Easy Chicken Parmesan

Tomorrow will be one week on Weight Watchers. Whoohoo!!!  

Seriously, that's the longest I've stuck to any diet in I don't know how long! And it's been a great week food-wise, I mean I haven't felt deprived at all. But I have been absolutely terrible at remembering to take pictures of my recipes. Every single night I ate dinner and then went - whoops! I forgot to take a picture! So here's the one picture I did take (Easy Chicken Parmesan), but it was taken before baking. Yup, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.

Anyway, what a super easy recipe for those nights when you just want to be able to throw dinner together quickly. I served this with rice but I think it would be even better with pasta. I just didn't feel like cooking two types of noodles that night (the family won't eat my gluten free rice noodles). EVEN THOUGH TINKYADA ROCKS! So I decided we'd all have it with rice. (little vent, sorry.) :)

Easy Chicken Parmesan

Servings: 4

WW Points+: 5 per serving

Ingredients

4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 jar (about 2.5 cups) of jarred pasta sauce (make sure it's a low fat variety)

4 Tbsp Grated Parmesan

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dried oregano

1/8 tsp black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Pour sauce into a 12x9” baking dish. Stir in parmesan cheese and spices.
3. Add chicken and turn to evenly coat both sides of breasts with sauce. Cover.
4. Bake for about 40 minutes or until chicken is done. (I used frozen breasts and cooked them for an hour)
5. Serve with rice or pasta (WW points not included)

Note

If you have extra points to splurge on, top chicken with some shredded mozzarella about 5 minutes before removing from the oven.

Meatloaf

This is my standard meatloaf recipe, made many times, so it's tried and true! I've been meaning to post it on here for ages (so the picture is from a couple months ago). I put it into the weight watchers recipe builder and it comes out to 6 points per serving. 

Meatloaf
Yeild: 12 servings

2 eggs

1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3/4 cups gluten free bread crumbs
1 onion
1 small carrot
2 lbs ground beef or ground pork (or a mixture)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
1 Tbs prepared mustard

Directions:

1. Beat eggs in large bowl, add milk, salt, pepper and crumbs.
2. Add onions, carrots, and beef. Mix well and shape into meatloaf pan.
3. Combine brown sugar, ketchup and mustard, spread over loaf.
4. Bake in oven at 360 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
5. Let stand 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Meatloaf

Battle of the Bulge

I just returned from a week at an amazing all-inclusive resort in Cancun. I have to say, in terms of wanting to lose weight, there's nothing more motivating than spending a week in your bathing suit surrounded by skinny, beautiful people! Ugh. About halfway through the trip I decided that I'd join weight watchers as soon as I got home.

I've been gluten free for over a year now. When I first went gluten free the thought of dieting at the same time as learning this new way of eating was just too much for me. So I decided to focus on the gluten first. I didn't mean to let a whole year go by before getting serious about battling my bulge. 

My biggest problem is actually is my love for wine. Sweet, beautiful, wonderful wine oh how I love thee. Every night.  So I had to come to grips this week with the fact that if I want to be serious about losing weight, I'm going to have to cut down on the wine consumption. 

I'm on day 3 of weight watchers, I'm doing the online version - and so far so good!  I'll start posting some of the photos and recipes with the points as I go along. Last night I made a big batch of turkey chili! 

Excellence Playa Mujeres