Foil Packet Potatoes...Minus the Foil Packet

Hello sunshine!! With 9 months of gloom around here, it's easy to forget how quickly the sun and heat can show up! Sidenote: the warm summer months are my favorite months of being a stay-at-home mama...kids nap/play, and I work on my tan and book reading with zero guilt! 

However, with only window AC's around here, I try to keep the house as cool as possible, and that means using the bbq for as much of my dinner cooking as I can. So, tonight along with steak and grilled asparagus, I wanted to do some foil packet potatoes. But, when I got out my foil, I realized I had about 6 inches left on the roll, oops.  Luckily, my handy dandy Demarle Round Mold popped into my head, and I remembered I could use it on the bbq (under 480 degrees of course!), bringing to life Foil Packet Potatoes...Minus the Foil Packet!

For Weight Watcher PP folk, I got about 5, 1 cup servings from this, with 5 points per serving. You could bump up the serving sizes by adding in some onions, or make it a virtually pointless side dish by subbing the potatoes for zucchini or cauliflower! 

Lizzy's FPP-FP :)

2 Pounds Baby Red Potatoes, Quartered

5-6 Cloves Garlic, Crushed

3 Slices Turkey Bacon, Thinly Sliced

Seasoned Salt, Pepper, and Dried Parsley to Taste

2 Tablespoons Water

 

Scrub your potatoes, quarter them, and toss them into your round mold. Add in the garlic, bacon, spices, and water, and mix together. I bet this took me all of 5 minutes, if that...so fast! I put my octagonal Silpat over the top to trap the steam and help it cook faster, but it's not a must for the recipe, but does create that "foil packet" environment if that's what you're going for. 

Now, put the whole thing straight on your grill, shut the lid, and let it cook for 15 minutes or so.  After 15 minutes, CAREFULLY take off the Silpat, and stir.  Put the Silpat back on, and check again in 10 minutes or so, and keep doing that until they are fork tender.  It took about 30 minutes for mine to cook.  And, that's it! The mold even acts as its own serving dish, and all I had to do was rinse it out.  And, like I said, you can definitely change it up with either veggies, or different seasonings, and of course, real bacon and lots of cheese! :)  Enjoy!

Tasty Whole Wheat Pizza...On the Barbie!

It's coming up on that time of year when it's just do dang hot to cook in the house...hard to believe that ever happens in Oregon, but it does for a few days anyway!  And, not that I don't love a good burger, but I do get tired of them after a while in the summer, so it's nice to change it up a bit for dinner on the grill.  Yes, I'm getting to the moral of the story, and that is, you can use a Silpat on a temperature controlled barbeque to cook pizza in summer without heating up your house! Temperature controlled you say? Basically, if you can keep your barbeque below 480 degrees, you can use a Silpat on the grill.  (Silpats are safe to use up to 480 degrees). We have a Traeger BBQ, and it has a temperature gauge on it, so it's pretty handy for such an endeavor. Now, down to the food business...

The following recipes are what I use as my base for all pizzas...dough, sauce, and cheese.  For Weight Watchers Points Plus, I get 12 servings from the whole dough recipe + 1 cup of sauce + 3 cups of shredded part skim mozzarella cheese, equaling 5 points per serving.  When I roll out my dough, I roll it big enough to almost cover a large Silpat, which is 14.5" x 19".  Of course, adding toppings besides veggies adds points, but you can add some pretty low point foods and still have a really delicious, and filling pizza!

Also, both the dough and the sauce can be made ahead and frozen! Just pull the dough out of the freezer a few hours before you want to roll it out, and about the same amount of time for the sauce. 

So, for the dough-

1 1/2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Luke Warm Water

2 1/4 Teaspoons Yeast

Just throw all these ingredients in your bread machine on the dough cycle (about an hour). You could also use a stand mixer with a dough hook, just follow the manufacturer's instructions for mixing and kneading, and let it rise for an hour or so.

For the sauce-

1, 6oz Can Tomato Paste
1, 10.75oz Can Tomato Puree
1, 15oz Can Tomato Sauce
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Dried Oregano
1/4 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper (or more or less depending on your taste)
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
2 Teaspoons Dried Parsley
1 1/2 Teaspoons Dried Basil

Put all the ingredients into a small saucepan and whisk together.  Bring to a boil on medium-high heat until it starts to boil. BEWARE, it will pop and splatter everywhere, so as soon as it begins to boil, put the lid on and lower the heat; simmer covered for 10 minutes just to let all the yummy herbs and spices become friends with the tomatoes. Yummy!

 
Now, to make it a little more pizza-like...

Lay your Silpat on the counter (nifty fact...it sticks to the counter, but food won't stick to it! That means, you can use minimal flour to roll out the dough, since plain, white, all purpose flour has a whopping 455 calories in just 1 cup!!!), and stick your dough right on top.  Dust the top with just a little flour, and roll out to desired thickness, I usually go to about 1/4 inch thick.  Let it rise for 20 minutes or so until it gets puffed up again.

 After the dough is ready to go, pour on 1 cup of sauce, and spread out evenly over the dough, and then sprinkle with 2 1/4 cups of the cheese (save the rest to sprinkle over the other toppings). ...yikes, please ignore the hideous state of my Silpat...it has been well loved, and well used!!

