken moist while baking.   

5. Bake 40-50 minutes or until juices run clear.  

Yields 4 pieces – WWP+ 9 per leg quarter 

Shown here with a 1 point salad: lettuce, mushrooms, cucumbers and 2 T. fat free Caesar Italian dressing.

Recipe from www.southernfood.about.com

Just an FYI...

I've been thinking a lot about this over the last week or so, and I think.....for a while, I'm going to back off from posting a weekly meal plan every single week. I will still post them from time to time, don't worry. But it won't be every Friday, like clockwork. Fridays are just busy days in my house and between getting my meal plan ready for the next week and my grocery list, and posting the meal plan for the blog and all the recipes and links to coordinate with it, it takes up the majority of my morning. I will still be posting new recipes as I try them out, and you are more than welcome to try them out and create your own meal plans! And until I get some new ones up, I have 7 or 8 of them already posted on the blog, so just recycle them from previous weeks! The feedback on the meal plans has greatly diminished, so I'm not exactly sure how many people are actually using them, and considering the time it takes me every week, I think I'll just make it more of a special post rather than a weekly one. I know I haven't posted recipes in a while, I've got several new ones, we've just been so incredibly busy these last couple of weeks. My business has been keeping me on my toes and I haven't had as much time to sit at the computer and type it all up, but be looking for some new ones over the next couple of days! Hope all is going well for those of you still on the track of eating healthy and losing weight!!!

Meal Plan/Grocery List

Okay, so this week, I am going to be reverting back to a previous meal plan for you to enjoy. This week was one of those weeks where we just ended up being gone a lot and having to eat on the run or at someone else's house, sometimes you just have those times. So, to say the least, I only made a couple of things on my meal plan and therefore, much of this week's meal plan will be spilling over into next week's meal plan. Next week, hopefully I'll be posting the new meal plan. Until then....here's the link to the post for meal plan #3, where you will find links to recipes and to the grocery list. Enjoy!

Happy Easter to you all!!!!

Meal Plan/Grocery List 3

Meal Plan/Grocery List 8

Another week...another grocery trip. At least that's how it is at my house. I don't know how people manage to only get to the grocery store once or a twice a month. When we weren't buying as much fresh produce, I was doing it. I was much more organized with exactly when we would eat each meal and I stuck much of it in the freezer so things wouldn't go bad. However, it feels like much of the time, our fresh fruit and veggies don't even make it for half of the week, let alone two or three weeks. Here's another menue plan for this week with grocery list included. I made a few last minute adjustments...the brownies that I originally had on the menu for dessert were a new recipe, a peanut butter brownie. Well, we made them last night, and....they were a little blah. As promised, I don't post recipes that I don't love, and I didn't love these, so I changed it up and put the warm cinnamon bites on as a dessert again. They are so good, I just don't get sick of those. Also, for the pork chops with mashed cauliflower recipe, the recipe I'm linking to it is for the mashed cauliflower. The baked pork chops were pretty standard baked pork chops. I was trying to be adventurous and try out a few new seasonings, and mine weren't that great, so go with it from what you like. We've all made pork chops before. In hindsight, I would have done a little teriyaki sauce on them or something, that would have been good. Anyway, here you go!

Meals:
Seasoned Baked Pork Chops with Garlic Cauliflower Mash
Chicken 'n Biscuits
Spaghetti Squash Pizza Casserole (I made this one, and it was DELISH!!!! But I forgot to take a picture, so I don't have the recipe written up yet....put it towards the end of the week of your meal plan. I'll do my best to get it up asap)
Italian Marinara Chicken (Am making this one tonight...recipe to come)
Enchilada Cupcakes

Dessert:
Warm Cinnamon Bites

Snack:
Banana Chocolate Chip Donuts

And here's the shopping list for it all:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 8

Enjoy!

Garlic Cauliflower Mash

Garlic Cauliflower Mash

This recipe is focusing on the side dish, rather than the main dish. For dinner, we made a seasoned, baked pork chop. It was good, fine, nothing spectacular. I'd definitely use different seasonings the next time around, I was just playing around with some different things. The cauliflower mash was definitely a different take on a side dish. I wish I had an immersion blender to really have gotten it creamy, I think it would have tasted much more like mashed potatoes, but they were still good. I had a hard time figuring up the points for this one because it was pretty much all vegetables, with the exception of a little milk and one tablespoon of butter, and vegetables are free, so if I go into weight watchers and mark each ingredient separately, it would have been like 1 3 points for the whole pot of them. However, if you use the recipe builder on weight watchers, it doesn't necessarily count fruit and veggies free like the PointsPlus system does, it figures up the nutritional value of every ingredient then divides it out by servings, so according to that, it was like 2 points a serving. Either way, it's low points, I went with the 1 point, because it was eating a lot of vegetables and I felt good about that.

