Dinner at Our House: Tortilla Pie aka Fiesta Lasagna

 I have to preface tonight's post with a shout out to my friend Megan. I just posted on my facebook that I was making a tortilla pie to which she said: "Megan: I thought you hate pie."

Ha! I do actually hate dessert pies, so she has a point. But, since I altered this recipe I feel I now have the right to rename it, so I'm dubbing it: Fiesta Lasagna.

Anywho, I saw the recipe in my Taste of Home book but thought it looked a little complicated with all the chop this etc. Mondays can be crazy days so I got the idea to substitute a jar of salsa for some of the ingredients. It worked out well. I'll link you the original, but I'll post what I actually did.

Looks a little messy but it is so so so yum I promise. This is actually dad's plate. He had Spanish Rice and a garden salad.

Ingredients

1/2 pound lean ground beef (93% lean)

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 jar (16 ounces) Salsa (your choice of heat, we used Mild)

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

dash of garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

4 low-fat flour tortillas (8 inches)

1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat Mexican cheese

Directions

Season your beef in a large nonstick skillet with the chili powder, ground cumin and throw in a dash of garlic powder.

Cook the beef and chopped onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in the salsa. Heat til you get a little bit of a boil then reduce heat. In a small bowl, combine the ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese.

Place one tortilla in a 9-in. round baking pan coated with cooking spray. Layer with half of the meat sauce, one tortilla, all of the ricotta mixture, another tortilla and the remaining meat sauce. Top with remaining tortilla; sprinkle with Mexican cheese.

Cover and bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.

For those on WW (old points, sorry I'm to cheap to pay for meetings and learn new points) a 1/8 serving is 4 points and a 1/4 serving is 8. Tonight mom went for 1/8 and I went for a 1/4 because I was starved! Either way, for all the yummy gooey cheesy-ness it's a great way to spend the points.  

Dinner at Our House: Baked Basil Fries

Can you believe we're already posting again? Yay!

Tonight was an exciting night because I used a new recipe from my new cookbook (gifted to me by Tim's mom). The book is a tasteofhome book and it's the Guilt Free cooking version. I am in love.

Tonight we tried our first recipe: baked basil fries. We are a family that loves our starchy goodness so anytime we can bake something instead of fry it I get really happy. We had these with my dad's famous grilled hamburgers.

Which, by the way brings up my other new toy for the kitchen: food scale! I was able to precisely measure my hamburger so I knew exactly how to calculate my WW points more. Also, very exciting.

You can find the recipe for the fries online here. But, I'll also post it below along with the photos we took. Using their nutrition info I calculated these bad boys at 3 WW pts per serving (NOT BAD AT ALL!)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 4 medium red potatoes

Directions

• In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the Parmesan cheese, oil, basil and garlic powder. Cut potatoes into 1/4-in. sticks. Add to bag, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat.
• Place in a 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 425° for 15-20 minutes on each side or until crisp and tender. Yield: 4 servings.

Putting it all together in the bowl

Putting it in the pan (we cut them too thing but eh its ok)

Cooked and on the plate!

Happy New Year: Eleven Goals for 2011

Ok, so technically I'm 24 hours and some change late...but I wanted to wish you all a great new year. I thought I might blog about myself some in this post. Tim is still thinking on his, but I have already decided my 11 goals for 2011. I thought I'd share most of them (some are just a little more private than others).

1. Find new volunteer opportunity- I used to do 24 and 48 hour shifts for the rape crisis hotline in Athens and I'm looking for something similar now that we have moved. 
2. Lose X pounds (X by the beginning of July)- I've already lost 17 doing WW and exercising (almost daily). I thought giving myself a deadline of July made me think about it in more realistic terms. I put the Xs to try to keep it somewhat personal :)
3. Plan and take honeymoon- Now this one does involve Tim. We're thinking about possibly going to NYC for a weekend, but we're still thinking out ideas. If you have a suggested for an extended weekend let us know!
4. Try four new recipes a month- This basically equates to one a week but gives us some flexibility too. I hope to chronicle this one on the blog so stay tuned!
5. Blog three times a week- Yes, we know we've abandoned you...but that will change! Today counts as one right? Ha, ha...
6. Pay at least $X off student loan- Again, tried to keep the finances private. It's actually quite gratifying when I make my student loan payments. I'm going in to my second full year of repayment and I love seeing that number go down. :)
7. Put $X in savings- Similar to the one above, but I have sat down and done the math and I've got a number tucked away for safe keeping. 
8. Read 52 books- another one that I hope to blog about (maybe it will help with goal #5). I think roughly one book a week is totally doable.
9. Wish each Facebook friend happy birthday- crap! Typing this I realized I missed today...well I call mulligan on that one...I'm going to start on that as soon as I finish here...yikes...(by the way this goal was inspired by Peter Shankman's seminar in Montgomery...)
10. Visit 12 new restaurants- I'm really looking forward to this one. It can also help goal #5!
11. and finally finish working on my etsy store-  I'm so excited about this one! I need to get to making some jewelry! 

And that, my friends, is the list. I had a recent discussion with someone about new year's resolutions. I don't make them. I like the ideas of small and realistic goals. I started this back in 2009. I had 9 goals for 09 and 10 in 10. Since the creation of X in 20XX, I've done much better than simply saying "I'm going to be a better person," or "I'm going to get fit." So here is wishing you the best on setting realistic goals and working to accomplish them!

Dinner at Our House: Sesame Chicken

So I know it has been a bit since we've updated you, but there have been many events going on around (which of course I'll update you on in later posts). I thought I would do an easy one, and food is easy.

Last week I helped out with the cooking and we had Sesame Chicken, but not the fried fatty kind. This recipe is a much lighter version because it is baked. I wish I had made a veggie to go with it to add color to the picture.

Jasmine rice and Sesame Chicken

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the honey, soy sauce, lemon juice and sesame seeds. Dip the pieces of chicken into the sauce to coat, then place in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is caramelized.

from Allrecipes.com

Dinner at Our House: Weight Watchers Italian Night

My mom and I (and somewhat Tim... and thus, by proxy my dad) have all begun Weight Watchers. My mother was a member back around the wedding and lost some 60 pounds! Needless to say we've all kind of let ourselves go a little...that's why this past Monday we started together on the Weight Watchers Point System.

Since this is my first time trying it out, I really want to commit to the "lifestyle" change, and not simply diet. I got very interested in making meals that are WW friendly. I found the greatest resource ever and it's not the Weight Watchers website; it's www.skinnytaste.com.

Tonight we tried the Baked Chicken Parmesan that is worth 5.5 WW points. On a scale of 1-10 it was definitely a 10. So yummy! My mom even surprised us by making the No Bake Cheesecake. On a scale of 1-10 it was an 11. Hands down, yummiest healthy-type dessert I've ever had.

Now it wouldn't be a D@OH post without pictures so no worries, got you covered!

Added a single portion of bow-tie pasta and marinara sauce.

Its tiny but soooo yum.