Recipes

Chipotles in adobo don’t mess around

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Since I had a post-work meeting today, I was amazingly proactive last night 😉 .  Not only did I cook up my dinner ahead of time but I also packed a Berry Almond Luna Bar to hold me over til dinner:

This was pretty tasty, and the berry flavor was really strong.  However, the blueberry bliss Luna bar tops this bar hands down.  That is for darn sure!

For dinner tonight, I tweaked and further healthified a recipe I found in this month’s Cooking Light for Spicy Shrimp Salad.  The recipe called for two ingredients I had never used:  bibb lettuce and chipotles in adobo.

For those of you who have no idea what bibb lettuce is, it looks kinda like a little bouquet:

I was just going to use romaine, but this little guy was so cute I decided to give it a shot.

Last night, I grilled up one serving of medium sized shrimp seasoned with salt and pepper.

Then I tossed the shrimp with:

  • 2 tsp lime juice
  • 1 tsp fat free mayo
  • 1 tbsp chopped chipotle in adobo
  • 2 tbsp chopped red onion
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin

After my post-work meeting, I heated the shrimp mixture up in the microwave and threw it on top  a bed of bibb lettuce and added some tomatoes.  I tasted a bit, and realized it was pretty spicy, so I topped it off with a dollop of fat free sour cream to cool things off.

I consider myself a lover of spicy foods.  Case in point, I put black pepper, red pepper flakes, and franks red hot on  pretty much everything but my yogurt and overnight oats.  Despite my love and affection for hot foods, about two bites into the salad I literally felt like my entire face was on fire!  Chipotles in adobo seriously do not f’ around.

After my mouth cooled down, I tried to give it another go, but one bite in and the insane heat was back in full fury.  I quickly downed half a tomato trying to calm the fire engulfing my face.

Needless to say, I didn’t finish the salad.  I think this could have been really tasty if I cut the chipotles back to 1 tsp and also used a different type of lettuce.  The bibb lettuce was kind of soft and didn’t have much crunch to it.  I prefer a crunchy romaine for my salads.

Stats on the salad I wasn’t physically cable of eating:  205 calories, 20g carbs, 3g fat, 21g protein, 5g fiber

Upon some deliberation of my freezer inventory, I decided my back up dinner would be a Gardenburger black bean burger on a Joseph’s low carb pita with onion, tomato, ketchup, and mustard.

boring

It was ok… but I was really craving shrimp.  Maybe I’ll make a smoothie later to compensate 🙂

Stats on the burger:  210 calories, 36g carbs, 5g fat, 12g protein, 10g fiber

 

Chipotle Peppers on Foodista

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Recipes

Chicken Couscous Salad Salad

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Dinner tonight was Chicken Couscous Salad Salad (the food so good they name it twice, right? 😉 )

I stumbled upon this Cooking Light recipe a while back and it sounded really tasty, but I wanted to try and make it a little healthier.  Luckily, I had a great find at the grocery store!  Rice Select Tri-Color Couscous with Sundried Tomato and Spinach, which has about 70 less calories per serving than the whole wheat couscous I compared it to. 

I decided to make up 2 servings of the salad so I’d have something for lunch tomorrow, so I cooked up 1/2 cup of the couscous in 1/2 cup free range chicken broth.  Once the couscous was finished, I fluffed it work a fork and dumped in a bowl to cool down. 

Meanwhile, I got to choppin.  Here’s what I decided to throw into the salad:

That’s:

  • 4 ounces chicken breast (which I cooked up last night with McCormick’s Montreal Chicken Seasoning)
  • 1/2 cup chopped green onion
  • 1 roma tomato
  • 1/2 a chopped cucumber
  • 1/4 cup chopped parsley

 

For the dressing, I mixed up the following:

  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp black pepper
  • 1 clove garlic minced

Tossed everything together and put in the fridge to chill out while I cleaned up my kitchen.  I’m one of those people who just makes an absurd amount of messes while cooking… Good thing I like to clean 🙂

This recipe made two big servings of yummyness:

This was really tasty!  I love vinegars, so I especially liked the dressing.  I think I’ll actually try some out on a salad later in the week.  Another great thing about this couscous recipe is you could throw pretty much any vegetable into the mix and it would taste great!  Two thumbs up!

Stats on the chicken couscous salad:  277 calories, 40g carbs, 4g fat, 17g protein, 4g fiber

 Don’t forget to check out the PB2 giveaway!!!

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Recipes

Grilled Brussel Sprouts

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Today, I decided to try out brussel sprouts on the grill.  Using this recipe from food network as my guide, I microwaved 5 brussel sprouts for 3 minutes.  Then topped with a tiny bit of olive oil, S&P, minced garlic, tiny bit of cayenne pepper, and some paprika.

