Stuffed Mushrooms and Grape Salad
January 16th, 2010
Today we celebrated Christmas on Jarrod's side of the family... Jarrod's mom, Ginny, asked that I make my stuffed mushrooms and grape salad. So in knowing that most of the ingredients in both of these recipes were pretty high in calories, I did my best to make a few substitutions to make them healthier. I have added the recipes below.
Stuffed Mushrooms
1 lb Turkey Sausage (casings removed)
1 Red Pepper
1 White Onion
2 cups fresh Spinach
1/2 cup Parmesan
3/4 cup Italian Bread Crumbs (I like Progresso)
6 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1-2 Tbsp Vodka
Salt and Pepper
Mushrooms (probably about 24)
Clean mushrooms, and remove stems. Save stems to cut up and add to Sausage Stuffing in a few minutes. Cut the top of the mushroom so it will lay flat on a baking sheet. Line mushrooms on a greased baking sheet.
Preheat Skillet. Add Turkey Sausage (casings removed), chopped white onion, and chopped red pepper. Cook until Sausage is browned. Drain if any liquid. Add Balsamic Vinegar and Vodka and cook until liquid is cooked off. Add spinach, cook until Spinach shrinks. Add Salt, Pepper, and Parmesan, then add Bread Crumbs... (You may need less or more bread crumbs, just add enough to be able to form mixture into a ball).
Let Sausage mixture cool. Take about a tablespoon full of Sausage stuffing and stuff mushroom, should look like an overtuffed mushroom.
Bake mushrooms in a preheated oven (375 degrees) for 15 minutes. Mushrooms can also be prepped ahead of time, and refrigerated until you're ready to bake.
***The original recipe calls for regular sausage, but the turkey sausage tasted fine in substitution. I also added the vodka and Balsamic Vinegar to the recipe. While making the recipe one time, both were next to the stove, and I thought, why not... Not sure if the vodka really gives the recipe any flavor... but I know they add it in tomato sauce recipes. I think I was also on a kick of cooking with wine at the time, and didn't have any. So, I'm sure you can leave the vodka out. But the Balsamic Vinegar does add a lot of flavor. Everyone loved these tonight :).
Grape Salad
1/3 less fat cream cheese (8 oz)
Fat free sour cream (8 oz)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup Pecans and/or Walnuts (I like a mixture)
2 packets of Sugar in the raw (about 2 tsp)- can be substituted for brown sugar
2 lbs of grapes (Red and White- depending on the size of the grapes, you can cut them in half)
Wash grapes and add to bowl. In a separate bowl, blend together cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Add nuts to grapes, and mix in cream cheese dressing... add enough to coat. Sprinkle Sugar in the Raw on top of salad. I think the dressing could probably be cut in half, but I made enough to save some for fruit later on in the week.
***The original recipe asks for 1/4 cup more sugar, plus 1 cup of brown sugar, and of course full fat cream cheese and sour cream... I thought that the substitutions might be a little too much, but the salad still tasted great and I got a lot of compliments :).
The day was a lot of fun. We probably cheated a bit too much today, but it was our "cheat day" and we still watched our proportions. 2 weeks so far to our new lifestyle, and we're doing well!
As far as the gifts we got in the yankee swap... score for both of us. Jarrod had bought a Hamilton Beach Juicer as his swap gift and got it back. I got a new Radio/Cd Player for the bathroom (the one I had was pretty bad, the cd player didn't work and the antenna was broken). Great Yankee Swap gifts! Jarrod also conned his mom into giving him the Patriots lunch bag that she got. We also got a late Wedding Present this weekend from Jarrod's aunt Debbie. She went to a stained glass class and made us a beautiful lamp in our wedding color, Teal! It's absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I'll keep up with this blog and post a picture sometime.
Today we celebrated Christmas on Jarrod's side of the family... Jarrod's mom, Ginny, asked that I make my stuffed mushrooms and grape salad. So in knowing that most of the ingredients in both of these recipes were pretty high in calories, I did my best to make a few substitutions to make them healthier. I have added the recipes below.
