Lose Or Chews

I've been a little bored with food choices that help me lose weight. So I bought a new cookbook from Better Homes and Gardens called: New Dieter's Cookbook. It gives lots of recipes with the information to count points. Tonight Randy and I tried two of the recipes and I thought I would start a little food review. Why? Because I'm craving new food that tastes good and is healthy for me and I hope that some of you have some awesome recipes to share with me.

Last night we tried the teriyaki beef spirals and I tried the broccoli with lemon and dill (Randy hates vegetables). It took us about an hour to prepare, but mostly because we didn't know what we were doing!

The teriyaki beef spirals had spinach leaves, water chestnuts, green onions tossed in teryaki sauce wrapped inside beef flank steak. It was 4 points for two spirals.

The broccoli with lemon and dill was seasoned with green onions, garlic, olive oil, chicken broth, lemon and dill. All of these added things made the broccoli 1 point per serving. So the whole dinner was 5 points! Not bad!

Randy and I gave you our "black and white review." Randy really liked the teriyaki flavor of the beef and didn't even feel like he was eating spinach. I thought the dill and lemon added a nice summery taste to otherwise boring broccoli and I think that it would taste just as good without the other flavorings, but I'll have to try next time. Below are the recipes for anyone who is interested! Next week I plan on making feta-stuffed chicken! I'll let you know how it turns out! Happy cooking!

TERIYAKI BEEF SPIRALS

1 cup of fresh spinach leaves
1/2 cup of chopped water chestnuts
1/4 cup of thinly sliced green onions
1/4 cup of reduced sodium teriyaki sauce
1 to 1&1/4 lbs of beef flank steak
Salt
Pepper

Preheat boiler. Remove stems from spinach leaves. Layer leaves on top of eachother and slice into strips. Combine spinach, waterchestnuts, green onions and 2 tbs of teryaki sauce in bowl.

Trim fat from steak. Score both sides of meat. Place between 2 sheets of plastic wrap. Working from center, use flat sid of meat mallet to pound steak into rectangle. Remove wrap and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Spread spinach mixture over steak. Starting from long side, roll rectangle into spirl. Secure with lots of tootpicks! Cut 10 pinwheels between tootpicks. Thread pinwheels onto long skewers (about 2 to 3 per skewer). Brush with remaining teriyaki sauce.

Place skewers on broiler pan and broil for 12 to 14 mins.. Turn once and brush with sauce. Enjoy!

BROCCOLI WITH LEMON DILL

1/2 cup chopped onion (I used green onion b/c I had it)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 & 1/2 pounds of broccoli (I used frozen broccoli because I had it)
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp flour
2 tbs snipped fresh dill or 1 tsp dried dill (I used dried)
Salt and pepper
lemon slices (optional)

In saucepan cook and stirl onion and garlic in hot oil for 3 mins. Add broth; bring to boil. Add broccoli and return to boiling. Reduce heat and cook, covered, for 8 to 10 mins or until broccoli is tender. Transfer vegetables to a serving bowl, reserving broth in pan (about 1/2 cup)

combine lemon juic and flour, add to broth in saucepan. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly, cook and stir 1 more min. Add dill and season to taste with salt and pepper. Spoon sauce over vegetables.

(I didn't read the part where you take the veggies out of the broth and I mixed the flour, lemon and dill on it's own and heated it slightly. Then I mixed that into the broccoli and broth. It still tasted delicious. I also had a little extra water because my broccoli was frozen, but it was about a 1/2 cup of liquid anyway).