Friday, June 5, 2009

A Week With A Hungry Girl

Well, I told you that I fit 18 recipes into my meal plan for the week from Hungry Girl's new book 200 Under 200: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories. I was wrong - I fit in 20! Every single thing I made was delicious. Naturally, I Abby'd up a couple of the recipes (can't resist!) I won't bore you with the details of how I changed things up, but I'll just give a brief synopsis of my week. A few of the items I ate several times because recipes like the muffins make more than one serving and I just plan them out over the week. I bolded the names of the recipes the first time I had them in case you are counting along. :)

Saturday: Slid the Miracles Mashies past my husband and had the Pumpkin Pudding Parfait for dessert.


Sunday: Had the Mexi-licious Smothered Taco Scramble for breakfast. I had never tried Boca burgers before. I got the Grilled Vegetable kind, and if I hadn't put the Boca in myself, I never would have known the difference. I was totally surprised.


Made the Big Fat Blueberry Muffins for an afternoon snack, and had the Crispy Tuna Croquettes for an evening snack.



Monday: Chicken Fajita Pita for lunch, Blueberry Muffin (again) for a snack and Oatrageous Chocolate Chip Pancakes for dinner (big hit with the kids!)

Tuesday: Blueberry Muffin (again) with egg whites for breakfast, Cheesy "Broc Star" Soup for lunch, Hungry Girl-nola in my afternoon yogurt, and Cheesy Cauliflower Casserole (with added chicken) for dinner with Chocolate Chip Softies for dessert. The picture of the softies below is from last week, but they looked the same.


Wednesday: Easy Caprese Breakfast Pizza for breakfast (this recipe rocks!), Buffalo Chicken Chop Salad Sandwich and the I Can't Believe It's Not Potato Salad for lunch, Tutti Frutti Biscuit for a snack, the Fiber-ific Fried Cheese Sticks with dinner, and the pb-nana poppers for dessert. I made the biscuits in a muffin tin instead of just on a baking sheet and they turned out pretty well. Had to cook them just a couple minutes more.


Thursday: Blueberry Muffin and egg whites for breakfast, Tutti Frutti Biscuit for a snack, Big Bad Burger Wrap for dinner with Not Potato Salad, and another Pumpkin Pudding Parfait for dessert.

Friday: Breakfast Pizza again, another Tutti Frutti Biscuit, more Cheesy "Broc Star" Soup (with added chicken and half of a cubed baked potato), Crispy White Pizza for dinner and S'mores Krispymallow Treats for dessert (kids were in Heaven!) For the pizza, I didn't have large tortillas on hand so I made it on 2 small tortillas and added some cubed chicken breast. YUM!


Overall, I really found this book very useful. It gave me some great ideas for reducing calories. The recipes are easy to follow and don't require too many ingredients. They don't all use "health food", and some use foods that are definitely not "clean" (like Captain Crunch cereal). It's a nice change of pace when you want to have something that tastes decadent, for not a lot of calories! I enjoyed using the recipes as a base, and then adding a few extra things (like chicken breast) to make it more of a meal. There is also a chapter devoted to VitaTops, if you like those. I've never had one, but may pick up a few just to try out a couple of the recipes. Happy Eating!

3 comments:

Mark said...

I gotta say, the Pumpkin Pudding Parfait looks pretty tasty. Any chance you can spill the beans and says what's in it?

Abby said...

Hey Mark!

Well, without spilling too much, it's basically made with canned pumpkin, cool whip, vanilla pudding and Fiber One cereal. Easy as pie to throw together too! :)

Abby.

Anonymous said...

Hey Abby!
Why do I feel like there's a cookbook written by you in your future?????
Have to agree with Mark...that Pumpkin Pudding Parfait looks yummy!

Thanks for the post!

Fred