Happy New Year fellow Foodies! From the team here at foodGizmo - May the New Year bring you and your family much happiness, good health and good food.
If you are like me, this is the time of year to take stock of personal priorities and set several New Year’s resolutions.
At the top of my list is to simplify wherever possible, increase time spent with family, and healthier living. The best part for me is that foodGizmo.com can assist me in each of these goals.
As a working mom, I struggle with balancing work and personal schedules while at the same time ensuring that my family eats healthy meals.
I have found the more time I spend identifying healthy low-calorie recipes, planning out my weekly meals, and leveraging a grocery list focusing on these recipes, my meal preparation is simplified and food waste is minimized.
To help reinforce my resolutions, this month’s action plan has included identifying recipes that can be prepared in my new
Crock-Pot Trio Cook and Serve Slow Cooker I received as a late Christmas present. Specifically, I have been looking for crock pot recipes that have a calorie count less than 400 calories per serving.
I have been pleasantly pleased with how many healthy, low-calorie crock pot recipes there are available. To put my
Trio Crock pot to the test, I wanted to cook a dish in each of the three 2.5 quart pots to see how it performed.
I selected a breakfast, main course and dessert recipe, which also accomplished preparing meals for an entire day for my family at one time.
My breakfast recipe was an
Apple Oatmeal (Crock-Pot) recipe found on RecipeZaar (219 calories/serving). The recipe used high fiber steel cut oats, oat bran and fresh apples.
With 10 minutes of prep time, I could cook my families a healthy breakfast while I slept….extra zzzz’s!
By preparing this dish we all were able to gather on the couch for early morning cartoons with no interruption to prepare breakfast. To help ensure my son’s sweet tooth was still satisfied, I provided dried cranberries, raisins, granola and a little brown sugar as topping options.
The recipe I selected for my main course was a
Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe also found on RecipeZaar (222 calories/serving).
My family loves Mexican food. This recipe gives a bit of Tex-Mex flair to Chicken Tortilla Soup. To give the soup a bit more substance, I substituted hominy for the whole kernel corn.
My husband loved this substitution. If you would like to turn up the heat of the soup, you could do so with the enchilada sauce and the green chilies.
Additional toppings (with additional calories of course) of sour cream, guacamole, shredded cheese and tortilla strips provide nice compliments to the soup.
The family provided rave reviews for the soup – it was flavorful and filling. I’ll definitely keep this as an alternative to chili on cold days.
For my final ‘Trio’ dish, I selected a
Pear Crunch recipe from RecipeZaar (140 calories/serving). As fresh pears are in season right now, this recipe sounded like a light dessert to compliment the hearty Chicken Tortilla Soup.
I was not disappointed in this selection. The dessert was not too sweet and not too tart. The combination of quartered pears, crushed pineapple and dried cranberries resulted in a light fruity flavor.
Topping the cooked pears with granola provided a contrasting crunchy texture. This dessert is wonderful when served either warm or cold.
I can honestly say, I was pleased with the results of each of the low-calorie crock-pot recipes as they were easy to prepare, healthy and family friendly. The initial test of my
Crock-Pot Trio Cook and Serve Slow Cooker was also a success.
I saw equal cooking temperatures and results from each of the three 2.5 quart crocks. The ‘Trio’ is easy to setup, use and clean.
I like that each crock comes with its own spoon. The crock rim and lid allow for the spoon to be left in the crock without the lid being ajar.
The only thing I can see missing from the Trio are timers for each of the crocks.
If you like to entertain and use crock-pots or if you like the flexibility of using smaller crock-pots, I would recommend the ‘Trio’ for you.
The next test for my ‘Trio’ will be preparing appetizers and finger-foods for our Super Bowl party.
Happy ‘Crocking’
bgizmo