Meatball Soup

This recipe is one of those I stumbled onto by accident.  About 4 years ago a friend of mine, Sophia, offered to become my "lifestyle" coach and teach me how to live healthy.  With her help, I also lost 115 pounds.  Then two years ago I got pregnant with my son, Handsome Man.  While I was pregnant I lost my habit of daily exercise and healthy eating.  I've been struggling to regain my healthy habits for the past year.  Ironically, it's not as easy when I'm a SAHM instead of a working one!  Although I haven't regained the 115 pounds, I've been carrying around an extra 40.  Way too much, in my opinion.

So I sacrificed my pride and I contacted my friend again because I really need the extra support to stay on task.  (For the record, she's now become a professional lifestyle coach and of course I'm going to give her a free plug on this blog.  Check out her website and my "before/after" pictures if you're interested!)

As part of her plan, I have been focusing on eating lots of yummy non-starchy vegetable to help me break my sugar addiction.  I modified one of her existing recipes to make a vegetable soup with chili seasonings.  When I ate it I'd supplement my meal with different types of proteins, usually leftover turkey.  (We have it, and we need to eat it - why not?)

So what was the accident?  I was making spaghetti and meatballs for the family the other night, and rather than eat the carb-filled pasta I opted to heat up a bowl of my chili veggie soup and toss in a few of the meatballs for my protein.  Surprisingly, the heavenly angels sang.  Over a bowl of vegetable soup.  With cabbage in it.  I don't know why, I don't know how, but I am loving this soup!

Meatball Soup
(The basic vegetable soup is very, very low calorie - like maybe 50 calories per bowl.  The actual calories per bowl will depend on how many meatballs you use and what they are made of!)

1 small head cabbage, chopped
4 c. chicken broth
1 yellow squash, diced
1 crown of broccoli, chopped
1 onion, diced
2 cloves minced garlic
1 can Italian-style diced tomatoes
1 can regular diced tomatoes
1 can green beans, drained
1 Tbsp. paprika
1 Tbsp. chili powder
Salt to taste
Meatballs (turkey or beef - your choice!)

This recipe doesn't need much instruction from me, but for those of you not used to working with raw heads of cabbage, here's how I cut it for the soup.

First, I chop off the 4 sides and the top, discarding the main stem in the middle.

Then I dice those sections of cabbage like so:

Toss them in the pot with the other ingredients (except the meatballs!), mix it up, and you're good to go.

Simmer this pot of veggies on the stove for about 30-45 minutes, or until the cabbage is nice and tender.  It should look something like this:

You can then do one of two things.  I choose to store the soup like this and the heat up a bowl for me when I'm going to eat it.  I know that no one else in my family will enjoy it, and The Honey has flat refused to eat cooked cabbage so I don't even bother drying to fix it for dinner.  So after I heat up my bowl of soup I also heat up a few meatballs, squeeze the excess grease out of them, cut them up, and throw them into my bowl of soup.

However, if you're making this for a family meal and you think there's a good chance there won't be many leftovers, you can go ahead and cut up and toss in your meatballs.  I like to have 3-4 meatballs per bowl, and this recipe likely makes about 8 servings so I'd toss in about 2-3 dozen meatballs for the whole pot.  Either way, it is some kind of good!

Garlic-Herb WW Pizza Crust

If you've been reading my blog over the past few weeks, you are probably looking at the title of the blog and saying to yourself, "There she goes again!  Eating junk food..."

Never fear, I have not slipped back into my old, indulgent ways... I'm eating healthy and the weight is slowly but surely coming off.  There's actually a story behind this meal.  And actually, it's a pretty good-for-you meal, too!

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and my fridge looked like this:

Kinda empty, huh?

I hadn't gotten around to grocery shopping, I'd had a crazy-busy day, and all I had in the freezer for quick cooking was chicken and turkey.  My husband insisted that he was "sick of bird" and requested something else for dinner.

So I dug around in my fridge a little and found some leftover pepperoni and some mozzarella cheese.  Okay, pizza it was.  But how to make the pizza low calorie?  The two biggest culprits in pizza calories are the crust and the cheese.  I could do something about those.  For starters, I wanted to make a 100% whole wheat crust.  A thin 100% whole wheat crust. And I wanted it to be basically fat-free. But because I knew it wouldn't go over well with such a strong whole wheat flavor, I had to add some extra flavor to the crust.  Yum, yum, and double-yum.  The Honey liked it, Horse Lover tolerated it, and The Monkey, Handsome Man and I loved it!   This is a definite keeper.

Garlic-Herb Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

(Makes 12 servings, 110 calories each)

1 c. warm water

1 tsp. honey

1 Tbsp yeast (or 1 packet of yeast)

1 tsp. salt

1/4 c. applesauce

3 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. pizza seasoning

Cooking spray

Note: This was really easy for me to mix up because I have a KitchenAid counter-top mixer.  If you don't have something like that, I recommend checking out my Homemade Bread Tutorial for tips on how to make this with a regular mixer.

