Broccoli with Garlic and Ginger

I served this dish with the Bacon and Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo that I posted yesterday. It's so delicious and only has one point.


Broccoli with Garlic & Ginger
Points: 1
Servings: 4

Ingredients
* 1/4 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
* 1 tablespoon less-sodium soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
* 2 teaspoons cornstarch
* 2 teaspoons canola oil
* 2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
* 2 garlic gloves, minced
* 4 cups broccoli florets
* 1/4 cup water



1. Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk; set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger and garlic: saute 1 minute or until lightly browned. Add broccoli, and saute 5 minute or until crisp-tender. Stir in broth mixture. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time; cook until liquid evaporates, stirring frequently. Serve immediately.



I got this from Weight Watchers 20 minute Recipes.

Bacon & Sun-Dried Tomato Alfedo Pasta

This is a Weight Watcher Recipe that I got out of one of my WW 15 Minutes or Less cookbooks. I have never made anything with sun-dried tomato or bacon in it before. I wanted to try something different and I'm glad I did. It was very delicious. I served it with a side salad and Broccoli with Garlic & Ginger which is another WW recipe I will post later.

Bacon & Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo Pasta
6 Points
Servings: 5

Ingredients:
* 8 ounces of uncooked mulitgrain penne
* 1 (10oz) package refrigerated light Alfredo Sauce
* 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed without oil and cut into julienne strips.
* 10 slices precooked bacon
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
** I could not find sun-dried tomatoes packed without oil, so I just rinsed mine with water to get the oil off**



1. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain and keep warm.
2. While pasta cooks, combine Alfredo sauce and sun-dried tomatoes in a saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, 6 to 8 minutes or until thoroughly heated and tomatoes are juicy and plump. While sauce cooks, microwave bacon according to package directions. Crumble bacon, and set aside.
3. Combine cooked pasta and Alfredo sauce mixture in a large serving bowl. Top with crumbled bacon, basil, and black pepper.



I got this recipe from Weight Watchers Five Ingredient, 15 Minute Recipes.

Weight Watchers

So, I joined Weight Watchers almost 2 weeks ago with 4 girls from work. We go to the 8:00 meeting on Saturday mornings. I like WW because the way it works is each food has an assigned number of points and you have a certain number of points each day that you are not supposed to exceed. The number of points you get depend on your gender, age, weight, etc. There are many foods that have zero points, such as broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, etc. I like this diet because you can basically eat what you want, you are just held responsible for the decisions you make. If you have a donut for breakfast, you have to arrange the rest of your day accordingly, like having just a salad for lunch. It's common sense, but it's nice to write everything down and have a specific plan to follow. I also like the weigh-ins and meetings each week, I feel that I'm held accountable for my progress. I also love the girls I'm doing it with. They are so nice and make it so much easier to eat healthier at work. It's hard to eat healthy in a doctor's office-everyday our patients, pharmaceautical reps, and medical supply reps bring us pies, donuts, cookies, lunch, candy, etc.


I absolutely love to cook. I think it's so much fun to find new recipes to try. I love reading through Paula Deen's latest magazine and picking a fun recipe to try on Sunday afternoons (which is probably the reason I need to go on Weight Watchers in the first place) So, I couldn't do a diet that didn't allow me to still try new recipes. Weight Watchers has several recipe books out and every season they come out with a new Weight Watcher recipe magazine that is packed with easy and healthy recipes to try. I have been looking through them since I started on Weight Watchers and have tried several new recipes and have many more that I plan to try. I will post those recipes on here and let you guys know what I think.


Another thing I like to do is read blogs and I've found a couple blogs written by women who are doing weight watchers and some others by girls that are into fitness or eating healthy. Here are the links to the blogs I really like: Weight Watchers Changed My Life, The Weight Watcher Chick, On My Way From Fat To Fab, Not Just a Pretty Face, and a blog completely dedicated to Weight Watcher recipes- Weight Watcher Points Recipes.

Show Us Your Life

It's "Show Us Your Life" Dinner Recipes at Kelly's Korner this week. I've been looking forward to this week's post because I love to cook. It was really hard to pick just one recipe, but Baked Ziti is definitely our favorite recipe. Sorry I don't have any pictures to go with this.

Baked Ziti

Ingredients
* 1 pound dried ziti pasta
* Kosher salt
* 3 1/2 cups Quick Tomato Sauce, recipe follows
* 1 pound fresh mozzarella, half cut into 1/2-inch cubes and half thinly sliced
* 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, divided
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* Pinch red pepper flakes

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt generously, and boil the pasta until al dente, tender but still slightly firm. Drain.
Toss the cooked pasta with the marinara sauce, cubed mozzarella, half the Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and pepper flakes. Transfer the pasta to an oiled 9 by 13-inch baking dish. Cover the top of the pasta with the sliced mozzarella, and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Bake until lightly browned and hot, about 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Quick Tomato Sauce:
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 pound sweet and or spicy Italian sausages, casing removed and crumbled
* 1/4 medium onion, diced (about 3 tablespoons)
* 3 cloves garlic, chopped
* 3 1/2 cups whole, peeled, canned tomatoes in puree, (one 28-ounce can), roughly
chopped
* Sprig fresh thyme
* Sprig fresh basil
* 2 teaspoons kosher salt
* Freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook the sausage until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Add the onion and garlic, stirring, until lightly browned, about 3 minutes more. Add the tomatoes and the herb sprigs and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
Remove and discard the herb sprigs. Stir in the salt and season with pepper, to taste