Now, for toppings! For blogging (and dinner) purposes, I put chicken, olives, red bell peppers, and sliced onions on this pizza, just remember for you Points Plusers out there to add in the points.

Now, for the bbq'ing part...get your bbq to about 400 degrees, and just slide everything (perforated baking sheet, Silpat, and pizza) right on the grill.  Shut the lid, and let it cook for about 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, check to see how crispy the crust is getting underneath, and rotate the pizza if need be (our bbq has a hot spot in the back, so I turned my pizza about half way through).  It should take between 20 and 25 minutes to cook the pizza, basically the same as if you did it in your oven.  Once the crust is nice and crispy, and all the toppings are nicely cooked, take it off the bbq and you're done! No hot house, and just a Silpat to wash up quick! Just don't cut your pizza on the Silpat, or you'll need a new one!! :)

Enjoy!

Sneaky Fruit Spread

Any PB&J eaters out there? This gal is, as is the 3 year old tyke that lives in my house! I definitely love the "J" component the best, and I would venture a guess that the little mister (LM) does as well.  I try and make freezer jam in the summer, but even though I make it myself, it's still loaded with sugar.  Because I am a big meanie of a mommy, I try to really limit how much refined sugar goes into LM's mouth (as well as mine), so I was intrigued by a recipe I found for Date & Vanilla Energy Spread in a kids cookbook I have. I managed to get dried figs instead of dates at the store (oopsie!), but I think the end result was amazing! I'm pretty sure you could adapt this to pretty much any dried fruit you want, and could add different spices depending on the fruit...I'm thinking apples and cinnamon, & strawberries and almond extract!! Yummy!! 

As far as Weight Watchers points go...dried fruit lists as 1 point for 1 piece, but when I calculated this recipe, making a serving 1 teaspoon (I got 20+ teaspoons out of this recipe), it registers as 0 points!! Just don't go overboard!! But, the great thing with dried fruit is that even though it is really sweet, there is lots of fiber in it to slow down how fast it absorbs into your system!  

This recipe was a cinch to make, and something I will definitely make about once a week!!

Fig & Vanilla Energy Spread

Recipe adapted from "Brain Foods for Kids" by Nicola Graimes

7 Ounces Dried Figs

1 Cup Water

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

This recipe is so dang easy to make that there's hardly any instructions!! My figs had little stems on the end, so I pulled those off quickly, and then rough chopped the figs.

Then throw the figs in a little saucepan with 1 cup of water, bring it to a simmer over med-high heat, lower the heat and cover.  Cook for about 20 minutes, or until most of the water is absorbed, and the fruit is nice and soft.

After the 20 minutes or so of cooking, take the pot off of the heat, and let it cool for just a bit.  Then, toss it all into a food processor or blender with the vanilla, and process until smooth (I ended up needing to add in about 2 or so tablespoons of water to get it to flow in my food processor).  You can keep it in the fridge for up to a week in an air tight container...if it lasts that long!! :)  Try it on an english muffin, pancakes, mixed in greek yogurt, and of course, in a PB&J!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

I LOVE Costco's chocolate muffins! Dunked in a glass of milk, they are like heaven in my mouth! I'm pretty sure they have about 8 zillion calories and 10 zillion grams of fat, not to mention a sugar level that would shoot you to the moon.  Not too Weight Watchers friendly in my experience.  So, here's an alternative that comes pretty darn close! I've tried switching out the butter for non fat plain greek yogurt, and they weren't quite as moist, but they were still yummy.  The original recipe makes them in a regular muffin tin, but I used my Demarle Mini-Muffin tray instead for fewer WW points per muffin, and next-to-zero clean up. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
Recipe Courtesy of SkinnyTaste.com

Servings: 12 • Size: 1 muffin • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 5 pts
Calories: 170.5 • Fat: 5.3 g • Protein: 2.6 g • Carb: 31.8 g • Fiber: 2.1 g • Sugar: 16.1 g
Sodium: 41.3 mg
(When I do mini-muffins, I get about 25 muffins, so according to my guesstimations, each muffin is worth 2 Weight Watchers Points Plus)

• 3 1/2 ripe medium bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder ( I sometimes use 1/3 cup or more because it makes a much darker chocolate muffin, and adds about 30 calories into the whole recipe)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Mash up the bananas in your mixing bowl.  I usually use my Kitchen Aid mixer, so I just mash up the bananas in that...watch out though, sometimes the bananas go flying!

After you have made a nice banana slurry, add in the applesauce, butter, sugar, egg whites, and mix well.  In a separate bowl, add the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and whisk well to combine.

Add that to the wet ingredients, and mix on low until just combined...remember from junior high home economics that over mixing your muffins causes tunnels! :) Then fold in your chocolate chips, and that's it!

I use a cookie scoop to fill up the muffin tray, it's a nice and tidy way to do it! Fill the holes about 3/4 of the way full.

Bake mini-muffins for 20-25 minutes, and big muffins for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Poor a glass of cold milk, dunk, and enjoy!