Stuffed Mushrooms
1 lb Turkey Sausage (casings removed)
1 Red Pepper
1 White Onion
2 cups fresh Spinach
1/2 cup Parmesan
3/4 cup Italian Bread Crumbs (I like Progresso)
6 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1-2 Tbsp Vodka
Salt and Pepper
Mushrooms (probably about 24)
Clean mushrooms, and remove stems. Save stems to cut up and add to Sausage Stuffing in a few minutes. Cut the top of the mushroom so it will lay flat on a baking sheet. Line mushrooms on a greased baking sheet.
Preheat Skillet. Add Turkey Sausage (casings removed), chopped white onion, and chopped red pepper. Cook until Sausage is browned. Drain if any liquid. Add Balsamic Vinegar and Vodka and cook until liquid is cooked off. Add spinach, cook until Spinach shrinks. Add Salt, Pepper, and Parmesan, then add Bread Crumbs... (You may need less or more bread crumbs, just add enough to be able to form mixture into a ball).
Let Sausage mixture cool. Take about a tablespoon full of Sausage stuffing and stuff mushroom, should look like an overtuffed mushroom.
Bake mushrooms in a preheated oven (375 degrees) for 15 minutes. Mushrooms can also be prepped ahead of time, and refrigerated until you're ready to bake.
***The original recipe calls for regular sausage, but the turkey sausage tasted fine in substitution. I also added the vodka and Balsamic Vinegar to the recipe. While making the recipe one time, both were next to the stove, and I thought, why not... Not sure if the vodka really gives the recipe any flavor... but I know they add it in tomato sauce recipes. I think I was also on a kick of cooking with wine at the time, and didn't have any. So, I'm sure you can leave the vodka out. But the Balsamic Vinegar does add a lot of flavor. Everyone loved these tonight :).
Grape Salad
1/3 less fat cream cheese (8 oz)
Fat free sour cream (8 oz)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup Pecans and/or Walnuts (I like a mixture)
2 packets of Sugar in the raw (about 2 tsp)- can be substituted for brown sugar
2 lbs of grapes (Red and White- depending on the size of the grapes, you can cut them in half)
Wash grapes and add to bowl. In a separate bowl, blend together cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Add nuts to grapes, and mix in cream cheese dressing... add enough to coat. Sprinkle Sugar in the Raw on top of salad. I think the dressing could probably be cut in half, but I made enough to save some for fruit later on in the week.
***The original recipe asks for 1/4 cup more sugar, plus 1 cup of brown sugar, and of course full fat cream cheese and sour cream... I thought that the substitutions might be a little too much, but the salad still tasted great and I got a lot of compliments :).
The day was a lot of fun. We probably cheated a bit too much today, but it was our "cheat day" and we still watched our proportions. 2 weeks so far to our new lifestyle, and we're doing well!
As far as the gifts we got in the yankee swap... score for both of us. Jarrod had bought a Hamilton Beach Juicer as his swap gift and got it back. I got a new Radio/Cd Player for the bathroom (the one I had was pretty bad, the cd player didn't work and the antenna was broken). Great Yankee Swap gifts! Jarrod also conned his mom into giving him the Patriots lunch bag that she got. We also got a late Wedding Present this weekend from Jarrod's aunt Debbie. She went to a stained glass class and made us a beautiful lamp in our wedding color, Teal! It's absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I'll keep up with this blog and post a picture sometime.
I like this reciepe! I have a great pizza recipe that's widerful for a lunch time snack before a work out. I've lost 100lbs since college and completely changed the way i eat and look at food and it all started one meal at a time, one day at a time ! I'm with you alll the way!! Jamal!
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing! I hope that I can stick with it! I would love the recipe... pizza is probably one of my worst temptations! Thanks for the words of inspiration.
ReplyDeleteCathy, I look forward to reading this- we'll get there this time :)
ReplyDelete