The Healthy Tales

Posts Tagged ‘HungryGirl’

Historically, I have been really bad about adding fish into my diet.  Every now and then I’ll order a fish taco for dinner or possibly shrimp.  Sometimes I get adventurous and pick up tilapia and put a little blackening seasoning on it and bake in the oven.  I’m not sure why I haven’t been on the fish bandwagon but it might be because if you undercook fish you can get pretty sick (trust me) or I just don’t know what to do with it.

With needing to shed a few pounds as well as being tired of the same old foods day in and day out, I have been trying out a few new recipes.  I’ve tested out homemade grilled fish tacos (A++), salsa fish, and now Lemony-Asparagus Fish.  The last recipe is one I received in a HungryGirl email last week and it looked quick and easy.  Asparagus was on sale so I figured that would seal the deal and I would try it out.  So come Sunday night, I pulled all of the ingredients out and fired up the oven.  Talk about tasty food!  Here is the recipe courtsey of HungryGirl.com.  An actual photo will come later tonight when I fire up the camera.

Lemony-Asparagus Fish
Ingredients
1 package frozen Tilapia filets or other white fish (normally 4 to a pack)
1 bunch of Asparagus trimmed of tougher end, depending on length possibly cut in half
1 lemon, sliced
1 tsp. whipped butter (spray/melted butter worked fine)
1/2 tsp. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. crushed garlic (garlic powder was ok)
1/8 tsp. salt

Cooking Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, mix together butter, parsley, garlic, and salt to form a thick paste. Set aside.
3. Lay a large piece of heavy-duty foil in front of you. Line up the stalks side by side (like a raft) in the center of the foil. Lay the fish on top of the asparagus.
4. Spread butter mixture evenly over the fish, and top with lemon slices (2 slices per fish). Fold and seal the top and bottom edges of the foil, and then the side edges, to create a well-sealed packet.
5. Place packet on a baking sheet, and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes, until asparagus is tender and fish is cooked through.

Allow packet to cool for a minute then serve 1 raft with 1 fish and 2 lemon slices. The lemon slices will be nice and tender and will nicely “juice” your fish.

PER SERVING: 205 calories, 4g fat, 412mg sodium, 6g carbs, 2.75g fiber, 3g sugars, 35g protein. About 4 WW points per serving. Can’t beat that!

We all know dark chocolate or pure cacao can be good for your health but who really likes going around eating dark chocolate all the time.  I know I prefer milk chocolate to the bitter dark chocolates.  But this isn’t what I want this post to be about: milk vs. dark. vs pure cacao.  Instead, I want to write about my new favorite way to work chocolate into my diet.  In fact, I eat it about every day and it only costs 1 Weight Watcher point.  No it’s not by eating 1 bite of a Snickers bar, Hersey’s bar, or 1 Ghiradelli chocolate carmel square (though that is an awesome way to spend a point).  Instead it is actually much more filling and can be eaten as breakfast with some fruit, or a mid-afternoon snack, or dessert after dinner, or to top things off after you workout.  So what is it?

“It” is called Vitalicious Chocolate vitatop muffins.  These are decadent treats that you buy from vitalicious.com and pop into your freezer.  When you are craving one you just pop it into the microwave and heat for 30 seconds and enjoy.  There are tons of flavors and they are my new favorite Chocolate fix because I feel like I am eating something really bad but it really isn’t. Vitatops are all approximately 100 calories and contain at least 4 grams of fiber.  I first heard about them a few years ago thanks to HungryGirl and then I was reminded about them again at a Weight Watchers meeting.  I finally broke down and bought some on sale and fell in love.  I eat on average one per day usually with a half cup of fresh berries and a glass of milk.  Absolutely fabulous as it tastes like a chocolate covered whatever-berry and it is a great way to spend 3 points out of your daily allowance.

Whoever said chocolate was not a weight loss friend has never tried a Vitatop!

Last night, I was having a hard time falling asleep so I spent a little longer online playing around and reading emails.  I was up so late that I was able to catch today’s edition of the HungryGirl newsletter.  This newsletter was for unusual but tasty breakfast foods that would be quick and easy to make.  So the item that caught my eye, because I had all of the ingredients, was scrambled eggs and laughing cow light cheese made via a coffee cup and a microwave.  I have been in the mood for breakfast tacos recently and decided to give it a try this morning as I dealt with laundry.

So what did I think?  Overall it wasn’t too terrible.  I will admit that the eggs were a little weird looking during the whole cooking process.  They were scrambled but didn’t have the same look as scrambled eggs during and after the process but they tasted the same.  They worked well for breakfast tacos because it was one or two lumps of egg and not lots of little pieces so I could transfer them over to the tortillas fairly easily.  Next time I make them though I am going to make less.  I felt 1/2 cup of Egg Beaters was just too much egg for me in a breakfast taco.  Otherwise 4 stars and a great way to have eggs before heading off to work.