Zucchini & Cheese Mini Breakfast/Snack Cakes

Tried a new recipe last night! Altered the ingredients a little bit so I'll just tell you what I did instead of linking back to it. Oh, and they're only 65 calories each!

Zucchini Mini Cakes!

What you'll Need:

Muffin Pan

Mixing Bowl

Kitchen Towel

Cheese Grater

Pam Spray

Ingredients:

2 Small Zucchini's (or one large)

1/3 Cup Bread Crumbs (I used Italian)

1/3 Cup Shredded Reduced Fat Cheese

2 Eggs (only one shown in picture, added another later)

1/4 Cup yellow onion

Salt, Pepper, Spices to taste

Preheat your oven to 400*. 

Start off by grating the Zucchini onto a clean towel. You will need to wrap up the Zucchini in the towel to squeeze out the excess water. Do it over the sink, theres a lot.

Combine all ingredients into a mixing bowl.

Spoon mixture into muffin tin. My mixture filled 8 spots.

Bake at 400* for about 20 minutes, turning around in the oven half way through. Keep checking on them though, once the tops are brown they should be good to go!

They reminded me of mini breakfast quiche, so I ate mine with ketchup! They tasted awesome! I may add a little bit more cheese next time, but these were great. Also perfect to throw in todays bento box!

Last nights awesome Dinner!

Over the weekend, a friend decided she wanted to get rid of her grill. Ours has been broken since the end of last summer, so she asked if we wanted it. OF COURSE we wanted it! I'm not sure how we functioned grill-less for the past half a year, we practically live cooking on the grill on warm weekends (and have been known to grill in snow). So we got it home, set it up, and decided to give it a test run.

Perdue makes pre-seasoned chicken in individual packs. I absolutely love these things, because if it's just me and mini squish at night while the husbutt is working, I just take out one pack (one piece) and throw it in the oven, instead of needing to cook or freeze a big pack of chicken. Our favorite ones are the italian seasoned ones.

We had gone food shopping that day, so we picked up some of those, and ran across this "vegetable enhanced" pasta. We've been in a "veggie battle" with our 2.5 year old son who LOVES pasta, so why not give this a go. Veggies hidden in one of his favorite foods? I'll take it, and so did he!

So we figured, we'd grill up some chicken, put it over the pasta, and see what we could add to it. 

What we ended up with was a 350 Calorie awesome tasting dinner.

Here's what I had:

One piece of grilled Chicken: 140 Calories (because of the seasoning on it)

3/4 Serving of Veggie Pasta: 142 Calories

Kens Reduced Fat Olive Oil & Vinegar Dressing: 50 Calories (2 tbs)

6 Cherry Tomatoes: 18 Calories

Scallions to put on top

Lay down the pasta. Cut up a piece of grilled chicken and put on top of pasta. Cut tomatoes up into 4's and put around the edges. Put chopped scallions to taste over the top. Drizzle dressing on top of entire plate. And you're DONE!

It tasted so fresh and was so satisfying. I can't wait to eat this again!

First Tzatziki Sauce attempt? Came out awesome!

I've been looking for alternates to guacamole and hummus to dip my carrots in each day (I'll get off this carrot kick eventually and move on to another veggie, I swear..). I thought of a few ideas, and was given a few ideas from friends.  Tzatziki sauce was one that stood out that I HAD to try to make. Heres my first attempt:

It came out great! Heres how I did it:

(keep in mind it was a quick attempt so measurements arent exact, and I only made a small portion)

One small container of low fat Plain Greek Yogurt (100 calories)

About a teaspoon or so of dried Dill Weed

Half of a seedless cucumber

Chopped Garlic (either fresh or jarred, I used Organic Jarred, I used about a tablespoon)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Use a cheese grater and grate down the cucumber (skin and all) and either place on a paper towel to soak up some of the water, or push down in a strainer, get it pretty dry. 

Mix yogurt, cucumber, dill, chopped garlic in a bowl. Add Salt & Pepper to taste. 

I know some people say to add lemon juice to this, but seeing I'm a greek yogurt newbie, this was tart enough for me without the lemon.

Again, SO EASY!!

..and tastes so great with my carrots, that I didn't have any left over for todays lunch.. oops :)