It's Slow Cooker Week!

Fall is here. Leaves falling. Halloween stuff is EVERYWHERE. Morning chill. Jacket weather. Comfort food season. Per Emily (a.k.a. Mo)'s request, tried and true slow cooker recipes will be featured this week, a new one each day. Some pulled meat, a soup or two, a few surprises and even a couple vegetarians. If you have a good one, please share it here this week too!

Chili Verde

Super delicious and makes great leftovers. Hearty, spicy and nutritious!

Note: I've made this enough times to realize that different brands of salsa verde differ vastly in spicy heat. Below is the original recipe, but taste your salsa. If it's super spicy, substitute chopped green bell pepper for the anaheims.

2-1/2 cups salsa verde*
1 14-ounce can chopped anaheim chilies
1 pound boneless pork loin roast (or chicken breasts)
1 14-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 14-ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
Hot white or brown cooked rice
Shredded cheddar or jack cheese, optional

1. Place 2 cups salsa, chopped peppers and meat in the crockpot. Cook on HIGH 4 hours.

2. Take the meat out and shred with two forks. Add back to the cooker along with remaining 1/2 cup salsa and two cans of beans. Stir to combine.

3. Cook on HIGH for 30 minutes more. Serve over hot rice and top with cheese. Hello, come to Momma.

Core Dinners

A couple of people have asked me what the heck I eat for dinner on the Core plan. Remember, the Weight Watchers Core plan allows you to eat mostly unlimited amounts of pretty limited foods: whole grains (think brown rice & Shredded Wheat), fresh or frozen (un-added-to) fruits and vegetables, lean protein (lean cuts of beef and pork, chicken, turkey, seafood), and fat-free unsweetened dairy (plain yogurt & skim milk.) Those are the basics. Anything you eat in addition to Core foods must be counted in WW Points and you get 35 points a week (which doesn't go far if you want to have goodies!) WW has just come out with a new program, Momentum, which sounds like a combination of Flex Points and Core, but I don't care - since I wasn't going to the meetings anyway I'm just sticking to what I know.

So the above can make you stop and wonder what to make for dinner night after night, especially if you tend, like me, to use cheese in a lot of dishes, and carbs like bread and pasta to round out the meal. In fact, bread and pasta is my kids' dream meal, so there has been a lot of crying at the table and going to bed hungry since I started serving Core dinners. Sometimes I feel sorry for them and make a separate pot of mac n' cheese.

I've got a couple of go-to dinners we eat frequently, but I love to try new recipes at least a few times a week. So I usually browse the Cooking Light recipe database for dishes that are mostly Core, or my Weight Watchers cookbooks. Even my regular cookbooks have hidden gems - a lot of dishes are Core or mostly Core without even trying. While preparing to write this post I also found several online forums where people shared Core recipes. For example:

Weight Watchin' Wiki
Health Discovery Core Recipes
Links to Core Recipes
Beth's Core Recipe Box

Lots to choose from! Usually dinner here consists of a main and two sides. My most basic formula is:

Meat + Vegetable + Fruit

I'll get to actual recipes in a future post, but here are the things I make regularly, that don't require a recipe.

Meat/Protein:

• Roasted whole chicken with rosemary stems and smashed garlic cloves under the skin; lots of salt & pepper or grill seasoning all over; lemon and/or onion in cavity
• Roasted or broiled fish fillets like salmon, talapia, trout, etc. drizzled with olive oil and some yummy seasoning blend and lemons to squeeze
• Grilled (or grill panned) sirloin steak
• Ham steaks (yummy with fresh pineapple, raw or grilled)
• Veggie burgers with no bun or just half bun (count the bun Points)
• Hamburgers (93% lean ground beef or ground turkey, egg, worcestershire, seasonings; count Points for breadcrumbs and/or Parmesan cheese) with no bun or just half bun
• Pork roast or chops rubbed all over with garlic and rosemary

Vegetable:

