S'mores Oatmeal

Per Serving (entire recipe): 8 Points+
299 calories, 9g fat, 512mg sodium, 47.5g carbs, 6.5g fiber, 13g sugars, 8.5g protein

The recipe: "300 under 300", page 42

Another one of Hungry Girl's growing oatmeal bowls - and another one that is more like dessert than breakfast.  This one was again very good!  So far, I have yet to be disappointed with one of the growing oatmeal recipes. 

I loved how chocolaty and decadent this one was.  The mini chocolate chips made it even more chocolaty than it already was.  So good!  I let the marshmallows and chocolate chips melt a little bit before I dug in, so it was nice and gooey and delicious.  Definitely reminded me of smores, but without all the fat. 

This IS a little high in points, though, so it isn't exactly the best thing for dessert (although that's when I ate mine, since I had plenty of points).  If you are in the mood for a sweet and chocolaty breakfast, then this is the perfect recipe for you!

Crazy Pineapple Salmon Teriyaki

Per Serving (entire recipe): 9 Points+
347 calories, 15.5g fat, 349mg sodium, 22g carbs, 0.75g fiber, 19g sugars, 28.5g protein 

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", pages 154 - 155

Salmon is one of my family's favorite dishes, but unfortunately, it is fairly high in points so I no longer make it very often.  I had just picked up some beautiful looking asparagus from Costco, and I thought salmon would go perfectly with it.  I usually just season my salmon with a little garlic salt, onion powder, and italian seasoning and bake it in a foil pack to keep it moist.  But, this recipe sounded simple and good, so I figured I'd give it a try. 

I didn't have any Sweet Asian Chili Sauce, so I had to substitute by adding honey to regular Asian Chili Sauce (I looked online to figure this out).  This salmon turned out nice and moist, with the perfect combination of sweet and spicy.  It was like a spicy version of teriyaki salmon.  Delicious!  It was a little too spicy for my two-year-old, but I had made a couple of filets with my regular spices, so he was happy with that.  My husband and I both really liked this salmon, so I am happy to say that I have a new way to make salmon in the future.  If you have this cookbook, you should definitely give this a try.

Loaded 'n Oated Spinach & Mushroom Girlfredo Pizza

Per Serving (entire recipe): 7 Points+
282 calories, 8.75g fat, 745mg sodium, 34.5g carbs, 10g fiber, 4g sugars, 20g protein

The recipe: "300 under 300", pages 246 - 247
or http://www.hungry-girl.com/newsletters/raw/1197

I was worried that this pizza would not be very tasty, or at least that the crust would taste like cardboard - given that it was made with ground-up Fiber One cereal and oats.  Even the picture on the Hungry Girl website makes the crust look a little "woody".  Although the crust did have that slightly chewy texture that you get when you make something with Fiber One cereal, the oats balanced it out enough to where it was still tolerable.  Actually, it was more than tolerable.  I thought this pizza was great! 

I had a little bit of trouble trying to cook the crust in the pan.  The recipe states to spread out the Fiber One/oat/egg substitute mixture to your desired thickness in a heated pan.  Well, it is easier said than done.  The crust mixture kept sticking to the back of the spoon I was using to spread it out, so it was already halfway cooked by the time I got it into a semi-circular shape.  It ended up being thicker than what I was aiming for, and was about 5" - 6" in diameter, depending on where I measured (and yes, I did measure).  Still a pretty good pizza size, and for the amount of sauce that there was, it ended up being a good size.  There wasn't much sauce, but for this size of a pizza it was the perfect amount.

I really like pizzas that use a white garlic sauce as the base instead of a traditional marinara.  This was one of those types of pizza, and the sauce was delicious!  Creamy, garlicky, and flavorful!  There was also a ton of cheese - the 1/4 cup of mozzarella was more than enough cheese needed for this pizza.  It had plenty of veggies for the topping, and was overall pretty satisfying for the amount of points it was.

Although kind of a hassle to make, since there are quite a few steps to make this pizza, it was well worth the effort.  Yum!

Tofu Shirataki Noodles

I have been meaning to do a post about these noodles for a while, especially since quite a few of the Hungry Girl recipes use them.  I actually went out and bought another package of these noodles last time I was at the grocery store, which was now the third time that I tried them out.  I still couldn't handle the texture of them.  I really do not like these noodles, and even after trying them in recipes on several completely separate occasions, I still cannot stand them. 

