Category: Product Reviews

One of the most challenging things on my Weight Watchers journey has been get-togethers with friends. I mean, it’s a great excuse to eat indulgent foods… and to eat too many of them!

Last week I had a few friends over to my house. I knew a couple of them were on Weight Watchers, like me, so I set out to find WW-friendly foods that we’d all enjoy – and that everyone else would too. After giving it some thought, I decided to have a Mexican-themed party, using some of my favorite recipes – just tweaked slightly – and some from the Weight Watchers Kitchen Companion iPad app!

The Kitchen Companion is another great tool – and it’s free to download. Anyone can use it, but WW e-tools subscribers can log in and have greater access. Here are some of the features:

Everyone who downloads the app can:
• Get the latest 10 featured recipes
• Save up to 10 favorite recipes
• Create custom shopping lists
• Set cooking timers in recipes
• Watch cooking technique videos
• Share recipes with email or Facebook

Subscribers to Weight Watchers Online & eTools can also:
• Find thousands of Weight Watchers recipes
• Access complete shopping, ingredient and equipment guides
• Get cooking primers and technique videos
• View exclusive recipe collections hand-picked by our editors
• Use the WeightWatchers.com Recipe Builder to create and edit recipes
• Send recipes to your Plan Manager for tracking

For the party I hosted, I particularly used the Recipe Builder… which actually I use just about every day to help me track my points! I just put in all the ingredients for a recipe and the number of servings, and the app does all the math and tells me how many points are in each dish. It also has ideas for less-points substitutions, which was helpful as I planned my party!

Here are the things I made:

Lime Chicken Soft Tacos

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat – cubed
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
10 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 tomato, diced
1/4 cup shredded lettuce
1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup salsa

Directions
Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.
Heat an iron skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan, warm, and turn over to heat the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Serve lime chicken mixture in warm tortillas topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa.

Guess how many points is in a serving of the chicken. Ready? TWO. That’s it. I added some reduced-fat cheese and cilantro (and I personally skipped the tortillas) and voila – delicious!

I also made taco dip, made famous by my BFF Jess’s mom, Cheryl. Again, I used the Recipe Builder for substitution suggestions and to add up the points (5, in case you were wondering). Baked chips made it a really reasonable snack!

My friends brought other Mexican foods to round out the meal, but I knew with what I had prepared I could have a really satisfying dinner without completely blowing my diet. However, I was somewhat baffled by dessert.

I did a little digging and came across this brilliant – and incredibly simple – idea.

Chocolate-covered strawberries.

As you may know, all fruits (and most vegetables) are now ZERO points. Really, this blows options for low-point desserts wide open! My chocolate-covered strawberries were not nearly as pretty as the ones in the picture, but they tasted great and the only points came from the chocolate (which I went light on).

Want to skip the chocolate all together? Try this – strawberries & cream!

Perfect!

So, what are your go-to recipes (and how do you avoid blowing your diet) when you entertain?

****
Weight Watchers provided me with an iPad and a three-month online membership to facilitate my review.

One of the very first reviews I ever wrote was on the Miracle Blanket; I wrote it just because I loved the product and wanted to share. We would not have survived Sophie’s infanthood with out it!  Well, four years later, I have to say, the Miracle Blanket is STILL miraculous.  We have other swaddlers that I like, but the Miracle Blanket wins the award for best ALL-AROUND.  Here’s why I STILL love it!

• The arm flaps keep baby’s arms secure at his or her side – just like in ye olde womb!
• The pouch for the legs makes it really easy to pop the baby’s legs out of the swaddle so you can secure the baby in a swing or bouncy seat but keep the rest of the body swaddled.
• It’s really simple to use, with no hooks, ties, or velcro.
• It keeps my baby calm and happy!  See?

I like this blanket so much that when they sent me one to review this time, and it was white and PINK, I didn’t even CARE, even though I was having a boy.  Any Miracle Blanket it perfect in my book!  My boy rocks his girly-colored Miracle Blanket and it keeps him calm, day or night! I swaddle him in it to nap and Bobby swaddles him up nice and tight in it before bed.

In my opinion, the Miracle Blanket is THE must-have item if you are having a baby, and the perfect gift for ever shower you ever go to.  Seriously, I could not LOVE the Miracle Blanket any more!  It really is amazing!

Since baby Jonah was a happy “surprise” for our family, and since Sophie was already four when he was born,  we had given away all of our baby stuff long ago.  So of course I was very excited to get the opportunity to review the Safety 1st Air Protect On Board 35 Infant Car Seat.  And I am even more excited to say, I totally LOVE it!   My husband was already singing it’s praises as soon as he installed the base in our car – he said it was by far the easiest and most secure install he had ever done on an infant seat.  Since I had a C-section, it was a couple of weeks before I could try it out.  But I’ve gotten out with the baby a few times this week and the car seat has been awesome for me as well!  Here’s what I really like about it:

• It’s so lightweight.  It is amazing how much lighter it is than the seat I used with Sophie four years ago.  It is so, SO much easier to haul around, and since I am still recovering from surgery, that is a blessing!
• It’s very easy to get in and out of the base.  I have two big-kid booster seats on either side of the infant seat in the back seat of my car – that’s right – three car seats shoved in the back!  So I have to lift the seat over the big kid seats to get it in the base – but it clicks right in very easily and I don’t have to fiddle with it.  It’s just as easy to get out.
• Jonah can stay in it for a long time!  My past infant seats only held babies up to 25 lbs. and 26″ in length.  My babies never made it to the weight limit – they outgrew it in length first.  So I had skinny but tall 5 and 6-month old babies in big kid seats and it just felt way too early!  Jonah can stay in this seat up to 32″ and 35 lbs.!   What a relief!
• It’s SAFE!  The air protect side impact technology provides amazing protection for infants.  One in four automobile collisions involve side impact, and those are the deadliest type of crashes for children.  According the the product description, air protect technology protects your kiddo in two ways: “During a crash, the system immediately shields your child’s head from the impact. In a second layer of defense, air protect allows air to escape from the headrest: channeling crash energy away from your child, creating more ride down time. It is this double layer of protection that makes air protect technology unique.”

I couldn’t recommend this car seat any more highly. We’ve already purchased another base for our other car, and I’m sure we’ll be investing in the big kid version of this car seat when the time comes!

_____________________

Safety 1st sent me this car seat for review.  This post was written by me and was not edited by them in any way.