Jerk Chicken Salad with Grilled Pineapple

This is an old Pampered Chef recipe for a good summery salad.  If you haven’t tried grilling pineapple before, it’s really fun!  You need a good grill pan to help get the caramelization of sugars from the pineapple.

Servings:  6

Size:  Main course salad

Points Plus:

Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time:  10 minutes

Rating: 3 stars - Good

Ingredient List:

Salad:
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. Jamaican Jerk seasoning
1 pound chicken breast, cut into strips
1 medium pineapple, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced
3 green onions
1 large head of chopped romaine
1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained
6 slices of turkey bacon

Dressing:
2 limes
1/3 cup mayo, reduced-fat
2 Tbsp. pineapple preserves

Directions:

Wash and chop up head of lettuce.  In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil and Jamaican Jerk seasoning.  Add the chicken pieces and mix well so the seasoning evenly coats the chicken similar to a marinade.  Cut the pineapple up into ¼ inch slices or wedges.  Using a grill pan over medium heat, grill the chicken strips cooking each side about 3-5 minutes.  Cut the chicken into smaller, bite-sized pieces for the salad.  After you are done cooking the chicken, add the pineapple to the pan.  Cook for 1 minute per side, flipping the pineapple wedges over once.  Wash and prep the bell pepper and green onions.  Drain and rinse the black beans.  Cook the turkey bacon according to the directions on the package.  Make the dressing in a small glass measuring cup.  Use the zest of one lime and the juice from both limes along with the mayo and pineapple preserves – whisk together to make the dressing.  Assemble the salad by layering the beans, bell pepper, chicken, pineapple, bacon and green onions and drizzle the dressing over the salad before serving.

Tip:

One of the first things I learned at WW when I joined 7+ years for the first time was a handy little tip to control how much salad dressing you use.  Instead of drizzling dressing over your salad, keep the dressing on the side and just dip you fork into the dressing before you take a bite.  This will really cut down on how much dressing you use and keep the pp value low for the dressing so you can spend more pp on other foods!

XOXO Megan

Grilled Salmon with Dill & Lemon

I really like to grill fish – it makes for a quick dinner.  Here’s an easy recipe for grilled salmon filet.  Adding in dill and lemon flavors will help to complement the taste of the salmon.  Serve this with a grilled vegetable – asparagus or Brussels sprouts and a side salad!

Servings:  4

Size:  ¼ of grilled salmon filet

Points Plus: 8pp

Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time:  8-12 minutes

Rating: 4 stars – Very good

Ingredient List:

1 ½ lb. salmon fillet

2 Tbsp. olive oil

Salt

Pepper

2 Tbsp. dried dill

2 lemons

Directions:

Use heavy-duty aluminum foil and make a foil packet to grill your fish in.  To prepare your fish for grilling, start by brushing the olive oil over the salmon filet.  Next, sprinkle a generous amount of salt and pepper followed by dill.  Cut a lemon in half and squeeze the juice from one half over the top of the seasoned salmon filet.  This will help to cut down on any sort of fishy taste once your salmon is fully cooked.  Spray the bottom of the aluminum foil packet with cooking spray (PAM even makes a specific grilling variety).  Place the seasoned side down first in the foil packet, and skin side up.  This ensures you that you have a nicely grilled top of the fillet.  Cook on the grill for about 4-6 minutes before flipping the filet over to cook the other side for an additional 4-6 minutes.  While your fish is on the grill, slice up the remaining lemon into wedges to serve with your meal.

Tip:

Make sure you ask for a salmon fillet vs. steaks.  A filet is a long piece while salmon steaks are smaller cross-section pieces.  A filet allows you to serve larger or smaller pieces based on your guest’s preference.  The pp value above assumes you serve equal sized portions of the filet. 

XOXO Megan

Bacon Wrapped Filet Stacks

It is finally, maybe, grill season! This recipe is a fun and creative take on grilled filet, and helps you get in a veggie serving.  Impress your guests with these bacon wrapped filet stacks, that can be customized for your taste.  Also, who doesn't love meat wrapped in meat?  I actually barely ever cook with meat, but I will for sure make these again this summer.

