Food Journal

OK, so today I pretty much stuck to the "Plan" except for dinner.
Tonight, we had soccer and I did NOT feel like making 2 dinners, so I made one family meal we could all eat. I made BBQ turkey meatloaf muffins. One thing I know for certain... I've got to learn to make my OWN bbq sauce... everything has High Fructose Corn Syrup in it, and well, I'm not a fan of that in my diet or in the diet of my loved ones! That said, I did still use my bbq sauce. I adapted a recipe I found online, that apparently was originally shared in a Shape magazine years ago. I used 1.3 lbs of extra lean ground turkey breast, diced onion, diced red pepper, diced mushrooms, 2 egg whites, 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce, 1/3 cup of bread crumbs (you can use your own homemade from wheat bread or use store bought) -- the recipe also called for salt, pepper and worchestishire sauce, all of which I left out... and was not missed in the final product. You mix all of the above ingredients together in a bowl, preheat your oven to 350, spray a muffin tin w/ cooking spray, then scoop the mixture out buy ice cream scoop into the muffin tins. My recipe made exactly 12 muffins, and they shrunk up, so they were like large meatballs. I topped each one with a squirt of bbq sauce and then baked until they were done (about 20 minutes).

The verdict was... GREAT! All three of the big kids ate them, Dad ate them, Mom ate them, and the baby would have, but she'd already eaten her dinner at the soccer field. Best thing about these little muffins is that one is 150 calories (or less). No guilt! The diced mushrooms (this was NOT in the original recipe) help keep the meat from drying out and being a yucky texture. The peppers (not in the original recipe) and onions kick up the flavor just a bit. I would not add in the other 3 ingredients that were called for -- AT ALL, I think it would be salt overload and it just is not needed. These muffins will fill you up! Make some and I hope your family will enjoy them as well.

I am looking for little recipes such as this that will fit into a 1400 calorie diet, but will also work for the whole family. Things that are similar to foods we used to eat, but are healthier in nature. If you have recipes to share, I would appreciate them! I really prefer easy recipes without a lot of prep work, but that is because I don't have a big kitchen to spread out in and counters to spare. SO, I am looking for HIGH PROTEIN, LOW FAT, LOW CAL easy recipes where I can sneak in extra veggies without the kids realizing and still have lots of yummy flavor! My kids HATE mushrooms but had NO idea they were in their little muffins tonight!

Hitting the hay! 4:45 comes way too early for me!