Hellobee Boards

@Bookish: Ugh, I hear you on the PP body.

I have been trying to lose weight too and am focused on whole, healthy foods.
Recently DH bought a huge bag of sweet potatoes. He bakes like 8 at a time on the weekend and they are in the fridge wrapped in foil. It's super easy to grab one and nuke it in the microwave for dinner. Add anything you like - I add beans, peas, salsa (my fave low cal way to flavor things), brown rice (also made in big batches on the weekend and stuck in the fridge), broccoli, etc. Not all at the same time of course

You could also make up a big salad - take about 20 minutes one day and chop up a bunch of your fave veggies. Then you can easily pull out a bowl of salad every night for a few days.

Healthy soups?

This is a favorite WW meal of ours! It cooks in the crockpot and I serve it with some steam in bag veggies. I love that there is no searing of the meat or anything like that. Literally dump everything in and forget about it! I omit the mushrooms and it's still delicious.

http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/RecipePage.aspx?recipeid=120251

For me, the simpler the better. I don't like a lot of recipes because they call for things that I usually don't have on hand. Prepping ahead is the key for me. Since it's just the three of us, I stocked up on smaller prep dishes and I do a bit of work on the weekend to make sure we have dinner options.

No recipes, just ideas:
Chicken tenders or fish filets, marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, herbs or spread with pesto, surrounded by grape tomatoes, served with a green salad

Shrimp sauteed in a bit of olive oil and white wine, tossed with grape tomatoes until they burst, served over whole wheat pasta

lean meatloaf muffins, with grated veggies as part of the filler

@Bookish: that was my trick in the early days of maternity leave. Giant container of salad in the fridge, plus container of cut up fruit, container of steamed or roasted veggies and a container of brown rice. I lived on that for a couple weeks Oh and muffins! But muffins don't help when you want to lose weight

My biggest recommendation is to make a few days worth of stuff at a time.

Also, I make these stuffed peppers on Sundays and eat one for lunch every day or I freeze them so I have something easy to pull out for dinner if I'm in a bind. They are delicious! I use gr. beef but you could sub gr turkey.

http://dashingdish.com/recipe/italian-style-stuffed-red-peppers/

@cmomma17: Haha good. Some people are like...um that's a meal? It's easy, tasty, healthy, and filling!

My favorite crock pot recipe is chicken chili:

Add to a crockpot:
-2 frozen chicken breasts
-2 to 3 cans of beans (kidney or black)
-1 large jar of salsa

Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Take out the chicken and shred it, then return it to the pot with about a half of a bag of frozen corn.

It's imprecise, but yummy. I usually don't drain the beans so that there is enough liquid in the pot. But you can play around with that.

@Bookish: a lot of these recipes sound delicious. Just keep in mind most canned foods (beans, salsa, etc) are VERY high in salt, so aren't the best for losing weight (water retention and all that, as well as general heart healthiness).

With canned beans, there are low salt versions and you can rinse the beans well 2-3 times before cooking. Salsa you can make your own in a food processor once a week and keep it refrigerated (but I know, that takes time...I wouldn't have time for that right now).

Ranch packets and things like taco seasoning are also high salt, but you can make your own in bulk with less/no salt and keep them in your pantry since they are dry ingredients.

One of my quick go-to meals (I make it probably twice a week) is 1 lb of thawed chicken breast. In the morning, put it in a ziplock bag with a little bit of honey, oilive oil (or whatever oil you want), some garlic powder, mrs. Dash Extra Spicy seasons (which is no salt), dried cilantro, and lime. I don't ever measure this, I just throw in as much as I like and heavy on the spicy stuff. This part takes 60 seconds after you've done it before.

When you get home from work, dump the contents into a skillet and sautee until chicken is cooked through. You can cut chicken into smaller pieces if you want. The honey will make the chicken blacken a bit, but it's delicious.

While the chicken is cooking, rough cut a yellow summer squash and a green zucchini and throw it into another pan on the stove. Drizzle olive oil on top, then layer (heavily) on top garlic power, a smidge of salt, any other spice you want (we like spicy stuff so I use the Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy again) and then let it cook down for about 15 minutes while you do other stuff. Just stir occasionally.

Another quick and healthy side that is delicious is bok choy. If you've never had it before, I highly recommend. Wash the bok choy, coat it in spicy mustard, and cook it down in a pan until it softens but isn't limp--about..8 minutes or so? That's all---no oil, butter, or other seasonings. Just Bok choy and mustard.

I second the steamer veggies suggestion. We use those a lot. When I REALLY don't feel like cooking, I boil those veggie noodles and use jarred pasta and throw in some ready-cooked turkey sausage crumbles. Those are high in salt but awfully good.

We usually grill chicken and burgers on Sunday. I make rice and pasta. I also cut up tons of fruit and veggies.

That way dinner can be "made" within minutes by heating up foods and sides

@Bookish: For lunches, I do this. Sunday night I make them for the whole week. DH grills me some chicken, and we cut it, along with the veggies. Everything goes in a snack size ziploc bag. It does waste bags but nothing gets soggy this way. Lettuce in the tupperware and then the bags on top, put the lid on and I just grab one every day. I just keep dressing here at work.

@mrs. wagon: I do lo mein noodles!

@mrs. wagon: Right now a Ken's Greek or a Newman's Tuscan Italian. My weekend splurge is the Ranch from the produce section, already cold. Trying to stay away from all and all creams.

@Bookish: cooking beans from scratch in the crockpot is super easy, then I just freeze portions I've found lunches are easiest when we just do leftovers from dinner. I keep a few "emergency" meals in case we run out - so a slice of meatloaf, etc.

I didn't read all the responses so I apologize if this is a duplicate.

Crock Pot Chicken
2-3 Chicken breast (fresh or frozen)
1 can cream chicken (I use the healthy one)
1 Cup salsa
1 packet taco seasoning

Let it hang out all day and shred the chicken before serving.

DH and I eat this on rice or in tortillas. If I am being super healthy I have it over lettuce! I recommend the low sodium taco packets!

@Bookish: We like a lot of recipes on skinnytaste.com. I try to use my crockpot and/or make enough for dinner two nights in a row to save time. I also spend time on weekends filling ziploc bags with fresh fruits, veggies, nuts etc so there are always healthy snacks ready to grab through the week.

@Mrs. Lion: I do that all the time, pesto is also really good with salmon, if you eat fish.

@Mrs. Lion: Oh, never tried, that, but will add potatoes next time!!!!