Quick and Fast

I think me and the husband is going off medifast. I have lost over 50 lbs with it but it is expensive. We have scoped out Special K and Fiber One Bars along with Snackwells cakes for dessert. We are both trying a complete whey protien shake mix as well. We just cant see paying this much for food each month. We will see how our stint off of Medifast goes. I do know that I can stay on Medifast the rest of my life and need to eat healthy day by day whether supplemented by Medifast meals or not. I started at 273 lbs and I now weigh in at 219 lbs. I still have a long journey ahead of me since I want my end weight to be about 145 to 135 lbs, but I know I can do it. I hope everyone is having continued success of weight loss on their own individual journey!!!

Sandy's Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake

This has become a regular and a favorite recipe in our house. The chicken bake with the buffalo sauce is creamy, hot and spicy. I have had tons of people ask me for the recipe. I usually serve it on a bed of broccoli. The sauce is really a good compliment to the broccoli and gives the old veggies a little kick. I hope everyone enjoys this recipe as much as me and I encourage you go to over to www.lighterrecipes.com and check out the rest of Sandy's wonderful recipes!!! Thanks Sandy for another wonderful mainstay recipe in my house!!!

Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake

(Aka Buffalo Chicken Dip)

www.lighterrecipes.blogspot.com

Slightly adapted from Melissa Aka Want2BeThin789

Ingredients:

13-14 oz raw, boneless, skinless chicken breasts - yields 9 oz cooked (1 1/2 Lean)

2 oz or 1/2 cup 2% reduced fat cheddar cheese (1/2 Lean)

1/4 cup Frank's Hot Wings Sauce (4 Condiments)

1/4 cup Light Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing  (2 Healthy Fats)

2 tbsp reduced fat cream cheese (2 Condiments)

6 Servings of Veggies (6 Greens)

Directions:

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake chicken breasts for 30-35 minutes or until cooked. Remove chicken breasts from pan and chop the chicken into small pieces. Place chicken inside of a baking dish. Set aside.

In a small sauce pan, combine Frank's Hot Wings Sauce, ranch dressing and cream cheese. Heat over medium high heat, stirring until cream cheese is completely melted. Once melted, pour the sauce mixture over chicken. Then sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Serve with 1 1/2 cups of celery or your favorite veggies for a complete lean and green meal.

2 Servings with 1 Complete Lean and Green, 3 Condiments and 1 Healthy Fat per serving

*Note: You can use 1/4 cup fat free ranch dressing and treat it as 2 condiments. Then use 2 tbsp of regular cream cheese as your two healthy fats.

Italian Stuffed Peppers

I love stuffed peppers!!! With this recipe I didn't even miss the rice that is normally stuffed into the green pepper mixture. This is one that I will be happy to cook again and again!! This is a FAVE!!!  The original recipe is below for the Italian Stuffed Peppers from the time savor gourmet cookbook.  I changed a lot on this recipe. First, after cleaning up the bell peppers I boiled them for 5 minutes. Second, I  cooked and browned my ground beef and mixed all of the remaining ingredients in the pan letting them simmer before inserting it into the bell peppers. This recipe only allows you to have 2 green so to make it 3, I added 1C of tomato puree! YUMMY!!!!!

4 Small bell peppers, about 1/2 C equivalent each
1 1/2 lb Lean ground beef
1C Mushrooms, diced
1C Zucchini, diced
1T Time Savor Gourmet Tuscan Fantasy
1T Time Savor Gourmet Viva Italiano

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry the peppers. Cut the top 1/2" off the pepper horizontally to crate a cup. Remove the seeds and rinse. Set peppers in a 9 X 9 baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Divide the mixture equally into four parts and stuff into the peppers. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until meat in thoroughly cooked.

Serving: 1/4 of this dish is 1 lean and 2 green. I added 1C of tomatoes to make it 3 green.

Sandy's Shrimp Scampi and Zucchini Ribbons

I have been looking forward to having this recipe for weeks now, but each and every time I put it on my menu there are no zucchini to be found at my grocery store. It was 3 weeks of a zucchini shortage around here. Finally, I put it on the menu yet again and yippee the store had zucchinis!!!! This was wonderful, but I knew I was gonna love it, because it combined my two favorite things Shrimp and Zuccchini Ribbons. Sandy's blog doesn't disappoint yet again. Here website http://www.lighterrecipes.com of tons of wonderful recipes. If you haven't yet please go check it out!! I hope every enjoys this recipe as much I me and the hubby did!! The greatest part one pan to clean up! Enjoy!!!

Sandy's

Shrimp Scampi and Zucchini Ribbons

Ingredients:

8 oz shrimp, cooked, deveined, tails off - should cook down to 7 oz (1 Lean)

2-3 medium zucchinis or 270 grams (3 Greens)

1 tbsp light butter (1 Healthy Fat)

2 wedges light garlic and herb laughing cow cheese (1 Healthy Fat)

1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth (1/4 Condiment)

1 clove garlic, minced (1 Condiment)

1 tsp lemon (1/2 Condiment)

1/8 tsp salt  - optional (1/2 Condiment)

Dash or 1/16 tsp of pepper (1/8 Condiment)

1/2 tsp Parsley Flakes  (1/6 Condiment)

Directions:

Peel the zucchini with a potato peeler until you reach the core with the seeds. The seeds will make it mushy so try not to include them. (save the core for your salads or another use). I find that the best way is to weigh the zucchinis to get the best measurement. I peeled the zucchinis and weighed them until it reached 270 grams which is 3 servings of cooked zucchini. I find that when I use 3 servings of the cooked weight from the Vegetable Weight Conversion Chart, it comes pretty close to 1 1/2 cups after it is cooked. If you just measure 1 1/2 cups of  raw veggies, the veggies will shrink when cooked and you actually are cheating yourself.  Set aside.

