Dinner!

I can't get away from these 800+ calorie dinners!

I am feeding a family of 4 (including a husband that eats like a horse) and I need some low-cal but filling dinner ideas.

Can anybody help me out? Thanks!

My dinner tonight is pretty plain, but I love it:

Baked potato, skin & all, mashed with a bit of milk
Baked chicken breast
Steamed broccoli
Lemon wedge to squeeze over broccoli
Salad (though I'll likely eat the salad later)

Your hubby can jazz it up all he wants. He can eat the chicken skin, layer on the butter and cream sauce.

I'm adding feta & sundried tomatoes to my leftover chicken tomorrow and eating it on a pita. :-)

I've recently become addicted to the campbells chunky soups.  They're tasty, filling, and low in calories! My personal fav, grilled chicken and sausage gumbo, is 140 calories for 1\2 can.  

Usually I eat the whole can lol, but that is still only 280 calories! There's a bunch of different flavors you can try too. For me at least, they're a quick, easy, filling, and tasty dinner idea.

cmillington, how do you steam your broccoli?

We steamed some broccoli tonight.  We used a large pot, like you'd use to cook spaghetti and added about an inch of water in the bottom.  Then, we placed a metal collander containing the broccoli over the water.  Finally, place a plate or lid on the collander and time for about 2 minutes. 

I recently bought a Betty Crocker "Healthy Living" cookbook that is for the entire family, a 375 Splenda Recipes cookbook, and have an old Weight Watchers cookbook.  I use them to help me plan and find better dinner ideas. 

When I'm cooking for other people, I make something low calorie.  Like chicken breasts or salmon, broiled or grilled, and some roasted vegetables and, and maybe a salad.  Then I serve some higher cal side dishes like cheese sauce and home made bread with butter or biscuits.  I eat the low cal stuff and my guests can add what they like to theirs.  I do a big plate of fresh fruit for dessert.

Serve yourself a smaller portion and fill the rest up with a nice fresh salad. Or teach your family to eat a nice fresh salad
Try and go simple meats, with great sauces and sides, so you can pick how much you want. Eg. grilled chicken breast, marinated in a bit of soy and chilli, with sides of brown rice (only take 1/2c) fresh green salad, some spinach (very low cal), and make a side salsa for the chicken (mango and lime goes well) That ones pretty costly, but you get the idea.
How about stir frys? Fill the rest of the plates up with more rice/noodles and you have more veggies.

My advice for you would be to try to eat as many veggies with your dinner as possible.  They are so low in calories, and can fill you up quickly.  If you eat a small portion of the higher calorie foods and a larger portion of your favorite veggie, it is just as filling with less calories.

I steam my broccoli in anything that's on hand. While I have a proper metal steamer insert for a pot (available at the dollar store) AND several bamboo steamers from Chinatown, if I'm making broccoli just for me, I often just use a bowl covered with a saucer and microwave it for five minutes with two tablespoons of water. (Although I recently got fancy and bought some Tupperware Rock 'n Serve microwave container so I can make cereal and microwave-steamed veggies.)

If you want to be a steamer purist, get a collapsable metal basket and place it in a pot. Add water until it's about an inch below the bottom of the steamer, then add your veggies to the steamer basket. Cover the pot and steam for a few minutes until the veggies are cooked as you like them.

HTH

Pork tenderloins can feed a crowd plus they are lean! Just serve yourself 2-3 ounces. Each tenderloin weighs about 1 lb and usually come 2 per package. I cut mine in half because it's easier to work with. I like to season mine with salt and pepper and some sort of herb (dried rosemary is great), then sear it in a pan lightly oiled with extra virgin olive oil, preferably an oven-proof skillet. Then, pour over a mixture of a cup of broth plus maybe dijon mustard or worchestershire sauce. Bake at 400 degrees 30 minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 140 degrees.

When making mashed potatoes, reserve some for yourself to season to your liking. Buttermilk (surprisingly low-fat!), salt and pepper, or low-fat sour cream and chives.

Roast a whole chicken, but just eat the breast meat. Stuff it with oranges, lemons, onions, and herbs and baste with broth instead of butter.

Reserve veggies without butter.

Double the veggies and halve the amount of pasta in pasta bakes. Switch to a pasta like Barilla Plus for whole grain goodness :)

What kind of stuff do you usually eat? Maybe if you post that we can suggest variations to them.

ah sydney... that's my favorite kind, too! I just had it for lunch today lol. I also tend to eat the whole can... cus even if I'm feeling full I can't get past how good it tastes :\