Corn, Cucumber, Feta, Mint Salad

This is a Mediterranean style salad. I served it for dinner with grilled chicken on the side. It was a super light but filling dinner.

Serves 6 (1 cup servings)
ww = 3 points per serving.

Inappropriate Breakfast: Anchovy, Caper and Egg Toast

I woke up craving something salty. It was bad news bears. I debated on having anchovies on my toast because they were staring me in the face when i opened my refrigerator. I decided against it and then on second thought, just went for it. This is great if you are open to having an adventurous breakfast. It could also be served cut into fours for an appetizer. It is a super simple toast consisting of a soft boiled egg, anchovies, capers, and thinly sliced onion. If you have it on hand some fresh parsley would be a nice addition as well.

Serves 1.
ww = 4 points

Basil, Tomato, Mozzarella Salad

I bought some beautiful tomatoes and purple basil from the farmer's market today.

I was really craving cheese so when I stumbled upon some grass fed mozzarella I bought that too. Keeping up with ww has made my relationship with cheese go through a rough patch...so it was time. But I decided to make a healthy salad for dinner. To make it more hearty I served it over some cooked spelt. This salad was delicious. The only thing I will change next time is that I will not mix all ingredients together at once, instead I will gently toss in the beans and cheese at the end. Because the beans were canned and the cheese was so fresh they started to fall apart with the mixing. I had wanted all the ingredients to marinate together while the spelt took its lovely time cooking (1 hour+!!). But I learned my lesson about this.

This spelt was leftover from my winter csa. Let me tell you, letting it do its' thing is worth it. This was a lesson I learned back in December. You don't want to eat crunchy spelt-- you will end up with a headache.

Serves 6 (1 cup servings)
ww points = salad alone (5 points); salad with arugula and 1/2 cup cooked spelt (7 points)

Cold Cucumber Avocado Soup

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made this soup as an appetizer on a hot summer night. It is refreshing and super fast to make! I know that I have blogged about a few other cucumber soups. What can I say it's hot and nasty out there! This one is by far the creamiest. I adapted it from a Cook's Illustrated Recipe (you may need a membership to view original). Their recipe called for much bigger portions. I also tried to make the process easier and lighten it up a bit for the good ol ww.

Serves 5 (1 cup servings)
ww = 3 points per serving (since this was an appetizer I actually served less of the soup than 1 cup)

Healthy Sloppy Joes and Smokey Collard Greens

These collards are sooo good. You would think there is bacon, or some form of piggy pig in them, as they taste so damn good. It is the fennel, chipotle in adobo, and the smoked paprika which really give them their kick. Marc and I have made these two times and I will continue to go back to this recipe. The sloppy joes paired very well with these collards and are so low in points, that you can even indulge in a carby hamburger bun for dinner. These recipes call for Worcestershire and chicken broth but if you wanted to make this vegetarian you could substitute vegetarian Worcestershire and veggie broth.

The collard recipe serves 5 and was adapted from this site. ww = 1 point per serving
The sloppy joe recipe serves 5 and was adapted from this site. ww = 2 points per serving (no roll)
(The whole dinner with a hamburger bun is 7 points!!!)

Smoked Salmon Spread

This smoked salmon spread was served as part of a four course "mini" dinner. Marc and I had our friends Guez and Azul over. It sounds elaborate but really, I whipped up this meal in a snap. I served smoked salmon spread with cucumbers, cucumber avocado gazpacho soup (next post), swiss chard burgers with sweet potato fries, and then marc's new low-fat chocolate ice cream-- made with skim milk and xanthan gum! This recipe was inspired by the following site.

Salmon Caper Salad

I made this salad for dinner last night to change things up. We have been eating a lot of fish these days so I needed an easy summer dish to feel refreshed. The recipe is inspired by Martha Stewart and I changed it ever so slightly to make it a filling dinner. It could definitely be made for a light dinner or a lunch. I just ate the salad but some millet on the side was necessary to fill my husband up.

Serves 2.
WW = 8 points per serving.

Swiss Chard Pancakes

This morning I woke up with a REAL craving for pancakes. I would have settled for buckwheat pancakes, but those aren't even all that healthy either because of the carbs. Plus we have another fridge full of greens from our CSA.  This week we got: chioggia beets, lacinato kale, rainbow chard, baby fennel, green basil, red torpedo spring onions, garlic, parsley, tart cherries and blueberries.

What better thing to do with swiss chard and red torpedo spring onions than make pancakes!? This is adapted from an Epicurious recipe.

Serves 3.
ww points = 3 per serving

Low-Fat Pesto

 This is a low-fat version of pesto. It is pretty tasty considering there is no where even close to the normal amount of cheese, oil and pine nuts in it. I used Organic Better than Boullion vegetable base because it has no msg. Since this is not a low-sodium bouillion, I did not add any additional salt to the recipe. I used xanthan gum to thicken it up to produce the same consistency as regular pesto. Xanthan gum is a plant-based bacteria used as a thickener. My husband bought it from our favorite store Brooklyn Kitchen to see if he could make homemade ice cream lower in fat. So I am going to start experimenting with it as I continue on my cooking escapade. I will be serving this pesto tonight over halibut and broiled treviso.

Makes about 3/4 cup sauce.
ww points = 2 pts per 3 T