Bistro Lunch

I need to amend my recent statement on soups: I generally dislike soups, but I make an exception for potato and French onion. Case in point: my "bistro lunches" this week.

For lunch this week, I am having salad, cheese toasts, and French onion soup, for just 7 points!

The French onion soup recipe came from the fabulous Slow Cooker Revolution. That book is so full of delicious recipes! I'm just getting started with it, but so far everything's been a winner, including this soup. It is one of the most flavorful soups I have ever had. Basically, you carmelize the onions in a mixture of butter, thyme, sherry, soy sauce (!), and apple butter (!!) until they are tender and golden, then add in some beef broth, and voila—French onion soup. I halved the recipe for my little slow cooker and it yielded 4 generous servings for just 3 points each.

The cheese toasts are 45g of French baguette (roughly 4 little slices) topped with 1 oz part-skim mozzarella, then broiled. Each serving is 4 points, 2 for each component.

The salad is, well, a handful of salad which I spritzed with 0-calorie vinaigrette.

Speedy Week, Slow Cooked!

For a busy week, think slow! Slow cooker, that is.

Tostadas!

Before tonight, I had never made flank steak in the slow cooker. I was afraid it would come out tough and stringy, but it was the complete opposite — vey tender! Best of all, flank steak is a much leaner cut of meat than the usual slow-cooker standard, chuck. I'm a convert!

After cooking the meat in the slow cooker, I shredded it and simmered it with a little tomato sauce, cooking liquid, garlic, onion powder, chili powder, cayenne, cumin, coriander, brown sugar, and cider vinegar (per this this recipe) to make it a bit saucy and really add some pizzazz.

The theme of tonight's meal was "Choose Your Own Adventure" — a variety of bases and toppings available (cough::cleaning out the fridge and pantry::cough), everyone makes whatever they want.

I made tostadas, and they were quite filling. Pictured is one serving/two tostadas. Points (old WW): 2 tostada shells = 2, 3 oz flank steak = 3, .5 oz RF cheese = 1, 2 teaspoons RF sour cream = 0, salad = 0, tomato = 0. Quite a bargain for just 6 Points! (The Points do jump a bit if you increase the servings.)

Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Soup

While I am normally not the biggest fan of soup, I do make an exception for potato soups! This was a particularly easy one, thanks to the slow cooker. I adapted it from the ATK Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook.

Basically, you cut up several pounds of potatoes (I used 2, which was about 2/3 of what the recipe called for) and throw 'em in the slow cooker. Then, make a roux with flour using either fat from the bacon rendered for the topping, or butter, if you are lazy and use bacon bits like moi. Once you have a golden roux, add some vegetable broth to make a nice smooth mixture, then dump it in the slow cooker as well. Lastly, two more cups of broth, then slow-cook until the potatoes are tender, a few hours.

Once the potatoes are tender, take out about 2 C worth and mash 'em up, then stir the mashed 'taters back in the soup with some cheese (I used about 1.5 C of RF cheddar) until smooth, then thin with FF milk (recipe called for cream, which I omitted), and voila!

I made this on Sunday, and we ate it for dinner tonight. It got a bit congealed (mmm, slice me some soup!) but thinned out once heated. We probably also could have thinned it further with more milk, but we liked it thick. We served it with traditional baked potato toppings and a green salad on the side. Yummy!

Serves 6. Points (old WW) per serving: soup = 5, 1 T RF sour cream = 0, .5 oz RF cheddar = 1, 1 T bacon bits = 1, scallions = 0.

Spinach and Shitake Risotto

Risotto is a great dish for using up all those leftover little bits and bites. Today, I had a single cup of arborio rice, a leftover handful of spinach, and some dried shitakes. Together, they became...

Spinach and shitake risotto! I very loosely adapted this recipe from Food and Wine, omitting cognac, parmesan, onion, and olive oil, using non-alcoholic wine instead of regular, shitake instead of porcini, and reducing the butter to a single tablespoon. All in all, it was pretty delicious, easy to put together, and I got to use up a bunch of stuff in the pantry and fridge. Makes 2 main dish servings, points per serving (old WW): .5 C arborio rice (dry) = 5, .5 T butter = 2, .25 C non-alcoholic wine = 1, mushrooms, broth, spinach = 0.

Boring Meals Begone!

What kinds of influences do you like in your weekly meals? Asian? Got it! French? Got it! Mexican? Got that too! Irish? Check! Homestyle American? Well, that's covered too.

Tex-Mex Nachos

Decided to convert Tex-Mex Tacos into Tex-Mex Nachos tonight. We substituted diced sirloin steak for ground beef, and used canned corn instead of frozen, since we had it on hand. This dish provided a significant amount of flavor without a lot of time or ingredients. We used two chipotles and it was just the right amount of heat. Would definitely make this again!

Points (old WW): 1 oz RF tortilla chips = 3, .75 oz RF cheese = 2, 2 oz sirloin steak = 3, 1/6 can of black beans = 1, 1/6 can of corn = 0, 1 oz tomato sauce = 0, 1 T RF sour cream = 0.

Short Week, Long on Flavor

Even a short week deserves some fabulous flavor. Here are some selections that make the most of mealtimes.