Spiced Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup - 5.5 pts

My first couple weeks on Weight Watchers were really tough. Before WW, I was that chick who always got alfredo every time it's on the menu, then ate the whole pound of pasta and I can tell you where the best alfredo is in the state, but I'm not going to because that would kind of defeat the purpose of WWFF.

At that point, I thought that I was going to have to shun forever all my favorite meals because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to substitute, nor what foods were substitute-able. But I found a winner in grilled cheese and tomato soup. Pretty much any tomato soup will do, but if you're making the Campbell's condensed variety, make sure you use water. I prefer the Campbell's Select Tomato Soup, as it isn't as watery as the condensed stuff ends up being, and has fewer calories than preparing the condensed with milk.

I also use Kraft fat free American cheese slices, which are uber processed, taste gross raw, but only .5 points a slice and when melted is surprisingly yummy—no weird aftertaste or anything. I'm still using up my WW whole wheat bread, but if you're sick of whole wheat Allie found a light french bread with only 70 calories for two slices. So go to your grocery store, line up your bread options and use your little slider to find a reasonable compromise.

Spiced Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Using Dano's spice mix!

2 slices bread
2-3 slices fat free American or Cheddar Cheese
2 tbsp Smart Beat Smart Squeeze
salt & pepper
a pinch each: chili powder, cayenne pepper, basil and oregano

1 can tomato soup

Prepare your soup. Squirt some fake butter on there, sprinkle the spices, then use a butter knife to smooth the spices into the "butter." Spray a nonstick pan with cooking spray (Smart Beat sticks to pans), lay down a slice of bread, butter side down, then the cheese, then the other slice of bread. This seems really involved, but it's the neatest way to do it and the liquid butter makes the bread super hard to handle. You can put some tomatoes between your cheese slices for free.

Serve with an entire can tomato soup. It's heavenly.


5.5 points per serving, 320 calories, 7g fiber, 1g fat

Vietnamese Summer Rolls (Goi Cuon) - 2.5 pts each

These are a special treat for me when I can find them at restaurants. They're often listed as Summer Rolls, but the literal translation is "mix salad roll" (thanks, Wikipedia). Usually I hate the word "salad" unless preceded by "ham," "tuna," "potato," "pasta," or "bacon cheese and roast beef," but I make a special exceptions for the particularly delicious, and that includes these rolls.

The traditional recipe includes pork and peanuts, but they're equally yummy without the extra fat, I promise. Most recipes also include mint and cilantro, but I rarely see basil; I think the basil balances the flavor of the cilantro. I like to put my condiments directly in the wrapper, and they're not really the "appropriate" ones, but they're the ones I always have on hand, and they definitely work. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can throw whatever you want in there for veggies, so this is just a guideline.

Goi Cuon
Adapted from restaurants and stuff

16 sheets rice paper (banh trang)
8 oz rice noodles (banh hoi), cooked
1 bunch cilantro, leaves only
1 lb shrimp, steamed and cut in half lengthwise
1 bunch mint, leaves only
1 bunch basil, leaves only
1 cucumber, sliced into thin sticks, skin-on and seeds removed
1 cup shredded carrot (or use a potato peeler to make thin strands)
Hoison Sauce
Sriracha Sauce
1 head lettuce, cut into 1/2 inch strips (bib lettuce has more flavor, but any will do)
8 oz bean sprouts

Prep all your veggies according to the ingredient list, and create a little assembly line of your ingredients in the prep area because you're going to be moving fast. Lay a clean town down where you'll be rolling the uh, rolls. Now get ready to rock and roll [editor's note: I didn't realize this was a pun until after I was done writing the recipe, so, uh, pun unintended?]

There are a lot of *things* in each roll, so do a test run and try to include very small amounts of everything. Then you can adjust amounts so you know that everything will fit.

Fill a large bowl with warm, not hot, water. Lay a sheet of the rice paper in the bowl, make sure the whole thing gets wet, then place on your towel. The order of the insides doesn't matter much, but you can create a prettier arrangement by starting with four cilantro leaves in the middle of the paper. Behind that, arrange about 5-6 shrimp slices in a row, like they're spooning. Next 4 leaves mint, 2 large basil leaves, a pinch of cucumber sticks, a pinch of carrot shreds, a little squiggle each of sriracha and hoison, some lettuce, about 1/2 oz bean sprouts, then about 1/2 oz rice noodles.

