Abysmal amount of recommended daily calories

Whoa! How do you have it calibrated?

What does it tell you if you say "lightly active" and 1 lb/week? That's the place I think most people start, and that's what my trainer set me up with. It started me with 1790 at my starting weight, which was totally doable.

You can 'net' calories by eating any calories burned through exercise. As long as you don't over-estimate burned calories you'll be ok. Any additional calories burned will be what you can have in any 24 hour window.

I found that te craziest things have so few calories that I can eat a ton.
Like baby spinach. I can go to town on baby spinach and it's under 10 calories.
veggies in general, filling and lower in calorie content.

I'd also look into calculating your TDEE rather than what MFP suggests, because MFP can guess quite low.

Also worth note, how much do you have to lose? If you set it for say 2lbs loss a week but you don't have many pounds, it's going to cut you quite drastically and by setting a slower weight loss goal you can eat more, and still lose week over week.

1350 is definitely do-able! You have to start thinking more about feeding your body what it needs rather than what you're used to in order to satisfy your recommended calories as well as nutrients. An entire plate of fruits and vegetables is going to have as many calories as one scoop of ice cream usually. Prepackaged meals will also have tons of salt, sugar, and calories that you don't really need.
On days that I'm doing well, for breakfast I'll usually either have a FiberOne bar or a cup of Special K with skim milk and splenda and then some fruit. That usually "costs" me 100 to 300 calories- and it's a lot more filling than the there bites of powdered sugar donuts I could have had for the same calories.

I'm at 1390. People may have varying reactions to this, but I just either skip lunch or have a small snack around lunchtime. I also have my nice big greasy breakfast of eggs and sausage or turkey bacon, and dinner is just about checking your portions. I log cardio and try to undershoot, but save for some bad days I haven't really needed all the cardio I've been doing.

I just signed up for MFP and saw the amount of recommended calories per day – 1350. All I can think is, what am I going to eat? And how in the world do I parcel that out for satisfying meals? This suddenly feels a little daunting. What do you eat? Where did you find meal recommendations?

The ticker on your profile says you want to lose 8 lbs, so you should have set your goals to lose .5lbs per week.

MFP gives you a goal that will allow you to lose without any exercise. When you do exercise and enter your workouts, MFP will tell you to eat those calories as well.

Almost no one should be using the "sedentary" activity level. If you're bedridden, fine, but otherwise everyone is at least "lightly active".

So check your settings, first.

A suggestion.

You likely received that recommendation because you indicated that you want to reduce your weight by 2lbs per week. Myfitnesspal made a suggestion based on it's baseline calculations for your age/weight/height.

I would suggest changing your goal to lose 1lbs per week. Eat the recommendation and see how much weight you actually lose to determine the next step.

It's tempting to try to jump in head first and lose everything fast, fast, fast. Don't do that. Change starts in the small.

To answer your question, however - REAL food is actually pretty low in calories.

4oz of boneless/skinless chicken breast - ~140 calories.
4oz eye of round steak - ~150 calories
4oz extra lean ground beef - ~150 calories
Packet of tuna + olive oil mayo - ~100 calories
Mountains of green vegetables ~ 50 calories
numerous varieties of low calories bread - ~100 calories for two slices
banana - ~100 calories
apple - ~70 calories
Baked potato - ~100 calories (add a serving of sour cream @ ~60 calories)
Guacamole - ~50 calories
Low fat cottage cheese - ~90 calories

If you focus on lean meats, fruits, veggies - you'll have a hard time getting to your calorie limit. There are alternatives to most of the high calorie junk we put in our bodies. I'm not a huge fan of plain meat - so instead of rich sauces you can use spices and seasonings.

feel free to add me and look at my diary, I eat between 1200-1400 most days. You may need to increase yours, if that is too low for you. you can customize everything. (for example, if you chose to lose 2lbs per week, you can increase cals a bit and still lose 1 lb a week) Plus, add in your exercises and you will get calories added to your allotment for the day, based on your energy output when you are active.

1350 is a bit modest, but doable. Consider if you make sure you eat 3 meals that are 450 cals, and then if you walk for 30 mins, you've earned another 150 calories of food you can eat. Its tight enough, but doable, especially if you ensure your lunches and dinners are meat/ fish with vegetables. Breakfasts for 450 calories are quite doable too

All that said, I agree with the above poster who said to start a little more modestly, as you can always be a bit more aggressive when you feel ready for it, but the most important thing is to develop the habit first. After that, crank it up as you feel fit and confident for