I Tried 3 New Things This Week

stevwil41

I feel like I've been in a bit of a food rut lately so I set a goal for myself to try 3 new recipes a week. I set down on Saturday, pick out my recipes, make sure I have everything I need on my grocery list and prepare for the following week. I'm a bit of a book fiend and I probably have 10 healthy recipe books that I've never made anything out of so I started there. This past week I used Hungry Girl's 300 for under 300 mainly because it was the first one I laid my hands on. I know a lot of her recipes use a lot of processed foods and I stayed away from the worst offenders. Here are my opinions on what I tried.

HG's Sweet Potato Apple Pack- I chose this because I had some turkey cutlets in the freezer that I wanted to use and it sounded like a recipe that'd be good with turkey. For starters, either I cut the sweet potatoes and veggies too big (they were sort of chunky but still bite-size) or the cooking time was way off. The recipe called for 25 minutes and I ended up cooking it for about 40 minutes instead. The recipe itself was okay but seemed to be lacking something, maybe if it were seasoned a bit more it wouldn't be so bland. I'd make it again if I had the stuff on hand but I'd definately play around with the seasonings a little.

HG's Cheeseburger Mac Attack- I caught her making this on her show one Sunday morning when I was channel surfing and it looked interesting so when I saw it in the book I decided to try it. I really enjoyed this recipe. It's a slow cooker recipe so it's easy and while I was a bit skeptical about the cauliflower in it I was pleasantly suprised. Normally I can't stand the stuff and about the only time I could even smell it was when I opened a container to reheat some of it. It's not a pretty dish but it's one I'll be making again soon.

HG's Sweet Apple and Chicken Stir-Fry- This was good and very filling. A serving of it is about 2 cups and I had it over some leftover brown rice to beef it up a bit and I'm stuffed. The recipe calls for chicken, onion, garlic and apple. Other than that it's seasoned with some dried herbs and a splash of balsamic vinegar and the flavor combination works. Stir-fry's are my go to when I'm clueless about what's for dinner or I have some veggies I need to use up and this one will definately be added to the rotation. Provided you don't violently dislike any of the ingredients in this recipe, I'd recommend trying it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Most of the HG recipes can be found online and I'm feeling a little lazy this evening (hence posting this in "food and nutrition" rather than "recipes) but if you have any questions let me know. I followed the recipes as written even though I will probably do a little tweeking the next time I make any of them.

Steve

thefoodnerd

Awesome ideas. I was in a food rut this week too. Its always nice to try new things.

LooseWheel

Inspiring stuff Steve. I'm gonna try the apple dish but with the pork fillets I've got. Nice using it with chicken. i do chicken and pineapple stir fry, so thats close huh. I should do the cook book thing again where I get the kids to pick something we haven't had and give me the challenge to reproduce it. sounds like fun and gets them eating new stuff. I do get into the routine of making the same things quite often and it can almost get boring. But when you have a family that says 'I don't mind' when you ask them what they want for dinner, you go with what u feel like making. they eat what ever I give them! Enjoy the new cooking challenges and thanks for inspring me to do the same. Got so many ignored cook books! cheers Lou.