In mixing bowl, combine water, honey, and yeast.  Let sit 5-10 minutes until foamy.  Add remaining ingredients and beat for 3-4 minutes.  It should look something like this:

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead into a nicely rounded ball.  If you look really closely you can see the pizza seasoning in the dough.

If you're cooking for a large group and have a large pizza pan or stone, you can use this whole amount for your crust.  Since I was cooking for 2 adults and 3 children, I opted to use 2/3 of the crust for dinner and spread it into a cookie sheet, nice and thin.  Because this recipe has no oil in it, you'll want to be sure to coat your pizza pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Then, once you got the dough spread out a little , coat the top of the dough with the cooking spray, too.  This will make it easier for you to spread it out without the dough sticking to your fingers, and adds a minimal amount of fat.

 Important: Once I prepared the crust, I let it rise for about 10-15 minutes before adding the toppings.  By nature, whole wheat is more dense than breads made with white flour, and I wanted as much air in this crust as possible so it wouldn't feel like we were eating flavored cardboard!

So what did I do with the rest of the crust?

I stuck it in a sandwich bag (coated with cooking spray, of course) and stuck it in the fridge.  Then I pulled it out the next day for lunch and made another pizza for me and the kids.

So now you have your low-cal pizza crust.  What are you going to put on it?  Here's a couple ideas - along with the total calories per serving.

Traditional Pepperoni Mushroom Pizza

(When prepared with full crust recipe, yield is 12 slices of about 230 calories each.)

1 c. pureed Italian-style diced tomatoes

1 small can mushrooms, drained

36 sliced of pepperoni

3 c. shredded mozzarella

Spread pureed tomatoes on top of prepared crust.  Sprinkle with 1 1/2 cups of the cheese.

Add pepperoni and mushrooms.  As you can see from the picture, only 1/2 my family likes mushrooms, so I actually only used 1/2 a can.

Sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 c. of cheese.

Bake in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for about 10-12 minutes, or until cheese is completely melted, and possibly lightly browned in spots.

Greek Red Pepper and Mushroom Pizza

(When prepared with full crust recipe, yield is 12 slices of about 160 calories each.)

1 c. pureed Italian-style diced tomatoes

1 small can mushrooms, drained

1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella
1/4 c. crumbled feta cheese

Layer sauce, shredded mozzarella, peppers, and mushrooms.  Top with crumbled feta.

Bake in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for about 10-12 minutes, or until cheese is completely melted, and possibly lightly browned in spots.

p.s. My neighbor plugged the ingredients into the Weight Watchers website to calculate the points.  It comes out to ONE point per serving!!

Quick & Easy Pie Crust

Although I hate to admit it, I'm kind of a lazy cook.  That's the real reason I have a hard time measuring when I'm fixing something for dinner - it's so much easier just to eyeball it and toss it in.  However, there are some things you just can't do that with.  I do NOT estimate baking soda when I'm baking, for example.  I'd hate to accidentally dump in twice as much or not use enough, you know?  It's not easy like vanilla.  Vanilla is so forgiving... as long as it's in there it doesn't really matter, right?

So now that I've gone and given all the real chefs out there twitching fits with my laissez faire attitude, I will let you in on another secret: just because something is "quick and easy" doesn't mean it isn't as good as the long version.  This recipe is one of those.

Although I'm staying away from a lot of sweets and junk food these days, I'm also a creature of tradition, and tradition means pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner.  I was asked to make one for a meal we were invited to share with our neighbors this past Saturday, and I really (I mean really) did not want to spend a lot of time baking since I had already spent hours in my kitchen last week.  But I'm also a pie snob, as you may know.  Nothing store-bought was going to suffice for me.  Since desperation breeds innovation, I figured out how to cut my Aunt Esther's excellent pie crust recipe down in size so it would just make a single crust.  And even better, I also figured out how to make it without getting my hands really dirty.


Quick and Easy Pie Crust

1 c. flour + 2 Tbsp.
pinch of salt
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 c. shortening
1 egg white
1/2 tsp. vinegar
water

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a small mixing bowl.  Add shortening.  Using a fork, crumble the shortening into the flour mixture until it looks something like this:

Next, place egg white in a liquid measuring cup.  Add vinegar, and just enough water to fill the measuring cup up to 1/4 cup.  Beat with a fork until foamy.

Dump egg mixture into flour mixture.  Stir (and even mash a little) with the fork until well combined.

This next step does require you to use your hands, but I promise it's just for a second and they won't be coated with lots of sticky dough that's hard to wash off.  Just dump the mixture out on a piece of wax paper or a lightly floured surface and shape into a smooth ball.

If using wax paper, cover with another sheet and flatten slightly with your hands.  Roll out and use as needed for your recipe.

If you are completely new to pie crust, feel free to check out the tutorial by clicking here.