Parmesan Tilapia

First thing's first: I fit into my skinny jeans! After one month of being on this diet, I've managed to drop one size. Basically, I estimate that to be about 10 pounds. So yay! Eating healthy and watching everything I eat is really helping.

I am understandably proud of myself, and really enjoying coming up with new recipes to try.

Now on to tonight's dinner:

Husband and I fended for ourselves tonight, which meant I could make fish! I love fish. It's so good for you, so easy to make, and so tasty.

I discovered this recipe a couple weeks ago on Caloriecount.com and made it for one of my first diet dinners. I've adapted it slightly, and I make only single portions of it. Regardless, I'm repeating this excellent recipe tonight and posting here so you can also enjoy this delicious Parmesan Crusted Tilapia.

Ingredients:

1 tilapia fillet (Buy frozen and defrost by leaving one or how ever many you want in the refrigerator for a day.)

1/8 cup bread crumbs (You can actually estimate downward on this and the cheese, as you won't use a full 1/8 cup. I just shook some crumbs and cheese out onto a plate as much as I thought would be needed to cover my tilapia.)

1/8 cup grated Parmesan cheese

pinch of Paprika

1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. Rinse the defrosted tilapia fillet to get rid of excessive fishiness or any skin.

3. Beat egg in a small bowl.

4. Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and paprika on a plate.

5. Dip tilapia in the egg mixture and coat on both sides.

6. Roll the tilapia in the bread mixture, being sure to coat both sides with the bread crumbs and cheese.

7. Set tilapia in a greased glass dish and then back it for about 12 minutes. Be sure to watch your oven, because tilapia cooks quickly. Leave it too long and it dries out.

Enjoy!

I served mine on a bed of spinach with Sun Dried Tomato vinaigrette dressing. Soo good! I have to convince my husband to like fish one of these days.

Nutritional Facts: 1 tilapia fillet

Calories: 218

Total Fat: 6.5g

Saturated Fat: 3.1g

Cholesterol: 113mg

Sodium: 346mg

Total Carbs: 10.6g

Dietary Fiber: 0.8g

Sugars: 1.1g

Protein: 29.2g

Vitamin A: 8%

Vitamin C: 1%

Calcium: 19%

Iron: 12%

Ham and Cheese Quiche

Yesterday I ate at a friend's house and had some delicious tacos from our favorite sketchy taco place. They use corn tortillas and no cheese, so the food is actually a lot healthier than any other "Mexican" restaurant around us. Of course, the fact that it's actual Mexican food, may help with the health level. Most Tex-Mex or imitation Mexican restaurants slather their food in cheese and use flour tortillas, so they're usually not the best choice for those of us counting calories.

Tonight, though, I'm making one of my husband's favorites: ham and cheese quiche. And here I was just bashing the cheese! Ah well, low fat Swiss helps keep me from too bad a meal. :)

This recipe is adapted from my mother's quiche, which uses heavy cream instead of milk. Granted, heavy cream does taste delicious, but it's not kind to my waist line.

Ingredients

1 frozen pie shell, unbaked, 9-inch

6 ounces shredded Swiss Cheese (on sale at Kroger this week, and I snagged the low-fat)

6 ounces diced ham (98% fat free)

4 medium eggs or 3 large ones (I usually get the large, but the medium was on sale. Are you noticing a trend with my ingredients? I almost only buy things when they're on sale!)

1 cup 2% milk

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Spread the ham and cheese on the bottom of the pie shell. Be sure to mix them up. You don't want a layer of ham and then a layer of cheese.

3. Whip together the eggs, milk, and pepper. If you want, throw in a dash of something else. Cayenne pepper is really good. I used paprika this time, because I enjoy the slight complexity it gives to eggs.

4. Bake in the oven for 45-1hr or until the top starts browning like in the picture above.

5. Give it a minute or two to cool, and then slice into 6 even wedges. Serve with salad or other veggies if you don't claim salad is the food that food eats (*ahem* my husband).

