Happy Saturday all! Today has been such a FUN and fantastic day. I slept in, made a delicious breakfast, had a “lunch and movie” date with The Husband and whipped up quite possibly one of my new all time FAVORITE recipes for dinner.
Thanks for being my cheer leaders and leaving such nice comments on my last post. I found myself shaking my head and agreeing with each comment I read. I also LOVED reading what you all were not willing to give up. I thought for sure everyone would say chocolate, but, you all are a healthy bunch with great taste in CHEESE, coffee, eggs, apples, bread, cashews, the list goes on!
One The Husband was up, I made us Eggwiches.
* 2 Slices Trader Joe’s Fat Free Multi-Grain Bread (3 points+)
* 1 “fried” egg topped with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (2 points+)
* 1 tsp Whipped Butter on one half of the bread (1 point+)
Together with some Trader Joe’s Cocoa Coffee ~ I had to think if it was an “alien” or my camera in my coffee when I first grabbed the picture 
We lounged around this morning doing laundry, reading and watching Van Wilder Freshman Year (hilarious!) Once we decided to get ready, we headed out to do a little shopping at Costco then, stopped for lunch at Mary’s Pizza Shack.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their salad and often get a big one just for my main meal. But, today, I really wanted the Pizza & Salad Combo.
I started with their small salad and my dressing on the side using my fork to dip with each bite. (3 points+)
Then, I moved onto my slice of MUSHROOM PIZZA that was seriously as big as my head…maybe bigger. Glad, I got THIN crust! I am counting it as 2 slices (10 points+)
THIS is the reason I LOVE their pizza so much…check out all the “shrooms” they give you! Worth every bite…..I am pretty sure The Husband was wondering if I was going to share any today but I didn’t 
After lunch we went and saw HALL PASS. It was pretty funny, but, kind of different than what we thought it would be like based on the previews. Still a great movie though.
Dinner tonight was courtesy of Roni and her fancy new Green Lite Bites Cookbook!
I LOVE this cookbook for so many reasons, but, mainly because the recipes are SIMPLE.
The pictures are amazing and I LOVE the TIPS at the bottom of each recipe. She really put a lot of thought into how to make each recipe work no matter what tools you have in your kitchen.
I am not a HUGE fan of Italian Sausage straight up, but, I really wanted to try this Sausage & Pepper recipe! I LOVE it in lasagna and pasta sauces, but, that is about it. I decided to use 2 sausages on our skewers.
#1 Casual Gourmet Roasted Red Pepper & Spinach Chicken Sausages.
I picked these up at Costco.
I LOVE the short, recognizable ingredient list and that they are ONLY 3 Points+ per link.
#2 My FAVORITE sausage ~ Trader Joe’s Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage.
Simple, REAL ingredient list with REAL maple syrup and only 3 Points+ each too!
Prep your sausage ~ I cut all the links into 3rd’s so I knew each piece was 1 point+.
Prep your veggies. The BEST TIP for cleaning mushrooms I’ve ever heard and USE is to take a pastry brush out and brush the “dirt” off of them. It honestly works better than a paper or dish towel….water only water logs them.
Chop your veggies into big chunks toss with a little Olive Oil, White Balsamic, Italian Seasoning, Sea Salt and Black Pepper.
Thread away…I used 3 sausages per skewer and all the veggies alternating to make 10 nice sized skewers that are only 3 Points+ each!
YUM!!! 2 skewers for 6 points+. I LOVE how the balsamic vinegar & olive oil crisped up the veggies and caramelized them and how you could taste the Italian Seasoning….everything just blended so well with the two types of sausages.
I had 2 corn halves (1 cob total) for 2 points+.
Plus more of that Grilled Romaine ~ I am so IN LOVE with grilled romaine you all might just be seeing it for awhile. The Husband actually requested it tonight and wanted me to make our entire pack. I wish I did LOL. (2 points+)
Deliciousness!!! I think it is so fun to eat off of skewers, GRILL everything so there are no dishes and have an amazing 10 point+ dinner that I cannot wait to make again!
Thanks Roni, we LOVED it!
NEW ON FRIENDS FOR WEIGHT LOSS
* 1 Point+ Butternut Squash Fries!
* Slow Cookin’ Old Fashioned Baked Beans courtesy of Zesty Cook!
Q’s
What is your FAVORITE thing to grill or have grilled?
