After some success with sautéing ‘Zucchini Noodles’ I decided to make something casserole like that would have the satisfaction of Mac & Cheese but without the carbs of the mac. I think this totally achieves that and even ends up a little like one of my other favorite carb dishes, hash brown casserole.
Get a printable recipe here.
Ingredients for a full 9 x 13 Pyrex

• 3 Large-ish Zucchinis
• 1 small onion
• 6 oz. (1 1/2 Cups) 2% Cheddar Cheese
• 6 oz. (1 1/2 Cups) 2% Mozzarella Cheese
• 1 package 1/3 Fat Cream Cheese Softened
• 1 Large Whole Egg Beaten
• 1 Tsp. Salt
• 1 Tsp. Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, or your favorite blend.
• Panko to top

Special Tool: Julienne Slicer, I got the Swissmar brand  via a recommendation and it works great and is cheap!
Steps:
1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash and julienne all 3 zucchinis, line bowl with a clean tea towel to absorb the zucchini's moisture a bit. Once you get the the very seedy middle you’ll have to bail.
3. Salt and squeeze out your zucchini a bit. (This is important! The pieces I froze got really watery when I microwaved them).
4. Dice your onion and add it to your zucchini
5. Grease your 9x13 Pyrex and add the zucchini onion mixture
6. Add your beat’in egg, mix in, add your softened cream cheese, mix in.
7. Dump your big pile of cheese on top, and mix in.
8. Sprinkle the top with panko bread crumbs, mist with some olive oil spray.


9. Bake 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees, or until golden and bubbly.

Get a printable recipe here.

I first tried Skinny Taste’s zucchini casserole over a year ago, I can’t count how many times I've made it since, it’s a go to recipe, I’ve even come up with tweak options to switch it up.
Zucchini Casserole from  Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 12 servings • Old Points: 2.5 pts • Points+: 3 pts
Calories: 110.2 • Fat: 6.2 g • Carb: 10.6 g • Fiber: 1.2 g • Protein: 3.7 g 

• 4 cups grated zucchini 
• 1 cup bisquick (using heart smart)
• 1 small onion, grated
• 3 egg whites, 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (Use fresh, or the can, or use a shredded cheese, I tried cheddar in the photos and it was awesome).
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp parsley

Preheat oven to 350°.
Grate your zucchini, I find using a large hand grater and my Kevlar glove makes this go the quickest. 4 cups is about two little zucchini or one big one. Do the same with your small onion.

Mix together your 3 egg whites, and whole egg, parsley, salt, and olive oil. Sometimes if I know I’ll never use the 3 yolks and I’m not calorie counting I just use the whole thing… it works out fine.  Add your Heart Smart AKA Healthy Bisquick (Don’t forget to store it in the fridge like the box says).  Then finally add your zucchini and cheese.

Spray your 9x13 Pyrex, spread it out and bake between 30-45 min, use a toothpick to test it.

Enjoy, it’s great, warm or cold, even for breakfast…

Made these twice in two weeks for having people over, both times they were amazing and loved by all. Ree and her classic recipes can do no wrong… well not to anywhere but your hips…

Easy, I didn’t even peel’em. Get the recipe here: Perfect Potatoes Au Gratin

Skinny fries aren't really that skinny, but hey it's all that fry goodness and craving you love in a slightly better for you package.

The key in this being easy is having a slicer.

I have the William's Sonoma one, which I love, I seriously use it twice a day. Love it for my breakfast of sliced apples!

I got mine for $20 at the outlet, so if you have an outlet near you, that's the way to go. Sadly the closest outlet to Nashville is Memphis. The one downside is that the Williams Sonoma one makes really skinny fries.

This one has decent reviews on Amazon for the price, and makes wider fries. 

So you chop your taters.

Then you soak them in ice water for at least 10 minutes.

Scoop off the ice, strain the potatoes, dry out your bowl.

 

Put the potatoes back in the bowl and drizzle with EVOO and salt and pepper, and anything else. I've done Lawry's seasoning salt, Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, Loveless Cafe Seasoning Salt, garlic powder, etc.Stir in the seasonings and oil really well.

Spray your pan with olive oil so you can flip them.