• Steamed fresh or frozen vegetables: asparagus, broccoli, corn, peas, carrots, etc.
• Roasted vegetables (cut into same-sized pieces, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, any seasonings, maybe a little balsalmic vinegar; roast at about 400 until tender, varies by veggie) - yukon gold or baby potatoes, broccoli, sweet potatoes, peppers, onion, fennel, or any combination
• Baked potatoes (Core rule: you can have brown rice OR potato OR whole wheat pasta one time a day so plan ahead)
• Green raw salad - lettuce, cucumber, peppers, carrots, etc. with no or fat-free dressing (I like salad seasonings from Penzey's)
• Spinach salad - spinach, hard-boiled egg, red onion, crumbled bacon (count Points)
• Other salads (recipes to come): Roasted red pepper & arugula salad, Grilled potato salad (so good!), Edamame salad, Warm black bean and corn salad

Fruit:

• Any fresh fruit or combination to make fruit salad: apple slices, clementines/oranges, berries, bananas, peaches, pineapple, grapes, kiwi, etc. (you can also add 1/2 pouch of sugar-free pudding powder, like lemon or vanilla flavor to a fruit salad; it mixes with the fruit juices and makes a thick sauce for a slightly fancier salad)
• Sugar-free Jello, with or without added fruit (there's usually less crying on Jello nights)
• Unsweetened applesauce (good with pork roast/chops)

Other sides, depending on the dinner and the day (must follow the rule of only one per day):

• Brown rice
• Whole wheat noodles/pasta
• Whole wheat couscous

Sample Week of Dinners:

Sunday
Whole wheat spaghetti, jarred or homemade marinara with extra veggies added (mushrooms, peppers, onions), frozen corn, roasted broccoli

Monday
Grilled steak, roasted potatoes, green salad

Tuesday
Roasted chicken, roasted pepper & arugula salad (recipe in future post - I promise!), SF Jello salad (SF raspberry Jello with fresh or frozen blueberries & sliced bananas added when partially set)

Wednesday
Chicken & vegetable stir-fry (using leftover chicken from yesterday), brown rice, orange slices

Thursday
Broiled salmon, whole wheat couscous with shredded zucchini & carrots, sliced strawberries "sugared" with Splenda

Friday
Chili (Bush's Chili Magic chili starter plus canned diced tomatoes, cooked lean ground beef or turkey, and lots of chopped bell peppers and onions), baked potatoes, fat-free sour cream, cucumber/tomato/red onion salad

Saturday
Fried ham steaks, fresh pineapple, brown rice with chives/salt/pepper

A few other ideas:

• Taco salad - Grill or pan cook chicken breasts marinated in southwest seasoning; serve with lettuce, tomatoes, corn, black beans, red onion, olives, scallions, salsa, fat-free sour cream
• Chili verde (one of my very favorites) over brown rice
• Vegetable frittata - Saute zucchini, onions, broccoli or whatever you like until tender. I like to use leftover roasted potatoes (olive oil, grill seasoning), chopped small, and leftover ham or chicken if I've got it. Whisk 3 or 4 eggs with some seasonings and pour over vegetables. Cook on medium heat, covered, until set, or bake at 350 degrees until set (about 5 to 15 minutes.)
  

So yeah, there's no lasagna, cheesey garlic bread, or cornbread with honey butter, but it's do-able. That's what I keep telling myself week after week. But I get easily bored, so I use at least some of my 35 weekly Points for an ingredient here or there that isn't Core. I've got a couple great recipes, and I'm always trying more, so stay tuned.

Tex-Mex Calzones with Black Bean Salad

These are from the latest issue of Cooking Light, and totally good. Pillsbury pizza dough isn't too bad on the fat and calories like I expected, not like their biscuits or crescent rolls, and it tastes great. I couldn't find thin crust, so I got classic. And pay attention to your salsa verde - Mrs. Renfroe's is smoking hot while Trader Joe's is quite mild, and there's everything in between. I accidentally made them too hot for the kids, a mistake I won't make again. These are going in my regular recipe rotation.