Servings: 2

Size: 1 steak

Points Plus: 5

Level of Difficulty: Medium

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Rating: 4 - Very Good

Ingredient List:

2, 4 oz lean and trimmed uncooked filets

4 slices uncooked reduced fat bacon

1 vadallia onion

1 green pepper

1 tomato

Salt & pepper

Toothpicks

Directions: 

Turn your (outside) grass grill on low. Salt and pepper steaks and seat aside.  Slice green pepper, onion and tomatoes in half inch slices.  Take two pieces of bacon and set on your work surface in an X.  Place one filet in the center of the bacon.  Top with onion slice, green pepper and tomato.  Bring bacon up around filet like a present ribbon, and secure on top of filet with a toothpick.  Repeat with second filet.  Place on grill and cook on low heat without flipping for 40 minutes (depending on how you like your steak).  Enjoy!

Tip: 

If you want you bacon crispy, consider placing under a broiler for a few minutes after removing meat from the grill.  For a few more pp add a piece of cheese to the top after cooking.  YUM!

XOXO - Katie

Broiled Cod with Chipotle Creme

After a weekend of eating out, eating unhealthy, and eating pretty much whatever we wanted, I decided to take it down a notch and make a light Memorial Day dinner. I have wanted to try making fish tacos forever, and landed on cod, a light flaky white fish.  After some internet research (my fav!) I came up with a good spice mixture and sauce for this Mexican inspired meal. In an effort to lighten things up a little more I opted to skip the tortillas and just serve the fish baked with a side of cilantro lime rice. You could also top with traditional fish taco fixings, red onion, tomato, cabbage, shredded radishes, exc!

Servings: 4

Size: 4oz fish

Points Plus: 4pp

Level of Difficulty: Medium

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 7 minutes

Rating: 4 stars - Very Good

Ingredient List: 

1 lb Atlantic cod

1 T. olive oil

1 t. kosher salt

1/4 t. black pepper

1/8 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. paprika

1/4 t. chili powder
1 lime

1/2 c. light sour cream

1-2 t. chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (sauce only)

Cilantro for garnish

Directions:

Turn oven to broil and place oven rack a few inches from the flame. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and lay cod on foil. Pour olive oil over cod and brush to cover evenly. Mix salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and chili powder. Sprinkle spice mixture evenly over fish. I ended up only using about half of the spice mixture, so feel free to do the same depending on how spicy/salty you would like it. Squeese the juice from one lime over fish. Place cod under the broiler and cook until flaky, for me this was about four minutes. While fish is cooking mix sour cream and chipotle pepper sauce.  When fish is cooked remove from oven and top with 2 T. chipotle cream mixture.  Garnish with cilantro.

Tip: 

With summer on it's way you could easily grill this fish outside.  

Caprese Burgers

Since spring has FINALLY arrived in Minnesota, it felt like it was time for some grill food!  I pinned this recipe on Pinterest a while ago.  The first spring weekend felt like a good time to test it out.  Stuffed burgers are hard to make on the small side because you need two thinner patties to seal together, so this is a bit high in terms of points, but well worth it I have to say.  You can serve with a side salad to get some more veggies in without adding points to your meal too.  These burgers were delicious and filled with some of my favorite salad ingredients.  Who doesn’t love a good caprese salad with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella?!

Servings:  2

Size:  One burger patty
Points Plus: 11 pp (this is only for the burger, not including a bun)

Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes (adjust cooking time based on your preference)

Rating: 4 stars – Very good

Ingredient List:

1 lb. lean hamburger meat

Burger/Steak seasoning

¼ cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Fresh mozzarella cheese

Fresh basil leaves, sliced into ribbons

Directions:

Mix the burger/steak seasoning into the hamburger meat.  Our favorite is Byerly’s Dry-Aged  Beef Seasoning – it’s a delicious blend of herbs, onion and pepper. Shape 4 thinner hamburger patties – make the middle of your patties a little bit thinner than the edges, this will help to make sure the burgers cook all the way through evenly.  Pile your tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil in the middle of 2 of the patties.  Make sure all your ingredients are in the center of the patty.  Layer the 2^nd patty on top and press to seal the edges.  Throw on the grill; cook until your preferred level of doneness.  We made our burgers on a grill pan on the stove.  The edges cooked well, but the middle took a little bit longer.  To speed up the cooking process we used a pan cover to help trap the heat and produce a more even cooking for the burgers.