Bake in the oven at 400 for 30-45 min. Flipping/stirring once, and keeping an eye on them at the end.

Yeah there's the rub while frozen fries take about 20-30 to cook (ALWAYS longer than the bag says) these take a while longer.

It's not so bad if you knock it out first before you start the rest of dinner, cause then you're not working on the fries while working on dinner.

What I like is it's helping portions, ie eating just 1 potatoes worth of fries each, one potato is A LOT of fries!

Overall I'm loving making my own and it's worth the little bit of effort it takes, plus they are better for you, and WAAY cheaper than frozen fries.

I can't wait to try them with sweet potatoes!

Andrew loved this, I thought it was really good but had some tweaks to make for next time, which I'll share here.

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Found on Tasty Kitchen - Added by quincyskeeper

Ingredients

• 2 pounds Sweet Potatoes (This is where all your time is gonna be) 
• 4 strips Bacon (I used Turkey)
• 1 whole Onion, Chopped
•  2-½ Tablespoons All-purpose Flour (For thickening the sauce)
•  ½ teaspoons Salt
• ¼ teaspoons Black Pepper
• 2 cups Reduced-fat Milk
• 1-¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese (I might try sprinkling this throughout next time)

Preparation Instructions

Chop

Boil

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Peel potatoes; cut into 1/4 inch slices. Place potatoes in a large pot of boiling water. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until just tender. Drain well and set aside. (I would cut my potatoes thinner next time, thinner than my photos and Tasty Kitchen's photos, to make it more tender and less chunky, this will be a lot easier with my new W-S chopper.)

Since turkey bacon doesn't crumble well, cut it with nice kitchen shears. (I have these and love them and use them on everything from herbs to cooked chicken for salads)

The sauce cooking and reducing.

2. Meanwhile, fry bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain on a paper towel, crumble and set aside.
3. Add chopped onion to bacon drippings and cook until tender. Stir in flour over low heat and cook to a paste. Add salt and pepper. Add milk and cook until mixture thickens slightly. (This sounds weird and hard, but just go with it.)

4. Arrange half of the sweet potatoes in the bottom of an 11×7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle on half of the crumbled bacon. Pour on half of the milk mixture. Arrange remaining potatoes, sprinkle with remaining bacon and pour the rest of the milk mixture over the top. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. If desired, brown cheese for 1-2 minutes under the broiler.  (I cooked mine closer to 30 and that part went well, might have gone longer)

An easy summer combo great for when you you have yummy tomatos to use up.

Quarter tomatoes, and dice some onion

Combine in a bowl and add any vinaigrette. I love Trader Joe's Balsamic.

Cover and refrigerate for as long as you can, over night is best, a couple of hours will do, then enjoy.

Corn is my favorite vegetable. Well ok I guess it shares the top spot with potato. Why do I love the two veggies that aren't that good for you really? Ugh at least broccoli is another love of mine.

Anyways I was so excited to discover this whole new world of summer salads when I found this recipe. A little playing and now I've invented my own, enjoy. (Even better Andrew likes mine better!)

Hello Kirsti's Summer Corn Salad

Serves 4

• 2 ears of fresh corn on the cob (you can thaw frozen but it's just not the same)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 a cup of light sour cream
• 1/2 a green pepper chopped
• 1/2 a small red onion chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon-ish Seasoning salt (I used Loveless Cafe's Seasoning Salt, it's magical) 

1. Cut your corn off the cob. (Tip- do this in a tall mixing bowl, and your kitchen won't be covered in yellow confetti, if you're using a melamine one be careful with your knife nicking it.) 
2. Combine your chopped veggies in a bowl.
3. In another bowl whisk together the sour cream, Worcestershire, and salt.
4. Add veggies to the sour cream bowl and stir to coat.
5. Cover and chill for at least two hours, so that magical melding can happen.

Combine your chopped veggies in a bowl.

In another bowl whisk together the sour cream, Worcestershire, and salt.

Add veggies to the sour cream bowl and stir to coat.

Cover and chill for at least two hours, so that magical melding can happen.

