Chocolate chip Walnut Apple Oatmeal Cookies

I have made these last week and I cannot stop eating them. I took this recipe off of pinterest but I cannot remember whose blog it is from. Sorry.

If you are interested in any of my recipes, want to try, try and love or try and hate please let me know. Comment on here or on facebook. I always want to know what your thoughts are.

My one complaint about this recipe is that the cookies are WAY too small. You drop a tablespoon onto the cookie sheet and that is what you get out of the oven. They do not expand at all. Next time I bake these, and their will be a next time, I will put 2 tablespoons and make 8 cookies and take the 2 or 3 points per cookie.

These are great if you have kids and they love cookies because this is a healthier way to present a cookie, they are darn tasty, and you can have them for breakfast. This is how I eat them most of the time BUT I eat them 4 at a time.

These cookies are totally customizable. The base recipe is 1 cup quick oats and 2 ripe bananas. (These would be great even with over ripe bananas, those that are getting a bit too bruised for your taste.) You can add what ever you want to them. (Of course the points will change on what you add and do not add) Chocolate chips, walnuts, dried fruit, I use my favorite oatmeal that is in packets that I eat almost every morning. So on with my recipe.

Chocolate chip Walnut Apple Oatmeal Cookies Yields 16. 1 wwpp each

What you will need:
2 packets of Quaker Oatmeal, Apples and Cinnamon
2 Tbsp Walnuts
2 medium ripe bananas
2 Tbsp Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Dump the packets of oatmeal in a bowl with the two bananas.

Smash the oatmeal and bananas together without your extra stuff in there.

 Then add in your chocolate chips and walnuts and stir.

Grease your cookie sheet. On the blog I took this idea from it said, that you will regret not greasing the cookie sheet.

Drop Tbsp full of the cookie dough on the cookie sheet.

Pop in the oven for 15 minutes.

Take them off your cookie sheet onto the cookie cooling rack.

These are really wonderful. I love eating them, my fiancee loves eating them and there is not a boxed mix going into them. Again, I would be dropping 2 tbsp for each cookie next time so that they would not be so small but they are really great.

Have a great day!

Salsa

I have like 3 different recipes to share with y'all but between work, working out, sleeping, and of course eating I have been a bad blogger. I had a cake tasting on Wednesday and weight watchers where I lost 1.5 pounds. That is not outstanding but it is pretty great because during that week was Valentine's. My fiancee and I went to San Antonio and had an amazing time....but not making amazing food choices. The main thing was that we walked EVERYWHERE! The parking is so weird so we walked a ways to get where we wanted. We walked to explore. We walked getting lost while we were exploring. We walked.

This morning I had an exam to take....boo....

Now enough about me, today I present you with a 0 point recipe.

Salsa 0 points

You will need:
4 tomatoes
2 jalapenos
1 small onion
several cloves of garlic
cilantro
salt
lime

 I started with 4 tomatoes and two jalapenos. If you do not like spicy salsa, use less jalapeno. If you like the kind where your mouth is on fire, then use more. Put the tomatoes and the jalapenos onto a cookie sheet. Put your tomatoes and jalapenos under the broiler.

Put them under the broiler they are a little black on one side and turn them. Leave them in the broiler until they look like this...

I did not put mine right underneath the broiler so mine took a few minutes on each side. So while they were in the broiler I sliced a whole small onion and prepared several cloves of garlic.

Put the onions and the garlic on the cookie sheet and slide them into the oven. Every couple of minutes stir the onions and garlic around. You really want to broil them until the cloves of garlic are soft.

I cut the core out of the tomatoes and the tops off the jalapenos BUT I did not take out the seeds. If you do not want to make it spicy, take out the seed.

I took the tomatoes first and put them into the blender, pulsing. Add the cilantro in with the tomatoes. Then add the jalapenos.
If your bender is small, dump out most of the tomato and jalapeno mixture and pulse the onions and garlic.
Dump the remaining mixture into the bowl and stir.
Squeeze the juice out of half of a lime and salt to taste.

Yummy.

Have fun trying this and make it your own. Have a good day.

Caprese Pizza

          Ok so I know that I said that I would review the salad in a jar today on my Facebook but since I only worked a half day today and I was home for lunch I felt like I wanted something different. Something that I had to make.
            Now, this is NOT my own idea. I swiped this recipe's idea from my friend that works with me. We were in the teacher's lounge and she told me that she made herself a caprese pizza. My first reaction was "caprese? It sounds so familiar.....what is it?" and after I google searched it, I found that it is that thing with the mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Mmmmmmm. Those are 3 ingredients that I LOVE. So I went about to find a recipe. After not being able to find one I really liked I decided that I could wing it.
           My own recipe I was skeptical about trying. Really. I didn't want to be putting something gross in my mouth. I ended up talking myself into it and WOW it was AWESOME. Nothing like I expected.
           I used the weight watchers recipe builder to figure out the points for it. I could have been a good dieter and said "6 pieces seems like a reasonable goal and if I cut it into 6 pieces then it is 6 points per piece..." but my tummy was growling and the smell was amazing when I took the pizza out of the oven so I cut it into 4 pieces and took the 8 points with pride.

