by Claire on November 10, 2009
I’ve been using up the vegetables in my fridge and stretching one package of stew meat as far as I can, and I’ve succeeded in getting about 8 meals out of it. Yesterday I made a three-bean chili with the lean stew meat (feeds 4), and today I made this hearty stew (feeds 4 also). The twist? Instead of white potatoes I used yams. Adds a different taste, just a little bit of sweetness to the dish. I ran the ingredients through the Weight Watcher’s online recipe builder to calculate the points – you’ll need to recalculate your own points if you alter the ingredients. As listed below, this dish is 4 points per each generous cup serving.
Tip: If you use cooking spray instead of the olive oil, you can reduce the points per serving to three. Don’t forget,though, that olive oil is a healthy oil and healthy food guidelines recommend 2 teaspoons per day.
Ingredients
- 7 oz beef stew meat
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1/2 white onion, chopped
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1-1/2 cups chicken broth (I used chicken not beef only because I only had chicken on hand)
- 1/2 cup baby carrots
- 1/4 medium head green cabbage
- 9 oz raw yams, cubed
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions
Brown the meat in the olive oil, add the garlic and onions and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the remaining ingredients and cook until the yams are tender. Makes 4 generous one-cup servings. Prep time took me about 15 minutes; cooking time took about 45. Dinner in an hour!
Tagged as:
cooking,
Food & Nutrition,
Recipes,
stew,
Weight Watchers
by Claire on November 10, 2009
So… I’ve been frustrated with myself and my weight loss progress lately, so I kicked my own butt buckled down and got back to basics with my program this last week. I was sick and tired of losing the same two pounds over and over again.
Although I have the Weight Watchers Monthly Pass membership that gives me the online tracking tools, I have lately found that I really like the simple weekly paper trackers that they have at the meetings. Keeping it simple, folks. I don’t even like the three-month journal, which I’ve tried but found too bulky and cumbersome. This tracker works just great for me.
Since I work from home, I kept the tracker open on my counter all day long and jotted down everything I ate – good, bad, ugly. You’ll see I made some good choices, and some not-so-good choices. (Popcorn and WW fudge bars – my “treats”.) Even so, I managed to lose one pound. I’m now back at my lowest weight ever – where I was in late September. Sad, but it happens. I got lazy and quit tracking, quit weighing my food, quit being fully accountable and fully “on program”. Getting back to basics has worked, even with the “bad” choices.
At the end of the week, I used just over half of my weekly points and earned a whopping 24 activity points. I succeeded in my challenge to myself of adding a day of activity to my routine, totaling four days. Best yet, I don’t recall being ravenously hungry all week long, which was a common complaint for me the last few weeks.
So, this week, I’m going to do it again. I figure if I do the same thing over again, I should get the same results, more or less.I also have a challenging week ahead – birthday dinner out for my daughter, who’s turning 30, (she chose Red Robin) and a party for her on Saturday with a Mexican-style buffet.
I learned, once again, the power in tracking all my food and activity – precisely, not “guess-timating” – and the results showed. My goal this week is to cut back on the not-so-good choices, sweat more, drink more water, and then we’ll see what the scales think of that!
Tagged as:
activity,
daily points,
tracking food,
Weight Loss,
Weight Watchers
