Weight Watchers-Friendly Entertaining

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.