Next, fold in the sides, then starting from the end nearest you, roll away from you. Set onto a plate with the seam of the wrapper down, just to make sure it doesn't spring open on ya. Cuz then it'd be a spring roll.

Repeat 16 times. Serve to your friends and impress the hell out of them.


2 points per roll (1/16 of batch): 119 calories, 1.8g fiber, .8g fat

Turkey-Veggie Burger - 3 pts

Oh hell, I'm on a burger spell.

I've been reading the Weight Watchers Recipe blog for awhile now, but haven't seen much in the way of innovative recipes (hence WWFF—that's my fancy new abbreviation for 'Weight Watchers for the Foodie'). HOWEVER, they had a fantastic recipe for Chicken Burgers today and I gave it a shot tonight. It's kind of a hybrid between a chicken patty and a veggie burger, except the good kind that isn't trying to taste like meat. Caution: the picture looks nothing like what you get.

The good ideas are the chicken patty bulked up with veggies and served on a whole wheat English muffin. I found that Thomas' Light Multigrain are the friendlist to the plan--just half a point for an entire muffin. I almost started jumping up and down in the grocery store.

I kept the main ideas of the original, but made it a smaller batch and modified according to my experience with it. Here goes!

Turkey-Veggie Burgers
Adapted from Weight Watchers Recipes' Chicken Burgers Recipe

4oz ground turkey
2 tbsp egg substitute, lightly beaten
2 oz mushrooms (about 3 medium button mushrooms), chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoons soy sauce, salt reduced
4 whole wheat English muffins
1/2 tomato
some lettuce leaves

Toss the mushrooms, celery, onion, egg white and soy sauce into your food processor and grind until smooth. Mix your veggies with your ground chicken and enough bread crumbs to make a texture like regular beef patties. Divide and roll into 8 balls, then pat these down into patties; cook in a sprayed nonstick pan until chicken is no longer pink and the patty stays together well.

Toss those suckers on an English muffin with your choice of lettuce, tomato, extra onion, ketchup and/or mustard.


3 points per burger (1/4 batch): 180 calories, 9.4g fiber, 3.4g fat

The Ubiquitous Portabella Mushroom Burger - 1 pt

This is one I thought I came up with on my own, but apparently it's a big seller in the WW community—and with good reason. I find it hard to work meat into my diet on WW, particularly beef, which is really the only kind I like. Portabellas are nice and meaty and practically calorie-free. I find them to be an extremely satisfying addition to dinner, almost like fast-food for dessert. I eat them without bread, as the bread just seems to get in the way and adds unnecessary points (but feel free to throw it on a slice of WW toast if that's your thing, just don't forget the added points).

I couldn't find a lot of details on HOW to cook the mushroom, so here's what I do. You'll notice the points are not 0, which is what they usually claim this burger is worth, but I included all condiments, the broth and veggies and it works out to 1pt. Still not bad, right?


The Ubiquitous Portabella Mushroom Burger

1 Portabella mushroom cap
1/4 c chicken broth (or veggie broth)
2 slices tomato
1 slice onion, chopped
1 leaf lettuce
ketchup
mustard
Optional for .5 pt: 1 slice fat free cheese (Kraft takes a decent stab at this, but it only tastes good when melted)

Rub the mushroom with a paper towel to get all the dirt off. I'd read that mushrooms have enough moisture without being rinsed, and anyway, I never found that rinsing mushrooms worked particularly well in terms of the moist soil all over them. Take a few jabs at the mushroom with a knife, this lets the moisture out and keeps the mushroom from burning too easily. Heat up a little bit of the chicken broth in a nonstick pan, then add the mushroom. Cover with a lid and let cook about 15 minutes. Check up on it every five minutes or so and add more broth as needed.

Once the mushroom seems reasonably done, throw a slice of the cheese on there if you want it and put the lid back on til it's melted. Then put your patty in a bowl, smear some ketchup and mustard over it, then top with onions, tomato and lettuce. It tastes so much like a burger it's remarkable.

1 point per serving(without cheese): 79 calories, 1.9g fiber, .1g fat
1.5 points per serving with cheese: 109 calories, 1.9g fiber, .1 g fat