Heat the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic, parsley, lemon juice, chicken broth, laughing cow cheese, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Add zucchini ribbons and cook stirring frequently just until the zucchini is about to get soft about 2-3 minutes. Toss in shrimp and heat until warm. Serve. This sounds kind of strange but what I do is take the shrimp out and weigh them to see how much they shrunk and to make sure I am getting 7 oz. Mine shrunk to about 5.25 oz (3/4 Lean) so I added 1 oz of Sargento 2% Italian Cheese Blend (4.5 grams of fat) on top of my dish. I didn't have 8 oz of shrimp but only 6 oz so that is why I had less too. The cheese really completed my meal! Top with cheese if necessary. Enjoy!

1 Lean and Green Meal with 2.54 Condiments and 2 Healthy Fats

Tuscan Turkey w/Red Pepper and Green Bean Salad

I found this recipe in the Time Savor Gourmet Cookbook! This meal was wonderful. This salad is served cold and would be great as a summer salad with a steak, grilled chicken, or in this case turkey. I love my private chef (aka my husband). He seems to make everything taste so wonderful. I think there is a saying that everything tastes better when you don't have to cook it. LOL We only made a portion of the dressing that goes on the salad because it made way too much for just two servings. We also put the salad, after it was all mixed with the dressing, in the freezer to cool down quickly while we prepared, and cooked the turkey. Quick and easy meal that we will continue to have over and over through the summer. I hope everyone enjoys!!!

Tuscan Turkey Cutlets
2 tsp Roasted Garlic Oil
2 6 oz Boneless, Skinless turkey cutlets
2 tsp Tuscan Seasoning
Natural sea salt and pepper to taste

In a large frying pan, heat oil over high heat until sizzling. Place cutlets on a plate and sprinkle liberally with tuscan seasoning. When oil is hot reduce heat to medium and add cutlets to the pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes on each side, until turkey is thoroughly cooked. Remove them from the pan and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Serving: 2 lean and 2 healthy fat option


Balsamic Laced Red Pepper & Green Bean Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

Salad:

2 C Medium red bell peppers, sliced thin
2 C Green beans, ends trimmed and steamed crisp tender
1/4 C Scallions
1/4 C Mustard Vinaigrette (Recipe follows)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Balsamic & Mustard Vinaigrette:


1/3 C Balsamic Condimenti
1/3C Spicy brown mustard
4 tsp Roasted garlic oil
3 T Chicken broth
2 tsp Garlic Seasoning
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt

Place all ingredients in the large bowl and whisk for 2-3 minutes until a thick vinaigrette forms and all ingredients are incorporated. Makes 1 cup vinaigrette. Store in an airtight container, refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Serving: 1C Salad with 1 tsp vinaigrette is 2 green and 1 healthy fat option

Doctors Visit

I just visited my doctor today. I couldn't wait to see him I had not started the Medifast diet the last time I was in his office. I had lost 42 lbs since the last visit. I couldn't wait to see his face.I have been going to this doctor for years about my PCOS. He had watched me try everything to lose weight with medications, exercise and diet. Nothing seemed to work. I found Medifast over 3 months ago and just jumped head first into the program. So he walked into the room and said well don't you look different. I happily said yes and told him to look at my weight. His eyes about bugged out of his head when he had seen how much I had lost. He asked what I have been doing and I told him about Medifast. I even took my recipe binder in with the rules and regulations over our lean and green meals to show him how simple it was. He was amazed how easy and how much of the lean and green you could have. I told him that he should let his other PCOS patients know about it and maybe it would work for them. I want everyone out there to know how easy this is if you just try. He was so excited for me and told me to not to come back for 3 months and we would see then where my weight was at. He kinda looked at me and said jokingly "my little girl is growing up she doesn't need me anymore and thats a good thing" LOL...I love my doctor he is just a caring old clown. I guess we will see what the scale says in 3 months. Hopefully, I am 30 lbs lighter. I have been averaging about 10 lbs a month of weight loss and I hope that continues for the duration of my weigh loss journey. I am hoping to hit my goal weight around christmas or the new year. What a great gift to myself and my husband...a new me!!!!

Yoga and Tanning

Well I started Yoga back this week. I plan on doing yoga about 3 times a week. I might start doing Zumba on Sundays. I have a friend that is dying to go to Zumba, so I just ordered smaller Yoga pants and plan on starting Sunday if they get here. I am doing the Namaste, Shiva Rea Daily Energy on Discovery Health and I am doing Stretch X and Yoga X from P90X. My reward for losing over 40 lbs is that I started tanning in a Bronzing bed. I love the relaxation that comes from tanning. I am so pasty white usually so to keep from burning so much in the summer I will tan a little bit. Since I have lost all this weight we plan on doing more things outside in the summer so I'm starting with my base tan now!!! I hope I continue to lose about 10 lbs a month. I would like to be down at least another 20 lbs by my birthday in July. I am trying Sandy's

Italian Turkey Sausage with Spaghetti Squash except I am going to mix it up a little probably take away the fennel seeds, add some more Italian seasonings and use chicken instead!! I will probably post pictures and the adapted recipe tonight or in the morning. Take care!!