Jumbo Shrimp in Creole Mustard Cream

If you've read my previous blog posts then you know about the "Cajun Bible" or by it's original name Cajun and Creole Encyclopedia. Every recipe that we've tried or had at our friends house has been delicious. Tonight is no different. I was kind of wary about this recipe, because the original had heavy cream and a whole stick of butter. But reducing both of those, didn't seem to make a difference in taste. But with all the changes it brought the "point value" way down!!!

Jumbo Shrimp in Creole Mustard Cream (makes 6 servings)

WW pts: 7 pts a serving

3 Dozen Shrimp, peeled and deveined.

2 Tbsp Creole Mustard

3 Tbsp butter, sliced

1/4 cup chopped chives

1/2 cup sliced green onions

1/4 cup diced red bell pepper

1 tsp tarragon

1/2 cup Sherry

2 Tbsp whole wheat flour

1 cup fat free half and half

1 cup Fat free chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 lb spaghetti noodles, cooked per package directions

In a large sauce pan melt 2 Tbsp butter, making sure not to brown or burn the butter. Place shrimp and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, just so they start to curl and turn pink. Remove from pan and keep warm. Add chives, onions, bell peppers and tarragon to pan. Saute 3-5 minutes or until veggies are wilted. Add Cooking Sherry, to deglaze pan (scrape all stuff off the bottom of the pan) and cook until 1 Tbsp of liquid remains. Sprinkle in flour and stir. Whink in creole mustard, whipping cream and chicken stock until sauce thickens. Bring to a boil (low) and whisk in remaining butter. Add shrimp and cook until heated through. On plate, place pasta, then shrimp on top, spooning the extra sauce onto the shrimp.

We served it with a spinach salad, and it was a great compliment to the pasta dish!!!

Cheap but great dinner.

Most of you know that I love anything cheap. So when I get to use coupons and can create a whole meal for $2.69 dollars to feed 3 people... who can beat that. Let's face it, you can't go to McDonald's and get that much food to satisfy your hunger no matter what those commercials say.

Not sure how many people know this, but if you don't already here it comes. Most grocery stores that have a deli, do rotisserie chickens. Well you can only keep said items for sale for a certain length of time, before they "expire". So what do they do if they have leftovers. Well Wal-mart has been known give them away to customers in the checkout line for free (my in-laws benefited from that) vs. throwing them away. Other places like Kroger put their 4-5 dollar chickens on sale for 2 dollars. So here is the breakdown of my made up dinner and how I did it.

I had planned to get a chicken, normal price was 3.99 (it was on sale for that usually 4.99). So I went to Kroger and found one for 1.99 on clearance. I also had received a coupon from Kroger for 1.25 off a whole chicken. Making the whole chicken 75 cents. Which we made into 3 dinners. Making it 25 cents a dinner! The peppers and onions I got on sale for $1. And the diced tomatoes $1.28. Then the pasta I got B1G1 Free, which meant the 8 servings of pasta was 65 cents. Meaning our 2 servings was right at 16 cents.

So our grand total for us was $2.69 cents.

Chicken Spaghetti (makes 2 servings)

WW pts: 7 pts.

4 ounces of Chicken (you can use a chicken breast cooked and shredded if need be.)

4 ounces of whole wheat pasta

1-15 ounce can diced tomatoes, no salt added, drained

1- 15 ounce can tomato sauce, no salt added

1/2 green pepper, diced

1/2 red or yellow pepper, diced

1/2 medium onion diced

1 tsp crushed Rosemary

1 tsp oregano

1 Tbsp garlic, minced

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp pepper

pinch Cayenne pepper (optional)*

PAM

In a pan spray PAM and saute peppers, onions for 5-8 minutes on medium high heat. Add diced tomatoes and let them cook for 3 minutes. Then add tomato sauce, rosemary, oregano, garlic, garlic salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Turn heat down to a simmer.

