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

Turkey Taco Chili - 3.5 pts

This is a great recipe I got off the back of a package of lean ground turkey, but I can't remember what brand and can't seem to find the recipe online anywhere. This means I get to take credit! Hooray!

This chili tastes a lot like tacos, mostly because of the cumin and is actually quite healthy. Just 3.5 pts for 1 cup, and a cup filled me even pre-WW. If you wanna go all-out, add a quarter a cup (dollop) of fat free yogurt in place of sour cream (add .5 pts) or a quarter cup fat free cottage cheese (1 pt). With such a light meal, you can really afford to add to it.

This is also a little mild, so if you want to be really bold, use hot salsa and switch up the 1 tbsp chili powder with .5 tbsp chili powder and .5 tbsp cayenne pepper. I gotta say, if you go over that proportion, you're gonna be sitting in heat. I love spice, but found it practically inedible the time I though that chili powder=cayenne pepper. It really does not.


Turkey Taco Chili
Origin unknown

1 tsp olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 cloves minced or pressed garlic
1.25 lbs ground turkey
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp salt
1 x 28oz can stewed or diced tomatoes
1 x 14.5oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 c salsa or picante sauce

Cook onion and garlic in olive oil 5 minutes. Add turkey and spices and cook 5 more minutes. Add everything else and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer uncovered 10 mninutes, stirring occasionally.


3.5 points per 1 c serving (1/6 batch): 204 calories, 5.4g fiber, 1.6g fat