I stuck the sprouts on a skewer and put them on the george foreman grill for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, I assembled a turkey wrap sandwich consisting of 1 lite Flatout italian wrap, 3 ounces turkey breast, tomato, onion, banana pepper, a 1/2 tsp fat free italian dressing, and a few drops of Frank’s Red Hot.

After the sprouts had cooked for five minutes, I flipped them to the other side, threw the wrap on the grill, and cooked for another five minutes. 

Lunch is served!

Stats on the wrap, sprouts, and grapes:  306 calories, 39g carbs, 7g fat, 27g protein, 14g fiber

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Recipes

Healthified Gyros & Tzatziki Saucziki

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Tonight, I had a craving for gyros.  Mmmmmm…. Can’t remember the last time I had one of those.

The task at hand:  satisfy this craving as healthfully as possible.

I decided to go with ground turkey for the meat to stuff my gyro.  I combined the following ingredients and formed a meat “log” which I cooked on the george foreman grill for about 7 minutes.

  • 5 ounces 99% lean ground turkey
  • sprinkling of dried oregano, S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, red pepper flakes

Then I sliced the meat into long strips and placed atop a Joseph’s Low Carb Pita:

And topped it off with the KEY component of any gyro:  Tzatziki Sauce!  I mixed up the tzatziki sauce about an hour before grilling the meat.  It consisted of:

  • 2 tbsp Oikos plain greek yogurt
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp grated cucumber
  • S&P, Dill weed
  • 1 clove garlic, minced

Tzatziki ingredients in the bowl:

All together now!

I used some of the leftover cucumber to make a small cucumber salad (sliced cucumber, dill weed, white vinegar):

YUM!!!  This really hit the spot!  I do want to note that the meat was a little on the dry side.  I personally didn’t really mind because I doused it in the yummy Tzatziki sauce.  Next time, I’ll either add some of the shredded cucumber to the meat or try shredded zucchini and/or onion.

Stats on the gyro:  278 calories, 24g carbs, 4g fat, 39g protein, 7g fiber

 

Despite this delicious dinner, the night did not end on such a happy note:

What’s that, you ask?  Ohhhh… that….  Whelp, that’s my iPhone, chilling in some rice, because I apparently dropped it on my way in the door and let it sit outside in the rain for three hours.  🙁

Hopefully this rice trick I found on google with do the trick and suck all the water out!

 

QUESTION OF THE EVENING:  What was the dumbest thing you did today?

P.S. to respond to this question click the little blue button that says “Leave a comment” … look right below this line… just a little further… You can do it! 😉

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Recipes

Healthified Gyros & Tzatziki Saucziki

8 Comments

Tonight, I had a craving for gyros.  Mmmmmm…. Can’t remember the last time I had one of those.

The task at hand:  satisfy this craving as healthfully as possible.

I decided to go with ground turkey for the meat to stuff my gyro.  I combined the following ingredients and formed a meat “log” which I cooked on the george foreman grill for about 7 minutes.

  • 5 ounces 99% lean ground turkey
  • sprinkling of dried oregano, S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, red pepper flakes

Then I sliced the meat into long strips and placed atop a Joseph’s Low Carb Pita:

And topped it off with the KEY component of any gyro:  Tzatziki Sauce!  I mixed up the tzatziki sauce about an hour before grilling the meat.  It consisted of: 

  • 2 tbsp Oikos plain greek yogurt
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp grated cucumber
  • S&P, Dill weed
  • 1 clove garlic, minced

 

Tzatziki ingredients in the bowl:

All together now!

I used some of the leftover cucumber to make a small cucumber salad (sliced cucumber, dill weed, white vinegar):

YUM!!!  This really hit the spot!  I do want to note that the meat was a little on the dry side.  I personally didn’t really mind because I doused it in the yummy Tzatziki sauce.  Next time, I’ll either add some of the shredded cucumber to the meat or try shredded zucchini and/or onion.

Stats on the gyro:  278 calories, 24g carbs, 4g fat, 39g protein, 7g fiber

  

Despite this delicious dinner, the night did not end on such a happy note:

What’s that, you ask?  Ohhhh… that….  Whelp, that’s my iPhone, chilling in some rice, because I apparently dropped it on my way in the door and let it sit outside in the rain for three hours.  🙁

Hopefully this rice trick I found on google with do the trick and suck all the water out!

 

QUESTION OF THE EVENING:  What was the dumbest thing you did today?

P.S. to respond to this question click the little blue button that says “Leave a comment” … look right below this line… just a little further… You can do it! 😉

Continue Reading