Foodie Friday #4: Meatballs!

Today's Recipe is another family favorite. Last night, I made Meatball hoggies! This one was amazingly delicious, but not so healthy. . .

You'll need:

2 pounds of ground meat. (If I was making this just for me, I would have used ground turkey meat, but since someone I know doesn't believe in ground anything by beef. . .)

1-2 tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce

 1 tablespoon of garlic salt

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon parsley flakes

2 cups Mozzarella cheese

3 cups pasta sauce (I used Prego)

Mix the seasonings into the ground beef.

Heat a skillet with a couple table spoons of oil in the pan. Brown your meatballs on all sides before sticking them into the oven for 45-50 minutes.

After the meatballs have browned, put them in a oven safe glass dish to finish off in the oven. I put them in at 350* for about 45 minutes. Then I brought them out of the oven and sprinkled the Mozzarella cheese on top and put them back in the oven until the cheese was nice and melted.

 Remove the dish from the oven and enjoy on your favorite buns. I used hotdog buns that I bought from Publix's bakery. YUM!!

Now, I know this isn't a very healthy dish, but there are ways to make it better. Using a leaner meat-- like ground turkey or ground chicken will cut down on some of the fat in the meatballs. Also using a heart healthy pasta sauce will help cut down on some hidden sodium as well. Not eating bread on your hoggies will cut out some sugar producing carbs.

Eating these hoggies without the bread will end up being about 6 WW points. Not to bad for 3 decent size meatballs.

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday #3: Chili

Welcome to Foodie Friday. Each Friday I'm going to do my best to bring you fun, healthy meals for you to try. Sometimes they may be meals I've created or more than likely they will be meals I've found through Cookbooks or on Pinterest. (I am ADDICTED to Pinterest, anyone else?)

The reason I decided to add this feature is simple. I love food. It's sickening how much I've allowed food to rule my life so far and I want to be able to still enjoy food, but find much healthier alternatives from what I've been eating. Some of the recipes I feature, I may not have tried yet, but they look and/or sound AMAZING and I want to share a great find. Others I will have tried and I'll tell you how well they worked for me and if I will make them again.

You may be wondering why I would put recipes I might not like or haven't tried yet up here, I want you to make your own decisions. Just because I might not care for it doesn't mean you won't LOVE it. So, I'm going to post it if I think it might look cool. I'll make sure I tell you at the beginning of the post if I liked it or not. Also if possible, I will try to calculate WW points for my fellow point watchers.

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Today's recipe is a family favorite-- Chili.

Now I know everyone has a chili recipe that they love. This happens to be ours. If I was making it for just me, I would use Ground Turkey or Chicken instead of the ground beef for a slightly healthier option.

1 1/2 lbs of ground beef (the kind we use is 90/10-- so there is very little fat)

32 oz of tomato juice

2 cans of Chili beans (I usually drain one can and use the juice of the other)

1 medium to large onion

1 packet of McCormic Chili seasoning

some salt 

some pepper

Brown the ground beef in the pot you are going make you chili in.

Add half of the Chili seasoning as you brown the beef.

Add the beans and onion let it cook a little bit and then add the tomato juice.

Salt and pepper to your taste.

Allow the chili to come to a boil then lower the temperature to low for 4-6 hours.

This chili is one of my absolute favorite things from my childhood.

 Now according to my WW recipe builder this chili is about 3 points a serving (about 1 cup)  since the whole pot will serve at least 12 people. (Reminder: this is not a recipe created by Weight Watchers. I just used the tools that I have paid for to get the approximate point value.)