While the sauce is cooking, cook noodles according to package directions. When noodles are almost done, add chicken to spaghetti sauce and heat through. Mix and serve hot.

Michael added the mozzarella cheese on top, and added more than I planned, so mine was a little cheesier than anticipated. So you will have to determine how much cheese if any you want on there.

*Just so you guys don't think I'm totally insane. The reason I add Cayenne pepper to a lot of stuff, is I read an article a year or so ago that talked about if you add a little extra spice to the food you eat, it causes you to slow down your eating, and you eat less. Plus the spicy foods cause you burn a few more calories than if it were normal. I'm not completely insane (and if any ex-roommates try to tell you differently. I've got Crisco ready for them) there is a reason to my madness. Most of the time.

One other little side note. I'm going to be MIA for a week or so. But when I come back, you better believe I've got some yummo recipes to share with you!!

Good but disappointing.

We had another one of Eatathomecooks.com recipes. It was a Rotini with Grilled Zucchini and Chicken. I'm not sure what I did differently but ours had a lot more sauce than I think it was supposed to. I probably could have cut the sauce recipe in 1/2 again and still had enough. But it was good and creamy, and I LOVED the Gorgonzola cheese in the sauce. The disappointing part is that it was 20 pts for 1 serving... I know some people don't get that for their whole daily allowance. I even used fat free whatever I could... so I'm stumped as to why it was so high... But here is what I did. You can click the link to the right to find her original recipe.

I also changed the name to something a little shorter for my sake.

Gorgonzola Chicken Penne (makes 2 servings)

WW pts: 20 pts. (ouch)

2 Chicken breast

2 small Zucchini, diced

2 Tbsp, light butter

4 ounce Penne (It's all I had)

1 cup Fat free half and half, warmed (I did it in the microwave for 30 seconds)

4 ounce Gorgonzola cheese

1 cup Parmesan cheese

1 Tbsp, minced Garlic

1 large tomato diced

Slice chicken into small strips and saute until done. Add diced Zucchini and saute them until they are tender. Remove the chicken and zucchini from pan, then add butter and let melt. Add garlic to melted butter, and saute for a minute. Slowly whisk in Half and half. Stir that for few minutes. While the sauce is going, cook pasta according to package directions.

Then add the cheese to the sauce and stir to melt both cheeses. When cheese is all melted, add the chicken and penne, and diced tomato to the sauce, stir to coat. And serve immediately.

I think next time I would make a little more pasta, and break it into 4 servings instead of 2. Maybe that would bring the points down. Luckily my week started today... so I have all week and a triathlon Saturday to work these 20 pts off!!!!

Perciatelli all' Amatriciana

I know it's a crazy name. And from the recipe it's just a simple pasta dish... I guess they just had to get all fancy with the name. Oh well. I did have to substitute and adjust the recipe. One day I swear I'm going to splurge and actually buy the real pancetta that recipes call for, and not go cheap and just use regular bacon. I liked this dish because it wasn't a "heavy" pasta dish that some can be. And of course with my love of mozzarella cheese, I had to fight not to want throw a couple tablespoons on the top and melt it in the oven (which I think would have topped this dish off). But it's good either way. I might just call it Bacon Tomato Penne next time.

Perciatelli all' Amatriciana (makes 4 servings)

WW pts: 5 pts. a serving

1 Tbsp Olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped finely

4 oz. Pancetta (I used Turkey bacon b/c it's what I had)

1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 cup dry white wine (I used chicken broth b/c we didn't have the wine)

1 -28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, no salt added

1/4 tsp salt

6 oz. whole wheat penne noodles (it called for Perciatelli, but I only had penne)

1/3 cup grated parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese.

Bring a large pot of water to boil.

Meanwhile heat oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add onion, bacon and red pepper flakes. Saute 10 minutes or until onion and bacon are golden.

Pour in wine (broth) and bring to a boil, stir in tomatoes and salt,. Bring sauce to a boil, lower heat, and simmer stirring occasionally.

