WW American Potato Salad

I work in a building that houses a Commodity Foods program; at the end of the week they bag up the left-over produce and give it out to the families in the program I work in and if there are left-over bags beyond that the staff get to take some home.  Last week it was a bag of small yellow onions and this week was a bag of small yellow potatoes.  I was trying to figure out what to do with them all and decided potato salad would be the way to go! I searched for a WW friendly recipe and this is what I found on the WW website:

American Potato Salad
Course: side dishes
PointsPlus™ Value:    3
Servings:  8
Preparation Time:  12 min
Cooking Time:  9 min
Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Ingredients

	2 pound(s) uncooked Yukon Gold potato(es), peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
	2 large egg(s), hard-boiled
	2 tsp apple cider vinegar
	1/2 cup(s) plain fat-free yogurt, Greek-style recommended
	1/4 cup(s) fat-free mayonnaise
	3 Tbsp sweet pickle relish
	1 1/2 tsp SPLENDA® SPLENDA No Calorie Sweetener
	1/2 tsp table salt
	1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
	1/2 cup(s) celery, diced
	1/3 cup(s) red onion(s), chopped

Instructions

• Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with 2 inches of water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are fork-tender, about 7 to 9 minutes; drain and cool slightly.
  
• Meanwhile, in a large bowl, using a fork, mash yolk from 1 egg with vinegar until smooth. Add yogurt, mayonnaise, relish, Splenda, salt and pepper; stir until blended.
  
• Add potatoes, celery and onion to bowl; toss to mix and coat. Chop remaining egg white and egg; gently fold into potato salad. Cover and refrigerate until chilled. Yields about 3/4 cup per serving.

Notes

• We replaced a large amount of regular mayonnaise with some fat-free mayonnaise and creamy non-fat Greek-style yogurt.
  
  Garnish with chopped dill, red onion and/or chives. For a change of pace, substitute 1-inch red potato chunks for the Yukon Gold potatoes.

It was super easy to make and soooooooo GOOD! I added a 1/2 tsp of paprika to give it a kick.  I did not add the entire amount of egg required either; just the egg yolk. This is certainly a recipe I will hang on to and use often! 

Freezer French Toast

I have been looking for some recipes that I can cook and freeze to have on hand and to make m life a bit easier. Last night I made Freezer French Toast.  The recipe says it yeilds 16 pieces of toast, but I was only able to barely make 15 slices.  Also the cooking/browning took longer then the recipe said because I had my oven rack up too high away from the element.  They smelled super yummy while cooking!  Each slice is 3 points plus for those of you following Weight Watchers.

Freezer French Toast Recipe

Make your own freezer french toast rather than buying similar commercial frozen ones from the grocery store! Makes 16 slices for quick breakfasts.

5 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp salt
16 slices white bread

Heat oven to 500F. Combine eggs, milk, sugar, and salt, mixing well. Dip slices, then place on baking sheets sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake about 5 minutes, until bottom is goldenbrown. Flip and cook for 2 more minutes. Cool then freeze in single layer. Once frozen (about two hours) they can be packaged individually or placed in a single freezer bag.

To cook:
Remove from freezer, and heat in toaster or toaster oven, then serve.

Apple Tarts

Sunshine and I made Apple Tarts tonight and boy does our house smell amazing!!!  We made 48 of them to share with family and friends!  The recipe we used came from cooks.com. We used reduced fat crescent rolls to make them a bit more healthy.  According to Weight Watchers recipe builder, they are 3 pts each which I think is divine!!!!  Off to munch on one right now....

Mmm... Pork Ribs

Right now I have pork ribs cooking in my crock pot for dinner!! Delish! Here is the recipe I used from allrecipes.com: (I substituted honey bbq sauce for the ketchup for a little more kick of flavor and omitted the chilli sauce and hot sauce.)

Slow Cooker Barbecue Ribs

Ingredients

• 4 pounds pork baby back ribs
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1 cup chili sauce
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 dash hot sauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Season ribs with salt and pepper. Place in a shallow baking pan. Brown in oven 15 minutes. Turn over, and brown another 15 minutes; drain fat.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together the ketchup, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, oregano, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and salt and pepper. Place ribs in slow cooker. Pour sauce over ribs, and turn to coat.
4. Cover, and cook on Low 6 to 8 hours, or until ribs are tender.

These are really not WW friendly, but sound  and smell so yummy!

Stuffed Mushroom Caps: The Healthy Version

(Here is my original post about this recipe!)

I made them this evening for dinner and they were AMAZING! And soooo filling!!! I added more cheese then the recipe called for by using a low-fat string cheese by peeling it thinly and draping it across the top of each cap.  I would so make these again in a heart beat!  I only had 3 mushroom caps, so I kind of over filled them because I think the original recipe calls for 4 caps.  I counted all three of them with the additional cheese as 4 pts.  

Roasted Eggplant

I tried this recipe tonight and it was SCRUMPTIOUS!!!!  So good.... Since I am the only one here that will eat it there is another serving for me in the fridge waiting to be heated for tomorrow!!!  If it lasts that long - I just may have it for snack tonight!!!! Yummmmy!!!!! 

Best of all is it's ZERO pts!! 

Chocolate Pancakes, the HEALTHY way!

Tonight we made Chocolate Pancakes from The Sneaky Chef.  (Her recipe called for oat bran, but we used wheat germ instead!)  I really like her recipes as they are healthy and pretty easy to do!  We have made a few of them and I plan to try a few more over the next week or so.

Sunshine loved measuring the ingredients and adding them together. 

Her favorite part was getting to mix them all together!!!!

Cooking up the first one!!!

She took her first bite and said, "These are AWESOME!!!" She then ate THREE of them! WOAH!!! 

Not sure where she put it all, but she gobbled them down!

This is certainly a recipe we will keep and make again! So delicious! They taste decedent, but are so healthy with blueberry puree and wheat germ!!!