My version of Caprese Pizza yields 4 (hee hee) 8 wwpp

Pillsbury pizza crust, thin crust
1 tbsp Olive Oil
8 Cherry Tomatoes
1 cup Mozzarella Cheese
Basil (I used one that I found in a jar because the fresh basil was pretty expensive but we found the jar near where you would buy fresh Basil)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Roll out your pizza dough onto a greased cookie sheet.

When oven is preheated put the dough in for 5 minutes for it to start cooking alone. While that is in the oven get all your ingredients ready. Measure out the olive oil and mozzarella and wash and cut up your cherry tomatoes. I cut my tomatoes into 4 pieces because just cutting it in half seemed like a lot of tomato in one part.

When the five minutes are up take your dough out of the oven. Drizzle the olive oil on the dough then add the cheese, cherry tomatoes, and basil. I cannot tell you how much basil I put on it because I did it until it looked right.

Back into the 400 degree oven for about 8 more minutes or until dough is a golden brown.

Mmmmmm. There you go. Easy.

I had my 1/4th of a pizza with Honey crisp apple slices. Made for a very yummy lunch.

Have a great day!

Makeover Sunday Brunch Casserole

Hey everybody! So I had lost 5% of my total body weight last week and got my sticker which made me so happy. I am still a bit from my goal but I am keeping my head high.

Dinner tonight was a wonderful breakfast for dinner recipe from Taste of Home "Light Comfort Food"

Makeover Sunday Brunch Casserole Yields 8 servings for 5 wwpp

6 bacon strips (we used turkey bacon)
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
1 teaspoon canola oil
2 cartons (8 ounces each) egg substitute
4 eggs
1 cup fat-free milk
4 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed (we used cubed hash browns)
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese (we used regular shredded cheese)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dill weed

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels; drain.

 Crumble bacon and set aside. In the same skillet, saute onion and green pepper in oil until tender; remove with a slotted spoon.

(sorry I did not have a picture of them sauteed but this is how much I used. Could not even taste the onions)
In a large bowl, whisk egg substitute, eggs and milk. Stir in the hash browns, cheese, salt, pepper, dill weed, onion mixture and crumbled bacon. DO NOT PUT THE HOT ONIONS AND PEPPERS IN THE EGG MIXTURE!!! LET IT COOL BEFORE YOU DO SO OR ELSE YOU WILL HAVE SCRAMBLED EGGS IN YOUR BOWL!

Transfer to a 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish coated with cooking spray. (We added a little extra cheese on top. YUM!)

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. I had to add an extra 20 minutes to the cook time.

Cut into 8 pieces. The pieces are pretty modest.

And of course, because I love Tex-mex food, I love Pace Picante sauce.

 Now you can add other things to this mixture like mushrooms, Rotel, jalapenos, really whatever you like with your eggs. If you want to add black beans, it will add points to the meal so be prepared.

Also, this would be very good if you had two tortillas and halved the piece of casserole in the two tortillas.

Have a great day!

Chicken Nachos

My lunch today was great. The weight watchers points for this meal equaled 15. And I know you are saying, "Wow Wendy, that is a lot of points." I will explain.

Chicken Nachos 1 serving 15 ww pp.

About 7 tortilla chips
1/2 boneless skinless chicken breast cut into small(ish) pieces
I used 1/2 a can of rotel but I love things spicy so if you do not, you can use less. I would not suggest      using more though
Kidney beans canned (now here is where all the addition points came from) I used a cup but you can surely use less and that will effect the points of the whole dish.
Taco seasoning
1/3 cup fiesta blend cheese
 If you want to use vegetables in addition, be my guest. I was in a rush today

Spray a skillet with non stick spray and add the chicken pieces in and set the skillet on medium heat. While the chicken is cooking, strain the beans and rotel so that they do not have liquid in them from the can. It will be easier to strain them now than later.

When the chicken has only a little pink showing, add in the rotel and the beans.

Add taco seasoning to the mixture and continue to cook it until the beans are warm and the chicken is cooked all the way. While you are doing this set out your tortilla chips.

When the chicken has no pink it in and the beans and rotel are nice and warm pile them on top of your chips. Add your cheese and you are done. Enjoy!

Turkey Sloppy Joes

My first recipe!!! Whoo! This is not just for people who are on weight watchers but for people who want to eat healthier in general. Now that I have that out of the way, let's talk food. I LOVE blogs with TONS of pictures because I want to know that what I am doing is right so that is what y'all are getting. First thing that is on the menu....

Turkey Sloppy Joes thanks to Taste of Home Light Slow Cooker

Makes 8 servings; ww pp value for 1 sandwich is 6

1 pound lean ground turkey
1 small onion
1/2 cup chopped celery (there will be no celery in my pictures because I don't like celery)
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) reduced-sodium condensed tomato soup, undiluted
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons prepared mustard (plain yellow mustard will do)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon pepper
8 hamburger buns, split (if you want less points you can use wheat buns)

In large skillet coated with cooking spray, cook the turkey, onion, celery, and green pepper.

Cook over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.

Stir soup, ketchup, mustard, brown sugar and pepper in crock pot.

Add in the meat and vegetable mixture into a crock pot that is at least 3 qt. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. Serve on buns.

I am sorry, I do not have the end product on a bun. Let me tell you though, it is delicious and you will not even notice that it is turkey meat in the sloppy joes. I had people who hate eating healthy enjoying these.
I hope you enjoy them too.