Yummy new recipe

I was browsing on Pinterest for recipes, as I typically do.

9 times out of 10 I do not use ANY of the recipes I pin, but lately I've been trying to use more of them.

I found a recipe for Parmesean Roasted Zucchini from the Budget Savvy Diva that sounded yummy so I decided to try it.

Bascially, you quarter a zucchini,  brush it with olive oil and season it with salt, pepper, garlic powder and top it with cheese and roast it for 15 minutes or so.

Sounds easy, and it was super easy and super delicious.

Looks yummy right?

It was delicious.  I ate one whole zucchini as my dinner.  Per weight watchers it's about 3 points depending on how much/type of cheese you use.

Also, even though it's really easy it looks fancy so if you served it at a dinner party people would think you were all Martha Stewart-like.

Win.

Pantry Cleanse redux

Thinking about my budget and eating more at home I decided to clean out my pantry the other day.

First, I took everything out.

Keep in mind my pantry is only two shelves, the rest of it is Mems'.

Then I sorted what I had by group:

Grain!  I love to use canning jars to store things: oatmeal, millet, quinoa, flax seed, chia, slice almonds, etc. 

Beans/Ro*Tel.  My fave food group.

Soup!  I heart soup.

My mixes, a variety of countries are represented in my pantry.

Vegetable stock is my basic.

Beans!  Staple of a vegetarian diet.  Yes, those are black turtle beans.
Members of my recent trivia excursion know how those beans hurt me.

I buy these in bulk at Sam's.  It says the jars are re-sealable, but I eat the entire jar and drink the juice in one sitting.
I heart pineapple.

Fixins! Peanut Butter powder for smoothies/oatmeal.  Nutrional yeast, sea salt.  Used sparingly and often.

Then I put it all back together and decided what I wanted to eat this week.

I invented a recipe using 1/2 cup of quinoa, 1/2 can of rotel and 1/2 a cup of corn.  Delicious.

And I perused my stash of cookbooks to find a curried lentils recipe that is currently cooking in the kitchen and smells delicious.  We'll see how it goes.

I'm hoping re-organizing my cooking ingredients will make it easier for me to eat healthy and eat at home more often.

Either that or I guess I'll starve.

Smoothie Queen!

So I'm on vacation this week and shaking things up a bit. Trying to work out more and eat healthier.

With that in mind I decided to take the lead of the lovely Brigid and try a green smoothie.

So I bummed her method from her and gathered the ingredients Monday morning. First Mems yelled at me for eating lunch at 10 in the morning when I grabbed the spinach, but I assured her I was using the leafy green for breakfast.



I already had frozen strawberries on hand, so I went with spinach, banana, strawberries and almond milk.

Here's Brigid's method-
Blend large handful of baby spinach, one banana, about 1.5 cups of frozen fruit, and as much water/"milk" as needed to be smooth.

She posted a picture of hers on her blog the other day (which you should all totally check out for creative ways to eat vegan and healthy -- http://veggingoutinttown.wordpress.com/

Mine, was not so green. More of a brownish color. Mems declared she wouldn't eat anything this color-



I'll add more spinach tomorrow. But it was yummy, I think it needs a bit more strawberries too for a little more sweetness.

But the added iron in the smoothie helped me stay more full longer, aside from a couple of graham crackers I wasn't really hungry for a couple of hours. That's a feat for me cause I'm a snack-a-holic.

All in all, I was happy with my excursion into green smoothies.

Luscious Lemons

So this was supposed to be a witty and informative blog about this awesome "Farmer's Market" cooking class I was taking... but it got canceled.

I mean really I had this whole story about how I signed Mems and I up for the class and she said yes cause she thought I was joking. I asked why she thought it was a joke and she looked at me and said 'because you can't tell the stove from the oven.' She was dead serious.

So I found a delightful last minute replacement... and then the class go canceled. Undaunted I decided to experiment in the kitchen anyway.

I tried this lowfat lemon bar recipe I found on Fitness magazines website: http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/desserts/low-calorie/low-fat-lemon-bars/

So a quick trip to the store and I got to work in the kitchen.

Mixing and baking the crust... I got my hands dirty and mixed the ingredients and prepped the pan by hand.. then tossed it in the oven while I made the filling.



Then I made the filling and remembered why I hate to cook:



But... I cleaned while the goodies baked... and soon had my counter sufficiently clean... I'm kind of anal about a clean kitchen. Well... really Mems is and she's not nice when she's angry.



Then 20 minutes later the lemon bars were ready to cool... sprinkled with a little powdered sugar... and then tested by me.



Don't they look delightful?

I will now leave you with these two truths... I had more than one bar... and they are orgasmic.