After having pumpkin scones almost every day last week, I went back to an old standby – the bagel sammie! 1 small onion bagel (the only time I’ll do onion anything), 1/4 cup egg beaters, 1/2 ounce swiss cheese and 1 oz. deli ham. A delicious 9 PointsPlus breakfast that kept me full for hours.
I actually got the idea for my zucchini meat balls from Rocco’s Now Eat This cookbook. But the recipe called for charring a small eggplant, and then after the eggplant cooled, scraping out the seeds and then using only 1/4 cup of the eggplant flesh and reserving the rest for another use. First of all, I hate eggplant, and second of all, the remainder of the eggplant had I used it would just be thrown out in 3 weeks the next time I deep clean my refrigerator.
Biz’s Zucchini Meat Balls
- 1 ball – 2 points, 2 balls – 5 points, 3 balls – 7 points
Ingredients:
- 1 zucchini (mine was 6 ounces)
- 8 ounces ground beef (I used 20% fat – nice!)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup egg beaters
- 1/4 cup fresh basil
- 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper
I made the mistake of putting all these ingredients in my food processor, so the balls are not as firm as they should be. Everyone likes firm balls, right? 😀 Next time I would process everything but the meat, and then mix the meat and zucchini/egg mixture together.
But the flavor was amazing – so I had 3 balls, a 1.5 ounce roll (I hollowed out some of the bread from the roll), 3/4 ounce of mozzarella cheese and homemade marinara sauce.
I cooked the balls in about 1 teaspoon of olive oil and mostly Pam.
Then I assembled my sammie at work. I nuked the balls for 1 minutes. Then put the balls on my roll, put the marinara over the top, and the cheese and put it in my office toaster oven on broil for about 5 minutes.
You guys have to try these balls. I am sure they would be a bit less points with leaner meat, but these were so tender and delicious. I did add crushed red pepper to half the ball mixture – I preferred those better. 😀
On the side I had watermelon and papaya. Lunch comes in at 10 points. But I learned a valuable lesson – papaya tastes like the bottom of a bird cage – ew! Never buying that fruit again!
I did my 50 minute walk at lunch – turns out I walk a mile in 15 minutes – I am going to try to pick up the pace this week. It was a gorgeous day – 75 degrees, sunny and breezy.
Over the weekend Tony and I grilled a marinated flank steak – our store marinated it and it was so good. We had leftovers, and I morphed them into the best taquitos last night. I had 3 corn tortillas, 2 ounces of chopped meat, .75 ounces of cheddar cheese, 3 tablespoons of refried beans. I added 1 teaspoon of canola oil in my points because I deep fried these, but I’ve said it before, since our fryer holds the temperature well, nothing is really greasy.
On the bottom I had a romaine salad with cucumbers and just used my smoked salsa as a dressing – such a delicious 9 PointsPlus dinner. 😀
Stats for Monday:
- 29 points exactly, no wine 😀
- 50 minute walk at lunch
- 25 minute Shred at 8:45 last night because I said I was going to do it 😀
- average blood sugar 132
Biggest Loser finale tonight! I hope either Hannah or Olivia wins. 😀
Have a great Tuesday!