Calzones:

8 oz. ground turkey breast
1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup fat-free salsa verde

1 (11 oz.) can refrigerated thin-crust pizza dough

3/4 cup (3 oz.) preshredded Mexican blend cheese

Cooking spray or parchment

1/4 cup fat-free sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 425. Heat a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat. Add ground turkey to pan; cook 3 minutes, stirring to crumble. Add onion and next 5 ingredients (through garlic) to pan; cook 4 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring mixture occasionally. Remove turkey mixture from heat; stir in salsa.

2. Unroll dough; divide into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion into a 4 x 6 inch rectangle. Working with one rectangle at a time spoon about 1/2 cup turkey mixture on one side of dough. Top with 3 T cheese; fold dough over turkey mixture, and press edges together with a fork to seal. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray or parchment. Repeat with remaining dough and turkey mixture. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes or until edges are browned. Serve with sour cream. Makes 4 calzones

Black Bean Salad:

1 (15 oz.) can rinsed and drained black beans

1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

2 T fresh lime juice

2 T chopped fresh cilantro

1 T olive oil

Combine ingredients in a medium bowl; toss well to coat.

Recipes from Cooking Light, March 2009

DM Takes on Moving: Cupboard Inventory

Woohoo, it's another series on DM! Last weekend we went on a preliminary home hunting trip to VA, which left Ed excited and me overwhelmed. This morning I had an excellent conversation at the park with my friend Lindsay about moving, meal planning, home organization and the like, which actually had the opposite effect, and I came home inspired to start somewhere and do something.

It feels a little too early to start packing (we are moving in July) but before you can pack you've got to sort, and this is the most time consuming part. There's a whole psychology to it, but we'll get more into that later in the series. My brother Dave and his family are moving to England - today - and even though they had professional packers and movers do the job, they themselves had to sort, sort, sort - England, short-term accessible storage unit in U.S., long-term inaccessible storage unit in U.S., give away, throw away. A few times Dave called me for a "lightning round" of "Do You Want...?", usually regarding nonperishable food items like jars, cans and pasta, which they will leave with my parents in VA. In fact, when they came to visit in February they brought me a big bag of cake mixes that I am working my way through.

So now that we are about 3 months out I decided to start in the kitchen, especially since that's a good place to work with kids around - either get them eating something at the table or give them tupperware to play with. I am a great Peter Walsh fan, and he would say doing something is better than doing nothing, and you can start small, one room at a time.

So today I got on the stepstool and emptied the cans, jars, boxes and baking mixes from the cupboards. I wrote an inventory of each on index cards and taped them on the inside of the cupboard doors. Did the same for the Bermuda Triangle freezer. Now as I do meal planning, either in advance like I should, or 5 minutes before we need to eat, I can see what we've got and try to use things up that we already have. This is probably good practice for all the time but especially when you need to literally clean out your cupboards in a few months.

Now that I know what I've got I should have no problem using up most of the stuff - chicken broth, pasta sauce, canned peaches, etc. - but a few things left me stumped and wondering how or why I got them in the first place.

So, my friends, I appeal to your combined culinary expertise. I need to know what I can or should do with:

5 to 34 ounces evaporated milk
15 to 30 ounces Bush's Homestyle Chili
12 to 28 ounces salsa verde
canned green beans (besides eating them straight - yuck)
canned black beans
Italian dressing
canned tuna (I don't like tuna salad - gag me - so I'm looking for a casserole here or something that will help to balance or neutralize the strong tuna flavor)

This is much more fun than flipping through cookbooks - someone out there must have good ideas that are tried and true. You can give them in the comments, call me or email me recipes, whatever. No idea is too simple - believe me, I haven't thought of it or else I wouldn't have asked. And I do have almost every kitchen appliance available (except an industrial grade deli slicer) so have at it. Thanks in advance and stay tuned for more of the Moving Out series as my stress level steadily escalates.