Healthy Beef Stroganoff – YUM! A Guest Post by TJ! April 12, 2011

me and TJ!

I’m excited that Tracey (aka TJ) is sharing one of her awesome healthy recipes on my blog today! Her blog is full of fantastic, easy recipes that are super WW-friendly. Check out her fantastic progress – inspiring isn’t it?? One of her greatest strategies is coming up with wonderful recipes to keep her satisfied and on track. Take it away, Tracey!

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Hi guys! Tracey here from tj’s test kitchen! Special thanks to Foodie McBody for allowing me to post a recipe over here today. I made this just this past weekend with my Mom and the whole family loved it. Beef Stroganoff SCREAMS comfort food if you ask me but sometimes with comfort comes calories. My mission along this weight loss journey is to make the foods I love…. HEALTHIER!

Beef Stroganoff

serves 8

4PointsPlus

*add additional PointsPlus for noodles

1 lb package lean ground beef 90/10

1 can Campbells Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can Campbells HR Cream of chicken soup

1 Cup Fat Free Sour Cream

1 envelope onion soup mix

1 1/2 Cups sliced fresh mushrooms

1/2 Cup water

pepper to taste

First brown beef over medium heat until fully cooked; drain any fat after cooked.

In separate pan- even at the same time the beef is cooking saute mushrooms in a small pan sprayed with PAM.

Ingredients all lined up….

These are the noodles I used 1 cup for 5 PointsPlus

1 Cup Sour Cream

After draining any fat, add onion soup mix, sour cream, water, and both soups to the pan. This looks weird, I know, but wait! haha!

Give it a stir….then toss in the cooked mushrooms.

stir again…mmmm nice and creamy! Add in pepper if you like!

Serve on top of cooked noodles. YUM! After I took this picture I tossed in some peas. It was delicious!

Easy and tasty! My two favorite words to hear when I am cooking dinner! Hope you all liked my recipe! Make sure you stop by my blog to let me know if you decided to make it! I would love to hear all about it! ENJOY!  tj

Who Wants Rocco’s New Book?? March 24, 2011

You all know I was lucky enough to win a copy of Rocco DiSpirito’s amazing cookbook Now Eat This! We have been going through the recipes and they have been shockingly EASY, fast and delicious. We’ve already made the tortilla soup half a dozen times and now we’re really into the turkey nachos. YUM. On the heels of the bestselling success of his low-calorie Now Eat This! cookbook, Rocco Dispirito has a new book featuring a weight-loss program “guaranteed to produce maximum results with minimum effort.”

Award-winning celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito changed his life and his health-without giving up the foods he loves or the flavor. He has lost more than 20 pounds, participated in dozens of triathlons, and-after an inspirational role as a guest chef on The Biggest Loser-changed his own diet and the caloric content of classic dishes on a larger scale. In NOW EAT THIS! DIET, complete with a foreword by Dr. Mehmet Oz, DiSpirito offers readers a revolutionary 2-week program for dropping 10 pounds quickly, with little effort, no deprivation, and while still eating 6 meals a day and the dishes they crave, like mac & cheese, meatloaf, BBQ pork chops, and chocolate malted milk shakes. The secret: Rocco’s unique meal plans and his 75 recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and snack time, all with zero bad carbs, zero bad fats, zero sugar, and maximum flavor. Now readers can eat more and weigh less-it’s never been so easy!

Now Eat This! Diet was published for the first time two days ago on the 22nd (congrats Rocco!) and I am lucky enough to have a free, signed copy for a giveaway! Here’s a little peek into one of the recipes: (click to enlarge) I’ll be giving away a copy of this book ON FRIDAY (April 1st) so if you want to be that lucky recipient, leave a comment here and tell me your favorite comfort food! I bet there’s a healthy version of it in Rocco’s book.

For anybody who really wants this book and either can’t wait or doesn’t win – there are many ways you can get your hands on one.

Barnes & Noble - http://bit.ly/hGdqDl
Books-A-Million - http://bit.ly/elumlG
Borders - http://bit.ly/fAOF5J
Hastings - http://bit.ly/dOKm9Z
Powell’s – http://bit.ly/eKmbjv
Tower Records – http://bit.ly/fgdzt5

EDITED TO ADD: The giveaway winners will be announced on Friday, April 1st! AND…. I just got the exciting news from “Rocco’s people” that there will be FOUR WINNERS! YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

The Wonderfulness of Somebody Else Cooking In My House October 19, 2009

Last night our housemate (yes, we have a new housemate for several weeks!!!!) taught us how to make homemade gyoza, or potstickers. They were easy. They were healthy and awesomely delicious. It was wonderfully exciting. I admit I ate wayyy more than your standard “portion” because I was just so thrilled. Oh well.

I wish we could always have a housemate as awesome as this. The sound of vegetables being chopped in the kitchen, NOT BY ME, was such a revolutionary sound! Somebody else was cooking! It was incredible. I was so happy.

Want to know how to make beautiful and delicious gyoza? I just watched. But this is the basic idea of it:

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined and chopped up (we used the easy-peasy frozen kind)
• chopped up can of water chestnuts
• chopped up green onions (3-4??)
• little bit of sesame oil
• minced garlic
• minced ginger
• little bit soy sauce?
• wonton wrappers

Mix up all ingredients.  Put teaspoon? of mixture in half of wonton wrapper (they’re round). Seal with water and make a little pocket. Line up on tray. When you have a few dozen, put a little bit of oil in bottom of nonstick pan. Add gyoza and cook until they are browned on the bottom. Add a little bit of water and cover to steam cook the rest of the way. Probably takes about 5-8 minutes per batch. Eat. ENJOY!

Beautiful Guiltfree Dinner March 29, 2009

I soooo enjoyed my dinner last night.  We had company over – my husband’s cousin and her hubby – they are wonderful people, and I was really looking forward to hanging out with them. I decided to make our family favorite teriyaki/wasabi salmon, this asparagus and brown/wild rice salad someone pointed out to me on Twitter (I love Twitter! It’s like a recipe box at your fingertips!), a big mache salad with avocados and feta, and a lemon tart with real whipped cream. YAY. Oh, and they brought some amazing wine they’d procured during their weeklong trip through Napa.

I didn’t worry about the points or calories of any of these items. I had had a good run/walk in the morning. I had gone to Weight Watchers and had lost 2.6 lbs since last week. I knew that everything I was eating was super healthy (except maybe the lemon tart!).

I enjoyed every single bite of my dinner. I didn’t overeat, I didn’t obsess over “going over” (which, had I counted, I probably did) I know that today I’m doing another Couch to 5k AND I’m going to be rowing in a “parent row” for my daughter’s crew team. THAT should be interesting!! And I’m going to resume my regular good eating today. It’s all good.

Is it possible that I’ll gain weight from this one dinner, at the end of this week? Somehow I really don’t think so.