***So after I originally posted this I looked back through my past blogs and decided I couldn't just post one recipe for this. So, some more of my favorite recipes that I've already blogged about before are Ginger Flank Steak, which is the best steak marinade ever. I use it every time we have steak. Two recipes I got from Pioneer Woman Asian Noodle Salad and Lasagna. And a tip I got from Kevin and Amanda.com is to thaw out some boneless chicken breasts and marinate them overnight in Italian dressing (fat free works fine) and then grill them. I promise you will like them. It sounds too simple, but it is the best chicken! In March, I also posted several weight watcher recipes along with the points they're worth if you are interested in healthier recipes.***

Fall Shows

Today is the start of the TV fall season. The shows I'm most excited about premier tonight- "Survivor" and "The Community" with Joel Mchale. I love Joel Mchale and I watch him on The Soup on E! every week. Normally I don't watch shows on tv, I wait until they come out on dvd and then watch them, but I've got into several shows by watching them on DVD so this fall I'll have a lot to tivo like "Heroes", "How I Met Your Mother", "The Office" and starting September 30th, a new Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I know I'm way too old to be watching things on Mtv, but I can't help it. The challenges are so addicting and I can't stop. The preview for the upcoming season looks so good, I can't help but watch it.

I can't wait to see the new season of Survivor. I get so into it and I hope there's a good cast this season. I usually know the person I like the most on the first episode and pretty much stick to it for the whole season. And I usually know who I don't like immediately. Last season, it was Coach. He was the biggest jerk and I hated him from the first day. We'll see if there's anybody that awful on this season. I know a lot of people are burned out on Survivor and don't watch it anymore, but I didn't get into it until recently, so I still love it. Here's this season's cast.



I will definitely post a review of Community later this week and let you guys know what I thought of it. I hope it's good!

80's Theme Party

So, Greg and I have decided to throw an 80's theme party. We've been talking about it for years, but never got around to it. One night we were talking with some friends of ours and the topic of 80's music came up and we decided that we were finally going to do it. I'm so excited. It's going to be on Saturday, September 26. I've already downloaded over 200 80's songs to play, bought some bright pink leggings, a bright blue top, and some jelly bracelets. I'm going to try on the outfit tonight and see what else it needs. I plan to cut the collar of the blue shirt so it goes over one of my shoulders and wear a brightly colored tank top underneath. We ordered some candy ciggarettes and are going shopping for an 80's trivia game this weekend. I looked online for fun 80's refreshments and it looks like candy was big, so we'll get plenty of that as well as some Barltes and James wine coolers. We're going to have 80's movies playing on the tv on mute, like "Top Gun" and "Sixteen Candles". If anybody has any other ideas, please let me know. I cannot wait to take pictures of everybody's fun 80's outfits and post them on here. This a picture I found online of 80's style. Oh my, that hair is something! I can't wait to see if anybody comes to the party with some big, 80's hair.



Exciting news! My friend Emily gave birth to a baby boy, Aiden Christopher, last night. I'm so happy for her. Congrats Emily!!

It's Been Awhile

So, it's been a while since my last post. I've been staying busy. I started an online anatomy class, this is the second time I'm trying it. I signed up for an anatomy class last January but ended up dropping it because it was just to difficult to work and then attend class 6 hours a week at a campus that takes 1/2 an hour to get to. So, I started an online class at the end of August. I thought it'd be much easier to take an online class, and I was WRONG! It is so much more work. It a difficult class anyways, but even more difficult without the lecture, but it beats trying to attend classes. It will definitely help me at my job since I work in healthcare.

Greg's parents came our for a week for Labor Day. They came out the Wednesday before and left the Wednesday after. We were able to do a lot of fun things while they were here. We went to Starr Hill Brewery for a free tour and beer tastings, which was so much fun. I've decided we're going to take everybody that comes to visit us to this brewery. It's only 20-30 minutes away and it's a lot of fun.



We also went to a UVA football game. It was the first game of the season and it was a lot of fun. The energy was great when we got there, everybody was pumped for the first game of the season, but unfortunately they lost to William & Mary. :( I hope to go to some more games this season. I would really love to go to a UGA game this season, but it's just too far away.



We also went shopping for plants with Greg's mom. I got some pretty pots for our front porch and some great deck pots for our deck. It's the season for mums, so we bought 6 or 7 of them. A nursery less than a mile from our house had big ones on sale for 4 for 16.00.





It was a nice visit with Greg's family, but it is nice to have the house to ourselves again.We finally broke down an bought a laptop. We should get it on Friday and I'm very, very excited. Other things that I'm excited about are right now are: college football season- Go UGA!!, my friend Emily due with her first baby this week, The Community and Survivor premiering this week, our upcoming trip to Philly, this incredible weather we're having, fall, and our upcoming 80's theme party. I can't wait to write more about some of that stuff later.