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower

3 cups water

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp salt

1 bay leaf

1 T. butter

½ c. skim milk

Salt and pepper 

Directions:

1.   Cut cauliflower into florets and place in slow cooker.

2.   Add water, garlic, salt, and bay leaf.

3.   Cover and cook on high 2-3 hours or low 4-6 hours.

4.   Remove garlic and bay leaf and drain water.

5.   Add in butter and let it melt.

6.   Then using a potato masher or immersion blender, mash it up adding the milk as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Yields 4 servings – WWP+ 1 per serving

Shown here with a 1 point salad: lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers and 2 T. fat free Caesar Italian dressing, and a 5 point seasoned, baked pork chop.

***Recipe adapted from www.momswithcrockpots.com***

 

Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

This was a very simple and fast fish dinner recipe and it was so tasty, Tessa even ate a whole piece! I was shocked!

Ingredients:

4 (4 oz) tilapia filets

2/3 c. parmesan cheese

1 T. chopped fresh parsley

2 tsp. paprika

1 lemon (cut into wedges)

Directions:

1.   Heat oven to 400.

2.   In a shallow dish, combine the cheese, paprika and parsley. Moisten fish slightly with water or cooking spray then dredge in cheese mixture.

3.   Place on foil lined baking sheet and bake until fish is opaque, about 10-12 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges. 

Yields 4 pieces – WWP+ 3 per filet

 
Shown here with a 1 point salad: lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers and 2 T. fat free Caesar Italian dressing, 3 points (1/2 c.) of brown rice and steamed broccoli.

 

Recipe adapted from RachaelRayMag.com

 

Meal Plan/Grocery List 7

I hope you all have had a great week and hopefully you are seeing the numbers on the scale going down! This week I was done 22.4 pounds!! I'm almost to my goal and I'm so excited. I went out shopping with my mom this week and got a few new clothes and a new swimming suit for the summer...who'd have thought I'd be excited about a swimming suit, but I love it! It was so much fun trying on clothes when I feel like things look good on me! The next thing I really need is a pair of jeans that fit, but I'm waiting until I hit my goal, then going to buy a nice pair that really look good and make all my hard work feel worth it! Enough about me...I'm ready with another meal plan for this week! I really enjoyed these recipes this past week, there is only one that I haven't gotten to yet, and will post the recipe as soon as I do...planning to make it tomorrow night.

Meals:
Easy Baked Chicken
Mexican Baked Spaghetti Squash
Parmesan Crusted Tilapia (will link recipe as soon we try it out)
Cheeseburger Cupcakes
Chicken Alfredo Pizza

Dessert:
Warm Cinnamon Bites

Breakfast/Snack:
French Toast Muffins

And here's your grocery list to go along with it:
Meal Plan/Grocery List 7

Happy Shopping and Happy Cooking!

French Toast Muffins

French Toast Muffins

A new muffin recipe to add to the list and a major bonus, they are only 2 points as compared to most of my muffins which are 3 points each! These were very good, but I will say that they had a little different texture than a normal muffin. No flour in them, but with the 4 egg whites, they had just a bit more of a souffle-esque kind of feel, very much like french toast...that kind of eggy-bready kind of taste. I really enjoyed them. I re-heated one this morning for my breakfast and it was just as good today as it was yesterday. If I wanted to use an extra point, they would be really good dipped in a little warm maple syrup. Yum!! Don't be scared by the ingredient list, I was a bit intimidated myself, but I found everything (except the sugar free syrup) at Aldi...even the Stevia packets and almond milk. And here's a little fun tip, the almond milk comes in a bigger carton, and you only need a half cup, so if you aren't going to use the rest of it (my husband loves it and was more than willing to finish off our carton) but if your family won't drink it or put it on cereal, pour it into ice cube trays, then when frozen, toss them in a freezer bag and you'll have them ready for the next time you need almond milk, then you won't have to buy it again! I do that with buttermilk and other liquid ingredients that I don't use too often.

Ingredients:

½ c. unsweetened almond milk

½ c. unsweetened applesauce

½ c. sugar free maple syrup

4 egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla (or maple…I just couldn’t find maple) extract

2 c. old fashioned oats

12-14 packets Stevia

2 tsp. baking powder

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon 

Directions:

1.   Heat oven to 350. Spray 14 muffin cups with cooking spray.

2.   Put all liquid ingredients in a blender and blend well. Then add all the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.