Tip:

Although caprese ingredients are great in this recipe, there are MANY other options you could swap out for these caprese burgers.  You could make Mexican with jalapenos and cheese, Greek with feta and olives… the possibilities are endless!

XOXO Megan

Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Blue Cheese Slaw

Ground turkey, although healthy, can sometimes be a little blah. Not the case with this recipe!  These buffalo turkey burgers come together quickly and taste GREAT!  The buffalo seasoning is just enough to add flavor, but it doesn’t completely overwhelm your burgers.

Servings:  6

Size:  1 burger + bun; ¼ cup slaw

Points Plus: 9 pts

Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time:  15-20 minutes

Rating: 4 stars – Very good

*Recipe is originally from Skinnytaste with some slight adaptations.

Ingredient List:

Coleslaw –

1 ½  cups broccoli slaw

¼ cup light blue cheese dressing (I used Wishbone variety)

Turkey Burgers –

1.25 lbs. ground turkey

2/3 cup grated carrots

¼ cup breadcrumbs

1/8 cup red onion, grated

¼ cup Frank’s hot sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking spray

6 slices of reduced fat cheddar

6 whole wheat hamburger buns

Directions:

Combine the broccoli slaw and light blue cheese dressing in a medium bowl.  Chill in the fridge until you are ready to serve the burgers.  In a larger bowl, combine the ground turkey, carrots, breadcrumbs, red onion, hot sauce and salt and pepper.  Mix well and shape into 6 patties.  Place the patties on wax pepper.  Lightly coat a grill pan with cooking spray.  Add the burgers and cook over medium heat, each side should take about 4-5 minutes.  Once you have flipped the burgers and are cooking the final side, add a slice of cheese for the last minute of cook time.  While you are cooking the burgers, toast the hamburger buns.  Place burgers on the toasted bun and top with broccoli slaw.  Serve immediately and enjoy!

Tip:

The original recipe from Skinnytaste has a link to a recipe for a skinny homemade blue cheese dressing – I saved time by buying a store-bought light version instead.  Also, these burgers were delicious from a grill pan on top of the stove, but we think they would be even better on an outdoor grill.  Try it and let us know what you think!

XOXO - Megan

Beef - It's What's For Dinner

When cooking, one of the food groups that intimidates me the most is MEAT!  I don't LOVE meat and I rarely cook it, but I am trying my darnedest to experiment, practice and be open minded.  We recently purchased a box of sirloins from Omaha Steaks and decided that since it is not warm enough to grill outside yet, we would broil them in the oven.  By following Omaha's instructions of setting the rack 1" fromt eh broiler, I think these turned out pretty good!  I can't imagine eating a steak without mashed potatoes, so I whipped some up and also served with a side of peas (please excuse the abnormally large portion of potatoes in the below picture.  What can I say, it was Friday night and time to PARTY!)

Oven Steak (for when it's too cold outside to grill)
Servings: 2
Serving Size: 1 5 oz filet
Points Plus:  5 pts
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 1 minute (not including thaw time)
Cook Time: For medium rare, 13 minutes
Rating: 3 stars - Good

 Ingredient List:

2 5 ounce filet of good local quality

Kosher salt

Fresh ground pepper

*Feel free to add your favorite grill seasoning

Directions:

Thaw steaks completely.  Set oven to broil and move rack to 1" under flame.  Season steaks with salt and pepper and place on broiling pan.  When oven is heated, broil for 7 minutes, flip and broil for 6 more minutes.  Adjust cook time if you like your steak mroe or less done. Voila! Whip up some mashed potatoes and enjoy!

Tip:

Having a broiling pan WOULD have been great for these, but I had to use a cookie sheet.  I was imagining a world where I had a broiling pan above, because I am assuming the steaks would have been even better with that tool.  In a pinch, use a cookie sheet lined with foil.

XOXO - Katie