I Tried 3 New Things This Week

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