You Are What You Eat: March 14 through March 26
Streak of not eating in a restaurant - 379 days and counting.
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - 69 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 25
The seven new recipes in the last thirteen days came from three different issues of Eating Well, the Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook, and the back of a cereal box.
The oldest of the Eating Well recipes was the Spaghetti Squash Peanut "Noodles" with Chicken from the September/October 2018 Eating Well, which had long since been cut out and put in my infamous red folder of recipes I meant to get around to. The good news is that it tasted quite good and since M enjoys both sauces and spaghetti squash this one was big winner. Also, I got to mix up some Chinese Five Spice Powder, and making spice blends is fun. The bad news is that it has a lot of moving parts and took quite a bit more than the 30 minutes it was listed for. Granted, some of that was because we had two small spaghetti squashes instead of one large one and I opted to do them in the oven instead of the microwave, but even the non-squash parts were time consuming. If M didn't like this so much I would not make it again, but she was unusually enthusiastic about it.
Much more recent was the Sopa de Fideos (Chicken Noodle Soup with Sofrito) from the January/February 2021 Eating Well. This was part of the same feature on Latin America soups as the Moqueca I made last time. This was fast, uncomplicated and delicious and will definitely be added to the soup rotation.
The recipe from M's Weight Watchers cookbook was the Cajun Shrimp with Garlicky Spinach & Grits. I mixed up Cajun spice blend for this, so two spice blends in two weeks, huzzah! In some minor alterations to the recipe, I used three packets of instant grits, just did the shrimp in a pan instead of grilling them, and used a spinach-arugula blend for the greens, but the net results was very tasty. The only complaint was that as listed it really only made enough for two adults.
The March 2021 Eating Well gave us three different recipes this time around. Only one was successful enough to make again, and that was the Chickpea Coconut Curry, which was a fast and easy curry that tasted quite good. I'm not sure the stage where I blended it is really particularly necessary, so it could in theory get even faster.
From a taste perspective, the Roasted Chicken Thighs with Pear-Mustard Sauce actually succeeded pretty well. My main complaint was that the "45 minutes to make, 25 minutes active" was far understated. This recipe felt like it took forever to make it, and it wasn't quite good enough to justify that.
At least it was actually good, which I'm not sure I can say about the Pea Pesto Gnocchi with Burrata. Said pesto was primarily peas, cashews, spinach and basil, plus the usual oil and spices. Despite that promising start, the pesto was just kind of boring. It also turns out that M is not wildly enthusiastic about burrata. Oh well, they can't all be winners.
Our last recipe was a dessert straight off the back of a box of Golden Grahams breakfast cereal. After all, it worked for the cheesecake!. As I've noted before, I didn't grow up with sugary cereals, so I honestly don't recall if I'd ever had Golden Grahams before M started buying them for herself. They're a nice mid-point between "two ungodly sugary for even my sweet tooth" and "what I grew up on." Anyway, the back of one of them had some desserts on it, so last week I made Golden Grahams No Bake Smores Bars, which were fast, easy and delicious, although that last point is somewhat of a forgone conclusion when you melt marshmallows and sugar and chocolate together and dump them over just about anything. Weirdly, the official recipe on the website this leaves out some ingredients, so here it is for posterity.
Golden Grahams No-Bake S'mores Bars
8 cups Golden Grahams
1 10oz bag miniature marshmallows
1 /12 cups milk chocolate chips
5 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Spray 13x9 pan with cooking spray.
2. Add cereal to large bowl. Reserve 1 cup of marshmallows.
3. Spray large microwave-safe bowl with cooking spray. Add rest of marshmallows, chocolate chips, butter, sugar and water to bowl, microwave uncovered on high for 2 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds, stirring every minute until melted and smooth. Stir in vanilla extract.
4. Pour melted mixture over cereal and stir until evenly covered. Stir in reserved marshmallows.
5. Pour mixture into pan press out firmly. Let cool one hour. Cut into rows.
Next time I'll try using a mix of white and dark chocolate chips, or maybe throw in some nuts. Score one for box dessert recipes!