3.   Pour into 14 muffin cups, dividing batter evenly. Fill each cup a little over halfway full.

4.   Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  

Yields 14 pieces – WWP+ 2 per muffin

Easy Baked Chicken

Easy Baked Chicken

I debated even writing up and posting this dinner because it's so basic that it seems completely unnecessary to post. It's a seasoned piece of chicken breast, and that's it. However, I realized that in the 2.5 months that we have been doing this, I have been so caught up in making these incredibly yummy and fun dinners that are all weight watchers pointed out that I have not once just cooked some regular chicken. So I figured if I needed the reminder, maybe someone else did too. I actually put the baked chicken on the menu at the request of the hubs. It's been frustrating for him, and me as well, these last few weeks because his weight has been coming off much slower than it has in the past. He has been doing everything right (except maybe not exercising as much as he should, he just has a busy schedule this time of year) but the weight has just been slow to come off. The only thing he could think of that was different from the last time he did Weight Watchers and dropped so much, so fast, was that we ate a lot more plain meats and less fancied up recipes. While I explained to him that I would loose my mind and my motivation if I had to go back to eating nothing but chicken breast all the time again, however, I would be happy to implement more non-fancied up proteins for meals once or twice a week, so that's what I did! I was also having a major craving for mashed potatoes, so I fixed a small pan of instant mashed potatoes, which was 3 points for 1/2 c. and 5 points for a whole cup. We still had our big salad and also served it with broccoli. As for making the actual chicken, I get these really big chicken breasts that I then butterfly so they are thinner and cook faster and much more evenly. You can use whatever seasonings you want, I used what I had on hand and what sounded good to me. The chicken broth in the pan really does help keep the chicken from drying out. And point value-wise, for the most part, unless you get up to 9-10 cooked ounces in one chicken breast, we just weighed them after they were cooked and they are one point per ounce. This meal was nothing fancy, and certainly anything that anyone could do and has done a million times before, but sometimes going back to the basics is a refreshing change of pace.

Ingredients:

4 (4-6oz) thinly sliced chicken breasts

½ c. chicken broth
Onion powder
Garlic salt
Basil
Freshly ground pepper
(or any seasoning of your choice)

Directions:

      1.   Heat oven to 350.

2.   Place chicken breasts in a 9x13 baking dish.

3.   Top with seasonings of your choice, I used onion powder, garlic salt, black pepper and dried basil.

4.   Very carefully add about ½ c. of chicken broth to the bottom of baking dish (try not to pour it right on seasoned chicken so to wash off the seasonings).

5.   Bake about 20 minutes or until chicken is done. 

Yields 4 pieces – WWP+ 4-6 per piece (1 point per ounce of cooked chicken)

Shown here with a 1 point salad: lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers and 2 T. fat free Caesar Italian dressing and 3 points of instant mashed potatoes (1/2 c. serving)

Mexican Baked Spaghetti Squash

Mexican Baked Spaghetti Squash

 

The spaghetti squash obsession only continues...this week's new recipe was so good!! And possibly the best part of it all was that I didn't have to make it!!! We had this for dinner on Monday night, and I took off as soon as the hubs got home to go do a little shopping with my mom for some new clothes (since everything I have is too big!) and when I got home from shopping, this delicious casserole was in the oven ready to go, what a treat! The hubs did a great job, he doesn't think of himself of much of a cook, but he really did amazing! (I was also warned that this was not something I was to get used to happening :) This one had a bit of a kick to it, but not too much, trust me, I can't handle too spicy, and I thought it was delicious. But if you really don't like spicy, then just substitute the can of tomatoes and chilis for a can of regular diced tomatoes. We cut the 9x13 pan into 8 pieces, and they were big and only 4 points a piece! My whole dinner that night, with the salad, was only 5 points!! Spaghetti squash never ceases to amaze me!

Ingredients:

1 spaghetti squash

1 medium onion, sliced thin

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

2 cloves garlic

1 T. chili powder

1 tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. cumin

Salt & pepper to taste

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 c. frozen corn kernels, thawed

1 can tomatoes with green chilis, drained

½ c. nonfat greek yogurt

1 c. 2% shredded cheddar cheese

 

Directions:

1.   Heat oven to 375. Cut squash in half length-wise and using a spoon, scoop out the seeds. Place halves face down on baking sheet and cook for 45-50 minutes. When done, using two forks, scrape out the insides and put all spaghetti squash in a separate bowl. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.

2.   While squash is roasting, spray skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Add the onions, bell pepper and jalapeno and cook about 5 minutes.

3.   Add garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Stir in chili powder, oregano, and cumin and cook another minute, stirring constantly.

4.   Transfer to a large bowl and add beans, corn, tomatoes, yogurt and half of the cheese. Allow spaghetti squash to cool at least 5 minutes, then add to the bowl and stir well to combine.

5.   Transfer to baking dish and top with remaining cheese. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

 

Yields 8 pieces – WWP+ 4 per slice

 

Shown here with a 1 point salad: lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers and 2 T. fat free Caesar Italian dressing.

Recipe from Baked-In