When sauce has simmered for 10 minutes add pasta to boiling water and cook according to directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water.

Drain pasta; add to sauce in skillet and toss over medium heat 1 minute until pasta is well coated. Remove from heat, stir in cheese and reserved pasta water and toss well. Serve immediately with extra cheese.

I made a side salad so we could have some extra veggies for the day!!

Pasta Soup.

We are fast becoming HUGE fans of Eat at home cooks. If you can't tell by the fact that 1/2 of our week has been recipes from her site!!! Tonight is no different. I of course took her recipe and tweaked it just a bit. But in the end, I think no matter what recipe you follow, this one would turn out yummy!!!

Now please don't laugh at the pasta that we used. I tried to get Will to eat some alphabets a while ago, and he wouldn't so I was left with almost a full package of Alphabets... so I used them instead of opening something else.

Here is her original recipe.

Pasta Soup

I added a can of Rotel and 4 cups of water to the recipe. It added a little spice to it, and made it a little "soupier".

I figured up the WW pts at 2 pts. per cup. My version made 10 cups of soup. And I'm looking forward to having it for leftovers this weekend!!!

It's a homemade!!!

Ok, so your supposed to say the Title with an Italian accent "It's a homemade". Today I delved into the world of homemade spaghetti sauce. You know what. It was easy, fresh, and I could have continued to eat it until it was completely gone, if it weren't for Michael putting it away.

Our garden has been doing so great this year. Today alone I picked 5 tomatoes, 2 Green peppers, 3 squash... and that's not even the tip of what we've still got out there. With our garden doing so great, comes the over abundance of tomatoes. I think I've picked 30+ so far, not including the 5 I picked this morning. So last night Michael was joking about "Why don't you make your own spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes from the garden".... oooohh Challenge on hubby. With no clue as how to make spaghetti sauce, without opening a jar or can I went to Swagbucks searching (ask me about this, it's awesome, if you want free stuff). Sure enough I found a couple recipes but they were all for recipes of how to can the tomato sauce. Now I haven't gotten into the canning my stuff yet (maybe next year), but I figured, hey if I can make that, then just cook it a bit longer and bam I'll have sauce....

So how'd I do??? I added my leftover meatballs from the night we had the mexican meatball subs. Since I only need 1/2 lb of meat for both, I usually do 1/2 mexican and 1/2 italian meatballs and save the leftover meatballs for another meal.

Spaghetti Sauce (makes enough for 4 servings of sauce)

WW pts per serving: 1 pt.

8 medium tomatoes (boil for 1 minute in hot water, then put in ice bath to remove skins)

1- 15oz. Tomato Sauce

1 tsp Oregano

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp pepper

1 Onion diced

1/4 red bell pepper diced

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp basil

1 tsp crushed rosemary

After you remove the skins of the tomatoes, cut and take out as much seeds as possible (it doesn't have to be perfectly clean) and then try and squeeze out extra water. The less water in the tomatoes, the thicker your sauce will be (apparently). After you squeeze some of the water out of the tomatoes let them sit in a strainer in the sink. Meanwhile, saute the onion and bell pepper and garlic until Softened. Then add tomatoes (they don't have to be cut up, they will breakdown on their own). Add the remaining ingredients and let simmer, until thickened (I think I let it simmer for 2 hours, but it could have come off earlier).

Baked Ziti (makes 4 servings)

WW pts: 6 pts (including 1 pt. for sauce)

224 grams of Ziti noodles (or just go by the box for portions if you don't have a food scale)

Sauce of your choosing.

Boil noodles according to directions (if I'm going to bake it, I usually strain it a minute or two early so that the noodles don't get mushy in the oven). Then throw into sauce mix, and dump into baking dish of your choice. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

We served it with a side Caesar salad. I bought the Ken's lite Caesar dressing, and it's fantastic and a LOT less calories than the original.