I am not usually picky about the texture of my food.  I grew up eating sushi, squid, octopus, and many other things with not-so-pleasant textures.  However, I think I have a sort of attachment to my spaghetti noodles.  Carbs are something that I have never been able to give up.  One of the reasons why I have always preferred Weight Watchers over various low-carb diets is because of the fact that I can eat pasta, bread, rice, etc.  The Shirataki noodles, while insanely low in calories and carbs, are just not the same as the noodles I am so fond of. 

First of all, they smell oddly fishy when you open the bag.  Yuck!  Hungry Girl says to rinse them thoroughly and dry them thoroughly before using in a recipe, which gets rid of the smell.  But still, the initial smell upon opening a bag is disgusting.  Here is one of many Hungry Girl posts on these noodles.

The other problem I have is the texture, as I said earlier.  They have this weird chewy texture to them - but not chewy as in gum or taffy candy.  It is chewy as in it feels as though you are eating rubber bands.  It is the most bizarre food texture I have ever eaten, and almost reminds me of the texture of squid in calamari, but in thin noodle form.  Anyway, it does not make me feel as though I am eating regular pasta noodles, so I refuse to use them anymore as a substitution.

If a Hungry Girl recipe calls for these noodles, then I just substitute regular pasta noodles in the recipe and add the extra points.  The main reason I bought another bag of these noodles was so I could figure out exactly how much of these noodles are in a bag.  Turns out, there is a cup and a half of noodles in a bag of Shirataki noodles.  After a little bit of trial and error, I discovered that 3 ounces of dry spaghetti noodles makes about a cup and a half of cooked noodles.  Since a serving size of a Hungry Girl recipe using these noodles is usually for half of a bag (or 1 & 1/2 ounces dry pasta), this adds about 3 - 4 points+ to a serving of the recipe.  To me, this is definitely worth the added points.  If you at all have a problem with shirataki noodles, I suggest just substituting.  You might discover an awesome recipe that you may have otherwise not tried.

So, in summary - one bag of Tofu Shirataki noodles = 3 oz dry pasta noodles, or 1 & 1/2 cups cooked noodles.

Floosh's Stuffed Cabbage

Per Serving (1/7th of recipe, 2 cabbage rolls with sauce): 6 Points+
242 calories, 6.5g fat, 610mg sodium, 30.5g carbs, 3g fiber, 22g sugars, 18g protein

The recipe: "300 under 300", pages 198 - 199
or http://www.hungry-girl.com/newsletters/raw/1366

This is another winner of a recipe!  I have never really had stuffed cabbage before, but it is one of my husband's favorite dishes, so I decided to try this out.  This recipe was adapted from HG's mom, Floosh - hence the name of the recipe.  Like HG, my husband grew up eating his mom's version of stuffed cabbage - which was probably also loaded with fat and calories.  This recipe is much lower in calories and fat, but it still has six points for only two small stuffed cabbage rolls.  Not much food for the points in my opinion, but much better than the full-fat version, I'm sure.

The sauce for the cabbage was to die for!  It had the perfect amount of sweetness, and went great with the meat filling in the cabbage.  I would never have thought to use cranberry sauce and blackberry jam in a tomato sauce, but it really worked well here.  I only wish the sauce was a little thicker.  It was so good, but was hard to mop up with the small amount of filling that was in the cabbage leaves.  To remedy that, it might be good to eat these with a serving of rice so you can actually enjoy all of the sauce that is part of the serving.

Also, make sure you buy two cabbages if you can't find an extra-large one.  I wasn't sure how big an extra-large cabbage was, so I just got one cabbage.  I ended up running out of leaves, so I only made 10 stuffed cabbages instead of 14.  I made half of them the correct size and points, and the other half I doubled the filling and gave them to my husband to eat. 

Another note about making this recipe - I only ended up cooking the cabbages for 45 minutes instead of a full hour.  I might have had my heat on a little higher than was called for, or it could have been because I had only 10 cabbages and didn't have to stack the cabbages in the pot (I used a fairly wide pot), but it did not take an hour to cook these.  I would just play it by ear if you make these, and you can always cut one open if you are not sure if they are done.

We both really liked this recipe.  My husband said I can definitely make this again, which doesn't happen very often.  Yay!