The Healthy Tales

Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

A few weeks ago, Mike and I headed over to San Antonio to visit his family.  As we were heading back to Houston, Mike’s mom pulled out two pounds of frozen shrimp to send home with us.  I hated to tell her that I had two pounds already back in the freezer because I didn’t know how to cook it but I didn’t and took it gladly and decided I needed to find a recipe.  So off to Google I went looking for a recipe to use up at least two of these four pounds.

I found a great recipe to try out -> BBQ Shrimp and Pineapple Skewers.  The recipe comes from Razzle Dazzle Recipes.  The recipe did not call for a lot of ingredients and seemed easy enough to make at home so I decided to grab all of the ingredients today at the grocery store and give it a whirl.  What I found was that it really was a great and tasty recipe but the skewer part didn’t work out too well as the end of my skewers are thick and combining that with the thick chunks of pineapple raised the shrimp off the grill plate and they were not cooking.  Once I removed the skewers from the process everything went well.

We had this with my garlic and lime asparagus (recipe to follow) which went very well with the pineapple. I give this recipe two thumbs up and will make it again. I failed to point out the recipe for Weight Watchers but I would think that this would be no more than 5 WW points and the asparagus is about 2 or 3 WW points at the most. I’ll try to remember to do this next time.

Pineapple Barbecued Shrimp Skewers

1/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh cilantro leaves
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 – ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into 2-inch chunks
4 – metal or bamboo (soaked in water) skewers

In a mixing bowl, combine the barbecue sauce, pineapple juice, lime juice and cilantro. Pour half of the pineapple-barbecue sauce mixture into a resealable bag, add the shrimp and marinate for 15 to 30 minutes. (Reserve the remaining sauce mixture for basting and serving.)

Preheat the grill to medium-high.

Remove the shrimp from the marinade, discarding the leftover marinade. Skewer the shrimp and pineapple onto the skewers. Grill the skewers on both sides until the shrimp are just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. While the skewers are cooking, brush them with some of the reserved sauce.

Serve the skewers with the extra pineapple-barbecue sauce for dipping.

Happy Friday once again.  I am glad to see the weekend here.  I would say I’m having a quiet weekend with Mike away at a bachelor hunting/camping party but one of my best friends is coming into town tomorrow morning.  So quiet, but not so quiet.

I know when I set out to share recipes on this site I said I wanted to keep them healthy and Weight Watcher friendly.  Unfortunately, not everything can be healthified or made to be WW friendly and you can’t deny yourself of everything.  Especially not this week’s recipe.

I first had this recipe in college.  I was living in the dorms and on my own food wise as the meal plans (and food) was horrible.  My grandmother got wind of this and started making food and freezing it for me so I wouldn’t starve.  Often times she just made a recipe up from her head and it wasn’t anything fancy but boy was it good and I was happy.  This recipe never really had an official name.  Sometimes it was Taco Pie and other times it was Frito Pie.  Tasted the same either way.  It works well frozen and defrosted and your kids will love it.  Just don’t expect it to be the healthiest thing.  Also, since it is a made up recipe and I never got to cook it with her, the measurements are approximations.

Taco/Frito Pie

• 1 bag of Fritos, crushed
• 1 pound of lean ground beef
• 1 can of turkey chili
• 1 can of beans, Texas Style
• cheddar cheese
• 1/2 can cream style corn
• 1 box Jiffy Corn Bread Mix

Begin by browning the ground beef.  Next puree that can of beans.  Grab an oven-friendly casserole dish and start layering.  There is no measurements to your layer.  Just make sure you can spread a thin (or thick) layer across the dish before moving onto the next layer.  Layers are: Fritos, chili, meat, beans, then cheese.  She normally did 3 layers but 2 would be fine as well.  For the topping make the Jiffy Corn Bread batter following the box directions*.  Mix in a half can of cream style corn.  Pour batter on top of your layered dish and then place in oven.  Bake until the topping is brown (follow Jiffy directions for oven temperature).

* Jiffy mix can be infested with weevils so make sure to buy it the day you make it and sift through it first.

Happy Friday!  I am glad the weekend is here.  I’m heading home to visit my family so no cooking for me this weekend.  I am hoping to see if I can bring back some chicken rollups though as I haven’t had any in a very long time.  We’ll see though.

So this is my first week with Freezer Food Friday.  The purpose of this meme is to share a meal that you can make ahead and freeze to eat later.  So this week, my recipe is for Red Beans and Rice.  It is an old southern favorite and one that freezes very well.

Red Beans and Rice

• 3 cans of Green Giant Red Beans, drained**
• 1 small onion, diced*
• Smoked sausage, diced (use up to 1 pound)
• Celery, diced*
• garlic, minced (to taste)
• Cajun seasoning (to taste)
• Brown Rice

Saute the onion, celery, and garlic in olive oil.  Remove.  Brown the sausage in the same pan.  Drain sausage on paper towel (pat to remove excess oil & grease).  Put beans in a stock pot and then stir in the sausage, onion, celery, and garlic.  Add 2 cans of water to pot and let cook for 30 minutes.  Add cajun seasoning for flavor.  Serve over brown rice.

I tend to do 1/4 cup rice, 1/2 cup bean mixture.  You can serve with cornbread or muffins.  The Vitatop Corn muffins work well and they are only 1 WW point.

This recipe will make 6-8 servings depending on how you serve the rice/bean ratio and the points will be around 5-6 per serving depending on rice/beans.

*frozen, diced onion and celery will do.  If you have a Kroger, look for the Recipe starters bag that has celery, onions, and green bell peppers already diced and use that.  It saves time and money.

**any brand will do but they should be red beans if you absolutely cannot find them you can use Kidney beans but there is a taste difference.

I was looking for some new health related memes and came across Freezer Food Friday.  This meme is dedicated to passing along recipes that can be made ahead and frozen.

Meal planning is one of those tasks that I am terrible in doing.  I always have the grand idea to sit down and think about what to cook but then I head to the grocery store and it all falls apart because I didn’t plan right.  I tend to buy items but none of them go together and when I do have a recipe in mind I’ll forget an ingredient.

After not planning appropriately, the next downfall of mine is making enough meals to get from Monday through Thursday.  Typically that is just one recipe stretched out over 4 days with 2 people.  So by the time Friday hits, I’m tired of eating the same thing or we’ve run out and I don’t want to cook.  So I’m going to try the cook and freeze half method.  I think this will help with the budget as well as help with the weekend revolt I tend to have against the kitchen.  The revolution leads to eating out which blows the budget and packs on the pounds.

I’m excited to start this meme on Friday.  I am going to try and ensure most of my recipes are Weight Watcher Friendly as this is my healthy blog.    My first recipe will be for my favorite – Red Beans and Rice so come back and grab this freezer friendly, and heart healthy recipe!