For my original recipes would you like me to start making a printable recipes with just one photo?  If you do let me know with a comment and I'll start doing that along with my photo narratives  

xoxo Kirsti

I love butternut squash or basically anything potato like… so I bought one spurred by Hungry Girl’s butternut squash hash browns last week.
So they say they are a pain to cut, they weren’t kidding, but I made it happen. (I have since read to nuke them for a minute which is helpful.
Then I peeled it which was pretty hard as well with my little finger peeler (I think mine’s a little better suited for my other love zucchini.)
Ok at long last I had it cut in half and peeled. The next dilemma how to shred it?

I tried my kitchen aid course grater, no real luck. My cheapy drum grater worked better but it sure took a long time.
Eventually I gave up and just chopped what was left to sautéed with my zucchini.

Then per the recipe I added diced onion and the spices and tossed.
Then there’s a step where you’re supposed to lay out the squash on paper towels and sop up all that moisture… by the time I got to that I was pretty over my experiment and wanted to go watch more LOST, so I skipped it.

Oops. Big mistake. Was never able to get the squash to crisp up.

It still tasted yummy though.

I’ll definitely be making more butternut squash stuff in the future with my first time under my belt. I think now that I’ve done it the next time will be faster.
My recommendation, buy one to play with and experiment on as a snack for the first time before incorporating it into a meal.

Hungry Girl : Butternut Hash Browns!

PER SERVING (about 1 cup, entire recipe): 85 calories, 1g fat, 162mg sodium, 20g carbs, 3g fiber, 5g sugars, 2g protein -- POINTS® value 1*
These are too good topped with ketchup... Mmmmmm!
 HG Tip! You don't need any fancy equipment to quickly shred your squash. A basic potato or veggie shredder will do the trick. Just peel a small squash, deseed it, and run it thru the shredder. Weeeee!

Ingredients:

• 1 heaping cup shredded butternut squash
• 2 tbsp. chopped onion
• 1/4 tsp. onion powder
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• dash ground cumin
• dash salt
• dash pepper
• additional salt and pepper, to taste
• Optional toppings: ketchup, salsa, hot sauce

Directions:

Spread the shredded squash out between 2 layers of paper towels. Press down to absorb as much of the moisture from the squash as possible. Repeat if necessary, until no more water can be removed.

Toss squash shreds with onion, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Bring a small to medium pan sprayed generously with nonstick spray (a 1 to 2 second spray) to high heat. Add mixture to the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Flip shreds with a spatula and cook for another 2 minutes or so (until mixture is thoroughly cooked and browned). Season to taste with more salt and pepper. If you like, top off with one or more of the optional toppings (everything tastes good topped with these things!). Enjoy!
MAKES 1 SERVING

As part of my menu for my dinner party for Ethan and Family I made Pioneer Woman Garlic Roasted potatoes, here's my take and review.

Three stores later I finally found some baby red potatoes AKA New potatoes

I gave them a rinse and scrub and they were lined up to board the baking sheet.

I chopped them into quarters and laid them out.
Chopped the heads off the garlic bulbs, which was harder than I thought it would be, the key is getting the top of each clove, so I went back with a paring knife to get the side ones.

Then the newbie’s got a shower of olive oil and white wine.

Be sure to get the oil over the garlic really well or it might get too toasty.

Followed by a sprinkle of pepper and kosher salt.

A little toss.

Then they got wrapped up snug as a bug and roasted for 45 min.

Over this 45 min your house will smell amazing.

Then they get their cover’s stolen to crisp for another 20 minutes.

Then all done. This was about 24 little potatoes which served 6 generously.

Mmmmm this recipe is certainly a keeper.

Here's Pioneer Woman's Recipe which I followed:

Ingredients

• 20 whole Small To Medium New Potatoes
• 5 whole Heads Of Garlic, Or More To Taste (up To 7 Heads)
• ⅓ cups (to 1/2 Cup) Olive Oil
• ⅓ cups (to 1/2 Cup) Dry White Wine
• Kosher Salt To Taste
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste

Preparation Instructions

Quarter new potatoes and set on a large rimmed baking sheet. Lop off the very top of each garlic head and arrange throughout the potatoes. Drizzle olive oil over the tops of the garlic and all over potatoes; do the same with the wine.

Generously season the potatoes and garlic with salt and pepper. Toss potatoes to coat. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for 20 to 30 minutes until nice and golden.