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - 69 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 25
The seven new recipes in the last thirteen days came from three different issues of Eating Well, the Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook, and the back of a cereal box.
The oldest of the Eating Well recipes was the Spaghetti Squash Peanut "Noodles" with Chicken from the September/October 2018 Eating Well, which had long since been cut out and put in my infamous red folder of recipes I meant to get around to. The good news is that it tasted quite good and since M enjoys both sauces and spaghetti squash this one was big winner. Also, I got to mix up some Chinese Five Spice Powder, and making spice blends is fun. The bad news is that it has a lot of moving parts and took quite a bit more than the 30 minutes it was listed for. Granted, some of that was because we had two small spaghetti squashes instead of one large one and I opted to do them in the oven instead of the microwave, but even the non-squash parts were time consuming. If M didn't like this so much I would not make it again, but she was unusually enthusiastic about it.
Much more recent was the Sopa de Fideos (Chicken Noodle Soup with Sofrito) from the January/February 2021 Eating Well. This was part of the same feature on Latin America soups as the Moqueca I made last time. This was fast, uncomplicated and delicious and will definitely be added to the soup rotation.
The recipe from M's Weight Watchers cookbook was the Cajun Shrimp with Garlicky Spinach & Grits. I mixed up Cajun spice blend for this, so two spice blends in two weeks, huzzah! In some minor alterations to the recipe, I used three packets of instant grits, just did the shrimp in a pan instead of grilling them, and used a spinach-arugula blend for the greens, but the net results was very tasty. The only complaint was that as listed it really only made enough for two adults.
The March 2021 Eating Well gave us three different recipes this time around. Only one was successful enough to make again, and that was the Chickpea Coconut Curry, which was a fast and easy curry that tasted quite good. I'm not sure the stage where I blended it is really particularly necessary, so it could in theory get even faster.
From a taste perspective, the Roasted Chicken Thighs with Pear-Mustard Sauce actually succeeded pretty well. My main complaint was that the "45 minutes to make, 25 minutes active" was far understated. This recipe felt like it took forever to make it, and it wasn't quite good enough to justify that.
At least it was actually good, which I'm not sure I can say about the Pea Pesto Gnocchi with Burrata. Said pesto was primarily peas, cashews, spinach and basil, plus the usual oil and spices. Despite that promising start, the pesto was just kind of boring. It also turns out that M is not wildly enthusiastic about burrata. Oh well, they can't all be winners.
Our last recipe was a dessert straight off the back of a box of Golden Grahams breakfast cereal. After all, it worked for the cheesecake!. As I've noted before, I didn't grow up with sugary cereals, so I honestly don't recall if I'd ever had Golden Grahams before M started buying them for herself. They're a nice mid-point between "two ungodly sugary for even my sweet tooth" and "what I grew up on." Anyway, the back of one of them had some desserts on it, so last week I made Golden Grahams No Bake Smores Bars, which were fast, easy and delicious, although that last point is somewhat of a forgone conclusion when you melt marshmallows and sugar and chocolate together and dump them over just about anything. Weirdly, the official recipe on the website this leaves out some ingredients, so here it is for posterity.
Golden Grahams No-Bake S'mores Bars
8 cups Golden Grahams
1 10oz bag miniature marshmallows
1 /12 cups milk chocolate chips
5 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Spray 13x9 pan with cooking spray.
2. Add cereal to large bowl. Reserve 1 cup of marshmallows.
3. Spray large microwave-safe bowl with cooking spray. Add rest of marshmallows, chocolate chips, butter, sugar and water to bowl, microwave uncovered on high for 2 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds, stirring every minute until melted and smooth. Stir in vanilla extract.
4. Pour melted mixture over cereal and stir until evenly covered. Stir in reserved marshmallows.
5. Pour mixture into pan press out firmly. Let cool one hour. Cut into rows.
Next time I'll try using a mix of white and dark chocolate chips, or maybe throw in some nuts. Score one for box dessert recipes!