Food Talk

Since I've been cooped up in the house, I concocted a pan of crazy cabbage stoup (is it stew or soup?) last night, and baked up a batch of pumpkin muffins this morning. Yum! Thought I'd share some of the foodie love...

1 lb ground pork
1 med onion, chopped
1 can creamed corn (14.75 oz)
2 c V-8 juice
2 c chicken broth (or 1 can broth, with water added to get to 2 c)
2 c water
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can fat free-beef gravy (10.5 oz)
4 tsp cumin
4 tsp chili powder
1 med head cabbage, chopped
2 can pink beans, drained and rinsed (15.5 oz each)

In large stock pot, brown pork and drain off excess fat. When meat is mostly browned, add the onion and cook until it becomes a bit translucent. Add all remaining ingredients, and simmer for at least an hour. Add additional water if it seems too thick. (I know some of these ingreds may seem a bit odd, but I promise it really is tasty. My kids even asked for seconds!) 8 servings, 5 WW points each

I found a simple pumpkin muffin recipe over here (lots of other good stuff there - definitely worth checking out!) and tweaked it a bit to create these:

1 box yellow cake mix
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1 can pumpkin (15 oz)
3/4 c mini chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients, and pour into prepared muffin pan (batter will be quite thick). Bake at 350 for 18 minutes. 24 muffins, 3 WW points each

BTW, for anyone else doing WW or just trying to eat healthier in general, have you checked out SparkPeople? I have pre-paid for the next couple weeks with WW, but have set up a SP profile and plan to check out their various forums and just get more familiar with the site. It's free, so obviously that's a HUGE advantage over WW, plus getting to meetings has become something of an issue. We'll see what happens... They also have a very cool Recipe Calculator tool if you want to figure out points on something you make; also lots of great recipes on this sister site!