Low Cal, Low Carb, WW

Greek-style Lamb Burgers

What can I say…this one may have become one of our absolute favorites!  Hugely flavorful for not a lot of effort.  In my low-carb recipe idea search, I saw a pita-less gyro, and that gave me the idea to do a lamb burger over a Greek salad.  We topped the burger with some not-quite-tzatziki and it was delicious.  I used a Bon Appetit recipe for this, and made no changes.  Great as-is.  I kept the salad on the lower-cal side by cutting the oil substantially when I made the dressing.  We definitely didn’t miss it.

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Lettuce Wrap Turkey Tacos

This was a great, low carb idea I got from Skinnytaste.  I have home-mixed taco seasoning, and that was perfect to spice up the a ground turkey a bit.  We really loved this, and since neither of us is a huge fan of taco shells, we actually preferred the lettuce!  Pretty quick and easy for a weeknight meal, too.  Top with any of your favorites – a little reduced fat cheese and sour cream helped temper the heat a bit.   I serve this with Mexican-style black beans.

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Stuffed Peppers (Lower Carb)

We are trying our hand at low-carb, and so far so good.  As far as main dishes go for us, it’s not too bad – we don’t eat much pasta.  But rice, starchy veg, and my beloved pretzels and beer…well, there’s no substitute for the latter, but it’s surprisingly easy to do without the former.  This is a stuffed pepper that we concocted using vegetables instead of rice mixed in with the turkey and our homemade roasted red pepper tomato sauce.  It was quite good, and the leftovers make for easy lunches.

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Recipe!

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Salsa Verde

Doesn’t get easier than this and salsa verde is my favorite.  I’m kicking myself for not growing tomatillos this year, but maybe next when we have more space in the garden.  I used this for shredded chicken in salsa verde, but it’s great with anything.

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Soy Citrus Scallops with Soba Noodles

This one is another result of “clean out the cooking magazines frenzy,” and it came from Cooking Light.  We really liked it.  I changed up the cooking method a little – I skipped marinating the scallops because I didn’t think they would pan sear as well if already wet.  I like a nice sear on them, so I took care of that first, then cooked them in the sauce for a minute to get the flavor set in.  I served with a side of snow peas tossed with a soy and mirin vinaigrette, which was nice but alas I overcooked the peas.  Don’t do that and it’s a great side! 🙂

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Baked Egg Foo Young

I’ve been working on cleaning out old cooking magazines that have now made 3 moves with me, tearing out pages of old magazines, etc.  I tear out the page and keep it, which is kind of silly since I access the recipe online in the kitchen when actually cooking!  This one came from an old Eating Well and it was worth a try – with good results, we thought.  I augmented with some traditional egg foo young recipes as far as seasonings, but did not modify the cooking method.  I served it with brown rice and some sugar snap peas and we would definitely make again.  A pretty quick no-fuss weeknight meal and good vegetarian option.

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Baked Pesto and Mozzarella Chicken

This was a quick and tasty meal that tasted a lot more caloric than it was. 🙂  I used Skinnytaste’s method of making basil pesto, leaving out the pine nuts and cutting out a lot of the oil.  It was very good; you’d hardly notice it.  I also used part-skim mozzarella, which also worked well.  This made enough for leftovers, and it reheated for a nice lunch.  We had this with asparagus tossed with a leftover pepper I had lying around.  Definitely a make-again, but worth waiting until summer when the tomatoes and basil are very fresh.

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Slow Cooker Adobo Pork

I am a big fan of Adobo, and I feel like it’s one of those “recipes” that is really just a guide.  How it’s made just depends on how someone’s grandmother made it, so it’s just which old family recipe you prefer.   I almost always do this in the slow cooker, and use chicken or pork interchangeably.  I also feel like it’s a little different every time.  For this one, I saw a recipe on Serious Eats that added ginger, and thought that sounded great…it was!  This one is a make again, and though I think I prefer it with chicken, we had pork on hand so there you have it.  I served this with roasted sugar snap peas and yellow peppers, and a brown rice mix.

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Picadillo

I really enjoy Cuban food, but this was not something I have tried before.  When I saw it on Skinnytaste, I thought perhaps it was worth a try, as it was pretty healthy when made with very lean ground beef (in this case I used 96%, but 93% would fine).  I checked out some other recipes and will modify a few things next time because we like a lot of flavor, but this was quite good!  Definitely a keeper recipe, and the great thing is that it can be made in the slow cooker!  Directions for both below.  We served this over brown rice with steamed broccoli on the side.

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Ginger and Star Anise Chicken

This was awesome.  I always have really good luck with Serious Eats, but I think this might be my new favorite recipe that I’ve gotten there.  The flavor was great, and I was pretty excited to find a new use for the huge bag of star anise I have (besides pickling).  It took quite a bit longer to cook than the recipe suggested, but I think that is because the pan I used was a bit too deep, so the cooking liquid didn’t cover as much of the chicken as it should have.  I served this with a Soba noodle salad and bok choy.

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