I'm finally back in a cooking mood!

Whatever virus took hold of our house last week is finally on it's way out.  Makayla's back to 100% and I'm close behind at about 80%.

I managed to stay within my points, even though I wasn't feeling the best and was taking care of a sick 5 year old.  We made it!

Dinner last night was an adaption of a recipe from VickisFoodies.com.

9 point plus value

2 chicken thighs - 4 point plus value
Medium sweet potato, quartered - 4 point plus value
1 small onion cut in half - 0 point plus value
2 tablespoons of French onion soup mix - 0 point plus value

Wrap all of the above ingredients in foil, sprinkle with French onion soup mix, and make a tightly sealed pouch.  Bake in the oven on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for about an hour, until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender.

Then I sauteed fresh green beans (shout out to my little helper for snapping the ends off of a pound of green beans!) in 2 TB of extra virgin olive oil and 4 freshly minced garlic cloves.  After about 10 minutes of stirring occasionally, I added 1 cup of fat free, low sodium chicken stock and covered, letting them steam for another 15 minutes until tender.  They turned out great! No need for butter or salt on these green beans.  They had a ton of flavor.

A serving was:
2 cups of green beans - 0 point plus value
1/4 cup of fat free reduced sodium chicken stock - 0 points plus value
1 tsp of olive oil - 1 point value

YES! That is a bottle of wine in the background.  For the last week I have been having trouble using all my points (I know, I know, you don't want to hear it!) so I've been having celery and peanut butter after dinner, or peanut butter banana smoothies or something similar to use up the rest of my points.  Anywhere from 10 to 30 points I've had to use up!  I need to start drinking some milk during the day or something.  Anyway, last night I had 30 ppv left over at the end of the day (I get 54 per day!) and I used all 30 points on 3 generous glasses of wine after the little bestie went to bed :)

I slept in today so I had lunch about Noon, and then a larger dinner at 6 pm to use up points.

I still have 11 points left after this awesome dinner!

Weight Watcher's Recipe from eTools:
Greek-Syle Cheesburgers

1 pound uncooked lean ground beef
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
Salt and pepper
1 clove of garlic, mashed
1/2 cup minced uncooked onion
2 sprays of cooking spray
4 light hamburger rolls
5 tsp crumbled feta cheese
1 cup of fresh baby spinach leaves

Instructions:
In a medium bowl combine beef, oregano, salt and pepper to taste, garlic and onion. Gently form into four patties.

Coat a nonstick ridged grill pan with cooking spray, heat on medium/high heat for about 30 seconds.  Place burgers in pan, grill for 5 minutes.  Flip burgers and grill until cooked through to center, about 4 or 5 more minutes.

Place burgers on buns, top each with 1 1/4 tsp of cheese and some spinach.  Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings at 8 ppv each.

I had 2 burgers for 16 ppv and 2 servings (about 2 cups) of Alexia sweet potato waffle fries (7 ppv) for a total of 23 points!

This is obviously a lot more points than I would normally consume in one meal, but I had 34 points left to use for the day, and this took care of 23 of them!

Make the point value even less by substituting ground turkey for all or half of the meat!