Bacon Ranch Broccoli Slaw

Per Serving (¼th of recipe, about 1 cup): 2 Points+
96 calories, 2.5g fat, 635mg sodium, 11.5g carbs, 3g fiber, 6g sugars, 6.5g protein

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", page 267

This was yet another dish I made for one of the many visitors we had over the past week.  I was looking for something that would be a good side dish that wasn't a standard salad.  I'm not usually a fan of coleslaw, but this recipe is much different from the usual slaw you would find in the store.  This one is made with sour cream instead of mayo, and has ranch seasoning and bacon in it.  Yum!  It is super easy to make, as well.  A definite plus!  Just mix the ingredients, chill, and there you go!

The ranch seasoning and sour cream used gives this slaw a taste reminiscent of ranch dip with veggies.  One of my favorite snacks.  So good!  The addition of bacon also works well with this slaw.  After sitting in the fridge for the alloted time, the bacon and ranch flavors are brought out nicely. 

The other plus about this recipe is the serving size.  A whole cup of slaw is a huge serving!  I only ate a half cup with my meal, and it was plenty of food - for only 48 calories!  If you have this cookbook, definitely check out this recipe.  You will be glad you did.

Hustle 'n Brussels Foil-Pack Attack

Per Serving (½ of recipe): 5 Points+
182 calories, 2.75g fat, 513mg sodium, 35.5g carbs, 6.5g fiber, 5g sugars, 6g protein 

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", pages 160 - 161
or http://www.hungry-girl.com/newsletters/raw/1325
 

I ended up making these Brussels sprouts to go along with the glazed apricot chicken that I reviewed yesterday.  I was looking for something different to make for a side dish, and since I have only tried making Brussels sprouts once before, I thought I'd give this recipe a try.  Above the HG recipe, she states that this recipe "will win over even the non-believers who fear Brussels sprouts".  I would have to disagree.  


First of all, the recipe says to cook the Brussels sprouts and potatoes for 30 - 35 minutes.  I ended up cooking mine for 55 minutes to get them to be tender.  That's over 20 minutes longer than the recipe called for!  Perhaps it was because my Brussels sprouts were fairly large, but the potatoes were on the small side, and even they were not even close to being done at 35 minutes.


Secondly, the vegetables came out almost flavorless.  The only seasonings the recipe calls for is rosemary, garlic, and salt.  Not very exciting in the first place, but I was still optimistic these would come out good.  I even used fresh rosemary instead of dried, since I have rosemary bushes in front of my house (which I planted specifically for cooking purposes!).  

This dish came out so bland that I ended up using one of my Hungry Girl tricks to make them better.  I took a teaspoon of ranch dressing seasoning mix and sprinkled that over the vegetables.  This adds a lot of flavor for very few calories.  After mixing everything up a bit with the seasoning mix, they tasted much better.  So, unless you want to do some modifying to this recipe to make it better, I would skip it.

Glaze-of-Sunshine Apricot Chicken

Per Serving (½ of recipe, 1 cutlet with sauce): 6 Points+
233 calories, 3.5g fat, 274mg sodium, 13g carbs, 0g fiber, <0.5g sugars, 39g protein

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", pages 142 - 143

First of all, I want to say that I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I had planned on keeping my blog up and running throughout the week, but it just got way too busy to do so.  We had three sets of visitors over the past week, one right after another.  I had so much fun hanging out with the various friends and family who visited, that I just couldn't find time to write my blog (not to mention that our computer room is also our guest room, so access to the computer was also limited!).

Anyway, I will start my reviews for the week with this citrus chicken dish that came out wonderful.  It was tender and delicious, and I loved the apricot glaze on top.  I wasn't sure how it was going turn out, especially with a combination such as apricot jam, onion soup mix, and cider vinegar.  But, it was a hit.  It was slightly reminiscent of orange chicken from a Chinese restaurant, which is one of my favorite dishes.  I made this along with a brussel sprout recipe, which I will review tomorrow, and a garden salad.  A wonderful dinner, and all very healthy.  This will be a chicken dish that I would definitely make again.

Overstuffed Peanut Butter 'n Banana French Toast

Per Serving (entire recipe): 9 Points+
327 calories, 8.5g fat, 700mg sodium, 48.5g carbs, 7.25g fiber, 11g sugars, 18g protein

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", pages 288 - 289
or http://www.hungry-girl.com/newsletters/raw/1472

I love peanut butter.  And I love bananas.  Bananas with peanut butter are even better.  I used to always eat my bananas along with an open jar of peanut butter, spreading the peanut butter on the banana before each bite.  Yum! I now mostly avoid peanut butter due to it's high calorie and fat content, but an occasional recipe with peanut butter will generally satisfy my cravings.  This recipe had both bananas and peanut butter - a definite plus!

I had high hopes for this recipe, but it turned out to be LOADED with cinnamon.  A half teaspoon of cinnamon is quite a large amount, especially considering the smallish size of this sandwich.  As I was making it, I was even thinking that there was too much cinnamon being added to the peanut butter mixture, as well as in the egg mixture the sandwich was dipped in.  When I tasted the sandwich, all I could taste was the overpowering taste of cinnamon. 

It was still edible enough to eat the whole thing, though, since the syrup masked the cinnamon taste a little.  I think this recipe could be really good if the amount of cinnamon was cut in half.  Next time, I will use only an 1/8 teaspoon in both the peanut butter mixture and the egg mixture.  If that is done, then there might not even be much of a need for the syrup.  Just sprinkling the sandwich with a little powdered sugar instead of using 1/4 cup of syrup would save you about 30 calories.  Not much, but a calorie is a calorie, right? 

Speaking of calories, the other complaint I have about this recipe is the high amount of calories, especially for a fairly small breakfast.  It is still much better than the full fat version (at 740 calories!), but 327 calories is about twice what I usually like to eat for breakfast.  So, if you can spare the calories, and you like peanut butter and bananas, you should try this recipe.  Just cut the amount of cinnamon in half.

Hungry Spice Girl Pumpkin Latte

Per Serving (about 12 ounces with whipped topping): 2 Points+
97 calories, 3.5g fat, 68 mg sodium, 12g carbs, 1.5g fiber, 6g sugars, 3.5g protein


The recipe: http://www.hungry-girl.com/chew/show/2145

Mmmm!  Another yummy seasonal beverage!  In addition to the variety of eggnog options out there this time of year, I am also a big fan of pumpkin flavored foods.  One of my favorite seasonal items is the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks.  I never order it with whipped cream, which I know saves a bunch of calories, but it is still higher in calories than my usual Skinny Vanilla (or Caramel) Latte.  I was so happy when this email just came out the other day with a recipe swap for one of my favorite lattes.

A big plus to this latte is not just the fact that it is only 97 calories, but also the size.  Finally, a Hungry Girl hot beverage that is larger than a measly 6 ounces!  One of my previous complaints has been that every time I make a Hungry Girl hot beverage or other mug recipe, it comes out to be such a small portion size that my standard 10 ounce mugs dwarf it.  This time, I actually had to use a larger mug since it almost overfilled my usual mugs.

The overall taste of the latte was pretty good.  It was not overly sweet, and had a nice pumpkin pie flavor to it.  I could still taste the coffee, which was a good thing, being a latte and all.  Sometimes my Starbucks lattes seem to barely have a hint of coffee with all the milk and flavors that are added.  I skipped the whipped cream on my latte, only because I didn't have any in the fridge.  It was still pretty good without it, though.

I would say I still prefer my Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, but as a substitution, this recipe will definitely do.  And for under 100 calories, you really can't go wrong.