I honestly LOVE corn on the cob and any mix of grilled vegetables with mushrooms being my FAVORITE.
COOKBOOK GIVEAWAY coming up tomorrow morning!!!
Night all!
Last summer we discovered grilled pizzas! Individual size, so everyone fixes thier own to their liking. Soooo fresh tasting!
I love grilled peaches! So so good. Grilled vegetables also are awesome though.
I made the same thing last night, got the recipe from your meal plan for this week! My sausage was a buffalo style chicken sausage, kinda spicy but not too hot! I also made some chicken skewers with chicken breast chunks, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and onions. I’ve never done the grilled romaine, definitely going to try that one soon!
My newest favorite thing to grill is pizza!!! It comes out so amazing!
I’m loving that new Coffee Cocoa from TJ’s!
As usual, your blog is my very, very favorite!! I look forward to it every morning! Waiting for my Green Lite cb to arrive…should be here tomorrow…because of you, we’ve started having a small fruit salad with breakfast..today was: bananas, black grapes, and strawberries…totally yummy and filling…will pick up a bag of romaine since I also have forgotten how good it is! Keep up your great posts that inspire us all! I have 30 more lbs. to lose on WW, and I know I can get there with your help!
I would say my favorite thing to grill is veggies. I love how they taste after grilling them.
oh man that pizza def looks great! i wouldn’t have shared either! lol!
and that grilled dinner looks AWESOME! how is the texture of the grilled romaine afterwards? i’d be afraid because I don’t like soggy lettuce!
i grill lots of veggies of all kinds and then lots of fruit (apricots don’t work well but others do). Then, after dinner, I distribute them into zip lock bags for my lunches, one each day. They are delicious cold!
Yum….your day’s meals looks fantastic!!! Have a great rest of the weekend Danica!!!
mmm all of your eats look so good!
that pizza reminds me of my new favorite go-to snack!:
one slice of jarlsburg light cheese (from TJ’s!) melted over a MOUND of fresh, sliced mushrooms.. topped with lots of black pepper and stone ground mustard!
it is so decadent tasting, yet low in calories!
Those skewers look awesome, but not as awesome as that pizza. I LOVE mushrooms.
My favorite thing to grill is onions and mushrooms!
We are definitely going to try those skewers this week – YUM!
I love grilled portabella mushrooms, zucchini and green peppers.
I am a huge fan of grilled zucchini, pineapple, and peaches!!! š
LOVE them.. look ow great they came out!
Hi Melissa,
Nope, it doesn’t get soggy at all – that is what is so cool. It just adds the nice smoky grill flavor to your salad, but, the romaine stays crisp. I was surprised at how delicious it is and it’s honestly my favorite new way to have salad. I am pretty sure it only works with romaine as it’s holds up the best.
Danica
I’m curious… are you using PointsPlus? I made your recipe above and I put all of the ingredients into the WW recipe builder and it came out with a different point total. I was told that you can’t count the points of the individual items and add them together. The combination of them together creates a different point total. Your skewers were 3pts each, while mine were 8points. Am I doing something wrong?
Hi Laura,
Yes, I am using points+ for calculating my recipes. First it depends on which type of sausage you are using. I used two types of sausage that were 3 points+ per sausage that I cut into 3 per skewer. The olive oil spread over 10 skewers = 0 points+ per skewer. The remaining items were vegetables that are 0 points+.
That being said, there is a glitch in the Weight Watcher Recipe Builder if you are using that to calculate your recipes and I do hope Weight Watchers fixes it soon . The recipe builder adds in points+ values for all your vegetables when in fact they are all 0 points+ (except peas, corn, avocado). If you calculate your recipe manually, then, you will always come up with a different total than it does on recipe builder. The same is true for fruit points+. I will often leave off the vegetables/fruit if I am using recipe builder for that reason.
Another option I use whenever I am calculating the points+ values for my recipes is caloriecount.com. I will add in all the ingredients there and divide by the number of servings.
I hope that helps clarify a bit. Please let me know if it doesn’t.
Thanks,
Danica
I used this recipe and tweaked it a bit. I used the spicy Italian sausage from Winco- 3 pts + each and cut them into 5 pieces. put on mushrooms. onion ,bell pepper and sprayed them with wishbone spray Cesar dressing spray on some then did some with the above and fresh pineapple and sprayed them with the Asian spray. Yum. Thank you for all the ideas. I will definitely be making these again.