There are so many ways you can play with this so simple recipe. My mother loves to add tomatoes or green peppers and onions. You can basically use any cheese you like or try doing bacon instead of ham. Just cook it first and put in the pie dish with the cheese, and pour the eggs on top. Yum!

Nutrition Facts:

This one's a bit high in saturated fat and cholesterol, so you better have eaten healthy the rest of the day!

(Disclaimer, based on caloriecount.about.com. May not be exactly accurate, but is a good general guideline.)

Per Serving (serves 6)

Calories: 324

Total Fat: 20.6g

Saturated Fat: 8.4g

Cholesterol: 140mg

Sodium: 616mg

Total Carbs: 16.1g

Dietary Fiber: 0.6g

Sugars: 4.5g

Protein: 18.0g

Vitamin A: 9%

Vitamin C: 2%

Calcium: 32%

Iron: 7%

Parmesan Chicken

I had already defrosted some chicken, and not wanting anything to complicated for dinner tonight I went through a handful of healthy recipes I had gathered to find the one with the shortest prep and cook time.

Bingo! Parmesan-Seared Chicken!

All you need is about fifteen minutes, a pound of chicken, Dijon mustard, grated parmesan, and some olive oil. Plus, with veggies on the side, the whole meal is only 455 calories.

I got the recipe from Caloriecount.com, which is also where I keep track of all of my calories.

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast--I went with the Perdue Chicken Breast tenderloins, because Kroger had a great sale on chicken last week.

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard-- I didn't bother measuring, and just used as much as I felt like.

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons olive oil -- may have used a little more like a tablespoon to coat the bottom of the pan, but most of it gets thrown away

Directions

1. Coat the chicken strips with the Dijon mustard. -- I had a lot of fun with this step, using my fingers and getting all messy as I smoothed the mustard all over the chicken.

2. Meanwhile heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

3. Fill a plastic bag with the Parmesan cheese, throw in a few chicken tenders at a time and shake it up.

4. Using tongs, cook the chicken in the skillet, about 3-5 minutes per side depending on how hot your oil is.

5. Enjoy!

The husband and I really enjoyed these. Though the recipe says this makes 4 servings, I really didn't think 2 tenderloins was enough to fill either of us up. So I basically divided it in half, served with some mixed frozen veggies, and gobbled it up within about three minutes.

The chicken was really moist, and it wasn't too cheesy, since there's basically just a dusting of Parmesan on each one. I can highly recommend this one!

Nutritional Facts: 1/2 pound chicken

Calories: 375

Total Fat: 14.0g

Saturated Fat: 4.8g

Cholesterol: 133mg

Sodium: 600mg

Total Carbs: 1.4g

Dietary Fiber: 0.2g

Sugars: 0.4g

Protein: 63.3g

Vitamin A: 2%

Calcium: 28%

Iron: 11%

Why I'm Doing This

I'm a writer. That means I lead a very sedentary lifestyle. I wake up, get dressed, go to my desk, sit down, stare at the wall, hope for inspiration, and then write anyways. There's very little exercise except when I get up to make coffee, get more water, or cook dinner for me and my husband.

That's right, I'm also the person in the household who makes most of the meals. It's sort of a shame, really. I know little to nothing about cooking, while my husband knows how to make Indian and Chinese food from scratch.

On top of this, I recently discovered I have to lose a significant amount of weight to fit into a bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding in May. So that means, I have to seriously monitor what I eat, counting calories, doing meal prep, and more.

I started tracking my eating habits the last week of December, aiming to keep my caloric intake under 1200 a day. I've done really well by giving myself a day or two a week to slip up (up to 1500 calories instead), and so far I've lost almost ten pounds! Woot!

Now I'm going to share how I'm doing it with the recipes that have worked for me. Let me know what you think if you try any of them out. And if you have any suggestions, please please please share them!