Sausage stuffed chicken parm will be on the top of your recipes you need to make.

While I didn’t fully meal plan this week, I definitely meal prepped.  Some weeks the meal plan comes to me in minutes, and other times I struggle to come up with ideas – and all I do is look at food, Pinterest, blogs, you would think that it would be a snap!

I made another batch of my very berry sauce – it works with any fruit – I still had cranberries to use up from Christmas so made a cranberry sauce.  You can fine the recipe for that here.  Only one tiny problem, I didn’t have a parfait glass to put this in, I forgot that I had broken my stemless wine glass that I keep at work for my parfaits. No worries!  Um, parfait on a plate?!  The granola is Special K Dark Chocolate Granola – which is 5 points for 1/3 cup, making this breakfast 5 points.

I’ve been wearing my winter boots to and from work and I have just a pair of flats at work that I wear around the office.  Since my sister and I have been walking at lunch, even if its just at Macy’s, my work shoes aren’t that comfy.  So we stopped by the discount rack at Macy’s and I bought a pair of Sketchers and they are so comfy!!  Like walking on clouds.  I just have to remember to not walk back home with them and keep them at work.

I never even put my work shoes back on when I got back to the office these are so comfy.

I made a big pot of marinara over the weekend and if you do the same, you can meal plan just off that one pot of sauce.  First up?  This super quick and fake out take out chicken tikka masala.  The base of the masala is 2 cups of marinara sauce – you could easily use jarred sauce, but homemade marinara is so easy.  The only thing I did differently is since I had the time, I marinated the chicken in Greek yogurt, garam masala, hot curry powder and tumeric.  Tumeric is a new spice to me, and while you can’t really tell in this picture, it turned the chicken almost a yellow color when I cooked it.  Half cup of rice was 3 points and 1/4 of the sauce from the recipe (about 1/2 a cup) is 2 points.

I don’t normally buy pre-seasoned meat, but Jewel had these packages of thin cut chicken breasts – buy one get one free – so I got 6 chicken breasts (albeit thin!) for $3.28 cents. 

I also bought a package of Jewel’s hot Italian sausage for .99 cents and those two ingredients were the inspiration to my dinner last night.  Why not stuff the chicken with sausage and cheese and finish it off with more marinara sauce and cheese?!  Have you bought the Trader Joe’s lite mozzarella cheese yet?!  So good and melty.

I measured out my filling – one ounce of the cooked sausage (3) and an ounce of the mozzarella cheese (1).

I cooked it seam side down, never flipped it.  After about 5 minutes I added about 3 tablespoons of water to the pan, put a lid on it and let it cook another 8 minutes.  Then topped with the marinara, a bit more cheese and finished it off under the broiler.

 

Okay, it does look like I added a touch more mozzarella to the top – so let’s call this dinner 7 points – 3 for the sausage, 2 for the 2 ounces of cheese and 3 points for the 1/2 cup pasta on the bottom.  

Hannah was in charge of the pasta as she made mac n cheese using the lite mozzarella – she loves shaped pasta because she thinks it has more flavor – hence the wagon wheel/penne pasta combo. 

Jacob gave this dinner two big thumbs up.  Since I used hot sausage it had a nice kick of flavor.  A keeper!

Winter has its grip on Chicago again – this morning it was 10 degrees when I left the house, yet tomorrow it will be 45.  By this time of year (end of January) I am just ready for more sunny days and warmer weather.  Even the 40s will make me happy!

Happy Tuesday friends – make it a great day!

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